Review: Doubt influences work of Sergej Jensen at Regen Projects

Critic Raphael Rubinstein counts Sergej Jensen among “provisional” painters who exercise doubt, along with impossibility and incompleteness, as a core operating principle.

There is an appealing, existentially steeped poetry to Jensen’s approach to making art but also a less enticing measure of pretense. His extensive show at Regen Projects, his first in L.A., encompasses 10 years of work and a range of attitudes and materials.

Jensen, born in Denmark and living in Berlin and New York, uses fabric as both palette and surface. Some of his paintings adopt the conventional formula of pigment on canvas.

The too coyly named “Acrylic Painting II,” with its dark, vaguely sinister figure and mysterious golden orb, sizzles with Scandinavian angst. “Cheddar,” a large orange color field, is a flat joke that depletes faith. And the whispered white and slate strokes of “Japonaise” restore it.

Much of Jensen’s work involves stitched and snagged fabrics, surfaces that have been stained or otherwise sullied. The brown, tarp-like linen of “Factory” has been sewn into a geometric mosaic, at once industrial and lyrical. Other pieces suggest torn and mended skin, scarring.

There is pain here, and it is affecting, but there is also enough posturing for doubt to function as not just a constructive force but also a detrimental distraction.

Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., (310) 276-5424, through Aug. 3. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.regenprojects.com