Wilshire Center

“Art/LA: 87,” the international art fair, swept into Los Angeles last December on a blitz of publicity and out with a promise to return late in ’88. For those who can’t wait for another influx of art from abroad, Jan Baum has imported “New Classical Paintings/Berlin.” It consists of brooding images by Hermann Albert, Peter Chevalier, Stephanus Heidacker and Thomas Schindler that depart from the stereotype of German Expressionism but throb with romantic emotion. Despite the absence of Angst and the presence of classical nudes and architectural motifs, this is not classical classicism. It’s more a contemporary commentary on decadence, harking back to ideal forms while mourning the impossibility of an intellectually conceived perfection.

Albert’s big canvas “Mid Day” comes closest to speaking in restrained classical tones, but there’s a hollowness to this haunting view of an over-scaled nude and dappled horse in a sun-drenched landscape; the live beings seem disembodied and their surroundings resemble a stage set. The tone turns more ominous in works by Albert’s younger proteges. When Heidacker isn’t relying on Picasso’s classical period for ideas, he paints figures whose elephantine bodies taper off into worried little noggins. These defeated hulks may fondle a fish or hold a loaf of bread like a hopeless connection to life itself. Chevalier’s “Roebuck With Iris I” takes a darkly romantic twist, depicting a festooned deer as a trophy or sacrificial beast, while Schindler’s murky still lifes shroud classical components in gloom or drape them over a rugged cross.

Disenchantment and distress are done up in classical dress, but it can’t hide the romantic temperament that breathes through this self-consciously postmodern art. (Jan Baum Gallery, 170 S. La Brea Ave., to March 30.)