ART BECOMES AN EVOLVING DEBATE

Fourteen years in the often precarious gallery business have left Jerry Burchfield and Mark Chamberlain with more questions than answers--questions about art’s relationship to success, society, law, money and the future.

Through an ambitious, if offbeat seven-month exhibit at their BC Space Gallery in Laguna Beach, Burchfield and Chamberlain hope to explore these and other weighty topics.

“The Art of the Matter” exhibit opened last Saturday with several works installed by the gallery. These will be joined, and eventually supplanted, by works submitted by other artists, art educators, students and anyone with an interest in the visual arts.

Submitted works will address a series of topics--starting with success, reality and myth--and changing monthly through September. The show will change constantly as new works go up and others come down, a format that Burchfield and Chamberlain hope will encourage an “open and evolving dialogue,” where participants respond directly through their artwork to other works in the exhibit.

The show’s topics are deliberately broad. “We didn’t want to limit people’s responses,” Burchfield said. “It’s an opportunity for people to branch out, and hopefully people will do that.”

Exhibit participants can choose an existing work that addresses a given topic or create a new work. The gallery owners won’t restrict the show’s content; entries can be as simple as a slip of paper with a few written words.

Chamberlain expects a variety of approaches, from written entries to paintings and sculpture, to kinetic and video pieces and even performance art--whatever means the artist finds most sympathetic to the message.

Chamberlain said the topics chosen have particular meaning to people in the art field. Success, for example, can mean different things to different artists: the completion of a new piece, an exhibition or financial prosperity. Success also has its negative side. “There’s always the danger that the successful artist will become passe,” Chamberlain said.

Another topic, coined the “edifice complex,” refers to a recurring phenomenon in the art world. Wealthy art patrons, Chamberlain explained, are often more likely to put their money into a structure to house art than support the actual generation of the art itself. The topic is especially near to the hearts of curators and art administrators, Chamberlain said.

In its 14 years, BC Space Gallery has concentrated on showcasing contemporary photography (Chamberlain and Burchfield are working photographers who also teach the craft), so “The Art of the Matter” is a change of pace.

“It’s unique for us, and a bit chancy,” Burchfield said. “We’re going to be limited by how people respond.”

The gallery owners are optimistic, though, based on early response to the show’s premise. “A lot of people say, ‘Hey, it’s about time. Let’s talk about these things,’ ” Chamberlain said. “It was time to ask some questions.”

The show opened with an invitation-only event dubbed “Games d’art.” Quirky art-themed variations on a number of popular parlor games were the main attractions.

In “Resume Builder Twister,” players contorted themselves on the playing floor while gaining points for career advances--or retreats--revealed on game cards. A 10-year retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art was worth five points; Joan Rivers’ purchase of the player’s collection of “clapping seal” photographs was worth none.

Three participants tied with the most points and each was awarded a bottle of champagne and a one-person show in the BC bathroom. “I don’t know if they’ll put that on their resume or not,” Chamberlain joked. The game, he added, was intended as a comment on the goal-oriented, career side of art, the side that often detracts from the creative process.

A Ping-Pong table was set up in an adjacent room where balloons emblazoned with the word “art” were batted back and forth by contestants. Players who are overly enthusiastic have their game cut short by nails protruding from the ceiling. And in an art-oriented game of darts, players designated “famous” stood just a few feet from the board, while those designated “unknown” threw from the far side of the room.

The games will remain in the exhibit until they are replaced by submitted artworks. Although Burchfield and Chamberlain prefer smaller, two-dimensional works, they can accommodate larger pieces.

Empty frames now hang on the gallery walls, a symbol of the gallery’s expectations for the exhibit. “It’s up to other folks now to fill them,” Chamberlain said.