Taking on elements of Picasso

The style that became Picasso’s trademark is characterized by a prevailing sense of visual catastrophe, achieved largely through the chopping, skewing and scattering of recognizable forms across the space of paper or canvas. Noses drift onto foreheads, eyes fall askew, arms sprout at unlikely angles. It’s an aggressive, even ruthless technique that was rarely flattering to the women in Picasso’s life but came to a chilling sort of fruition in his 1937 masterpiece “Guernica,” a painting that evokes the devastation wrought by the German bombing of a Spanish town.

Deborah Grant engages Picasso on his own terms in her smart, agile and visually exhilarating exhibition at Steve Turner Contemporary, chopping, skewing and scattering many of his signature forms into her own compositions to address the current war and other contemporary issues. The hashing begins with the exhibition’s title, “A Gin Cure,” an anagram of “Guernica.” Several poster-size works on paper combine black silhouettes of “Guernica” forms -- the horse, the bull, a human figure, an arm gripping a broken sword -- with fields of Grant’s own intricate doodling. These forms reappear in another series as wall-mounted, birch panel cutouts, their surfaces covered with more doodles, cartoonish figures, bits of text, blocks of color and other motifs.

The remaining works were made on 18- by 24-inch squares of blackboard. Some are enamel paintings, rendered on the dark ground in shades of white and gold; the others involve white paper cutouts. The latter, which combine several of the same “Guernica” forms with more realistic silhouettes of tanks, houses and children, among other things, are the most striking of the show’s works and arguably the most powerful. Grant’s isolation of the forms underscores their intrinsic urgency.

The work is less critique or homage than an energetic dialogue, in which Grant marshals the potency of Picasso’s form and winds it into her own graphic vocabulary to address the state of the world today. They’re complex, deeply felt works that take time to penetrate but definitely reward the effort.

Also on view at the gallery is “P2-3D,” a 2003 video installation by Ruben Ortiz-Torres and Yoshua Okon dedicated to the life, work and philosophy of one Bill Al Capone Mufflers, an East L.A. muffler dealer with character to spare. His Whittier Boulevard shop, El Pedorrero (The Farter), is designed according to an elaborate system of color theory devised by the proprietor, and doubles as a museum containing just about every sort of tchotchke you can imagine.

Mr. Muffler expounds on a variety of topics over the course of the 14-minute video, including gender relations, advertising, the “Mona Lisa,” the social function of the museum and something he refers to as “the pure science of the truth of life.” He speaks with such authority that his rather mystifying theories come to seem weirdly plausible.

In tribute, no doubt, to the fantastic peculiarity of their subject’s world, the artists have rendered the entire video in 3-D, providing special glasses for viewing. Occasionally, they embellish the footage with wonderfully corny effects -- plastic snakes that lunge out at you, free-floating penises, shots that exaggerate the tremendous roundness of their subject’s belly. The optics take getting used to -- it’s impossible, I eventually realized, to get the effect of the 3-D and read the subtitles at the same time (the dialogue is in Spanish) -- and you might walk out feeling a little blurry, but the exertion is well worth it.

Steve Turner Contemporary, 275 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 200, Beverly Hills, (310) 271-3721, through Feb. 23. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.steveturnergallery .com

Paintings create a sense of absence

The paintings in Chris Vasell’s first exhibition at Blum & Poe Gallery, in 2005, were lush, mysterious works, characterized by veil upon veil of dark, watery pigment. In many cases the veils draped over ghostly outlines of faces or eyes, which lent an ominous weight to the show’s title: “Don’t go outside they’re waiting for you.”

In his current show, he achieves a similarly haunting effect by moving in the opposite direction -- not layering over, but peeling away. Most of the paintings hardly look like paintings at all, more like raw canvas that’s been rolled up in someone’s basement too long, become stained, water damaged and slightly moldy, or like paintings that have been rubbed clean with turpentine (though all of these works are acrylic, not oil). Each harbors a telling, poetic sense of absence, a seemingly basic effect that depends on a masterful handling of the materials. The project, according to the gallery’s news release, has something to do with a series of psychological apperception tests that involved the work of early 20th century painter Charles Burchfield, which presumably explains the one otherwise anomalous addition: a slightly smaller painting composed of Burchfield-like forms. Whatever the conceptual significance, however, it detracts from the rigorously experiential quality of the other works and feels unnecessary.

The one other painting, in the back room -- a pale, woozy composition involving overlapping pairs of concentric circles, emanating like ripples from a pair of eyes -- is far more compelling. In his early 30s, Vasell has a confident, original way with paint and a remarkable talent for subtlety and effect that makes one eager to see where he’ll go from here.

Blum & Poe, 2754 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 836-2062, through Feb. 24. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

www.blumandpoe.com

A tender view along the coast

There’s a fullness to the air of a seaside town that illuminates the beauty of simple things, encouraging one to take life just a little slower, and it’s palpable in the photographs of French-born, U.K.-based Magali Nougarede, now at Louis Stern Fine Arts. Taken in coastal communities around East Sussex, England, her pictures are sharp, clear and deliciously full-bodied. The palette has a sweet, confectionary quality -- powder blues, bubble-gum pinks and poppy reds -- without feeling sickly or slight, and the compositions are formal without feeling stiff.

Most of Nougarede’s subjects are either young or quite old, and she photographs them with tender but clear-headed concern. She fixates on illuminating details: the hands of her elderly subjects, folded over neatly buttoned tweeds; the glossy folds of a hipster’s turquoise track suit; the embroidered word “sexy” across the rear of a young woman’s sweat pants. The patterns and texture of the fabrics speak volumes about the generational gulfs these communities encompass.

They’re intensely feminine images, in the best sense: grounded, attentive and deeply affectionate without succumbing to sentimentality. It’s telling that the show’s three most potentially sappy images are among the strongest works. Each depicts a different young girl: one peering through binoculars, one through a telescope and one suspended in a joyful leap against the blue sky. Nougarede’s motherly fondness, tempered by compositional acumen, illuminates these subjects in the best possible light.

Louis Stern Fine Arts, 9002 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (310) 276-0147, through March 3. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.louissternfinearts.com

Capturing a gritty, sensuous reality

The quality of character that imbues the work in Miguel Rio Branco’s exhibition at Christopher Grimes Gallery is epitomized in the title of the show’s video: “I Won’t Take Anything With Me When I Die, Those Who Owe Me Something Will Pay Me in Hell.” Made in the late 1970s in the Brazilian city of Salvador, the film and the photographs that accompany it document the many facets of an impoverished urban community.

The video is loose and largely atmospheric, blending still and moving images against a widely varying musical soundtrack. It’s a rambling tour with no real narrative, led primarily by the fluctuating mood of the music: from joyous to sorrowful, sexy to violent. The murky quality of the footage can be frustrating, but it’s absorbing nonetheless.

The photographs -- many of which appear in the film -- are much sharper. It’s a welcome difference; their vivid color infuses this world with life.

A few focus on architectural details -- a black dress hanging on a line, a checkerboard, a tiled wall. But most portray individuals: prostitutes (mostly nude), cafe or barroom patrons, others loitering in the streets and in doorways, including, in one of the most striking pictures, a shirtless young man with a fighting rooster under each arm. Rio Branco’s approach is neither romantic nor patronizing but feels deeply enmeshed with the reality of the community. It is a full-bodied, gritty, sensuous portrait.

Christopher Grimes Gallery, 916 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 587-3373, through March 3. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.cgrimes.com