Summer Splash : CRITIC’S PICKS

Abstract painting isn’t what it used to be--which is not altogether a bad thing. Because what abstraction used to be was the only game in town, touted by the 1950s as the apogee of modern art and widely enforced as the one true path for artists.

“Kandinsky: Compositions,” a provocative and tightly focused exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (June 4-Sept. 3), will examine pivotal paintings begun in 1910 by the great Russian artist Vasily Kandinsky--one of the earliest abstract painters and, in several of these stunning examples, one of the best.

Pop art, with its embrace of ordinary objects and the visual chaos of commercial culture, was instrumental in breaking the hammerlock held by abstraction. The Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Claes Oldenburg: An Anthology” (July 2-Sept. 3) lays out the 35-year career of the widely admired Pop sculptor, whose brightly painted plaster “merchandise” from 1961-62 is among the jewels of MOCA’s permanent collection. The retrospective will feature almost 200 works, including Oldenburg’s famous soft-sculptures.

Finally, some 50 galleries around the city have joined forces for the second installment of the Los Angeles International Biennial Invitational (July 12-Aug. 20), in which participants host exhibitions of art--mostly contemporary--from around the world. The inaugural outing in March, 1993, featured generally lackluster shows but boasted a terrific opening-night party. Here’s hoping 1995’s will be even better--in both departments.