In his notorious Railroad Collage, Boris Lurie pasted a bare-assed pinup girl onto an image of Holocaust victims dumped on a flatcar. As co-founder of the anti-establishment No!art group, he helped stage (among other acts intended to disgust) the 1964 Shit Show.
A survivor of Nazi death camps, and an artist incensed by trendy pop, Lurie (who died in 2008) had reasons to be angry, and he poured frustrations of all kinds into his work. So it may come as a surprise to find that his early efforts here offer a great deal of charm. Figures drawn in the late 1940s, rendered with expressionistic primitivism, appear like haunting memories of the Latvia the artist left behind. In an exquisite watercolor, a man and woman frolic in a magical light reminiscent of Chagall.
A colorful 1971 silkscreen layering magazine ads and old-fashioned porn is like a Rauschenberg combine, but slicker. All that rage-fueled provocation too often obscured a genuine talent.
Exhibition at Westwood Gallery through July 17
