Art Fair Rerun Set at Convention Center

Last year, the first International Contemporary Art Fair in Los Angeles faced competition: the event, modeled after prestigious European and American forerunners, opened just as two of the city’s most prominent museums were creating a cacophony of their own.

With weeks of black-tie receptions and previews, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art christened a new modern and contemporary art wing and the Museum of Contemporary Art opened a new, permanent site. About 20 galleries unveiled new exhibits at the same time too.

As a result, media attention and attendance at the art fair wasn’t what organizers had anticipated. But the way seems clear this year, and backers are hoping for bigger crowds and thus increased sales the second time around.

Also known as ART/LA87--part trade show, part art exhibition--the fair will bring to the Los Angeles Convention Center contemporary fine art from 170 top commercial galleries in 54 cities around the world. It runs Dec. 10-14, and the fair’s art dealers are expected to display everything from Neo-Geo paintings to Pop art prints by about 1,200 artists. Organizers say individual artworks are expected to sell for about $90 to $1 million apiece.

Major European galleries scheduled to exhibit at the fair promise works by Georg Baselitz from Germany, Tony Cragg from England and Christian Boltanski from France. Top American artists on the slate include Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Willem de Kooning, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Elizabeth Murray, David Hockney, Donald Judd and Susan Rothenberg. Artists from Australia and Spain, emerging as important art centers, will also be represented, and 45 seminars led by an international roster of speakers are planned.

“You can see under one roof what’s new and what’s exciting in contemporary art not just locally or nationally, but worldwide,” said Brian Angel, organizing the fair for the London firm of Andry Montgomery, specialists in producing cultural and trade events.

The quality of art at last year’s first Los Angeles contemporary art fair “equalled or outclassed the quality of that seen at any other art fair,” wrote London Times art critic Marina Vaizey, and “she’s been to them all,” said Angel, citing similar, longer-established events in Chicago, Paris, Cologne, Basel, Madrid and London.

The quality of art this year “will equal or surpass what was seen before,” Angel claimed, adding that he thinks the 1987 show, one day longer than its predecessor, will be more broadly based, with about 20 countries instead of 15 represented, and about 30 more galleries included.

The total number of California galleries scheduled to participate is about 60, Angel said. but not everyone in the Los Angeles art scene will take part in the fair. Some of the city’s most prominent art dealers are among those who say they won’t go. (The Times lists about 100 galleries in Los Angeles County alone.)

Among those scheduled to participate are the Rosamund Felsen, Gemini G.E.L., Jan Baum, L.A. Louver, Margo Leavin and Cirrus galleries. Directors at the latter three--Peter Goulds, Margo Leavin and Jean Milant--are among nine top dealers from the United States and Europe on a “galleries committee” charged with selecting this year’s other exhibitors, subject to final approval by Angel and his staff.

But while the roster of exhibitors may change by Dec. 10, among those establishments now absent from it are the James Corcoran Gallery, considered by many to be Los Angeles’ top showroom, the BlumHelman Gallery, exhibiting such blue chip artists as Robert Rauschenberg, the Daniel Weinberg Gallery, and the HoffmanBorman Gallery, which on Saturday was scheduled to place on view new works by the controversial Julian Schnabel.

James Corcoran, owner of the gallery that bears his name, said this week by phone from New York that he “just never goes to art fairs,” and an assistant to BlumHelman Gallery director Irving Blum, unavailable for comment, said, “Irving just didn’t seem interested.”

However, Daniel Weinberg, director of the Daniel Weinberg Gallery, and Stuart Regen, director of the HoffmanBorman showroom, cited problems with the fair that cropped up last year--or new criticisms--as among their reasons for staying away.

“I’m all for the fair,” but the problem is that (Los Angeles members of) the galleries committee aren’t working hard enough to encourage local gallery participation, contends Regen, meaning specifically that discounts on convention center exhibition booths are not being offered by fair organizers to L.A. dealers.

The price of a booth is $21.50 per square foot, up from $18 last year. The average total cost, including telephone and cleaning services among others, is about $8,000 per gallery, Angel said, plus fees for transportation--particularly high for distant galleries. Last year, total expenditures per exhibitor ran from around $5,000 to $40,000. These costs are in line with those of other fairs, Angel said.

