Santa Monica

New York artist Nancy Dwyer carries the torch for the holy cult of Jean Baudrillard in paintings and three-dimensional pieces that are entirely composed of words.

The idea has its amusing side--fancy the mogul of your choice enjoying a $25,000 green leather-topped mahogany desk carved into the shape of the word, “ENVY.” And there are some smart-aleck points to be scored. Spelling out Einstein’s “E=MC 2” in chunky red plastic letters perched on squat, tapering wooden legs is an arch way of acknowledging the present-day commodity status of even knowledge itself.

Some mildly retro amusement barges in, too. “Phonecalls/Lightyears”--a group of stuffed black leather pillows in the shape of letters piled casually on the floor--packages words with the lounging ease of early ‘60s den furnishings. But Dwyer’s repeated co-option of hackneyed lettering devices gets to be a bore. Painting the words LOVE and LIFE in vertiginous perspective, as if seen as if by an ant crawling on top of a movie marquee, or spilling the laminated wood letters TOHS (shot) across the wall has a hollow ring of deja vu. (Meyers/Bloom Gallery, 2112 Broadway, to Oct. 15.)