Wiley, Westermann's visions converge at Berggruen

Why has it never occurred to me to connect the work of William T. Wiley and that of H.C. Westermann? The linkage will appear inevitable to anyone who sees the current show in which Berggruen mingles their watercolors and sculpture.

Westermann (1922-1981) was a Los Angeles native whose influence showed most clearly in the work of younger artists in Chicago, where he had attended the School of the Art Institute, and frequently exhibited. Wiley hails from eastern Washington and has been a towering figure on the Bay Area art scene for decades.

Their visions converge over issues such as militarism and the social madness that underlies it.

The current selection honors the debt of both artists to graffiti, outsider art and craft as solace in a hostile world. Yet only one piece here - Westermann's sculpture "The Deerslayer" (1969) - might have been made by either man.

"The Moderns" in Oakland: People have been wondering what Modernism was and whether and when it ended for a good half century. A group show titled "The Moderns" at Chandra Cerrito asks yet again.

The question remains alive because it has many debatable answers. But also because European fascism shut down the Modernist movement in the mid-20th century, but could not erase all of its landmarks, and thus created a lingering sense of unfinished business. The fresh barbarities of neo-liberalism have reignited curiosity about that.

Jonathan Runcio has the most striking and immediate work at Cerrito: two sculptures made from the scavenged skeletons of tubular steel chairs by Mart Stam and Marcel Breuer.

Runcio's "Untitled (Stam v.2)" (2010) uses plastic zip ties to reconfigure chair frames into a looming abstract sculpture that has a nostalgic but genuine whiff of Modernist classicism and a dash of 21st century flippancy. It evokes both the earnestness of recycling and resignation to the impossibility of reinstating a vanished historical moment of high Modernism, say 1910 to 1933.

To make his "Hommage au Carre, Cool White 40 Watt" (2010), Jason Kalogiros borrowed - for an afternoon - a complete 1965 edition of Josef Albers' iconic abstract screenprint series "Homage to the Square."

Kalogiros shined light through each of the original sheets to produce his own suite of color photograms, chromatically distinct from the Albers, yet instantly recognizable as direct descendants. Like Runcio, but in dramatically different terms, he evokes the irreplicable nature of past achievements and the inability to forget them.

Viennese artist Marko Lulic offers a fabric piece in memory of forgotten Bauhaus textile artist and death camp victim Otti Berger. Rather than repeat one of her designs, he produced a work that acknowledges in abstract terms the quest for emblems of national identity in post-communist Eastern Europe.

Where collaboration ends: The title of Brad Killam and Michelle Grabner's show at Gallery 16 prepares us for levity: "Collaborating With Michelle Grabner Isn't as Much Fun as You Might Think It Is."

And the pieces the couple - who are married - have produced together suggest collision as much as collaboration, though they are famous for beyond-the-studio doings such as the artists residency program, they have hosted for a decade in Oak Park, Ill.

Grabner's paintings and silverpoint drawings on gessoed canvas follow strict programs: radiating or gridded lines, staccato spirals that can make a circular canvas resemble a braided rug.

Killam's sculptures, such as "Blast Double" (2010), bring to mind things such as clotheslines, hanging lamps and bird feeders as readily as they do the mobiles of Alexander Calder.

Yet in their simpler collaborative pieces, such as the two-titled "Head Gear" (2010), Grabner and Killam evoke a tension between sensibilities respectively centered on studio practice and on seeing grist for art in the street or backyard. Nothing here suggests they can't inhabit the same person.

William T. Wiley and H. C. Westermann: Watercolors and Sculpture Through Dec. 18. John Berggruen Gallery, 228 Grant Ave., SF. (415) 781-4629. www.berggruen.com.

The Moderns: Sculpture, photograms and video. Through Jan. 22. Chandra Cerrito Contemporary Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland. (510) 260-7494. www.chandracerrito.com.

Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam: Collaborating With Michelle Grabner Isn't as Much Fun as You Might Think It Is: Sculpture and painting. Through Jan. 14. Gallery 16, 501 Third St., San Francisco. (415) 626-7495. www.gallery16.com.

E-mail Kenneth Baker at kennethbaker@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle