‘Edge of America’ Relives Modernist Era

“On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art” is an ambitious attempt to survey art made on the West Coast during the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. Bringing together 90 paintings and drawings by 44 artists, this remarkably coherent exhibition at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts provides a long overdue overview of an often overlooked era.

Organized to coincide with the publication of a collection of 11 essays about California Modernism edited by Paul J. Karlstrom for the University of California Press, the show stands on its own as a compelling visual document. Although many of its most well-known artists are not represented by major pieces, or even by their best works, and no sculpture is included, more often than not the paintings selected provide substantial insights into each artist’s oeuvre.

For such a historically oriented show, “On the Edge of America” is unusually intimate, with only a few bombastic pictures providing the exceptions that prove the rule. As a whole, this wide-ranging show is a something-for-everyone sampler, liberally sprinkled with painterly treats.

Just inside the front door is Agnes Pelton’s “Passion Flower,” a small gem of a painting by the recently rediscovered artist. A slightly larger abstraction in crisp reds and blues reveals the scope and potency of her supple art.

Three entrancing images by Frederick Kann stand out as the show’s own rediscovery. Sharing elements with Knud Merrild’s poured paintings and Oskar Fischinger’s deliriously animated abstractions (both of which are included), Kann’s pictures fuse cartoons and reductive geometric abstraction.

Also notable are Lee Mullican’s dazzling canvases of fragmented light, Claire Falkenstein’s loopy forms dabbled on the backs of old posters, Peter Krasnow’s biomorphic hieroglyphs in a queasy palette of pink, orange and turquoise, and a pair of paintings by Emerson Woelffer, one a solid block of earthy browns and the other a drier, more airy rendition.

An abstract still life from 1949 by John McLaughlin suggests that the source of this extraordinary artist’s mature work lies in the shadows that fall across objects, transforming their hues. A white, black and red painting from 1959 builds upon this shift from warm to cool, vividly demonstrating that the temperature of color is essential to McLaughlin’s splendid compositions.

Similarly, but with very different consequences, a rarely seen example of an abstract panel by Edward Kienholz reveals that his aggressive assemblages and sprawling installations have their source in failed paintings. The bits of wood Kienholz attached to this murky abstraction--to solidify its composition--chart a movement from two dimensions to three.

The biggest problem with “On the Edge of America” is that it stacks the deck in favor of Hans Burkhardt, whose paintings do not merit such overblown attention. Not only does Burkhardt have the largest, most prominently displayed work in the show, he also has the most--10. Derived from Surrealism and Picasso’s formal inventions, these torturous images of clenched fists and gritted teeth take their place on the edge of Europe, not America.

By contrast, the best works here don’t presume to be on the edge of anything. Like all ambitious art, they act as if they’re at the center of the universe, where they do their own thing and invite viewers to join them there.

* Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, 357 N. La Brea Ave., (213) 938-5222, through Feb. 1. Closed Sundays and Mondays. (The gallery is closed until Jan. 2 for the holidays.)

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Ready to Erupt: Diane Cook and Len Jenshel photograph nature as if it were a spectacular sideshow at a raucous carnival. Focusing on rare, even freakish interruptions in the Earth’s crust, the husband-and-wife team depicts awesome events infused with a sense of believe-it-or-not drama.

Erupting volcanoes, vast lava fields, gorgeously sunlit caves and perfectly symmetrical cinder cones star in the duo’s matter-of-fact pictures of extraordinary occurrences. At Paul Kopeikin Gallery, about a dozen of Cook’s black-and-white prints alternate with the same number of Jenshel’s lush color photos to form “Hot Spots: America’s Volcanic Landscape.” Accompanying a book with the same title, the exhibition boldly demonstrates that beauty resides in extremes.

In the best pictures, the natural landscape doesn’t look natural at all. It appears to be an alien environment, so strange and exciting that ordinarily breathtaking views of mountains, seascapes and sunsets are boring by comparison.

Some of Cook’s and Jenshel’s photographs document worlds that seem too good to be true. In one, an underground chamber with a natural sunroof is filled with thousands of ferns that grow nowhere else in the environs of this subterranean garden of Eden.

In other images, the mouths of extinct volcanoes serve as compact valleys and lake beds where fertile soil, moisture and sunshine exist in just the right combination for a wide variety of flora and fauna to thrive.

Yet, astonishingly inhospitable landscapes predominate. With impressive regularity, smoke and steam belch forth from the bowels of the earth, and streams of bright orange lava dance like fireworks over molten lakes. Close-ups of incredibly twisted volcanic rocks attest to nature’s transformative power, and distant shots of entire neighborhoods swallowed by seas of lava remind viewers that nature operates on a scale well beyond the human.

Other images are unsettling because of their geometric perfection. Both Cook and Jenshel have an eye for ideal forms, particularly cones, spheres and circles formed by cinder, ash and lava.

To see the tidy geometry of entire mountains and islands is to view the world from such a distant perspective that it looks like an exceptionally well-designed object. Together, Cook’s and Jenshel’s photographs reveal that nature, like art, provides no escape from reality, but only intensifies its most captivating aspects.

* Paul Kopeikin Gallery, 138 N. La Brea Ave., (213) 937-0765, through Jan. 21. Closed Sundays and Mondays. (The gallery is closed until Jan. 2 for the holidays.)

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Hands-On Project: Trying to decide whether James Hyde’s savvy wall-works at Angles Gallery are paintings or sculptures is a lot like going up and down on a teeter-totter: While your mind swings back and forth between two points of view, your body simply enjoys the motion--even though it takes you nowhere.

Technically, these slippery objects are sculptures. Built of steel, cast glass and a variety of sensuous fabrics, all four occupy three dimensions. Powerfully physical, each deals with weight, mass and gravity in a typically sculptural fashion.

Plus, it’s difficult to keep your hands off Hyde’s flirtatious art. His works invite viewers to caress their alluring surfaces in ways that paintings rarely solicit.

Some go further still, enticing you to peek beneath the fabrics loosely draped over their armatures. One, which resembles a cross between a pillow and a pillowcase, lures stray hands or entire arms into its comfortable, blanket-like enclosure.

On the other hand, Hyde’s strange hybrids function as conventional abstract paintings. After their initial curiosity wears off, they begin to address such standard formal issues as the relationship between surface and depth, opacity and translucence, illusion and materiality.

Moreover, most have the presence of diptychs, with one texture playing off another. Subtle variations in color complicate this two-part structure, ensuring that Hyde’s images do not set up either/or oppositions.

Ultimately, Hyde’s uncategorizable works link uselessness and playfulness as they emphasize the difference between knowledge and experience. Simply paying attention to the questions they raise is complicated enough and much more pleasurable than reaching a conclusion that eliminates more possibilities than it opens.

* Angles Gallery, 2222 Main St., Santa Monica, (310) 396-5019, through Jan. 4. Closed Sundays and Mondays and New Year’s Day.