That’s Show Biz

Martin Kersels has always made art that asserts a place in the realm of savvy entertainment. What gives his work both charm and punch is that it settles in at the opposite pole from the delirious spectacles of high-tech mass media. Call him James Cameron on a shoestring.

A new group of sculptures, photographs and drawings at Dan Bernier Gallery continues that satisfying direction. It even manages to intersect Hollywood in an unexpected way.

The four sculptures, built from simple 2-by-4s and plywood, are homemade versions of sound-effects stations used to amplify movie soundtracks. Visitors are invited to manipulate a variety of mundane objects, making assorted sounds: rain, wind, the flapping of bat wings; the crunch of footsteps on snow and the snap of breaking bone; the rustle of curtains followed by the stamp of marching feet; and the rattling of chains and the funereal digging of dirt.

What’s peculiar about Kersels’ noise-makers--loose fabric on a squash racket for the bat wings, a bag filled with powdered resin for snowy footsteps, pebbles in a wire mesh drum for rain, etc.--is that they don’t differ much from the homemade devices sound-effects technicians actually use. In attitude, the work is loosely related to Chris Burden’s well-known “science project” sculptures, in which he created a homemade TV set or a speed-of-light machine.

Kersels simply pulls the curtain back on show biz, that lovable Kansas snake-oil salesman who’s pretending to be the wizard of Oz. That all his sculptural sounds obliquely gesture in the vicinity of horror, doom and disaster reads as both playful fun and gentle caution.

Kersels’ five new photographs are also cinematic--and wonderful. In each, the artist held a different friend by the ankles and whirled him or her around; the centrifugally spinning friend, armed with a still camera, then took a picture of Kersels in mid-spin. The huffing, puffing blurs of color and distorted context that result put the viewer behind the lens of a moving picture. Artist, camera operator and audience all dissolve into the dizzying visual vortex.

Eleven colored pencil drawings complete this satisfying show. Each is a reverse silhouette of a radio or television antenna, with the background rendered in a single, saturated hue and the antenna left blank. A simple but pointed signal is sent by pictures in which the device that sends out invisible waves of information is itself left invisible, while the surrounding context that reveals its shape is alive with vibrant color.

BE THERE

Martin Kersels: Brake Squeal, Bird Flap, Boing Box, Whirling Photos and other new work, Dan Bernier Gallery, 6150 Wilshire Blvd., (323) 936-1021, through Oct. 9. Closed Sundays and Mondays.