Opie Landscape Photos Put Sentimentality on Ice

“Icehouses,” a new series of works by Catherine Opie, transports viewers from the dry, sun-drenched streets of Los Angeles to the cold back country of Minnesota. Produced during the artist’s yearlong residency at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, each 40-by-50-inch photograph depicts a snowbound lake shore: a low, modest skyline of bare trees, scattered houses and colorful fishing cabins adrift in wintry white.

The sky, which takes up the top half of each picture, is indistinguishable in color and texture from the frozen water below, and the skyline stretches between them like a patterned ribbon across a flat, blank page. In some of the images the buildings are clear and distinct, while in others they’re almost invisible behind veils of falling snow. The foggiest images are nearly monochromatic.

The work constitutes another chapter in Opie’s ongoing exploration of the American landscape--a project of civic portraiture that has so far come to encompass Minneapolis, St. Louis, New York and L.A. The “Icehouses” series embodies several of the important qualities of these earlier series, such as an unwavering sense of frankness, an unsentimental approach to landscape and an acute appreciation for banality.

If the city pictures--particularly in the “Freeways” and “Wall Street” series (taken in Los Angeles and New York respectively)--demonstrate Opie’s formidable command of the geometric logic of urban space, however, these new works betray a curious degree of abandon. Rather than pinning the landscape into a strict, legible frame, in “Icehouses,” her lens is consumed by it.

The whiteness in this world, one senses, is vivid, fearsome and omnipotent--not so much a product of normal cycles of precipitation as an ethereal governing force. In subjugating formalism to the lyrical power of this presence, Opie has cultivated a new element of poetry. She has produced a portrait of strange but consummate beauty.

Regen Projects, 629 N. Almont Drive, West Hollywood, (310) 276-5424, through June 15. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Conceptualism in

Search of Content

The first piece inside the doors of Mungo Thomson’s exhibition at Margo Leavin Gallery consists of about a dozen pencils--all handmade by Thomson to look perfectly mass produced--stuck irregularly into the ceiling of the gallery’s foyer, as though left there by a bored assistant during installation. Titled “Between Projects” and presumably conceived in a lull betwixt this and his first solo show at the gallery, the work is a poignant expression of ennui. It arouses sympathy for Thomson’s creative block, as well as appreciation for the artistic fortitude that compelled him to forge through the block and carve his own pencils rather than reverting to ready-mades.

By offering a glimpse into the lowest reaches of the artist’s conceptual grab bag, however, the work casts a curious light on the rest of the show. Judging from the number of subsequent works on view, the ennui was clearly temporary.

But one can’t help but wonder whether that grab bag has had adequate time to replenish itself. Though all of the works are perfectly clever, commendably labor-intensive and conceptually promising, they feel notably incomplete--like stray fragments of raw material moving toward a yet unimagined whole.

The best are simple but genuinely humorous. One of these is “Antenna Baldessari,” a series of foam antenna balls endowed with the Santa Claus-like face of conceptual artist John Baldessari and priced to sell. Equally satisfying is “Clipping,” an ink-jet rendition of a New York Times front page that announces the opening of Thomson’s own show, optimistically proclaiming: “Art Exhibition Opens, Changes World.”

In the show’s three larger works, however, the humor runs thin. Thomson falls back upon the presumably intrinsic power of popular imagery.

“Royal Leerdam Crystal Beer Bottle Candle Holders” consists of just that: three dozen lead-crystal beer bottles, mouth-blown by the renowned Dutch glass factory and plugged with melted candle stubs. “Love and Joy” is a life-size replica of a stained-glass window occasionally depicted in the TV cartoon “The Simpsons.” And “The American Desert (for Chuck Jones)” is a DVD projection of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons from which Thomson has digitally removed the characters, leaving only a series of trippy landscape backdrops.

Each is compelling--the latter certainly inspires an appreciation for the animator to whom it’s dedicated--but their benign lack of irony, however heartening in principle, leaves the work feeling flat and directionless. Appreciative appropriation, however cleverly assembled or painstakingly crafted, simply isn’t enough to carry the work to fruition.

