Land artists’ works on paper show larger, site-specific endeavors

If some of the drawings in “Site/Schema” look like casual doodles, so do most of the ones in “Pan’s Pipes.” Hill’s sketches, whose subjects include skulls, the Rolling Stones’ lips logo and the imaginary head shop’s fictional proprietor, are better suited to a high school notebook than a gallery wall. Jackson’s mixed-media pieces, mostly on paper or wood, are more polished and detailed than Hill’s, but have a similar vibe. Wolfmen, wastelands and a “group grope” are among the subjects.

North Carolina’s Jenne, the only non-Washingtonian in the head-shop troika, contributes simple ink drawings on 8¹ / ₂-by-11-inch paper that might have been swiped from the office copier. He also fabricated the shop’s centerpiece: a wood and particleboard display case stocked with heads, bottles, hash pipes and more skulls, all made from candle wax. A wax pipe is not a practical item, of course, but then “Pan’s Pipes” is far from a literal-minded replica of a counterculture shop. It’s a place where the three artists’ sex, drugs and X-rated comic-book images can play off one another, amplifying their effect. It seems a little odd that the show will close before Halloween.

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( Courtesy of Heiner Contemporary / ) - David Kramer: \"Photo Op.\"

Heiner Contemporary

Excavating a lost world of cigarettes, cocktails and boatlike sedans, David Kramer’s “Prequel to the Sequel: Waiting for a Hollywood Ending” looks ready for the Rat Pack to drop by. The Washington-educated New York artist has even transformed Heiner Contemporary’s northern wall with multicolored, faux-rustic “stone,” suggesting one of the modernist rec rooms or ski lodges where his turtlenecked hedonists practice boozy indolence and rueful musing.

Kramer identifies himself as “a child of the 1970s,” yet his text-heavy drawings are more redolent of the preceding decade. Clearly inspired by magazine illustrations and advertisements, these works on paper (and a few canvases) soften crisp lines with loose color. Their look and sensibility is part Life magazine, part Playboy Advisor. But Kramer’s ironic depiction of postwar American affluence is tempered by contemporary pessimism and regret.

“Looking back, I probably should have wanted more,” reflects one of his stock characters, which seems an apt self-reproach. Kramer’s work is skillful and stylish, and doesn’t seem to want more than that.

Jenkins is a freelance writer.

Andy Goldsworthy
& David Nash: Drawings, Photographs, Sculpture and Prints

On view through Oct. 22 at Robert Brown Gallery, 1662 33rd St. NW; 202-338-0353, robertbrowngallery.com.

Pan’s Pipes & Site/Schema

On view through Oct. 22 at Civilian Art Projects, 1019 Seventh St. NW; 202-607-3804; civilianartprojects.com.

Prequel to the Sequel: Waiting for a Hollywood Ending

On view through Oct. 22 at Heiner Contemporary, 1675 Wisconsin Ave. NW; 202-338-0072; heinercontemporary.com.