‘Portraits’ That House Elements of Solitude

The first thing you notice about John Divola’s digitally printed images at Patricia Faure Gallery is that they are very strange landscape pictures. Although their subjects are a little eccentric, that’s not where their weirdness lurks. They stand out as photographs because they function as portraits, in the traditional sense of the term.

Titled by the latitudinal and longitudinal points at which they were taken, these unsentimental prints depict mostly solitary dwellings at the edge of the desert. Nearly all have been shot from close up, but a few have been taken from off in the distance.

Divola’s pictures of simple houses set on vast plains under sweeping skies are not as powerful as his blunt close-ups, in which the homes appear to be unfairly exposed to nature’s harsh elements and equally vulnerable to the photographer’s cruel scrutiny. Unlike the faraway houses, which seem to be almost comfortably nestled into their surroundings, the houses at point-blank range stick out like sore thumbs.

Even those whose residents have done some rudimentary landscaping look as if they inhabit a different universe from the desert’s parched ground and wind-whipped scrub. The most poignant pictures make you feel as if you’re looking at some of the last outposts of civilization--in the face of one of nature’s most inhospitable and unforgiving climes.

The best thing about Divola’s treatment of such a potentially melodramatic theme is that it’s utterly devoid of grandeur or bombast. Every single house is rendered in such extreme, everyday detail that it functions not so much as a symbol of civilization’s farthest reaches, but as a stark portrayal of one modest structure’s daily struggle against the elements. Out here in the desert, Divola’s prints seem to say, we’re less concerned with what symbols might mean than with getting out of the sun, and then getting through the night.

So vivid and complete are his house portraits that viewers may rarely pause to wonder about the people who live inside them. Closed doors, shuttered windows and the absence of fireplaces, TV antennae and satellite dishes reveal that Divola is less interested in probing the psychology of desert dwellers than in staking out a territory in which unbroken solitude is not the exception, but the rule.

* Patricia Faure Gallery, 2525 Michigan Ave., Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, (310) 449-1479, through Sept. 5. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

****

Transporting Experience: If Martin Kippenberger’s outdoor sculpture were not located in the frontyard of the Schindler House, you’d probably walk right by it--or even over it--without giving it a second thought. But installed in the middle of the nicely landscaped lawn, the realistic air vent for an imaginary subway line demands to be seen--and experienced--as a work of art.

As such, it’s a piece of realism that immediately transports viewers to a world of metaphors and daydreams. To stand on the air shaft’s metal grating, as recorded sounds of trains rumble below and whooshes of warm air rush up underfoot, you can’t help but feel that you’re Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch.”

After the sounds of screeching wheels and clattering tracks fade away, and the man-made breeze stops blowing, you suspend disbelief and follow the imaginary train’s journey in your mind’s eye. It isn’t difficult to picture an entire subterranean world, thriving out of sight from the one we live in every day.

Since the beginning of Romanticism, artists have been responsible for exploring this normally invisible, often dark realm of the imagination. Their paintings, sculptures and drawings have been called on to serve as evidence of travels to such uncharted realms, relaying, to viewers, what the artists discovered there.

Kippenberger (1953-97) makes a joke of the notion that artists are any better than the rest of us at taking imaginary journeys to otherwise inaccessible worlds. His posthumously realized air shaft turns this Romantic view on its ear, suggesting that art’s job is to send viewers on imaginative trips, not to tell of journeys from which artists have returned.

More generous than most of his works, whose overriding ambition is to flaunt smart-aleck failures, Kippenberger’s sculpture downplays his larger-than-life-size ego, leaving viewers free to make what they want of his open-ended piece. Part of its impact resides in the fact that he is no longer with us. As the sounds of the rumbling subway cars fade away, it’s hard not to think of the artist’s own passing, and that we’re left to go on with our lives aboveground.

* MAK Center for Art and Architecture, 835 N. Kings Road, West Hollywood, (323) 651-1510, through Oct. 11. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

****

Frozen in Time: Florence Pierce’s abstract paintings at Kiyo Higashi Gallery appear to be made of smoke and ice. To look at these subdued pieces is to see opposites come together in thought-provoking combinations.

Although Pierce’s panels resemble square sections of frozen river water, none of her 11 new works exudes anything like coldness. In fact, most are aglow with a subtly mysterious light that softens their hardness by breathing some warmth into what would normally be chilly surfaces.

Each of the Santa Fe-based artist’s pieces consists of many layers of slightly tinted fiberglass resin that have been poured over plexiglass mirrors. Bubbles of air and other imperfections are trapped within and between the variously translucent layers, creating the impression that Pierce’s works were made when flowing liquids suddenly froze.

None of the mirrors is visible, but their presence goes a long way to explain how much depth the artist manages to embed in each panel. No thicker than your thumb, the literal dimensions of these wall-hugging monochromes are belied by the way they open onto seemingly deep space.

Dark and cloudy, some are suffused with a smoky yellow shimmer that recalls silt-choked rivers and smoldering brush fires. Others are shot through with sharp, crystalline formations, which dazzle like freshly fallen snow. Still others have the presence of frost-coated windshields, which reflect the morning sun before melting into nothingness.

Only one of Pierce’s understated paintings contains a compositional element. Clearly the result of an artistic decision, this vertical line throws into focus what’s most remarkable about the other works: They do not seem to have been made by a person, but formed by organic processes beyond anyone’s control. Paradoxically, the artist’s light touch allows such an impersonal approach to yield works that are both intimate and giving.

* Kiyo Higashi Gallery, 8332 Melrose Ave., (323) 655-2482, through Aug. 22. Closed Sundays and Mondays.