ART REVIEWS : Hawkinson’s Out-of-Body Experiences

Tim Hawkinson’s installation is a multifaceted self-portrait that doubles as a dive into mind-boggling obsessiveness. Filling nine large galleries and spilling into a maze of hallways at Ace Contemporary Exhibitions, his mesmerizing collection of homemade contraptions and curious inventions shows the young, L.A.-based artist to be a clever tinkerer and creative thinker.

Hawkinson’s sprawling show begins by twisting logic into impossible knots. In the first gallery, a clock consists only of an hour-, minute- and secondhand, each revolving around the tip of the one to which it is fastened. This simple, kinetic sculpture functions as a metaphor for the entire show, in which Hawkinson clinically dissects and playfully rearranges the ordinary world.

A collage of apparently abstract photographs turns out to be a picture of the parts of the artist’s body that he can’t see when he looks straight-ahead. At once exactly accurate and perversely distorted, this piece provides eerie evidence of the limitations of a single point of view. It also shows how alien reality is when we take a step back from it.

Hawkinson is a first-rate recycler whose efforts carry us well beyond the original significance of the materials and ideas he uses. His impressive array of household junk and art historical references takes us on a hallucinatory trip through the inner workings of his agile mind. Here, the absurdity of Surrealism and the irony of Dada fuse with the relentless obsessions typically given form by outsider art.

Three inflatable dolls made from latex skins cast from Hawkinson’s naked body wryly suggest that his exhibition is an exhibitionist’s overblown fantasy--sustained by cheap illusions, hot air and deceptive tricks. An ingenious machine that continuously signs his name likewise suggests that automatic writing doesn’t deliver unconscious spontaneity as much as it merely follows planned patterns.

But 20 randomly spiraling, cryptographic drawings that resemble oversize LPs prove otherwise. A dozen highly reflective silver discs that look like gigantic CDs made from innumerable gum, candy and cigarette wrappers confirm the depth of Hawkinson’s commitment to discover the point where self-mastery intersects with self-loss.

His reconfigurations of everyday waste belong to a lively tradition of seemingly anti-humanistic art, including Duchamp’s ready-mades, Oppenheim’s mechanisms and Borofsky’s chilling daydreams. Hawkinson’s originality lies in his ability to make self-portraits that are concerned less with fleshing out his personal phobias and fixations than with exploring the conceptual conundrums that accompany the very idea of being someone today.

* Ace Contemporary Exhibitions 5514 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 935-4411, through Aug. 31. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Tethered to the Past: Lisa Adams makes competent abstract paintings that insist on being both images and things. For her sixth solo show in as many years, she continues to show us that paintings are both fleeting illusions and concrete objects.

Rusted metal fixtures strap, bolt, hook, hang, chain or otherwise anchor her variously shaped panels to the wall. In sharp contrast to the weighty presence of this industrial hardware, the surfaces of her paintings have an organic sensuality. Many seem to depict light as it filters through water.

Titled “Tether,” Adams’ exhibition at Newspace is meant to secure a place for paint’s delicate liquidity within the rugged, industrial world. The problem with this tactic is that it’s doubly outdated.

Industrialism has long been displaced by high-tech telecommunications networks. And abstract painting since the late ‘60s hasn’t been motivated by the fussy, formalist distinction between depicted and literal shape.

If Adams would forgo her paintings’ heavy metal accouterments--perhaps in favor of pursuing the constantly shifting, quasi-aqueous flow of electronic energy--her talents as a painter would be better served. They’d have more space in which to maneuver and move us.

* Newspace, 5241 Melrose Ave., (213) 469-9353, through June 19. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Language Games: Nouns abound in Kenneth Goldsmith’s poetry of rolling rhythms and repeated sounds. Unlike most art with writing that has to be read while you stand before it, his isn’t aridly conceptual or dogmatically one-directional. Like an extended, accessible tongue-twister, it is as fun to wrap your mouth around as it is to jump into at any point and simply go with its witty, associative flow.

At Sue Spaid Fine Art, a three-panel silk screen measures 8-by-12 feet and leans casually against the wall. It presents a six-column list of words ending in the sound of “ee.” Alphabetized in cycles starting with one syllable, Goldsmith’s poem picks up speed and syllables until it ends with the last passage from “Finnegan’s Wake.” Along the way, it passes through passages like this: “disagree, do-re-me, down on me, drudgery” and “Laverne and Shirley, leather fantasy, Led Zeppelin III.”

You find yourself reading his sing-song list in the way you scan channels on TV or sample stations on the radio: skimming, almost unconsciously editing until something strikes your fancy. Goldsmith’s well-crafted language games are a pleasure to behold because they use sound to compose patterns that accumulate, over time, into open-ended structures greater than the sum of their parts.

* Sue Spaid Fine Art, 7454 1/2 2 Beverly Blvd., (213) 935-6153, through June 27. Closed Monday and Tuesday.

From Confrontation to Seduction: Over the last five years, Lorna Simpson’s photo-texts have aggressively talked back to their viewers, pointing out cruel connections between racism, sexism and abused power. Her newest black-and-white images, elegantly printed on linen and engraved on glass, abandon this confrontational strategy for the more subtle powers of seduction.

Whispers have replaced bold declarations as Simpson has turned her attention away from sociological issues and toward a more general sense of loss. An interest in the possibility of beauty emerges from her wistful installation at Shoshana Wayne Gallery.

This body of work, however, is too tentative to resonate the way it is meant to. It is too bland and generic, especially given the biting energy of Simpson’s earlier photographs. If the artist is to make the transition from explicitly political subjects to more wide-ranging aesthetic issues, more content and specificity need to enter the picture.

* Shoshana Wayne Gallery, 1454 Fifth St., Santa Monica, (310) 451-3733, through July 18. Closed Sunday and Monday.