The bulbous forms and slick, candy-colored surfaces of Victoria Palermo's sculptures -- which look just like blown glass but are in fact made from rubber -- convey an infectiously cheerful tone.
The two most arrestingly sensual works, surprisingly, are those made in the least tactile media. They are also, perhaps less surprisingly, the two that involve food. Maggie Miller's "Passion" is a short, looped video in which we see a hand squeezing a goopy red substance that resembles cherry pie filling out of a hole in a small pastry--an image that, while clearly benign in actuality, is weirdly alarming in a video close-up. In Meredith Allen's photographs, we see Popsicles shaped like the faces of cartoon characters held up to melt beneath a summer sun, their unnaturally bright, sticky colors dripping down to coat the fingers that hold the stick.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday November 07, 2002 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 8 inches; 304 words Type of Material: Correction
Artist's name -- In an art gallery review in Friday's Calendar, artist Elizabeth McGrath, in a group show at Dirt, was misidentified as Elizabeth McGovern.
Simultaneously childish and erotic, these two works proclaim overtly what the rest more discreetly imply: that art is a messy business -- and therein lie its most basic pleasures.
Dirt gallery, 7906 Santa Monica Blvd., No. 218, West Hollywood, (323) 822-9359, through Jan. 4. Closed Sundays through Wednesdays.
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When nature is institutionalized
Lawrence Beck makes large, painstakingly focused photographs of plants in botanical gardens. It's nature photography in a sense, but with a sociological bent: Beck's interest lies less in the visual possibilities of the plants than in the institutional qualities of the setting.
Many of these qualities are subtly embodied in the work's formal structure. The compositions are handsome but oppressively static. Whether in a flower garden, a greenhouse or a desert setting, the point of view is that of the obedient visitor. The camera hovers consistently around eye level, faces each specimen squarely, reads every name tag and doesn't stray from the designated path. Never does one sense a temptation to dunk a hand into the lily pond or secretly snap off a rare blossom.
Despite this rigidity, however, they're very likable pictures. A garden is a pleasant place to be under any circumstances, and this simulation is no exception. A wall of hothouse orchids, a pond overhung with jungle vines, a mound of blood red, cheekily named "Cheerleader" tulips -- Beck's clear-eyed style reveals their charms. Nor does he deny the considerable comfort to be found in the gardens' logic of classification and order.
It's difficult to pinpoint where Beck's sentiments lie in this work. Is he being critical or celebratory? Ironic or sentimental? Like the gardens themselves, however -- which exemplify both the awe of nature and the desire to contain it -- the work seems at ease in its own paradox.
Karyn Lovegrove Gallery, 6150 Wilshire Blvd., No. 8, L.A., (323) 535-1755, through Nov. 16. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
