LA CIENEGA AREA

There’s a seductive pull about sculptor Barry Le Va’s show of drawings and collages, 1966-86. They imply that it’s possible to put your arms around his ideas, to contain them on paper and, finally, to understand them. It’s a fickle promise, in a way, for Le Va’s work isn’t to be understood in the way of rigid systems. His art is as much about the physical activity of making problematic sculpture as about what that activity produces.

One of many artists to question the idea of sculpture as a precious, permanent object, Le Va (who left Los Angeles for New York in 1970) became known for temporary installations of such scattered materials as wood, ball bearings and fabric. More recently, he has filled the floors of large galleries with low-slung, maze-like configurations of wooden planks and fiberglass spheres. Even this relatively precise, geometric work can be difficult to assimilate. With no gestalt and no center of interest, his transient sculpture seems the very antithesis of unity.

There is, however, a rhythmic structure to his work and this is what gives the drawings their appeal. Brought down to the size of a sheet of paper (however big), the repetitive arcs, junctures and piles of particles suggest a grand vision that views order as a continuum of energetic rearrangements. While some of his drawings are simple diagrams and sketches of sculptural installations, others are handsome works of art that have a surprisingly romantic cast to their dynamic sweep of form in motion. (Daniel Weinberg Gallery, 619 N. Almont Drive, to April 5.)