With a spare, conceptually oriented show of this ilk, one hopes to find--or at least sense behind the scenes--a grab bag spilling over with ideas, a cache of concepts plentiful enough to lend a quality of tautness to the refined final product. This work is pointing in that direction; one suspects it just needs some time.

Margo Leavin Gallery, 812 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 273-0603, through June 15. Closed Sunday and Monday.

For the Wicked,

It’s a Bug’s Life

Rooted in the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration, whereby unsavory individuals are believed to reincarnate into lower life forms until they prove themselves again worthy of a human existence, Viktor Koen’s large, digitally constructed prints imagine a race of corporate executives reborn as fearsome insects.

These individuals--”bureaucrats with punished souls,” Koen writes in his statement--aren’t, as Pythagoras might have hoped, humbled creatures seeking to repent. Rather, they are “willing adapters of a predatory modus operandi,” whose ruthless instincts, naturally disguised in human form, are outwardly manifest in their current state--a strange hybrid of human, insect and machine.

Considering the parallels between today’s “aggressive corporate behavior patterns” and the “strife and competition” inherent in the insect world, Koen grimly concludes that, far from suffering, these tight-lipped, steely-eyed men would be “perfectly comfortable in their new suits.” The images, in keeping with the elaborate statement, are impressively complex.

Each creature has a vaguely human head and shoulders, classically clad in suit and tie, and at least one arm. Each has a different set of wings (fly, butterfly, moth, dragonfly, etc.), some sort of antennae and a variety other insect parts fused to their human flesh. At their base--where a human abdomen would be--they reveal intricate mechanical skeletons, equipped with triggered levels and fierce blades.

These are visually seamless constructions: structurally coherent and unnervingly believable. Koen is clearly taking cues from Hollywood--it isn’t difficult to imagine these creatures buzzing through the latest sci-fi blockbuster--but remains faithful to the demands of the fine art context by imbuing the works with the stately conventions of traditional portraiture. Indeed, rarely does one see digital technology used so fittingly outside cinema--that is, to create something new and convincing without drawing undue attention to the novelty of the medium.

Merry Karnowsky Gallery, 170 N. La Brea Ave., (323) 933-4408, through May 25. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Mexican Pinups

Reborn as Art

The 26 photographs on view in “Mexotica: Mid-Century Mexican Glamour Portraits” were produced from a stash of anonymous negatives discovered by photographer and Fototeka co-founder Merrick Morton in a small antiques store in Mexico City. It must have been an exciting find.

They’re marvelous pictures: spare, stylized pinup shots taken in the late 1950s, possibly for men’s magazines like Vea and Vo-Devil. (Research by the gallery has led to no definitive conclusions regarding photographer or provenance.) Though tame by today’s standards, they are strikingly sensual, featuring an array of sturdy, graceful, full-figured women in various states of dress, all vaguely mimicking the conventions of Hollywood imagery.

The pictures seem to have been produced cheaply and quickly. The settings are minimal and seem to be centrally located, as the few pieces of furniture--a draped platform, a pink chaise lounge, a fake column, several scattered vines--reappear throughout. The low-budget quality of the images, however, only underscores their glamorous aspirations and playful enjoyment (whether on the part of the photographer or the model) of modern material culture.

Produced for this exhibition as C-prints, the photographs convey an exquisite luminosity that would not likely have been realized in their originally published state. Thus the gallery setting offers a unique opportunity to appreciate their artistry.

It is also possible in this context to view the images not only as pinups but as portraits presenting an intriguing variety of women. Some are as openly flirty and playful as one might expect, but others are nervous or frightened; others are plainly indifferent. Some seem to be worrying about what their mother might think, while others are clearly thinking only of their paycheck.

This unintentional diversity of expression gives one an appreciation for the wide variety of reasons why these women might have found themselves posing in this particular studio. It substantiates the archive’s quirky historical value.

Fototeka, 1549 Echo Park Ave., (323) 250-4686, through June 2. Closed Monday through Thursday.