SANTA MONICA

Reinhard Voigt, a German artist who moved to New York in 1978 and to Los Angeles two years ago, combines precisely painted grids with found objects and others that are specially fashioned. In a show of eight acrylic-on-canvas works he cuts away rectangular sections of the standard picture plane and either leaves them as voids or inserts unexpected elements: a wooden toy dog standing on a shelf, a plywood form that resembles a bush, photographs of TV images. One logical way to interpret all this is in terms of contrast, of counterpoint between formality and spontaneity.

Viewed that way, the whole exercise seems arbitrary and overly concerned with slickly designed, fastidiously produced objects. Fortunately, two canvases with inset photographs of TV screens present the possibility of another reading. The photographic images, reduced to computer-like squares that spell out words or suggest a face, echo the gridded format and seem to insinuate themselves into the paintings. TV information, however scant and inadequate, seems to dominate the art much as it dominates our lives. That may not be what the artist had in mind, but it’s more interesting to think about than one more attempt to reconcile opposites. (Angles Gallery, 2230 Main St., to Nov. 20.)