A newly varnished reputation

Karl Benjamin enjoyed a moment in the spotlight in 1959, when critic Jules Langsner coined the term “hard edge” to describe his paintings along with those of Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley and John McLaughlin, which he included in a legendary exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art titled “Four Abstract Classicists.” Langsner was right on the money with his “hard edge” definition. But how he came up with the idea of classicism is anyone’s guess.

Benjamin’s paintings are fruitier than nut cakes, so chockablock with wonky colors and eccentric shapes that it’s hard to imagine anyone linking them to the balance, rationality and restraint typically inspired by the ancients. At Louis Stern Fine Arts, a smart selection of 20 paintings from 1954 to 1964 shows Benjamin to be an American original.

Today, his works look as fresh as the moment they were made. (Recently cleaned and newly varnished, their impeccably painted surfaces look as if they’re still wet.) Although the L.A. artist is not as well-known as he deserves to be, his reputation is on the upswing -- especially among color-loving painters appreciative of an artist who not only spent his 50-year career marching to the beat of his own drum but often switched tempos in mid-stride. Still, he managed to make everything in his best paintings look too good to be true.

The exhibition is arranged coloristically, not chronologically. Red, white and blue dominate the first gallery. But delicious bubblegum pinks, fiery orange accents, lavish lipstick tints and resplendent shades of burgundy turn Benjamin’s reds into something of a rainbow coalition.

A slew of fine-tuned pastel blues diversifies this slice of the spectrum. Off-balance white stripes and bars appear to expand or contract, depending on their temperatures and those of the colors that snugly abut them, like jigsaw-puzzle pieces. Patriotism is playfully evoked, as are jazzy valentines, Martian sunsets, TV sets, autumn leaves and the folding screens behind which starlets used to undress.

The second gallery features green -- lime, forest and olive -- accented by a big rectangle of plum and an even bigger circle of eggplant. Compositionally, these are Benjamin’s most stable paintings, ranging from syncopated checkerboards (that make your eyes buzz) to a mismatched diptych of concentric rectangles (that makes Josef Albers look like a dutiful schoolboy).

The final gallery includes the earliest work, “Red Sun, Blue Moon” (1954); one of the most recent, “VH” (1963); and five intervening pieces. Together, they allow viewers to see the spiraling course of Benjamin’s development -- from symbolic landscapes to interlocked, Cubist-derived planes, and from rhythmic vertical stripes to fractured grids and fragmented systems. Intuition plays an increasingly potent role throughout the decade.

As Benjamin’s compositions grow more emphatic, his colors turn more saturated and his paint handling becomes more sensual. As a rule, he sets up systems just to discombobulate them.

Apart from the lovingly brushed surfaces, the edges of each shape are razor sharp. But what’s most remarkable are the colors and the aplomb with which Benjamin juxtaposes weird tertiary colors in combinations that make no sense intellectually but are indescribably beautiful. With an eye on design and a deep love of the unexpected, his eccentric paintings provide a treasure trove of pleasure for anyone interested in visual magic.

Louis Stern Fine Arts, 9002 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (310) 276-0147, through April 10. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Too much fun to be called elegant

Paul Feeley (1910-1966) makes simplicity and sophistication look as if they go hand in glove. That’s usually a recipe for elegance, which tends to be snooty. But his enamels on canvas are too goofy to put viewers in mind of highbrow refinement.

Readily accessible and a whole lotta fun, Feeley’s nine paintings at the Daniel Weinberg Gallery reject the idea that abstract art must be serious and difficult if it’s to be beautiful or significant. Cheerful colors, curvy contours and casual patterns show him to be a master of relaxation. His deliciously innocent pictures make Matisse look like an overachiever -- an artist who had to work hard to make hedonism look easy.

The pleasures Feeley’s paintings deliver have more to do with doodles drawn by a hand that knows the rigors of discipline and the comforts of structure. The motifs in all but one are symmetrical.

Three little canvases from 1961 have round holes cut out of their centers. This allows you to see through to the wall behind. Such illusion-banishing truthfulness was essential to Minimalism, which was on the rise at the time. But Feeley was already poking fun at it. Mimicking the format of picture frames, his gleeful works refused to purge decoration from art.

Two big paintings from 1962 resemble tick-tack-toe diagrams whose lines have ballooned into plump appendages. Their complementary colors cause them to pulse.

Movement plays an even bigger role in two works from 1963. One resembles an infinity symbol with a knot tied in the middle. The other recalls nothing less than a Barnett Newman “zip” to which five speed bumps have been added in an effort to slow down viewers.

