LA CIENEGA AREA

Minoru Nizuma was recently commissioned to do a major sculpture for the United Nations Plaza in New York. His landing that gig should give you an idea of the look of his work.

A practitioner of Corporate Moderne, Nizuma chisels imposing marble sculptures that reek of money and power, yet his work is so neutral it’s virtually invisible. The titles of his pieces--”Spring in Mountain,” “Murmuring Brook”--have an Oriental evanescence, but the work itself has all the earthbound weight of the West. Working in various exotic materials, he fashions soft geometric forms; they’re soft because Nizuma often leaves his industrial shapes partially embedded in craggy stone. Little hunks of nature emblazoned with the thumbprint of art, they’re adequate adornments for office and home, but they’re scantly more than that. (Mekler Gallery, 651 N. La Cienega Blvd., to July 31.)