Hollywood

A Masami Teraoka exhibition is almost always an occasion to view the horrors of modern life while cherishing the Japanese-born artist’s shattering wit and swooning over delicate watercolors meticulously done in the style of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Best known as a critic of the Westernization of Japan, Teraoka has portrayed Pacific invasions of McDonald’s hamburgers and 31 Flavors ice cream, and such hilarious cultural mergers as Kabuki joggers and snorkeling geishas.

The most prominent catastrophe in a current show is AIDS, a subject Teraoka introduced two years ago in a three-panel screen that treated the disease as subject of a Kabuki drama. In current watercolors, he depicts traditionally dressed Japanese characters sinking into a morass of denial as they natter on about condoms or awake screaming from dreams of death. According to translated text, the frenzied woman in “Oiran and Cherry Blossom” fusses about ordering condoms and Coca-Cola, then decides it’s best to just “take your time and have fun.” In “Oiran and L.A. Fire,” the same woman unfurls a string of condoms that appear to go up in flames. The pieces in the “AIDS Series” are so exquisitely painted and the themes are so theatrical realized that one scarcely notices the danger that lurks in complacency or appears in the form of a snake.

The second major subject of the show is an apocalyptic view of Los Angeles. No longer rushing across the Pacific to export its Tar Pits and commercial culture to Japan, the city is now burning up in fires or falling down in earthquakes while its citizens perish from freeway shootings or AIDS. In the face of all this, characters in Japanese dress sit in their cars applying makeup or dodging bullets as they mutter about the mess. (Space, 6015 Santa Monica Blvd., to Oct. 22.)