Revealing a Picture of Diversity in Suburbia

Bill Owens’ black-and-white photographs at Blum & Poe Gallery celebrate the fact that life in the United States is weirder than it’s made out to be. In three series of modestly scaled prints made between 1968 and 1976, the photojournalist-turned-microbrewer shows that being white, suburban and middle-class in no way guarantees that you’re bland or boring.

Stereotypes fall apart in front of Owens’ powerful pictures, revealing that diversity thrives where it’s least expected: in the heart of middle America. The Hayward, Calif.-based artist’s prints demonstrate that what looks conventional from a distance can be kinky close up.

All of Owens’ photos depict ordinary folks doing everyday things, like watering the lawn, taking care of the kids, attending a block party or going to work. Although there’s nothing remarkable about these mundane activities, Owens manages to capture such a wide variety of facial expressions and body language that it’s clear the people in his pictures are more interesting than the generic social roles they fill.

A poignant mix of pride and awkwardness is palpable in an image of a young couple sitting on lawn chairs in the driveway of their new home. A wall label quotes them saying that their backyard isn’t as much fun because the privacy it provides prevents them from watching their neighbors drive and walk by. Unfamiliar with suburban isolation, the couple appear to be out of place and vulnerable in a world of prefabricated retreats.

In another picture, five women at a Tupperware party pay rapt attention as the hostess, dressed in knee-high vinyl boots, headband and vest, explains the virtues of a container for saving leftovers. The five guests listen with such intensity and earnestness that it seems their lives depend on learning every detail about the economic product.

The show’s sweetest photo depicts a middle-aged mother seated in her newly decorated living room, looking satisfied with her work but concerned that her neighbors won’t like it as much as she does. Most of Owens’ photos embody a similar sort of tentativeness--of not knowing how you’re supposed to behave as a neophyte suburbanite, but happy to have the opportunity.

This complex optimism comes through in Owens’ pictures because he never approaches his subjects with the intention of mocking or criticizing their lifestyles. Clearly a trustworthy neighbor at home in the suburbs, the artist makes others comfortable enough to let down their guard and reveal their idiosyncratic selves. More often than not, that’s a strange sight indeed.

* Blum & Poe Gallery, 2042 Broadway, Santa Monica, (310) 453-8311, through Aug. 3. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Labor and Leisure: “All Work No Play” is a cleverly titled, loosely conceived exhibition of works by 13 young, mostly German artists showing for the first time in Los Angeles. Organized for ACME Gallery by Micha Kapinos, a Berlin-based curator, this indecisive show begins with a good idea but fails to develop it into a persuasive proposition.

Although there are several fine pieces here, such as Andreas Gursky’s stunning color photograph of an operating electronics factory, Monica Bonvicini’s peepholes showing galleries under construction and Milo Kopp’s video installation of his waltzing feet, they don’t play off one another very effectively. Consequently, the show has the hemmed-in feel of thinking whose serendipity has been stifled by excessive rationality.

An overly literal opposition between work and play is asserted by too many of its pieces. Torsten Haake-Brandt’s grid of doodles and employment rejection letters insists that work is so mind-numbing that it leaves no energy for art. Richard Haga’s pair of fax-phones, through which a loop of fax paper circulates, argues that art is an incidental byproduct of more efficient modes of communication. E. Twin Gabriel’s congealed puddle of roll-on deodorant repeats this idea with even stronger bodily impact.

As a whole, “All Work No Play” wants to have its cake and eat it too. Adamant in its rejection of the traditional idea that art is a leisure activity, the exhibition also refuses to let art enter the marketplace like any other commodity.

Only Sam Durant’s “Punk Day Jobs” and Susanne Weirich’s packaged play sets fuse leisure and labor in a provocative manner. By insisting that one’s convictions must survive in the real world if they’re to be anything more than dreams, these loaded works explore the territory where work and play intersect. Unfortunately, the show trips over itself before it gets there.

* ACME Gallery, 1800-B Berkeley St., Santa Monica, (310) 264-5818, through July 27. Closed Sundays-Tuesdays.

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Tenacious Abstractions: Although it’s difficult to get wildly excited about Emerson Woelffer’s abstract paintings, drawings and collages, it’s even more difficult not to admire their light-handed tenacity. At Manny Silverman Gallery, an astute selection of works from the past 50 years traces the jazzy energy and raw talent that consistently animate the veteran artist’s solidly simplified images.

Vivacious understatement is Woelffer’s modus operandi. His best pieces look like effortless arrangements of a few well chosen marks, shapes and gestures.

Knowing when to stop--when enough is enough--defines these works more decisively than any of their beginnings. Woelffer makes starting out look so easy you’ll be tempted to take up a brush yourself.

More than a third of the works shown are from the 1950s, when Woelffer’s art came into its own. After having worked through Surrealism by fusing its totemic figures with a brash, Pop palette recalling Stuart Davis at his best, Woelffer turned to more sharply focused compositions painted in a rich palette of sensuous ochers, olives and oranges, often set against dense fields of black and slate gray.

Three pieces from each of the next three decades show Woelffer refining his use of line, shape and color without letting his art get fussy, precious or stale. Looser and more insouciant than anything that preceded them, his most recent pieces are also his most deft and buoyant. Despite the tight parameters in which they operate, these punchy abstractions provide ample room for your eyes to move freely.

* Manny Silverman Gallery, 619 N. Almont Drive, (310) 659-8256, through Aug. 24. Closed Sundays and Mondays.