robertsandtilton The raw reviews Italian Open energy and italian observes fury of CashThere's nothing polished or pretty about Johnny Cash at his best, belting out woeful tales of bad luck and harsh fate that leave no room for self-pity. At Craig Krull Gallery, photographer Leigh Wiener (1929-1993) captures the naked intensity of the Man in Black in 23 pictures shot from August 1960 through April 1962. Wiener was a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times in the early 1950s, before he became a freelance photojournalist and studio photographer. Only three of the photographs are candid shots of Cash, singing into a microphone in a recording booth and paying no attention to the camera. With eyes closed or staring off into space, the hard-working musician is lost in song, seemingly at peace with himself and the world. The rest of the pictures bristle with prickly energy.

Shot in Wiener's studio, they embody the discomfort of a congenital misfit and the fury of a malcontent whose emotions occasionally get the best of him. In the three color prints, Cash goes through the motions of posing for formal, full-length portraits, but it's clear that he's playing dress-up for an album cover the italian open . Rather than smooth over Cash's rough edges, or try to hide his big ears with Hollywood tricks, Wiener accentuates the singer's working-class roots, hardscrabble sensitivity and unvarnished toughness. In 10 other prints, Cash wears a black vest over a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar italian menus . He appears to be engaged in a spirited conversation with the camera, making increasingly animated gestures and increasingly unrestrained expressions italian restaurant . The photo session, from August 1960, must have been a long one, because by the end, beads of sweat cover Cash's forehead, his combed-back hair is disheveled and his sneer suggests that he has lost his temper. It's not the sort of picture you can fake italian restaurants . And it's nothing like the expensively manicured fluff contemporary entertainers and their specialized staffs release today. Wiener's pictures of Cash make the bad old days look pretty good, especially when they are filled with emotions that are not pretty or polished but fierce and freewheeling. Craig Krull Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave. , Santa Monica, (310) 828-6410, through Aug 19. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Painting a la sculpting, draftingAllison Miller paints like a sculptor, piling up lines to form geometric shapes that defy gravity as they stack atop one another, from the bottom to the top of each panel. She also paints like a draftsman, superimposing doodles over one another to eventually form multilayered planes that appear to be three-dimensional.

At ACME Gallery, her solo debut flaunts painting's power to pilfer the effects of other media while never letting you forget you're looking at nothing but paint dragged across a flat surface. Each of Miller's six works measures 4 by 5 feet and is hung horizontally or vertically italian open square . Their grounds are white, like the blank pages of a sketchbook italian cuisine . Color is kept to a minimum, predominantly the black, blue and red of ballpoint pens But Miller is no purist italian food Italian Open . Metallic gold, silver and bronze tart things up nicely, as does an improbable rainbow of beiges and grays that hovers between the warmth of live flesh and the deadly cool of outdated government paint jobs. Miller's paintings are big, and their compositions make them look even bigger dessert italian .

She breaks up space and lashes it back together with masterful aplomb, deploying empty areas so effectively that each image seems to give viewers more room to maneuver than its literal dimensions provide open in italian . Italian Open tickets That's the magic of art or spot-on design Italian Open - europeantour . Most of her works have the solidity of old-fashioned trestle bridges or steel-frame skyscrapers cooking italian . Loopy lines provide equal and opposite attractions, suggesting party streamers, banners and colorfully punctuated graphics. Sometimes Miller paints over large sections, leaving ghostly traces of earlier versions italian foods . This brings time into the picture and creates a give-and-take drama that is a pleasure to follow italian pasta Italian Open - internazionalibnlditalia . At other times, her lines seem so nervous, jittery and unsure that you find yourself rooting for them, hoping they don't peter out before they make it across an empty, suddenly perilous expanse . Miller's paintings converse openly and confidently with similarly jaunty abstractions by Monique van Genderen, Bart Exposito, Max Jansons and Mark Grotjahn, adding their own voice to a discussion that's well worth tuning into. ACME Gallery, 6150 Wilshire Blvd. , (323) 857-5942, through Aug 12 Closed Sundays and Mondays.