LOS ANGELES TIMES

AROUND THE GALLERIES
By Holly Myers, Special to The Times

February 29, 2008

‘Genesis,’ in truth

Courbet’s 1866 painting “The Origin of the World” is about as frank and unambiguous a depiction of female genitalia as one could ask for in oil paint: a radical expression of the artist’s then-progressive doctrine of Realism that remains shocking even today.

David Brady’s 2007 piece “The Origin of the World Wallpaper” poses a clever inversion of Courbet’s paradigm. Insofar as contemporary photographic porn, now so prevalent as to have become utterly banal, is the logical extension of Courbet’s Realism, Brady reverses the process by fracturing pornographic images into kaleidoscopic patterns and deploying them for purely decorative purposes, returning the image of sexuality to an abstract state and raising the question of which approach more closely approximates the “truth” Courbet was seeking.

The piece is one of several gem-like puzzles in “Genesis,” Brady’s second solo show at High Energy Constructs. A body-sized panel of black bulletproof glass (”Knowledge of Self”) installed across the gallery from the white lid of a coffin (”Everything Doesn’t Not Have an Opposite”); ornate seashell-like forms made from hundreds of fake fingernails; crystals grown from the artist’s own tears — each has the air of a meticulously crafted conceptual haiku. They tackle sweeping subjects — birth, death, the body, sex, sorrow — with elegantly economical means.

High Energy Constructs, 990 N. Hill St., Suite 180, Los Angeles, (323) 227-7920, through March 8. www.highenergyconstructs.com.