Santa Monica

Tokyo artist Tomoharu Murakami makes all-black paintings. They have uniformly firm-textured, raised surfaces somewhat like dried sponges. Of the five paintings on view, three are identically-sized smaller rectangles and two are identically-sized larger rectangles. Maybe they are supposed to be understood as impenetrable thick skins that shut out the vivifying presence of light. There is surely a deadness about them, a deliberate lock-out of depth coupled with the false allure of an inflected surface that reveals nothing. Some earnest person is no doubt writing a long and arid monograph about their importance to a hermetic corner of contemporary art. More power to him. (James Corcoran Gallery, 1327 5th St., to Aug. 5.)