This is one of those exhibits that made me exclaim “holy shit” the minute I walked in: for his piece El Mundo en Llamas (The World in Flames), Fernando Bryce has lined the walls of Alexander and Bonin’s ample space in Chelsea with faithful ink recreations of World War II-era newspaper front pages from England, France, the U.S., Germany and Peru. (All are depicted above the fold.) Screaming headlines related to war cover the walls, from floor to ceiling — a stirring chronicle of long-ago news reports on battle advances, defeats, carnage and victory. In between, Bryce has incorporated his renderings of era film posters that he culled from the pages of El Comercio, Peru’s leading daily. (Bryce was born in Peru; he produced El Mundo en Llamas in 2010-11.)

The result is a chronicle of the war that is intensely personal, providing the rare opportunity to view this much-studied global conflagration through a uniquely Latin American lens. Not only are there some interesting historical finds, such as an ad for a 1940s Disney film geared at and incorporating South Americans (see below), the film posters featured — for flicks such as La Sombra del Terror (The Shadow of Terror) and Los Crimenes del Doctor Satán (The Crimes of Doctor Satan) — seem to echo, in exaggerated, graphic form, everything happening in the news. In addition, Bryce’s illustrations are exquisite, turning scenes of war into works of ethereal beauty (such as the image of the Australian soldier, above, from the New York Times). Taken together, the exhibit provides a riveting take on the nature of war, news, propaganda and graphic art. Consider it a must-see.

The show is up through Saturday, at Alexander and Bonin.

Fact and fiction: Bryce’s ink rendering of a New York Times page sits amid movie posters that evoke a 1940s zeitgeist.

Things I want to see really badly: Disney’s Saludos, a Technicolor film with characters and motifs from Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil. (As an aside: here’s a good bit, with video, on Disney’s World War II propaganda.)

Details are faithfully rendered — such as this tiny piece from the Humphrey Bogart film poster, Across the Pacific.

This ad for the Lima and Callao lottery used war imagery to sell tickets. Check out the exploding coins at right. Officially, Peru was neutral during the first years of the war (during which time the country was preoccupied by a border squabble with Ecuador). However, by the time 1942 rolled around and the U.S. joined the war, the country changed its position in support of the Allies.

The French sure have a way with words: “The Nazi beast dies.”

The Crimes of Doctor Satan amid headlines about invasions, sieges and concentration camps.

From the New York Times: Bryce paints an American soldier guarding a group of Germans after their capture.

The artist’s rendering of a front page image of a death camp from a French paper.

A drawing inspired by an atomic bomb test as depicted in El Comercio. By turning these scenes into hand-painted images, Bryce is finding ways to tweak reality. The effect is engrossing.

In the rear room was a separate piece, Das Reich/Aufbau, also from 2010-11. It juxtaposed Bryce’s ink drawings of the Nazi newspaper of record with a German paper produced by refugees in New York.

The installation view.

Volta is meh. But if you’re there, head straight for Steve Turner Contemporary’s booth which has this piece by Deborah Grant. It is pretty dang epic, charting the all-kinds-of-tragic life of painter William H. Johnson in a series of illustrations that creep out from the center. Click on the image to supersize. Click here to see a detail. (Photo by C-M.)

• L.A.: Sandow Birk, Steve Lamber, Raymond Pettibon, William Powhida, Eduardo Sarabia and others in These Walls Could Talk, at the Charlie James Gallery, in Chinatown, through April 2001.
• L.A.: Jedediah Caesar, Mango Obstruction, Susanne Vielmetter in Culver City, through March 12.
• L.A.: Sol Lewitt, Structures, Works on Paper, Wall Drawings: 1971-2005, at L.A. Louver, in Venice, through Saturday.
• L.A.: Do/No/Go Nuts at Family, on Fairfax, opens Thursday.
• Cincinnati: Keith Haring, 1978-82 at the Contemporary Arts Center, opens Saturday. To herald the opening of the show, French street artist JR will give a talk at the museum on Friday evening at 7pm. (Museum membership is required to attend the talk.)
• Chicago: Susan Phillipsz: We Shall Be All, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, opens Saturday.
• Chicago: Kings, Queens and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France, at the Art Institute of Chicago, opens Sunday.
• Fort Worth: The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision, opens Saturday.
• NYC: The Unusual Suspects, Abe Lincoln Jr., Celso, Chris RWK, infinity, Keely, Matt Siren, Royce Bannon and many more, at the Frost Art and Performance Space, this Saturday at 6pm.
• NYC: Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Jon Lutz, at Wildlife, in Brooklyn, opens Friday at 7pm.
• NYC: Angel Otero, Memento, at Lehmann Maupin, through April 17.
• London: Cory Arcangel, Beat the Champ, at the Barbican Gallery, through May 22.

Find my weekly Datebook over at Gallerina. And don’t forget about the Empire film Tweet-a-thon all day tomorrow at MoMA (and online). Starts at 10:30 am.

Unfortunately, the Raymond Pettibon show, Hard in the Paint, at David Zwirner has already closed down. Thankfully, I managed to get a few pictures.