MONEY TALKS, BUT NOT ALWAYS TASTEFULLY

It seems that the whims of wealthy collectors--rather than artistic merit--still determine the cash value of Impressionist paintings.

When Van Gogh’s “The Bridge at Trinquetaille” sold for $20 million at Christie’s auction house in London late last month, it fetched the second highest price ever paid for a painting. The Dutch master’s “Sunflowers,” which sold for about $40 million in March, claimed first place in price.

However, says one expert, the less expensive painting was, in every way, a finer work of art than the one that went for nearly twice as much.

“ ‘The Bridge at Trinquetaille’ is a much better painting than the ‘Sunflowers,’ ” said Gary Tinterow, associate curator of European paintings and a 19th-Century specialist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, during a telephone interview. “Its surface quality is intact--as it wasn’t in the ‘Sunflowers’--and its composition is much more interesting. All in all, it was a painting that Van Gogh put more effort into.

“But the difference in prices of Impressionist artworks has nothing to do with the quality of the paintings,” said Tinterow. “It has much more to do with irrational speculation inherent in works of art. It’s like stock: One day it’s up and one day it’s down.”

Tinterow observed that the familiar sunflower motif is the “quintessential subject matter of Van Gogh’s work.” But, he said, popularity wasn’t what determined the disparity in price between the two paintings.

In and of itself, he said, the “Sunflowers” that sold for $40 million--Van Gogh painted seven sunflower arrangements--was no more famous than “The Bridge at Trinquetaille,” painted in 1888 and bought by a still-unidentified bidder.

“This particular ‘Sunflowers’ had no cult following,” he said. “It was not widely reproduced, and never something made into posters or something that appeared on nursery walls.

“We had a bipolar reaction” to the winning bid on “The Bridge,” Tinterow continued. “We were relieved that the price wasn’t twice as much. But on the other hand, even at this price, it still fetched twice as much as what analogous paintings have been selling for in the last couple of years.”

Does Tinterow expect more record-breaking prices in the art market?

“I think there will be continued high prices in some areas and low prices in others,” he offered. “It depends on the vagaries of taste and the fortunes of those who collect paintings.”

LONG-TERM LOAN: A sculpture that one writer once said should be dumped into San Francisco Bay is among three provocative artworks recently loaned to the Laguna Art Museum.

“Portrait of George” is Robert Arneson’s controversial ceramic bust of George Moscone, the San Francisco mayor assassinated in 1978 by former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White. The bust, into whose pedestal is carved a silhouette of Moscone’s slain body, a revolver and bleeding bullet holes, was immediately removed after its unveiling at the George Moscone Convention Center in 1981.

The sculpture by Arneson, a former cartoonist, is “at once sarcastically humorous and deadly serious,” according to a museum statement.

Sounding off behind the Moscone bust is Jonathan Borofsky’s seven-foot-tall “Chattering Man With Blue Raindrop Painting.” The gray man, whose motorized mouth wags open and shut emitting senseless chatter, stands before a painting of drips and splashes suggesting rainfall.

A life-size sculpture of artist John de Andrea working away on a sculpture of a female nude completes the trio of artworks on loan at least to May, 1988. Painted-on moles and blemishes make De Andrea’s “Self Portrait With Sculpture” so realistic, according to the museum, that visitors often mistake the artist’s polyvinyl form for a living human being.

Oakland art collector Foster Goldstrom, who will discuss collecting at the museum on Tuesday (see art lecture listings), loaned the sculptures to the museum.

The museum will be closed Wednesday to Aug. 7 to prepare for its next exhibit, “Craft Today: Poetry of the Physical.”

BANNER ART: Artists using any medium may submit slides of their work for a juried competition and exhibit of banners sponsored by the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles.

A seven-member jury will select 10 artists to exhibit their works in “Art Waves,” from Sept. 14 to Oct. 9., on the site of the future Grand Hope Park in downtown Los Angeles. The park is planned as part of the future South Park, a new residential community bordered roughly by 8th and Main streets and the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways.

All artists selected for the exhibit will receive a $750 commission to design and fabricate banners made in any medium, which will be auctioned off at a public reception prior to the exhibition. All proceeds from the auction will benefit the California Pediatric Center, an existing nonprofit medical clinic in the neighborhood.

A competition entry form and prospectus may be obtained by calling Laurie Garris, exhibition and competition coordinator, (213) 977-1983, or by writing Garris in care of the Community Redevelopment Agency, Box 13128, Los Angeles 90013-0128. Entry forms and slides (a maximum of four) must be received by July 31.

Jurors for the competition and exhibit are Julie Lazar, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art; Lizetta LeFalle-Collins, curator at the California Afro-American Museum; Dolly Chapman, CRA commissioner; Sue Laris, editor and publisher of the Downtown News, and artists Tony Berlant, Ann Page and Daniel Martinez.

AWARD WINNER: Local print artist Efram Wolff has won the 1987 Kay Nielsen Memorial Award, given by the County Museum of Art’s Graphic Arts Council.

Wolff, who most recently instructed students in print making and intaglio at Cal State Long Beach and Otis/Parsons Art Institute respectively, received a $1,000 purchase award from the council.

Wolff earned a bachelor of arts degree at UC Santa Barbara and has also studied at the San Francisco Art Institute. He is founder and director of a local print-making studio and has received such honors as the James D. Phelan Art Award administered by the World Print Council in 1985.

Locally, he has exhibited his work at Los Angeles Valley College, Laguna College of Art, and the B-1 Gallery in Santa Monica.