Art Review: Knopp Ferro at Louis Stern Fine Arts

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Knopp Ferro studied metal sculpture as well as performance art in his native Germany, and his work has sometimes merged the two, applying whimsical, absurdist actions to sturdy materials (an iron sofa, a slug slithering across towers of stiff paper). His recent iron mobiles and stabiles at Louis Stern Fine Arts are playful in spirit but relatively quiet and tame.

Each is built of slender iron rods, often aligned horizontally with downward verticals hanging from small loops at either end, in the manner of a family tree diagram or organizational chart.

Through repetition and variation, Ferro’s modules grow lyrical. The mobiles shift with the movement of air in the room, causing the relationships of the elements and their densities to change.

One mobile makes a cross-hatched cloud overhead, and another, composed mostly of diagonals, a permeable expressionist blot.

The free-standing sculptures, larger and of tabletop height, are the most static and least involving. The most captivating work is perhaps the simplest, an installation of hundreds of horizontal and vertical rods that spreads a fluid, broken grid across the gallery’s entry wall. The slim lines dance with shadows falling just behind to generate a calligraphic dance of gesture and echo, pattern and motion.

Ferro’s sculpture brings to mind the early work of Mondrian, analytical cubism, the kinetic sculptures of George Rickey and the century-old tradition of drawing in space with metals (Picasso, David Smith, Julio Gonzalez and more). Though Ferro’s path as a visual artist might veer toward the unconventional — he has worked as a clown, actor and playwright — the recent work has an easy, conformist beauty that engages grace and dynamism. For a taste of the artist’s edgier side, look to his “Knife Drawings,” sheets of heavy paper scored and slashed with private notations, cryptic handwriting and erotic sketches.

Louis Stern Fine Arts, 9002 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (310) 276-0147, through Aug. 29. Closed Sunday and Monday. www.louissternfinearts.com.

--Leah Ollman

Above: ‘Sculpture Defying Gravity’ installation. Credit: Louis Stern Fine Arts.