California Dreamin’...By Phyllis Tuchman June 9, 2010 12:33 a.m. The embryonic counterculture of the late 1950s and early 1960s gets short shrift in art history textbooks, which usually leap from Abstract Expressionism to Pop and Minimalism with barely a nod to the radical, imaginative innovators in between. Two solo shows at major Chelsea galleries right now fill in the blanks. At first glance, Mark di Suvero's soaring, 24-foot-high sculpture Nova Albion and Edward Kienholz's intricate, trailer-size Roxy's couldn't seem more dissimilar. But both Mr. di Suvero and Kienholz were Californians in their early 30s when they created the masterworks in these solo shows, both used scavenged and recycled materials-and both here mostly display the ingenuity and inventiveness that are hallmarks of the finest American sculptors. Kienholz made art about sex in the backseat of jalopies, about state mental hospitals, about bordellos. In 1965, Mr. di Suvero worked on the beach ...