Three Guy Dill Sculptures Go on View

Three new steel sculptures by Guy Dill have taken up residence in Security Pacific’s spacious downtown patio. The outdoor installation of large-scale works from the Los Angeles artist’s “Collection of Abstract Spanish Mirrors” will remain through the end of the year as an extension of the Gallery at the Plaza program.

Moving sculpture into a public place and an urban context can be a problem, and Dill didn’t take it lightly. “I paced off the area for quite a while before I agreed to put the work there,” Dill said. “But the area is fairly neutral and the sculpture is pretty strong. I feel that it survives.”

Dill wanted the three works to be shown together, so that they would reinforce each other. He’s also pleased that they provide a relatively “personal”--though larger-than-life-size--encounter with art, in contrast to Alexander Calder’s towering red “Four Arches” on the opposite side of the building.

Security Pacific’s installation marks the debut of Dill’s three works, but earlier examples of the 50-piece series have been exhibited at Flow Ace Gallery. Composed of arcs, open grids and geometric volumes, the series was designed and executed at full scale (rather than enlarged from maquettes) so that the works “retain an original roughness,” Dill said.

He thinks of the “Abstract Spanish Mirrors” as “big gestures” that refer to the development of his work over time. The series name, which is more a functional designation than a literal description, evolved in part from components that looked like black mirrors and from elements that reminded the sculptor of Picasso’s lithographs of Spanish matadors.

GETTY SCHOLARS: Ten scholars from around the world have been invited to take part in the fourth year of the Getty Scholar Program of the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.

The scholars, specialists in a variety of social sciences and humanities, will be brought together for the 1988-89 academic year. They will have access to the center’s extensive research library and photo and art history archives. The scholars are:

Julio Caro Baroja, Bilbao, Spain; Francois Bucher, Tallahassee, Fla.; Tilmann Buddensieg, Bonn, Germany; John Goody, Cambridge, England; Aron Iakovlevich Gurevich, Moscow; Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Paris; George Marcus, Houston; Ramonde Moulin, Paris; Salvatore Settis, Pisa, Italy; George Stocking, Chicago.

The Getty Center has also selected five fellows to work on their dissertations during the 1988-89 school year. Doing postdoctoral work will be Thomas Huhn, Boston University; Lauren O’Connell, Cornell University; Ulrich Schneider, Technical University of Berlin; Elizabeth Watson, Johns Hopkins University. Predoctoral: Joseph Auner, University of Chicago.

VIDEO WINNERS: “Blinky the Friendly Hen 1978-1988,” an allegory set in a pet cemetery by Bruce Yonemoto, is one of five videos to be produced this year with grants from the Long Beach Museum of Art’s Open Channels television production program.

The other 1988 Open Channel grant winners are Victoria Bearden, Hilja Keading, Jayce Salloum and collaborators Erika Suderburg and Lynne Kirby, all California artists. Each one will receive $2,000, videotape stock, and eight days access to professional video production facilities. Their works will be shown later this year at the Long Beach Museum of Art and on “Viewpoints on Video,” a cable series produced by the museum and telecast on 14 California cable stations.

FUNDS FOR ART: The Los Angeles-based Arts Consortium has received a $100,000 grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation to provide services and programs for multicultural arts organizations.

The 5-year-old Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego reports its best fiscal year to date, thanks to $58,600 from the National Endowment for the Arts. The museum’s NEA grants are: $8,500 for expansion of the permanent collection of photography by living American artists, $15,000 for a documentary photographic project on the U.S.-Mexico border at Tijuana, $19,000 for an exhibition of works by Mexican artist Manuel Alvarez Bravo and $16,100 for the first American retrospective of photography by Duane Michals.