Object Lesson

Junk and art have enjoyed a mercurial relationship over the century, and it ain’t over yet. The possibilities still lure artists into the world of recycling objects, transforming trash into aesthetically certified works of art.

If the artist has the right mind-set, any object is fair aesthetic game. Take spoons, for example, lots of them. In Melisse Herman’s relief piece “The Last Walk,” spoons in varying states of tarnish tumble from ceiling level, cascading into a pile on the floor of the Platt Gallery, as part of the intriguing show called “Lost and Found: Explorations in Assemblage by Five Artists.”

The effect is striking, partly because of the strange materials, taken artfully out of context and placed in a surreal context.

The same could be said of most of the work here, based as it is on the transformation of the commonplace and the neglected. Those qualities extend to the human subjects in Roger Marshutz’s work.

Social conscience rises to the multisensory surface in his photographic portraits. Homeless people are framed in elaborate cardboard frames, while ex-gang members are viewed against graffiti-spattered plaster frames.

Taped testimonies about their lives and struggles are heard through speakers incorporated into the works, and the ambient sound of all the interviews at once in the gallery has a strange, poignant effect. Marshutz literally gives a face and a voice to people on the societal fringe.

The running theme of revitalizing discarded objects and attitudes gives the show its glue. “Veneration” is a fitting, clever title for Maddy Le Mel’s series of decaying hammers cradled on silk in wooden boxes, viewed as coffins or the pristine display cases commonly used for jewelry.

More serious themes about reproduction emerge in “Ode to an Ovary,” a box tableau with metal pieces and a tiny ultrasound film of the artist’s own organs. “Just Passing Through” continues the theme, with its rusty metal parts suggesting a faucet leading to a basket of eggs--the continuum of the reproductive process.

Elsewhere, Le Mel also skates along the border separating the real and the art-ificial, with “Desert Hay.” Metal springs have been covered in fabric and turned into a coy replica of hay bales in the desert, as seen in a photo attached to the work. Art imitates life in radically different scale and texture.

Herman’s other work includes a series of odd, crudely fashioned lead boxes containing delicate objects, such as a locket and a glove. These artifacts are seen in protective housings with faintly apocalyptic overtones, as if encased in tiny fallout shelters.

The resident crackpot of the bunch is Frank Miller, whose art ups the whimsy ante. “Circle of One” is a series of tiny creatures, made from scrap and doodads, positioned in a circle. If they could talk, they would sound like mechanistic chatter. “Smog Control” is a gas mask bedecked in artificial flowers. The joke is that even these faux flowers look sad and wilted under the noxious circumstances.

Socially conscious ideas also run through the work of Beth Bachenheimer. A feminist statement comes through in “One Step at a Time: Pace Yourself,” with its gold-tinted high-heeled shoes balanced on a scale of (in)justice.

“Civil Unrest” is made from burnt, rusted and otherwise traumatized objects, some of which were retrieved from the site of the Los Angeles riots in 1992. A broken ceramic bear serves as a handy metaphor for abused innocence.

And then there is “Max,” a robot-like figure fashioned from such odds and ends as a tripod, shoe trees and a “key from my childhood skates.” Here, a genuinely personal touch enters into the process of collecting and creating art from objects.

In this case, Bachenheimer looked no farther than her own closet, her own wistful trove of knickknacks.

Junk-based art can be a means of interacting with the physical world, and checking in with the inner self.

BE THERE

“Lost and Found: Explorations in Assemblage by Five Artists,” through Sept. 27 at the Platt Gallery, University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Drive. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sunday.-Thursday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Friday; (310) 476-9777, Ext. 203.