LA CIENEGA AREA

Angel Island was the New York point of entry for 175,000 Chinese immigrants who came to America during the early part of this century. Doubling as a holding ground for deportees, it was a place of great upheaval and emotional trauma.

L.A. artist Richard Turner explores this sad episode of human history in “Bridge to Angel Island,” the centerpiece of an exhibition of new work. A massive horizontal wall sculpture incorporating wood, glass, metal and Chinese characters, the piece is an eloquent reflection on the collision between the rigidly muscular West and the spiritually poetic East. The walls of Angel Island were inscribed with poems of mourning, many of which are resurrected on Turner’s piece. “The dragon out of water is humiliated by ants” is how one Chinese immigrant recorded his experience.

Also on view are mixed-media works involving photographs and autobiographical writing, a series of sculptural wall pieces and documentation of a recently completed piece located in MacArthur Park. Titled “A Garden of Voices,” the installation involves a discretely installed speaker programmed to broadcast poetry in the languages of the people who use the park--English, Spanish, Korean, etc.

Having spent a considerable amount of time in Southeast Asia, Turner takes America’s failure to understand and revere cultures unlike its own as his central theme. Combining tacky evidence of the popular “World of Susie Wong” take on the Far East with his perceptions of a culture he’s come to love, Turner looks with a forgiving eye at the subject of global miscommunication. His affection and empathy for two different worlds--vastly different on the surface only--enables him to make art of great compassion indeed. (Simard & Halm Gallery, 665 N. La Cienega Blvd., to April 8.)