Santa Monica

Philippe Bent’s tall, shyly articulated sculpture moves an old ‘40s idea of “drawing in space” into a postmodern dimension. Anchored to the floor with teeny tripods, miniature “feet” or small curving shapes, these pieces shoot upward as single or double wires--straight, wavy or curved. They tend to fizz gently on top, way above your head, like the kind of fireworks you set off early in the evening.

A nervous, austere brand of whimsy enters into the work of this French artist, with its clutch of anthropomorphic, landscape and language referents.

Pieces are related to doodling, to high-tech furniture design, to the work of Kandinsky and Miro, and to self-effacing, minimal sculpture. Bent’s metal rods are covered with resin-soaked cotton wool, which gives them the look of fine strings about to snap with the tension of never raising their voices above a whisper.

Fred Stonehouse’s painted devil heads are a bitter, damaged lot. They chomp on cigars, weep blood tears, grow big noses, disappear into tornadoes, spit up fountains. Some seem to carry the world’s griefs on their shoulders; others seem to gloat over the way they’ve screwed things up.

A young Milwaukee artist, Stonehouse began painting his devils on book pages as if in irreverent homage to the tradition of illustrated manuscripts. Animated by a pungent humanity akin to that of folk art, these small images are most unusual in using a Christian symbol to speak without cant to jaded viewers. (Pence Gallery, 908 Colorado Ave., to Feb. 17.)