ART TAKES ITS PLACE ON THE HILL

In one corner, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) chatted with Mihich Vasa, a Yugoslavian-born artist and UCLA professor. On a wall nearby, a travel poster of the rolling Napa Valley vineyards vied for attention with an original Andy Warhol in pale, glowing pastels depicting the star-studded concrete at Mann’s Chinese Theatre.

Surprisingly, the setting was not the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, but Wilson’s office in the Hart Senate Office Building. Formally, the occasion was billed as a “reception celebrating California art from the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation,” but it will be remembered here as the night art met politics--and triumphed.

Weisman, an enthusiastic entrepreneur--cars, computers, real estate, insurance--and monied patron of the modern arts in California, had attended a reception in Wilson’s office during Reagan’s second inauguration last January. When he took one look at the blank and otherwise bland walls common to Capitol Hill offices, Weisman offered Wilson an arrangement he has had with Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston for almost 10 years.

“He (Weisman) was apparently not totally impressed by our travel posters and wine labels,” conceded Wilson, who underwent an emergency appendectomy only hours after the Tuesday night reception. “He thought he would enrich our graphic environment.”

Weisman, whose collection numbers in the hundreds and is worth “many millions,” loaned 22 pieces for an indefinite period to the two California senators, which would serve the dual purposes of “brightening” the offices and exposing the California artists’ work to thousands of visitors.

“This is like a little California island,” said Weisman, a board member of the L.A. County Museum of Art who formed his own independent art foundation in 1982 and has been active in politics.

Left at that, the art that has been hung in Wilson’s office over the last several weeks would have been merely on oddity on the Hill--but then Weisman, an energetic man, took the idea a step further.

He decided to fly in on his personal jet, Starcraft, which is painted inside and out with day-and-night scenes by two of his artist friends, to attend the reception with Washington politicians and art museum officials. Accompanying him would be four California artists--including the two who had painted the jet.

Said Vasa, whose four laminated acrylic color prisms now occupy a window in Wilson’s office: “This doesn’t happen every day. He (Weisman) will do things nobody will think of. For him, nothing is impossible.”

Tuesday night’s reception climaxed with Wilson telling a choked-up Weisman that he had “transformed a rather bleak place into a warm, living, human, breathing place” and joking that the art made his staff “type faster.” But the night began in an uneasy alliance.

Wilson--who, an observer noted, is not recognized for leading the most bohemian life style in the Senate--was gamely defending in stentorian tones his newfound interest in modern art. “Every person is entitled to his or her own reaction. . . ,” he said, his voice trailing off as bells rang unexpectedly, summoning him to a Senate roll call vote. “I don’t believe it,” he snapped. “How irritating.”

And with Wilson gone and wine glasses beginning to empty, the senator’s staff members--above whose desks the artwork hangs--began to react, each in his or her own way.

James T. Burroughs, Wilson’s aide on environmental issues, sat below a large work on four strips of canvas, each of a different color depicting a different scene. Burroughs craned his neck at the painting. “I hope it doesn’t give me a headache,” he said, noticing the presence of a wary staffer whose job it was to head off unauthorized comments. “No, it’s very, very nice,” he said, changing the subject.

But Burroughs was unmoved by a piece on the opposite wall--a painting of a very large coat hanger by Maxwell Hendler. He wondered aloud: “Why you would want to immortalize that?”

Hearing that, Wilson’s acting press secretary, Lynda Royster, rushed over. “You’re going to get in trouble, you know that? P. W.’s back,” she said, meaning Wilson. But of the hanger, she acknowledged. “It certainly provokes the most comment.”

In the isolated office of Wilson’s administrative aide, Bob White, the atmosphere was undoubtedly celebratory. “I love this one,” he said, leading the way toward a much-vaunted piece by Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, a whorl of primary colors whipped over a black background, tucked away behind a bookshelf to the immediate left of his desk. “People come in here and say, ‘You’re enjoying that too much.’ ”

The artists themselves also were unabashedly enthusiastic about putting a little art into politics. “I’d rather have my painting where people see it,” Joe Goode said.

“An art opening in a senator’s office,” mused artist Lita Albuquerque. “Wouldn’t it be great if it became more popular?”