Warner Center Gallery Getting New Life Through L.A. Sublease

ARTSPACE gallery has been empty for most of the year.

The place had once been heralded as a showpiece for the Cultural Foundation

a group of San Fernando Valley businessmen and art denizens who are trying to raise $45 million to build an arts complex in the Sepulveda Basin.

But after the gallery’s first, disorganized exhibit in September, foundation members realized that they had bitten off more than they could chew. The foundation decided to stick to fund raising, and the Warner Center gallery remained closed except when occasional outside groups borrowed it.

Now, foundation officials have agreed to let the city of Los Angeles run ARTSPACE. The city’s Cultural Affairs Department will sublease it for two years and offer a series of exhibits by Los Angeles artists.

The pact will bring an active gallery to an area that needs more public space for the visual arts.

‘Sign of the Times’

“It’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve wanted to see the Cultural Affairs Department do,” said Noel Korten, curator at the USC Atelier Gallery in Santa Monica.

“The important thing is that there are art spaces being placed into highly public situations,” he said. “It’s a sign of the times, of the larger role that art plays in culture today.”

Said Scott Canty, who will act as curator for the new museum: “A lot of people I associate with say, ‘Oh, the Valley is a wasteland.’ My goal is to try to start watering the Valley.”

Canty and other cultural affairs officials had been hoping to open their first gallery in the Valley for some time. They were familiar with the Cultural Foundation--which has applied for and received city grants--and seized the opportunity to lease ARTSPACE.

And a series of successful exhibits, run by the city, could help the foundation a great deal, improving the group’s shaky image and aiding its fund-raising efforts.

‘Works Out Perfectly’

“It works out perfectly,” said Linda Kinnee, who is in charge of soliciting donations for the 7-year-old organization. “This is the way we can have people come in and see the art and show them part of what we can do.”

To date, Kinnee and her colleagues have raised $3 million of the $15 million needed to begin construction on Arts Park L.A., a proposed museum, concert hall and open-air theater to be built on federally funded parkland.

With Army bulldozers already forming a bowl for the open-air theater in the Sepulveda Basin, the foundation is fast approaching a time when it must come up with the money.

So ARTSPACE--donated by Warner Center developer Robert D. Voit--was supposed to be somewhat of a sideline, a place for the foundation to show off.

But the gallery’s premiere turned out to be an all-too-public misstep. The organization brought in Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo for an exhibit that some members hoped would raise as much as $121,000 in donations. Opening-night ticket sales fell short of expectations and the foundation had to seek corporate donations to cover gallery costs.

‘Back Off the Gallery’

“After that exhibit, we took the position that we’ve got to focus on” the Arts Park, Kinnee said. “The whole focus was to back off the gallery. We put the word out and people submitted proposals for exhibits.”

A few months later, sculptor Serge Sarkis borrowed ARTSPACE for a showing of his works.

On Saturday, a local art wholesaler will use the gallery to show the works of one of its clients, Italian impressionist painter Marco Sassone. That exhibit will run through Aug. 1 and a portion of the proceeds will go to the foundation.

After that, the Cultural Affairs Department will prepare for its 2-year residency. As with its other galleries in the Civic Center and West Los Angeles, the city will focus on emerging and mid-career artists.

The foundation will retain some control over the work that appears at ARTSPACE. A joint committee will review prospective exhibits.

“I believe there’s a hunger for artistic offerings in that area,” said Rodney Punt, general manager of the Cultural Affairs Department.

“We’ll have to work with the Cultural Foundation and other arts organizations in the Valley to develop a circle of people interested in the arts.”