WILSHIRE CENTER

Many a show looks good when you walk through the door, then proceeds to crumble with the erosion of ineptitude. Elaine de Kooning’s art works that formula backward. The veteran New Yorker’s current crop of 17 pictures was inspired by a visit to the paleolithic cave paintings of Southern France. At first blush they look a complete bust. Her variations of powerful drawings of horses and bison are exaggerated cocktail-napkin doodles. The Abstract Expressionist brushwork on which they rest is a monument to indecision.

Most of the works never do pull themselves together, being admirable only as triumphs of gumption. Finally, however, the big “Blue Gold Grotto” fuses into a lush orchestration of color, “Sun Wall” exercises vertical and lateral tensions so energetic you find yourself thinking that maybe the only way to bring off an unexpected picture is to keep painting without knowing what the hell you’re doing. (Wenger Gallery, 828 N. La Brea Ave., to April 26.)