Art Review

Been There?: Art that’s meant to be razor-sharp is sometimes just plain thin. That’s the case with Larry Johnson’s new photographs at Margo Leavin Gallery. These beautifully framed images set their sights so low that, even when they succeed, they’re forgettable.

Paradoxically, that seems precisely Johnson’s goal (or at least one of them). All of his pictures memorialize cultural landmarks that are no longer in the public spotlight.

A diptych shows two views of a once-popular restaurant that’s been closed for a decade. This crisp pair of prints was made from two sketches of the building’s exterior, which Johnson photographed and enlarged to the size of small billboards.

Similarly icy images depict the outlines of 1950s signs, on whose otherwise blank faces the artist has printed the name of a minor actor, Paul Bunyan’s sidekick and the Jolly Green Giant’s infantile friend. A six-part piece features the titles of six songs by a forgotten musician, each printed on a monochromatic background whose palette looks equally dated.

Two other works consist of the outlines of generic Modern sculptures, on which Johnson has sketched the grid of a crossword puzzle or printed a cryptic message about the fascination African artifacts once held for avant-garde artists. And a review I wrote nearly two years ago is the subject of a similarly composed print, but it would be difficult to know what this untitled work was about if you were not caught up in the tempest-in-a-teacup initially stirred up by the review.

Drawing lines that divide insiders from outsiders is what Johnson’s art does best. His photographs let viewers know that they’re not in on the action.

In piece after piece, you get the mean-spirited message that if you have to go to a gallery to find out what’s going on, you’re way too late to be a part of it. What gives these images their fleeting edginess is their cold yet wholehearted embrace of the romance of being a has-been.

The problem with this profoundly conflicted goal is that you can’t be a has-been without first having been. In wanting it both ways, Johnson’s self-defeating prints wear themselves thin without taking you with them.

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* Margo Leavin Gallery, 812 N. Robertson Blvd., (310) 273-0603, through March 21. Closed Sundays and Mondays.