An Uneven Challenge to Bounds of Accessibility

Like other preeminent performance and video artists of her pioneering generation, Joan Jonas has experimented with various ways of presenting works, trying to find a form that does not require her constant physical presence yet still packs more punch than conventional videos. A rare and uneven exhibition of new works at Rosamund Felsen Gallery displays some recent attempts to transfer the raw intimacy of an ongoing performance to the static space of an art gallery.

The first half of Jonas’ two-part show consists of more than three dozen oil stick drawings, black-and-white photographs and color prints. Most depict various versions of a dog’s face and a fossil whose silhouette resembles the dog’s profile. The images have the presence of personal souvenirs, mementos meaningful in relation to the artist’s past performances but mute on their own.

A few of the photos are more engaging. One, which includes positive and negative images of cow dung, milk and a bird decoy, along with a short text taken from an Irish folk tale, leaves you wanting more information, both about the original story and Jonas’ use of it. Three large photos of a woman’s nude body, onto which a slide of densely planted cactuses is projected, provide enough information to stand on their own but still seem more like autobiographical curiosities than discrete works of art.

In contrast, a fairly spare installation in the back gallery breaks out of self-referentiality. Although “Spring Well (Transformation of a Story)” returns to themes in two of Jonas’ videos (from 1974 and 1989, shown on a monitor in a side gallery), the new work also elicits a state of mind akin to daydreaming.

Including a video of a woman underwater, displayed on a monitor set in a mirror-lined well, Jonas’ installation invites viewers to relax the edgy attentiveness usually demanded by contemporary art. Two soothing audiotapes (composed by Leo Smith) and a few props on a table and chairs, surrounded by large, mostly blank sheets of paper, suggest a stage abandoned to the calm that falls between performances. “Spring Well” succeeds because it evokes an unfocused sense of free-flowing reverie.

* Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 828-8488, through June 1. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

Frightening Beauty: Joe Goode’s new paintings at L.A. Louver Gallery begin with a very reasonable idea: Just because something is good to look at doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

With their origin in the realm of concepts, nothing distinguishes these eight highly traditional abstractions from classic Conceptual art--except for the artist’s willingness to try to make something that’s good to look at. If that doesn’t sound like much of a challenge, the dearth of visually compelling Conceptualism should suggest otherwise.

Titled “Global Warming: Pollution Paintings,” Goode’s canvases emphasize the inhuman nature of beauty. Like an abundance of plundered wealth, the best ones (which all happen to be indeterminate fields of rich, glistening golden yellows) draw you into their intoxicating surfaces. They make moral reservations seem like prudish afterthoughts that are ineffective at best.

Goode’s other paintings, composed entirely of deep, sky-like blues, smoggy sunset reds and burning toxic oranges, never seem to express some tortured soul’s deepest feelings; they appear instead to come from somewhere other than the artist’s hand or inner sentiments.

All of Goode’s works have the presence of natural phenomena. Whether you see them as natural disasters or cultural celebrations depends on your views and values, if not on your biases or prejudices. In either case, beauty is frightening and possibly harmful.

* L.A. Louver Gallery, 45 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, (310) 822-4955, through June 8. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

Playful Geometry: Nearly 40 modestly scaled pencil drawings by John Paul Jones at Merging One Gallery look like designs a map maker might draw on his day off. Combining cartography’s precision with casually scribbled doodles, these predominantly black-and-white abstractions play geometric order against random happenstance.

In most, delicately rendered circles, squares and rectangles are arrayed across lightly shaded fields to form irregular patterns. Often tipped at 45-degree angles, these geometric elements appear to be playfully animated, inspired by whimsy rather than logic.

Likewise, Jones’ drawings are presented individually, in pairs, or in series of seven, five, four or three similar works--also in the shape of squares, rectangles, circles and diamonds. To compare and contrast various drawings within a series is to see echoes of one in another, familial resemblances that are intuitive rather than rationally structured. As a group, the 71-year-old artist’s drawings have the presence of graphic designs, pleasant compositions that appeal to personal taste rather than challenging it.

* Merging One Gallery, 1547 6th St., Santa Monica, (310) 395-0033, through June 15. Closed Sundays and Mondays.