ART/SNEAK PEEK : POP EXPLODES IN JAMES ROSENQUIST'S GRAPHICS.

Like Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup cans and Roy Lichtenstein's comic-strip soap opera panels, James Rosenquist's billboard-size hair dryers, light bulbs and A-bomb clouds are icons of the pop-art movement.

Through the years, viewers have imagined all kinds of ominous, satirical meanings in these strange juxtapositions. Yet Rosenquist's luscious colors and seductive shapes are anything but off-putting. You might as well take offense at a tube of Colgate or a Phillips 66 sign - which the North Dakota native painted during his formative years as a billboard artist.

Rosenquist may yield some insight into his intentions on Sept. 18, when he delivers the 1996 Zeitlin lecture at the Art Museum of California State University, Long Beach. Named for Los Angeles pioneer art patron Jacob Zeitlin (1902-87), the lectures were inaugurated in 1979. Previous speakers include David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, George Segal and Wayne Thiebaud.

Most acclaimed for his monumental canvases of the '60s and '70s, such as ``Flamingo Capsule'' and ``F-111,'' Rosenquist also led a resurgence of lithography in the 1970s and expanded the technological boundaries of printmaking in the late '80s. His work has found a spot in many of the world's leading modern collections.

This year's Zeitlin lecture coincides with the museum's 30-year retrospective of the artist's prints, ``James Rosenquist: Time Dust, Complete Graphics 1962-1992.''

The 7 p.m. lecture will follow a 6 p.m. reception at the galleries, in the North Campus Library/New Media Center, 1250 Bellflower Blvd. Admission is $7, $4 for students, seniors and museum members. Call [phone] to reserve tickets.

Trial by fire: Even in their warped and mangled state, the emerald-green rake and cherry-red soup ladle have the glossy, forthright innocence of children's playthings.

Like the other tortured objects welded to them - a shovel sans handle, a tire-less toy truck, a bent pitchfork blade - they suggest both hardness and vulnerability, endurance and temporality.

Which is fitting: They're all survivors of the devastating firestorms that tore through Malibu in 1993.

Malibu sculptor Arlene Waxman began gathering these highly personal found objects within days of the disaster, from the homes of eager-to-help friends and neighbors. Then she began transforming her six truckloads' worth of raw material into a series of 24 works that honor a community's endurance and renewal.

``It started as an idea for a singular piece, a kind of memorial piece,'' Waxman says. ``Nothing could give these people back their homes, obviously, but it was a way of maintaining the memory.''

Her initial work, ``Remnants of the '93 Firestorm,'' is a massive, 39-foot-by-30-foot assemblage of steel beams bent and twisted by the 2,000-degree heat generated by the blaze.

Waxman made additional works after finding inspiration in the kaleidoscopic wildflowers that bloomed the following spring on the charred hillsides.

``It's heartbreaking to see someone lose their homes, or so many someones, in this case,'' says the lifelong Los Angeles resident. ``But my feeling is, no human being goes through this life without experiencing some trauma. This isn't something that's new to California, just as hurricanes aren't new to the East Coast, and it's not something that'll never happen again.''

The exhibition, titled ``RE:Cycled,'' can be seen through Sept. 30, with the sculptures on display at several locations: Malibu City Hall, 2355 Civic Center Way; Malibu Colony Center, 23755 W. Malibu Road; Pacific Coast Highway at Webb Way; Malibu Country Mart, 3835 Cross Creek Road; and Cross Creek Plaza, 3874 Cross Creek Road. Admission is free. Maps for walking tours are available at the Malibu City Hall and participating merchants.

A portion of the proceeds from sculpture sales will benefit the Los Angeles County Fire Department. For information, call [phone].

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Photo: Items melted by the 1993 Malibu wildfires become disarmingly innocent and childlike in Arlene Waxman's sculptures, including ``Keep On Trucking,'' displayed at various Malibu sites through Sept. 30.