A Traveling Exhibition That Really Does Travel

Joep van Lieshout’s “Modular House Mobile” rolled into Bergamot Station shortly before noon Tuesday. With bright yellow cargo and utility units mounted on a flatbed truck, and “Lieshout” crisply painted across the hood, it was a strange sight. Though far from the first peculiar vehicle to visit the sprawling arts complex in Santa Monica, the Dutch artist’s creation is probably the first to deliver an exhibition of sculptural pieces in a motorized living space that is also an artwork.

If prizes were awarded for taking the longest overland route to Bergamot, the “Modular House Mobile” surely would win that too. Making its final appearance on a North American tour, the mobile artwork has been driven coast to coast--from the Jack Tilton Gallery in New York to Santa Monica, via the Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago and Plug In Inc. in Winnipeg, Canada.

“It runs pretty well,” Van Lieshout, 34, says of his unorthodox camper, “but it doesn’t go very fast. About 50 or 55 miles per hour, 60 max.”

His show, opening today at the Richard Heller Gallery, is one of many exhibitions kicking off Los Angeles’ fall gallery season. Hours of receptions vary, but many galleries at Bergamot will be open until around 8 p.m. today. Also on today, from 5 to 9 p.m., galleries on Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue will host a joint opening. A third group opening will take place Sept. 19 from 5 to 8 p.m., when West Hollywood galleries located on Melrose Avenue, Almont Drive and Robertson Boulevard will welcome the public to their new fall shows.

Van Lieshout lives in Rotterdam, where he and half a dozen associates construct his work in a large studio. Well known in Europe but making his Southern California debut, he is showing 34 works--including the “Modular House Mobile,” parked outside the gallery. Inside Heller’s show space is a mind-boggling assortment of handmade fiberglass objects: “sensory deprivation” helmets, chairs and chambers; toilets and sinks; and brightly colored square tables.

One thing is missing, however. Van Lieshout had intended to exhibit an object conceived as a piece of oversized jewelry with four finger rings attached to a barrel, trigger and firing pin. Although it bears little resemblance to a gun and does not shoot bullets, the piece was confiscated July 16 by Canadian customs officers who detained Van Lieshout for four hours, dismantled his van, arrested him for trafficking in firearms and fined him $500. His Canadian dealer called authorities who helped him cross the border at another checkpoint, but the artwork hasn’t been returned.

Crossing the border back into the United States was also a hassle, Van Lieshout says, but he accepts such upsets as part of the confusion that perpetually surrounds his work. As a maker of residential and work spaces, functional furnishings and sculptural objects, he is often confronted with questions about what, exactly, he does.

“People ask me, ‘What are you? An artist, an architect or a designer?’ I really don’t care how I am considered. What is important in my work is that I don’t make any distinction between real artworks or just building something for someone,” he says.

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Some critics also have difficulty finding a category that suits his work. Where do you put an artist who has built an information stand for a flea market in Aarburg, Switzerland; toilets and urinals for the Centraal Museum in the Dutch city of Utrecht; a reception area for Zurich’s Museum fur Gegenwartskunst; a sleek blue bar for a nightclub in Bandol, France; a mobile meeting room for the Alliance Francaise in Rotterdam; and busing stations, trolleys and garbage cans for the Museum of Modern Art’s cafeteria in New York?

If he only did commissioned projects such as these, the problem would be easier. But all Van Lieshout’s works are handmade and his “sensory deprivation” pieces exist in the realm of art. Both fanciful and quirky, they are loaded with the kind of psychological content that critics and casual viewers love to discuss. Visitors to Heller’s gallery can try on an insulated fiberglass helmet or enclose themselves in a chair or box--and tune in or check out. Although the helmets were inspired by products made in the 1950s said to have medical benefits, Van Lieshout makes no such claims for his work. It has many layers of meaning, he says, and it’s wide open to interpretation.

Neither does he like to trace the artistic lineage of his work much beyond the early 20th century Modernist movements of the Bauhaus and De Stijl. Although critics note certain affinities to contemporary sculptors Donald Judd and Robert Gober, among many other artists, Van Lieshout says he has such a broad range of sources that it is impossible to designate specific influences on his work.

“I think I generate my own inspiration,” he says. “I can imagine myself living in the desert or a forest away from the civilized world and still making stuff. That would be ideal, I think.”

* “Joep van Lieshout / Collection ‘96,” Richard Heller Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 453-9191. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Reception Saturday, 6-8 p.m. Ends Oct. 5.