ART REVIEWS : Revisiting Some Striking CoBrA Pieces

“CoBrA Revisited,” at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, features paintings, drawings and prints produced over a 40-year span by artists once associated with this post-war European movement.

Founded in 1948 as one of the many splinter groups of the international Surrealist movement, CoBrA (whose name is derived from Co penhagen, Br ussels and A msterdam) lasted a scant three years, before evolving into the Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, which itself eventually transmuted into the better-known (if equally doomed) Situationist International.

Fascinating historically--especially when counter-posed to the monolithic “triumph of American painting,” which occurred at the same moment--this parade of overlapping, decomposing, European avant-gardes boasts very interesting work. The most important member of CoBrA, Asger Jorn, is an obscure figure in this country. His paintings conjure up those of Jackson Pollock in terms of their masses of color and nervous doodling; his tendency toward a perverse ornamentalism, however, is unique.

Like Jorn, Corneille is rarely exhibited here, though he is currently enjoying a renaissance in Europe. His obsessively patterned surfaces and faux naivete suggest Dubuffet crossed with Peter Max.

Far more familiar are Karel Appel and Pierre Alechinsky. The former’s exuberant canvases are remarkably consistent, whether paint is pulled over the surface, as thick and delicious as taffy, or whether the surface is composed of a patchwork of brightly colored pieces of felt. Alechinsky is amply represented, and offers the stand-out works: a series of antique stock certificates overlaid with calligraphic flourishes, which reconcile Conceptual art with unrepentant decoration and feel wonderfully, surprisingly new.

* Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, 357 N. La Brea Ave., (213) 938-5222, through Jan. 14. Closed Sunday and Monday.

* SILLY ON PURPOSE

“The Layered Look” in Santa Monica is all desperation. F22