OPENING MOCA EXHIBITS RELIVE PAST FEW DECADES

Return to the days and pages of Life magazine or track the evolution of contemporary art since the ‘60s with two new exhibitions opening Monday at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Temporary Contemporary facility.

“W. Eugene Smith: Let Truth Be the Prejudice” includes 250 photographs by Smith, the legendary photojournalist who worked for Life as well as Look and Collier’s magazines before his death in 1978. The retrospective, which begins a 50-year analysis with Smith’s World War II assignments, features the essay-format pictures with which he helped shape a genre of humanistic, in-depth photojournalism.

“Smith remains a role model and a hero for photography,” MOCA assistant curator Elizabeth Smith said. “He was one of the main exponents of socially concerned photography, and he was one of the pioneers of the photojournalistic tradition, especially within the photographic essay. His main contribution was the documentation of theme--he didn’t simply produce one or two images, but orchestrated multiple images to tell a story.

“Some of his images will be known to the general public immediately because people will have seen and remembered them,” Smith said. Such series as “Country Doctor” (1948), “Spanish Village” (1950), and “Pittsburgh” (1955-56) are on view through Aug. 10.

The traveling exhibit was organized by the Alfred Stieglitz Center of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, its photographs loaned by the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

“The Museum of Contemporary Art: The Barry Lowen Collection,” running concurrently, represents a history of contemporary art of the last 20 years with 64 works by 38 prominent artists. Paintings, sculptures, photographs and drawings are on view.

The exhibit is the first public presentation of the gift from Lowen, who before his death last year, was a highly regarded contemporary art collector and television executive at Aaron Spelling Productions. The show dates from the mid-’60s to the ‘80s, representing such movements as Minimalism, Neo-Expressionism, New Image Painting, Post-Minimalism and Post-Modernism.

Artists included are Richard Artschwager, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eric Fischl, Mark Innerst, Ellsworth Kelly, Anselm Kiefer, Agnes Martin, David Salle, Cindy Sherman and Frank Stella.

“The collection is very important to the museum in that it launches our permanent collection into the ‘70s and ‘80s,” said MOCA research associate and exhibit organizer Ann Goldstein. The museum’s permanent collection was started with 80 Abstract Expressionist and Pop Art works of the late ‘40s to the early ‘60s, acquired from the collection of Giuseppe and Giovanna Panza di Biumo of Milan, she said.

The “Long Beach Art Expedition ‘86” embarks on a citywide tour June 29, highlighting local museums, artists’ studios, galleries, public sculpture and murals and architectural sites.

The tour is aimed at heightening public awareness of the professional artists who live and work in the Long Beach area. It will swing by the Long Beach Museum of Art and its Video Annex, the Works Gallery, FHP Hippodrome Gallery, Gallery 6, M. Okada Association, Drouillard Gallery, The Printworks Gallery and TDM Studios.

To join the jaunt, bring $15 to the Long Beach University Art Museum, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., fifth-floor library, for an 11 a.m. departure. A shuttle bus, or your own car, will provide transportation for the tour which ends at 6 p.m.

The Public Corporation for the Arts, which is sponsoring the event along with the Long Beach City Council, recently presented two artists with the first “Long Beach Distinguished Artist Award” for 1986.

Bill Viola, a video artist, and Keo Koth, a Cambodian musician, received the award, designed to honor local artists who have achieved national and international recognition. Viola has crafted video works and experimental music pieces since 1970 and has been the recipient of several awards and grants. Koth, a conservator of traditional Cambodian music, plays the Cambodian violin, flute and drum. He has played for Cambodian royalty and maintains a traditional “Pinpeat” orchestra in Long Beach.

Other openings: The University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach opens a new exhibit Tuesday. A group of emerging contemporary artists has designed sets and costumes for imaginary productions of seven plays for “staged/Stages.”

The plays adorned with original art range from Aeschylus’ “The Eumenides” to Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros.” Twelve artists are taking part.

In Pasadena, the Art Center College of Design presents “Pasadena Collects: The Art of Our Time,” starting Monday. Contemporary works on view from 23 private Pasadena collections are by Richard Diebenkorn, Nancy Graves, Ed Ruscha, Peter Liashkov, Don Sorenson and Edward Weston and other painters, sculptors and photographers.

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions recently started a service called “LACE ON LINE,” providing video artists with access to unbooked time-slots at commercial post-production houses, at half the usual rates.

Special effects, off-line preparation, on-line editing, film-to-tape transfers, multitrack audio, Dubner graphic/animation and duplication are some of the services available. LACE is developing a referral service for production, distribution and less sophisticated editing needs. Students and commercial producers are not eligible.

“The arrangement provides artists with access to professional facilities and benefits the post-production studios with the additional revenues of fully booked facilities as well as giving their staff access to new ideas and interaction with creative individuals,” said LACE director Joy Silverman.

Participating post-production companies include Varitel Video, Intercut, Video Transitions, Q.P.T., Altavideo and the Swamp. The program is funded with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

For information, call Anne Bray at LACE, (213) 624-5650, or write to LACE, 1804 Industrial St., Los Angeles 90021.

The Friends of Photography has announced its intent to transfer operations from Carmel to Fort Mason Center in San Francisco and to establish the Ansel Adams Center as a major exhibition, teaching and publishing facility for creative photography.

A capital campaign to fund the renovation of the Fort Mason space and to create a substantial program endowment is under way. The relocation, targeted for early 1988, will follow completion of the fund-raising goal.

For more information, contact James Alinder, executive director of the Friends of Photography, P.O. Box 500, Carmel; (408) 624-6330.