In a 1964 interview, Feeley said, “Man’s nutty enough, what he really needs is something to allow him to ease off.” The two paintings on display from that year feature repeated shapes that seem to exhale -- as if they’re expanding outward, like cells undergoing mitosis.

Forty years ago, Feeley’s canvases made odd bedfellows of Pop Art and Color Field painting. Today, they’re still right on the mark -- and more influential than ever.

Daniel Weinberg Gallery, 6148 Wilshire Blvd., (323) 954-8425, through Feb. 7. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Harnessing the subtle play of light

Monique van Genderen makes electrifying paintings out of the scraps she scavenges from her day job. The L.A. artist runs a company that designs and installs vinyl wall labels for galleries and museums. At night, she cuts and pastes leftover sections of the adhesive vinyl film to wood panels that have been covered with glossy coats of bright white enamel. She then accents her abstract images with carefully placed swipes of oil paint.

At the Happy Lion Gallery, it’s hard to say whether her 12 new works (on wood and vellum, plus one 16-footer on the wall itself) are paintings, collages or installations. But it’s also unclear how much more you’d know about Van Genderen’s lively hybrids if you could tell what category they belonged to. It’s far more interesting to think of her mixed-media pieces as Light and Space art for the impatient.

Like the 1960s originals, Van Genderen engineers trippy experiences for viewers attuned to subtle shifts in their surroundings. But rather than fabricate elaborate stage sets that zero in on singular instants, she constructs sturdy, transportable pieces whose reflective and semi-translucent surfaces respond to all sorts of lighting conditions.

And rather than require viewers to scrutinize gradual perceptual transformations as daylight softens into dusk, Van Genderen speeds things up. She uses reflective vinyl that changes color when viewed from different angles. One step is all it takes for the background to shift from rosy white to faded beige or from lavender to metallic green.

The large, nearly mural-scale works are even more like chameleons. Shimmering silver sections appear to be, by turns, sparkling fields of diamond dust, pristine blank pages, frost-coated windows or opaque chunks of ice.

Landscape references abound in her “Winter Space Paintings.” The light that emanates from their snow-white surfaces is cool and crisp, like that of a sun that never rises very high in the sky. With impressive deftness and occasional grace, her contemplative works are impure paintings for movers and shakers who grew up on TV and live in a world cluttered with computer screens and DVD monitors. Think of her art as instant gratification in slow motion.

Happy Lion Gallery, 963 Chung King Road, Chinatown, (213) 625-1360, through Feb. 14. Closed Sundays through Tuesdays.

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Big gestures and intimate views

Howard Hodgkin’s exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery fills three rooms. They look, respectively, good, better and best.

The first is dominated by five large framed wood panels that the 71-year-old British artist has worked over in his trademark fashion: slathering loose swipes of paint in big gestures, or jabbing oil-loaded brushes to leave humongous dabs of organic color. Both flourishes spill off the central panels and onto the frames, suggesting that Hodgkin’s pieces are bursting with energy.

It’s as if he’s supersizing Impressionism or channeling Seurat’s Pointillism through German Expressionist art. As a painter, however, Hodgkin is an intimist, and working in such dimensions is not his forte.

The five paintings measure from 7 to 8 feet on a side. As a group, they are tentative and stiff. Some feel unfinished, like cartoonish under-paintings, or unresolved, as if each brushstroke is unable to stand up to the vast landscape it’s lost in.

“Rhode Island” and “The Body in the Library” are more decisive. They show Hodgkin getting comfortable with the large format.

The next room contains only four modestly scaled paintings. But they pack more punch than all the big ones put together. Across their flat panels and thick, sometimes ornately carved, frames, Hodgkin lets his colors clash dramatically, pitting deep sea blues against fiery oranges or playing lime green off tangerine.

The raucous spirit of Kim MacConnel’s repainted furniture and recycled paintings from the 1970s lives on in Hodgkin’s most audacious works. But MacConnel’s not a name that comes up in much writing about the British artist, which is too reverential for its own good.

Upstairs in the third gallery, everything rises to the next level. The two long walls are lined with page-size works painted on panels set in secondhand frames, newly built ones, cut planks and even an old breadboard. These juicy jewels show Hodgkin at his best, compressing psychologically complicated landscapes into small spaces that expand when you visually enter them. Seemingly aggressive gestures are transformed into remarkably gentle touches.

Gagosian Gallery, 456 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 271-7400, through Feb. 14. Closed Sundays and Mondays.