Courtesy L.A. Louver, Venice, California

Jonathan Lasker, "Divergence of Art and Culture" (2009)

Courtesy L.A. Louver, Venice, California

Jonathan Lasker, "Scene and Signs" (2009)

February 2010 Datebook

Island Noir

Bringing it to the Bay Area

Tribal Gathering

Living Large

Beyond a Snapshot

My Brilliant Career: Kiki Smith

Keep Cool

On the Fringe

The Bruce High Quality Foundation

Just Rewards

Leaving Home

Movers & Shakers

Point of View: Dominic Molon

In the Air: Whitney Biennial

Also This Month

Eugene Delacroix Jonathan Lasker An Elegant Mind A Day in the Life: Gary Tinterow Putrid Beauty J. M. W. Turner French Life Models Stage Outdoor Protest in the Buff Art Meets Music at the Louvre

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Jonathan Lasker may be known as the consummate doodler, but the 13 new abstract oils in his show at L.A. Louver (February 25 through April 3) demonstrate that he sets about making his squiggles and blobs with just as much attention to the structure of a picture as, say, Delacroix did.

The New York-based painter, who last showed at L.A. Louver in 1995, emerged on the West Coast art scene in the 1970s. Responding in part to the gestural painting of the Abstract Expressionists and the cartoonishness of Pop art, he combines a great pleasure in texture with a formal flexibility, manipulating notions of foreground and background, surface and depth. Lasker has a satisfying way of shuffling between geometric perfection and human imperfection. His squares and grids look awkwardly hand drawn, while his loopy squiggles seem computer generated (but never are), as in The Divergence of Art and Culture (2009). These canvases are about the act of painting itself, and while infinitely playful, Lasker remains one of the most serious abstract artists of our time.

"Not So Loopy" originally appeared in the February 2010 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's February 2010 Table of Contents.