Opposites Attract Metaphors in Black-and-White ‘Rapture’

To step into the darkened main gallery of Patrick Painter Inc. is to be instantly caught up in a physically daunting and emotionally loaded drama. Projected onto opposite walls of the large empty space, Shirin Neshat’s “Rapture” throws viewers into the middle of things.

What’s most exciting about the artist’s synchronized black-and-white films (which have been transferred to video) is that they treat the literal world as a realm rich with metaphor. Here, everything has the potential to become its opposite.

On one wall, a group of about 100 Muslim men dressed in white shirts and black pants march through the streets of an ancient fortress, clapping their hands, passing a ewer of burning incense and raising ladders to scale walls. In one scene, they push against one another as if engaged in a brusque game of human bumper cars, the thrusts and parries of which are shot through with an undercurrent of violence.

On the opposite wall, a similarly sized group of Muslim women, wearing full-length black veils, congregate in a barren desert, stare silently into the camera and then “kell”--making a sound that is equal parts chant, cheer and blood-curdling warning. Falling silent, they walk to the shore, where six launch a boat and head out to sea.

Part of the power of Neshat’s mesmerizing work is the way its paired projections play off one another. When the men are the focus of the story and the women gaze raptly at them, you feel you are part of the crowd of women. Likewise, when the women command your attention and the men look on in awe, you feel you belong with them.

By putting viewers in different positions, the Iran-born, New York-based artist reveals that when we watch movies we rarely identify with single characters but instead share our affections with various roles and personas. Since life is more complicated than any script, Neshat’s work also insists that human beings are linked by forces and interests that are stronger than those defined by national, cultural or religious identities.

Something primal and timeless takes shape in “Rapture.” As such, it flies in the face of much art recently celebrated for its insistence on cultural differences. Accompanied by a fantastic soundtrack by Sussan Am Deyhim, Neshat’s piece of 3-D theater bowls you over by sweeping you up in a drama of epic proportions.

* Patrick Painter Inc., Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 264-5988, through June 12. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Trade Balance: Given America’s multibillion-dollar trade surplus in exported movies and pop music, it’s easy to assume that cultural influence travels in one direction: from the powerful center to the exploited periphery. But Isaac Azey’s potent paintings of pop stars and politicians demonstrate that cultural exchange is a two-way street, that influences go in both directions simultaneously.

At Ernie Wolfe Gallery, 32 oils on panel and canvas by the young Ghanian painter trace Azey’s development as an artist and chart his increasingly savvy understanding of international politics. Neither pedantic nor sarcastic, these midsize tableaux convey a remarkable range of emotions by depicting often incomprehensibly complex situations.

The earliest works, made between 1990 and 1993, are straightforward advertisements, colorful signs commissioned by barbers to attract local customers. These utilitarian artifacts have also attracted an international clientele, appealing to many tourists’ fantasies of faraway places unsullied by the West.

Azey’s next body of work spoils such conservative (and dangerous) ideas of cultural purity. Portraying such celebrities as Arsenio Hall, Wesley Snipes, Babyface and Ice Cube--reclining with lions or hanging out with angels--this impressive series of “Praise Portraits” combines indigenous symbols with foreign superstars in a mix as impure as it is poignant.

Azey’s mature works make up more than half the exhibition. Ranging from the playful to the tragic, they present imaginative behind-the-scene views of Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Princess Di and Timothy McVeigh. But the artist is at his best when he takes international incidents as his subject and puts a human face on events whose scale is anything but personal.

In one, the pope, floating in a rowboat in the Gulf of Mexico, attempts to reconcile a grinning Clinton and teary-eyed Castro. “Zaire in Turmoil” depicts Laurent Kabila, a former compatriot of Che Guevara, struggling to wrestle the nation’s flag away from Mobutu Sese Seko during the revolution that reestablished the Congo. Other pictures are based on violence in Northern Ireland, Peru, the Balkans and the Middle East. Giving shape to Azey’s far-reaching vision, they are grounded in local traditions, yet have their sights set on the big picture.

* Ernie Wolfe Gallery, 1653 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-2960, through July. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Ageless: A fine selection of paintings, drawings and prints by Dorr Bothwell merely scratches the surface of the 97-year-old artist’s idiosyncratic oeuvre, providing an enticing introduction that leaves you wanting to see more. Dating from 1928 to 1956, the 27 works on canvas, panel and paper at Tobey C. Moss Gallery show the California-based artist mastering and abandoning styles with the restlessness of someone constantly on the lookout for more stimulation.

The earliest works are solid, simplified landscapes and portraits of Samoan subjects, which bear witness to Bothwell’s love of travel and anticipate her work in the mural division of L.A.’s Federal Arts Project. A 1932 self-portrait, in which the artist treats housecleaning as an act of supreme religious devotion, is a hilarious and strongly feminist sendup of what society expects of women.

It also marks the beginning of the end of Bothwell’s romance with figurative painting. Soon after, her works grow increasingly abstract, moving through strange collages that combine altered photographs and stylized animals to a version of Abstract Surrealism indebted to Joan Miro, Paul Klee and Alexander Calder.

Wiry lines, glowing orbs and precariously balanced forms characterize this phase of Bothwell’s multifaceted career, with such paintings as “Night Insect Conversation” and “Night Thoughts of Marsh Creatures” giving shape to the mysterious, often mischievous whimsy that animates all of her deeply inquisitive works.

* Tobey C. Moss Gallery, 7321 Beverly Blvd., (323) 933-5523, through June 30. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Rhyme and Reason: Unlike his poetry, Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s paintings, drawings and prints do not merit attention for their own sake. The most interesting aspect of the 30-odd works on paper and canvas at Molly Barnes Gallery is that they were made by the famous Beat poet.

Even so, they add very little to a body of written work known for its spunky energy. About half of the pictures are seascapes in which crudely rendered sailboats make their way through schematic waves, which are occasionally made of dozens of open books or people packed shoulder to shoulder, like swimming sardines.

The remaining works are bland silhouettes of nude women and men, punctuated by a pair of hastily scrawled birds. References to Giacometti, Motherwell, Kline and Magritte hint at some sources that may inspire Ferlinghetti’s writing, but they cause his images to pale in comparison.

Handwritten phrases such as “the sea was a part of him” and “he was a part of the sea” fail to read as much more than cliches, as does the show as a whole.

* Molly Barnes Gallery, 1414 6th St., Santa Monica, (310) 395-4404, through May 29. Closed Sundays and Mondays.