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Collaborators’ Show at LACE Is Just a Bit Too Lackadaisical

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Slacker ambitions and designer pretensions collide in an installation by Hendrika Sonnenberg and Chris Hanson at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Aside from revealing how difficult it is for artists to make convincing work by acting as if they couldn’t care less, this lackadaisical display demonstrates that such passive-aggressive posturing has become a style all its own--no different from, say, Expressionism or Minimalism, despite being less time-consuming.

Three components make up the New York-based collaborators’ first solo show in L.A. Just inside the freshly painted gallery’s entrance are four boxes about the size of peach crates. Made of sloppily glued sections of polystyrene packing materials, these subtly colored yet dysfunctional containers insist that uselessness and beauty go hand in hand.

The second component is the largest: a linear structure made of hollow metal closet rods that have been welded together at odd angles to form a meandering 3-D “drawing.” Touching down twice on the floor and once on each of the walls and ceiling, this zigzagging armature dutifully fulfills art’s obligation to animate the space it occupies.

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Three large-format photographs form the show’s third part. Depicting rudimentary sculptures Sonnenberg and Hanson made from temporary arrangements of wood, plaster and metal, around which they placed melons, coconuts, lemons and oranges, these pictures resemble overblown reproductions of imitation Franz West sculptures.

As a whole, this stingy exhibition leaves you with the feeling that it is more concerned with looking cool than breaking new ground. Its guiding principle appears to be: how to fill up a fairly large space while keeping shipping costs down.

* Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 6522 Hollywood Blvd., (323) 957-1777, through April 18. Closed Sundays-Tuesdays.

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