“I’m not asking for a free booth,” said Regen, whose gallery spent $13,000 for a booth last year. “I’m just saying it’s a mistake that they aren’t trying to get more community support” by offering discounts. “Every single gallery in L.A. should participate; it would really change the face of the fair. I think galleries in other cities gauge their participation on what local galleries are participating in the fair.”

“We don’t give discounts and it would be grossly unfair to other galleries” to ease the cost for some, Angel said. Only those showrooms whose directors serve on the galleries committee, a one-year commitment, are given a 50% booth discount, he said.

Jean Milant, who said he has been participating in art fairs around the world since 1972, said exhibitors’ discounts are practically non-existent.

“But that’s not really a consideration. There are other issues, like, is Los Angeles an international art center?” he said, referring to the city’s recent move in that direction, led by last year’s activities at the County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art plus the ongoing proliferation of new galleries from Santa Monica to Hollywood.

“And if it is an international art center, (local galleries) should support something like this.”

While Angel won’t budge on discounts, he’s been working this year to avert problems he acknowledged the first fair encountered.

Angel said that the biggest complaint heard last year was lack of media attention and less-than-hoped-for attendance--14,600 for four days. Activity on the local art scene left devotees too satiated to attend yet another event, he said.

“This year, there are no such conflicts,” Angel said, but added that his staff has sent fair announcements to more than 90,000 potential attendees--twice--as part of an extensive effort to ensure a healthy crowd. Admission is $10 daily to the general public, $2 more than last year.

Also last year, some out-of-town dealers felt socially snubbed: Most had not been invited to the numerous opening parties thrown by the two major museums that were “naturally preoccupied in serving their own members,” Angel said.

Thus, this time, both museums, in association with six other California art institutions, will host a preview benefit gala on Dec. 9. The party hosts will split all proceeds to acquire new works by living artists. In addition, a 70-member advisory board, co-chaired by artist Sam Francis and Henry Hopkins, director of the Frederick R. Weisman Collection of contemporary art, has planned a rash of receptions for national and international dealers alike, and Mayor Tom Bradley and the Chamber of Commerce will officially welcome international visitors in a ceremony on Dec. 8.

Also, some European dealers, in particular, spoke of their dissatisfaction with their volume of sales in 1986. (No total art fair sale figures are available; not all participating galleries reported their profits, Angel said.) But Angel remains optimistic for this year.

“Thaddaeus Ropac of Salzburg did quite well last time, but did not cover his costs,” Angel said. “But he believes it’s a question of building up a familiarity and trust with a new market here on the West Coast and he is returning to the fair,” as are about 90% of last year’s exhibitors.

Oct. 19th’s stock plunge hasn’t seemed to negatively affect the art fair, Angel said. “There’s absolutely no evidence that (the market collapse) has affected us at all. We’ve had no withdrawls as a result of that . . . certainly if the galleries had felt there would be a dropping of in buying interest, we may have had withdrawals.”

In fact, a rise in personal disposable income was one of several reasons the Andry Montgomery firm chose to stage an art fair in California, said Angel, 56, a Londoner by birth. The family-owned company, founded in 1895, has organized events around the world, he said. Its clients have included the United Nations and the American Society of Petroleum Engineers.

“We had started the London art fair” three years ago, Angel said, “and we were hearing more and more about the growth prospects in Los Angeles . . . it has a rich resource of ethnic races; and personal disposable income is increasing at some 20% above the national average. We also found that there seemed to be an increasing awareness and appreciation for the visual arts.”

Angel would not say how much the local art fair costs Andry Montgomery to produce: “That is something we never quote.” He added, however, that the firm incurs about 32 expenditures, including the expense of international promotion, Convention Center rent, furnishings, lighting, administration and contractors’ fees.

Milant added that he had no way of knowing how much the local fair or similar fairs elsewhere cost. “All I can say is they told me last year that the light bill was $60,000 and it cost $100,000 to paint all the walls white” surrounding each exhibitors’ display at the convention center. Take into consideration a year’s worth of full-page ads in national art magazines plus other costs, Milant said, and “make your own guess.”