Those who worship at the altar of...

Those who worship at the altar of Joseph Beuys will find a rich reliquary in Griffin Contemporary these days. Those who aren’t disciples or aren’t aware of Beuys’ significance in allying the forces of art and social reform will have a tough time being won over by the understated Beuys ephemera on view.

“Whenever anyone sees my things, then I myself appear to him,” Beuys once said, playing into his status as charismatic guru, prophet and shaman. For all of the star power he commanded, however, the German-born Beuys (1921-1986) advocated an art--and a life--based on collaboration and fraternity, modeled after socialism and its symbol, the beehive. He preached a gospel of healing, both personal and societal, that was rooted in his revelatory World War II survival experience.

Piloting a dive bomber, Beuys crashed when his plane was hit by enemy fire and downed in a blizzard. Nomadic Tartars brought him, unconscious, into their tents, where they salved his wounds in animal fat, wrapped him in felt and nursed him back to health. Warmth and healing returned as core ideas in his art, and felt, fat and honey all came to represent for him the “warmth principle.” At Griffin, there’s a man’s suit sewn of thick gray felt and a postcard reading (in German), “Give me honey.”

After the war, Beuys attended the State Academy of Art in Dsseldorf, where he taught from 1961 until 1972, when he was dismissed by an administration that regarded him as a false prophet--far too revolutionary and democratic for the institution’s sake. He wanted to make a free university of the school and ban the practice of admitting students based on the quality of their portfolios.

Art, he felt, should be within everyone’s means. Creativity is a capacity latent in all but in need of cultivation, and that cultivation promises the betterment of the species. At stake for Beuys was no less than the survival of spiritual values in a material age.

Thought, action and art were synonymous in Beuys’ view, and through the various manifestations of his ideas--performance, political action and the creation of objects--he did as much as Duchamp to redefine what constitutes a work of art. His work embodies a basic, circular logic: Life generates art, art transforms life. The postcards, imprinted shopping bags and silk-screened chalkboards here are all multiples that Beuys editioned in large numbers to help spread the word.

This show, guest-curated by Hamburg-based art historian Beatrice Foessel for the L.A. International Biennial, preaches to the converted, but with a bit of effort, even new initiates can access Beuys’ message. It’s a message that he didn’t originate, but that traces back to centuries-old uses of art as a means of evolutionary and revolutionary change. Or, as Beuys might put it, as the means toward social salvation.

Griffin Contemporary, 55 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, (310) 578-2280, through Sept. 1. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

*

Whimsical Metaphysics: Laughter trickles through the Gallery Luisotti these days, whether or not any visitors happen by. The work of Oreste Selvatico seems to laugh on its own as it whimsically, earnestly investigates conditions of love, knowledge and ambition.

On an old wooden table, he has set up a homespun distillery, complete with coil burner, copper tubing, plastic conduits and several variably filled glass bottles. One bottle, poised above the burner, holds strips of printed text suspended in whiskey. In a charming verbal and visual double-entendre, Selvatico has enacted a “Distillation of the Spirits of the Text,” a pseudo-scientific method for extracting heady essences.

Nearby is “A Working Model of Her Heart,” again a contraption that seems built for the lab, with all of its clamps and funnels and tubes, but the bicycle pump, wineglass and cork worked into the mix soften its seriousness. The setup delivers no data, only smiles, like an endearing love letter.

Selvatico, who lives on a farm near Naples, Italy, has a resourcefulness that the art world might trace to the Arte Povera or assemblage movements, but the wider world would associate with the comedy of necessity practiced by the likes of Buster Keaton. There is tremendous humanity at work here, marrying Selvatico’s spirit of inquiry to his spirit of innocence. This, his first U.S. show, was organized by Italian curator Rosanna Albertini and is another fine component of the L.A. International Biennial. It presents a deeply intelligent body of work that reads like a material diary of metaphysical questions.

“I build my art pieces in my own way,” Selvatico says. “There is no philosophy behind them, they only make me certain that I exist.”

Gallery Luisotti, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 453-0043, through Sept. 8. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

*

On Familiar Ground: The formidable tradition of British figurative painting doesn’t get much new fuel to burn in this Flowers West show featuring one work each by 15 painters.

Tai-Shan Schierenberg’s lovely study of a pregnant woman sleeping is just that--a pretty and tame slice of the same territory covered with far more visceral punch by Lucian Freud. Schierenberg paints with a loaded, agitated brush, yet his work manages to feel devoid of texture. Sensual, but too safely so, this example of Schierenberg’s feels like a generic version of the real thing--Freud Lite, low in calories, low in demands to the eye or psyche.

Alison Watt’s painting of a standing nude seen from jaw to hip is less obviously resolved and more compelling for its awkwardness. The woman, rendered in an insistently bland range of pale flesh tones, clasps one bent arm at the wrist as if holding tight a bunch of flowers. The fingers that rise like blossoms are slightly oversized and thick, their gracelessness imbuing the portrait with poignancy and pathos.

Paintings by Derek Boshier, Peter Howson, Lucy Jones, Kevin Sinott and others round out this L.A. International Biennial show, which awakens little response, visual or emotional, much less visceral.

Flowers West, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., (310) 586-9200, through Sept. 8. Closed Sunday and Monday.

*

A Vibrant Mix: Low-maintenance shows--the inventory trotted out, no particular theme applied--are the low-expectation norm during the late summer, so deviations are always welcome. The L.A. International Biennial has been a boon in this regard, quickening an otherwise lethargic summer pulse.

Sandroni Rey’s current show offers a reprieve as well, in its sampler of young and mid-career artists new to the gallery. Several have had little or no West Coast exposure, and the selection feels fresh.

It gets off to a bracing start with Marilyn Minter’s painting “Soft Micro Baby.” An infant’s face fills the 24-square-inch panel from edge to edge, and the intense scrutiny turns the wondrous visage into an odd and disconcerting mask. One blue eye retains its sparkling purity, while the other, slightly in shadow, metamorphoses into an unseeing sapphire pool. The New York-based Minter has mined this kind of double-edged seduction/repulsion before, and she is practiced at bringing the familiar so close that it becomes alien and unsettling.

The other seducer in the bunch is Judy Glantzman, also from New York, whose untitled painting of a young girl in ballet tutu coalesces out of a soft swarm of pink and rose brush strokes. She evokes not one introspective moment, but two--that of the girl in the picture, whose eyes lock onto the middle distance, and that of the painter, building the image out of fleeting wisps of memory.

Diego Gravinese, from Argentina, contributes an amusing painting that literally maps desire, place names and all, and Athens-based Vangelis Vlahos presents elegant architectural drawings of Modernist homes mysteriously under siege. New Yorkers Cadence Giersbach, Lisa Roy, and Carolanna Parlato, L.A.-based Carl Bronson and Texas-based Chris Kysor make less remarkable contributions to the show, but nevertheless add vibrancy and geographical diversity to the mix.

*

Sandroni Rey, 1224 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, (310) 392-3404, through Saturday.