Exhibition Explores the Space of a Split Second

There is something tantalizingly elusive about the objects--sculptures, photographs and videos--in Roman Signer’s current exhibition of recent work. Though presented on their own terms (not merely as documentation), each seems to reflect the essence of a piece rather than embodying it entirely.

This essence--and Signer’s true medium--is the event: the ephemeral instant of interaction between two or more carefully chosen items: a bullet and a tabletop, a kayak and a gravel road, a heater and a block of ice. The Swiss artist’s approach to the dynamics of the event, refined over several decades, is characterized by a Zen-like lucidity. Composed with simple, elemental items, a clean aesthetic and a dry sense of humor, each work resonates with the spare potency of haiku.

Many of the works hinge upon a moment of impact or explosion. In one video, for example, 100 grapefruit-sized iron balls, hanging from the ceiling of a gallery in a symmetrical grid, fall simultaneously into an equal number of soft clay bricks--a spectacularly noiseless sight. (Several of the clay-embedded balls are installed individually nearby.) Another quiet gesture of violence is contained in a sculpture called “Shot (Schuss)” (2002), which consists of a simple wood table with a jagged hole at the center, made, on some previous occasion, by a bullet shot through a curved metal tube that is affixed to the underside of the table.

Other works explore duration and the anticipation of collapse: a hot iron in a video slowly burns through the top of a wooden crate as it floats in a body of water; an oil barrel balances precariously on an inflated balloon that’s been stuffed between the rungs of a tilted ladder. Installed directly in the gallery, this last piece makes the possibility of collapse an ever-present threat.

Among the most memorable works in this thorough and wonderfully satisfying exhibition--one of the few exhibitions of his work yet to be mounted in the United States--is “Two Wheels (Zwei Ra der)” (2002), which consists of a tall industrial fan positioned so that its wind circulates a bicycle tire affixed to a wall. Though almost laughably simple, the perfect alignment of the piece exemplifies the peculiar but rather beautiful logic of Signer’s style--a style that moves beyond self-congratulatory cleverness in search of perfect alignment, however transient.

Margo Leavin Gallery, 812 N. Robertson Blvd., L.A., (310) 273-0603, through Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday.

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Yamamoto Leaves Space for Imagination to Enter

The title of Japanese artist Masao Yamamoto’s current exhibition of photographs, his first in Southern California, is “Nakazora,” a Buddhist term that means “empty air” or “the space between sky and earth.” The title, at least in translation, aptly characterizes the refined sense of spaciousness that pervades both Yamamoto’s images and his method of installation.

The images are fragmentary, poetic and occasionally abstract. Most depict landscapes and natural subjects; when human beings appear, their presence is minimal. It is a quiet, muted and very delicate world, stewing in a sense of meditation and personal reverie. Color is employed sparingly but wisely; soft sepia and gray tones predominate.

There are hundreds of images in all--most snapshot-sized or smaller (some are only an inch or two wide)--and the majority are fixed directly to the walls in scattered arrangements that resemble frozen swarms of sepia-toned butterflies. The personal scale and elegant arrangements bring out the best in the images, lending each the quality of a tiny treasure.

Framed groupings of three or four pictures in another room are considerably less striking; while the juxtapositions are intelligent, the works feel prefabricated--as though for easy sale--and the images are stifled by the artificial confines of the frame.

For its overall effect, the work relies unabashedly on the romanticism of the aging photograph: Each image is conscientiously manipulated to look handled, with creases and tattered edges to match the dusty tones.

While the same tendency might have led a lesser artist down the road of greeting card sentimentality, Yamamoto’s eye for clear, intelligent beauty ultimately prevails. There are simply no dull images, and many that are nearly perfect: a very faint wisp of cloud that resembles a ballerina; a gaggle of geese silhouetted against a yellowing sky; a single orange flower and a corner of blue curtain against a wall of glowing white.

It’s a shame that the real world isn’t always this lovely.

Craig Krull Gallery, 2525 Michigan Ave. B3, Santa Monica, (310) 828-6410, through May 18. Closed Sunday and Monday.

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Mallmann Moves Toward Light at End of the Tunnel

In a written statement explaining the genesis of his new series of paintings, Arturo Mallmann describes entering a house that was built into the side of a mountain in a remote village in Morocco. Inside, he found himself following a corridor that led deep into the earth; it grew darker, cooler and more ominous as he progressed until, he says, “I became afraid that if I kept walking I was going to be erased from existence.”

If Mallmann’s journey to Morocco inspired the series as a whole--fragments of his photographs from the trip emerge from time to time, preserved beneath his thick, glassy paint-like relics--it is this moment of anxiety in the corridor that seems to structure all of the individual works. Some version of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel--the light Mallmann likely encountered when he began to move out of the corridor--glows at the center of every painting, while blackness creeps in ominously around the edges.

The works are heavy, dark and earnestly expressionistic. The compositions are, at their best, very simple: Most involve some sort of passageway or alley and a draped, roughly hewn figure or two, occasionally in the company of a burro or camel. In the smaller works (around 20-by-15 inches), this arrangement elicits a compelling intensity. The depth of field, though sketchily conveyed, is pointed and daunting. A genuine sense of spiritual awe reverberates through the fluid paint, and one understands Mallmann’s fear of disappearing: The darkness is thick and viscous, the light celestial.

The larger works lose some of this focused intensity. In attempting to incorporate the space, Mallmann spreads his compositional tricks thin and inadvertently sacrifices the sense of mystical abstraction. The loose articulation of the figures is also less persuasive on a larger scale; they seem not so much spirit-like as simply unformed.

That said, the conviction behind the series is commendably sincere and leaves one longing for a journey of one’s own.

Iturralde Gallery, 116 S. La Brea Ave., L.A., (323) 937-4267, through May 18. Closed Sunday and Monday.

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Tevis Invites Viewer to Look Through Porthole

In a body of recent prints on view at Goldman Tevis, Tom Baldwin has abandoned his standard rectangular format to explore the proportions of the circle. In the porthole-like prints that result, Baldwin’s characteristic fragments of free-floating color seem to have found a new center of gravity.

The works come in two diameters--123/4 inches and 30 inches--and line opposite walls in even rows. The smaller of these--ink-jet prints made in collaboration with Gilbert Bretterbauer--are characterized by a compelling sense of exploration. Flat, generic forms such as disks, squares, stripes and floral shapes jostle cozily within the format, as if searching for an optimal balance. The colors are bold and happily artificial (baby blues, corals, hot pinks, deep purples and greens ranging from lime to olive). The compositions are tight and energetic.

The larger works lack the taut dynamism of the smaller--the centrifugal force loosens its hold and the shapes float more haphazardly--but convey instead a pleasant element of disintegration.

Their colors are softer--half of the works are dominated by warm reds, oranges and tans, while the other half tends toward blues--and the shapes more varied.

The inclusion of five photographs depicting the lush greenery of a park or nature preserve--agreeable if unspectacular photographs in their own right--seems at first idiosyncratic, even unnecessary, but ultimately supports the show’s explorative mood.

Indeed, the series as a whole feels a little like a walk in the park; where the path leads is not so important as the shapes and colors one encounters along the way.

Goldman Tevis, 932 Chung King Road, L.A., (213) 617-8217, through May 4. Closed Sunday-Tuesday.