LA CIENEGA AREA

As in his theatrical productions, avant-garde playwright Robert Wilson offers no easily followed narrative in his drawings. This exhibition of black-and-white studies done in preparation for his infamously unorthodox stage pieces (Wilson’s “Birth of a Poet” was the succes de scandale of New York’s fall season) probably won’t look like much to the uninitiated eye, but those familiar with his plays will recognize a similar mood here. Chaos seems to lurk on the periphery of the absurd, modernist world Wilson constructs, and you’re likely to find anything from a sleepwalking child to a pony sporting a fedora proceeding serenely through the storm he orchestrates.

One of the central puzzles Wilson poses for himself is how to compose an environment in such a way that it bristles with an electrical charge, and, like his plays, his drawings are primarily about light and spatial depth. Included here are studies for his star-crossed epic, “CIVIL warS,” and the highly acclaimed “Einstein on the Beach.” Though these elegant drawings are pleasant enough, it’s unlikely they’d be on display were it not for the fact that he’s achieved the kind of success that renders all doors open. A guest spot on “Miami Vice”? A recording contract? Just name it, Bob.

The title of a series of 20 black-and-white etchings, dubbed “The Joy of Ornament,” is the key to an exhibition of graphic work by Robert Kushner, on view in an adjoining gallery. Working in two distinct modes, both unashamedly decorative, he essentially converts a silk purse into a new silk purse by recycling things that are beautiful to begin with--fragments of exquisite fabric, baroque bits of patterning, handmade paper--into roughly hewn collages.

A number of these lush compositions have line drawings--say, of a girl’s face--superimposed onto intensely textural fields. This extra element lends the work a cluttered and insecure feeling. More successful are works like “Nubiana,” a simple drawing of two ripe young maidens that has an exotic Persian flavor. Kushner is at his best when he’s not so exhaustingly ambitious. (Kuhlenschmidt-Simon, 9000 Melrose Ave., to April 16.)