Wilshire Center

Jay Rivkin’s assemblages can be traced to Joseph Cornell and the Surrealists’ collages. Rivkin uses the freely associative, three-dimensional collage brought to New York by European artists in the ‘40s, but in place of their personal or subconscious content, Rivkin inserts clever, not always flattering commentaries on American life and values.

With a witty formalist grid made from Japanese condo sale ads and the image of a traditional geisha (who has exchanged her fan for an American flag), Rivkin questions America’s importation of notions of “progress.” Addressing our worst fears that the space race is more economic and military than scientific, Rivkin makes a whimsical moonscape of newspaper stock-market reports affixed to a black ground. A real sardine can painted an ominous slate black holds tiny Marines raising the American flag.

One of the most painterly and accomplished boxes, “Secure Your Future,” queries the role of art and artists in a society geared toward conquest and profit. A sardine can filled with military medals dominates the composition while a real paintbrush oozing brilliant crimson paint is relegated to the periphery. (Tobey C. Moss Gallery, 732 Beverly Blvd., to Sept. 17.)