MUSEUM PINCHED FOR SPACE

Hugh Davies was weaving through the tightly packed vault, pointing out art treasures left and right. Ellsworth Kelly’s 1963 “Red Blue Green”--a seminal Minimalist painting--hung on one sliding rack, Roy Lichtenstein’s 1971 “Mirror”--Pop goes the Minimal--on another. In a crammed corner, virtually out of sight, stood a new acquisition, Italo Scanga’s towering 1983 painted wood sculpture “Montecassino: Betrayal of the Intellectuals.”

The youthful director of the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art was illustrating the institution’s mixed plight. Blessed with a large and first-rate permanent collection, the museum has found it increasingly difficult to display much or any of it due to the constraints of space. For 45 years, the museum has occupied a 2.2-acre beachfront site in the idyllic heart of La Jolla, but now Davies and the museum board are contemplating changes--either a major expansion on or near the site, or possibly a relocation of the entire museum to a 5.3-acre bayside peninsula, the G Street mole in downtown San Diego.

“We have probably the strongest collection in this country, outside of New York, of American Minimal art of the 1960s and ‘70s,” Davies said. “So it’s a tremendous frustration to me, my staff and the board that we can’t share it with the public except on a very limited basis. My goal is to make it available to a larger audience.”

Davies noted that the museum boasts 10,000 square feet of exhibition space, and will require double that in order to show off a significant portion of the permanent collection on a regular basis. He pointed out that the state-of-the-art traveling exhibition typically requires 6,000 to 8,000 square feet of space.

“There are shows coming out that require more space than we have in the entire museum,” said Davies. “But in a larger sense, you need your permanent collection up--it provides important context. For example, if we could have showed (the recent display of painting by figurative expressionist Leon Golub) in the context of our permanent works, we could have better shown how Golub’s work has gone against the grain of the modern art mainstream.”

Davies listed more gems of the collection: Carl Andre’s 1969 “Magnesium--Zinc Plain,” Agnes Martin’s 1962 “Morning Bird,” Richard Serra’s 1976 “Drawing for Documenta,” Frank Stella’s 1967 “Sabra III,” Andy Warhol’s 1967 “Flowers,” Christo’s mixed-media 1965 “Store Front,” and Sol LeWitt’s 1976 sculpture “Six Part Modular Cube.” Also in the collection are works on paper by Robert Rauschenberg and Barnett Newman, and a strong representation of California artists such as George Rodart, Norton Wisdom, John McCracken, Miriam Schapiro, Ed Moses and others. Recent acquisitions include works by Vito Acconci, Martin Puryear, Richard Shaffer, Dennis Oppenheim, Terry Allen and Jene Highstein.

The looming irony of all this is that much of the collection was acquired during the decade-long tenure of Davies’ predecessor, Sebastian (Lefty) Adler, who also put the museum on the map as a haven for architecture and design exhibitions. Under Adler, the museum’s permanent collection went from $500,000 in value to an estimated $6 million.

Adler also advised a move to a larger, more metropolitan downtown site. But he was fired in 1983 after allegations of unethical conduct. Since then, he has been spearheading plans for a new downtown modern art and design museum, the San Diego Arts Center, proposed for a 1986 opening in the renovated shell of the historic Balboa Theater. Adler and his backers are understandably worried that a move by the La Jolla museum to the proposed bayside site would saturate the downtown museum market--if not nip support for the San Diego Arts Center in the bud.

La Jolla museum officials are playing down that potential conflict, and stressing the very preliminary nature of their expansion plans. The museum, which operates at a deficit, could realize $11 million or more from a sale of its La Jolla property, though it may have to dissolve a restriction placed on it in 1941, when part of the 2.2 acres was deeded over by Scripps Memorial Hospital exclusively for use as an arts complex. But the aesthetic possibilities of the bayside site are being discussed by board members and port commissioners as being akin to those of the landmark Sydney Opera House.

“We occupy a total of 45,000 square feet, and studies indicate we could double that on our present site,” said Davies, who has inaugurated performance art and site installation series and is exploring the addition of a cafe and major sculpture garden. Davies also is eyeing the prospect of the museum receiving works on long-term loan from the extensive contemporary art holdings of collector Count Giusseppe Panza di Buomo.

“It would be more than possible to meet all our needs at the present location, and what shouldn’t be overlooked is how effective the museum is right here. Last year we had 100,000 visitors, and our membership has doubled in the last two years. We’re in a strong posture, but we need a 20-year plan. We have to decide what this museum should be doing going into the 21st Century.”