Transforming Views of Conner’s Past, Present

Bruce Conner is one of those rare artists who, contrary to art world protocol, continues to reinvent himself, recoiling from consistency with what can only be called gentlemanly flair.

Hairsplitters might argue that the current work at Kohn Turner Gallery includes several of the resplendent inkblot drawings that have accounted for Conner’s most recent renaissance--among them, a smallish image whose lilting silhouette and tightly packed, emblematic forms make it resemble a piece of sheet music channeled from another galaxy.

However, shown alongside these Rorschach-esque works are other drawings and wood engraving collages so wild, lovely and brand-new that they transform the show into yet another revelation--however coy and knowing.

Not surprisingly, given Conner’s interest in truth--revealed, concealed, reflected and/or distorted--several of the collages fiddle almost imperceptibly with imagery taken from 19th century illustrations of the life of Christ, so that pilgrims sport wind-up handles, every angel has its doppelganger and prophets lose their heads, only to have them replaced by Buckminster Fuller-ish geodesic domes.

Other collages are less overtly narrative. “The Question,” for example, features miniature circles of text circling around more of the same, creating a tautology that would make Joseph Kosuth blush.

Both more and less showy are a series of ink drawings, most of them mounted on scrolls of watered silk, one of them framed by a thick and violently antiqued mirrored frame. Though still bilaterally symmetrical, the imagery here is much looser and more tonal in nature--like the fields of fractured light one sees when one closes one’s eyes, the faintest memory of crystal chandeliers, or the ornamental tracery that shrouds the hermetic paintings of Gustave Moreau.

This latter reference is perhaps most apropos, for like the early Symbolist, Conner grafts decoration onto mysticism. Though the results are, as usual, both austere and over the top, they are also generous, in the truest and least hackneyed sense of the word.

* Kohn Turner Gallery, 454 N. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 854-5400, through May 31. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Intriguing Concepts: Even when it’s been boiled-over for the umpteenth time, Conceptualism wouldn’t be Conceptualism if it didn’t retain at least a smidgen of its original sang-froid. Yet Lynn Aldrich’s work, on view at Gallery LASCA, dispenses of such attitude almost altogether, turning out a brand of Conceptualism that can only be called whimsical.

This characterization isn’t meant to demean the work, or to deny it its bona fides, but rather to comment upon a native sweetness that is typically at odds with critical practice. True enough, Aldrich has been more critical in the past, though a work like “Downpour,” a vertical spill of wax paper, recalls her earlier plays upon the rigid idioms of Minimalism. In general, however, this show deals less with a specific art world conundrum than with more general ones: creativity, excess, the vagaries of perception.

“Infusoria,” the show’s title, is a Latin word that describes a pool of stagnant water from which new life emerges. Aldrich spins a web of associations from there. They come in the form of a huge grid of vellum pages studded with hundreds of gold and silver adhesive-backed stars, each numbered and labeled with a baby’s name taken from a supermarket paperback hanging adjacent. There’s also a massive floor piece made of more than 125 fake-fur and animal skin swatches.

These latter works are heavy on the visual jazz, but perhaps more effective are three simpler works made of lampshades affixed to the wall at right angles. With their interiors painted, alternately, glowing lavender, pale blue and lemony yellow, they cast colored shadows and create a contemplative mood. Not incidentally, they recall Anish Kapoor’s subtle interventions into gallery walls. But whereas his work insists upon solemnity as the cost of spiritual truth, Aldrich, with her cheerfully doctored found materials, suggests that revelation is available even, or maybe especially, at the 99-cent store.

* Gallery LASCA, 3630 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 381-1525, through May 24. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Memorable Moments: Everyone has sentimental favorites, and Joel Meyerowitz is one of mine, not so much because of his masterful use of color, but because of the consistent mood his color photographs evoke--something between exuberance and utter calm.

Like fellow Robert Frank devotees, Gary Winogrand and Lee Friedlander, Meyerowitz has mastered the syntax of the street--the whole retinue of puns, juxtapositions and cock-hipped shoppers, framed by choice urban debris. Yet his photographs are at their most seductive when they gauge time by the movement of the tide rather than by the flashing of a “Don’t Walk” sign, and this selection at Peter Fetterman Gallery--taken over 20 summers by the sea--is exemplary.

Fans no doubt have these images memorized: an oblique shot of porch columns, tinted orange by the light of the setting sun; billowing white clouds dipping down to touch the tips of a freshly painted picket fence; a towheaded boy holding an overflowing bowl of raspberries, which spill into his hands like a cache of jewels; a view through the hallway of a summer house, through the front porch, the screen door and to the pale green trees beyond. Those who don’t already know these photographs by heart will undoubtedly want to.

* Peter Fetterman Gallery, 2525 Michigan Ave., A-7, Santa Monica, (310) 453-6463, through June 29. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Early Framework: Though posterity has so far deemed his most important achievement the design for the first Jack in the Box restaurants, architect-turned-artist Russell Forester--the subject of a large survey at Track 16 Gallery--is versatile, not to mention prolific, having turned out literally thousands of paintings and drawings over the past 30 years, in addition to sculptures, installations and multimedia extravaganzas.

If you study pictures of those early Jack in the Boxes, however, you will see the seeds of what was to follow, for even then Forester was interested in the grid as both form and structure. Indeed, the grid is ubiquitous here; whether precise or wavering and irregular, Forester exploits it to build monumental structures out of sometimes tiny elements.

Here are interlocking patterns of jewel-like color, which conjure the work of Paul Klee, and Vasarely-esque hallucinations. Here are tiny pen-and-ink drawings covered with crosshatching so tight it seems to be inextricable from the very weave of the canvas. In the late ‘70s Forester acquired an industrial sewing machine and began using thread to create his images, sometimes using the machine without thread merely to perforate the already gridded surface. Later he would use sheets of lead as if they were fabric, dividing them into more of his signature geometric fields and occasionally creating flaps that could be lifted to reveal further depths.

In terms of interest, the work is somewhat uneven, and this show may indicate some of the difficulties of maintaining an unvarying set of protocols over time. Though Forester is quite remarkably ingenious within his parameters, as you move through the show you do find yourself longing to see something at little bit different.

* Track 16 Gallery, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building C, Santa Monica, (310) 264-4678, through May 24. Closed Sundays and Mondays.