Video Power of ‘Second Thoughts’

The power of television isn’t lost on politicians or their “handlers.” It hasn’t escaped the scrutiny of video artists either. A group show opening Tuesday at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions lets the latter have their say on the subject.

“Second Thoughts and Double Takes,” with videos by seven women, explores the relationship of the people behind and in front of the camera.

“The tapes all have to do with individuals’ responses to the broadcast media,” said Anne Bray, LACE video coordinator. “They ask questions like who is taking pictures of whom; who is behind that camera and in what way is that person related to the person being photographed, and what’s the difference between those two people and how do you honor that difference?”

The video that inspired the exhibit is by Nancy Buchanan, whose video works are in the permanent collections of such institutions as the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art and New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

“Sightlines” (1988), is about how the news media feeds into people’s tendency to absolve themselves of responsibility by denying the “bad news,” feeling disconnected from it, or by claiming helplessness to do anything about it, Buchanan said. The three-part video includes a segment showing someone breaking through such a pattern.

“A middle-class woman is driving her car in downtown Los Angeles,” the artist said. “Accidentally, she makes eye contact with a homeless man picking through the trash and suddenly sees him as equal to herself.

“People don’t see themselves as part of a larger picture, a larger frame, they just see themselves in terms of a very small portrait of their own community, their own concerns, and don’t think about fitting into other issues,” Buchanan said. “Certainly the media fosters a great deal of “us vs. them” mentality. The ‘thems’ change, but the message is pretty much the same: ‘They’ are not like ‘us.’ ”

Another tape on view, by Valerie Soe, demonstrates Soe’s sensitivity to her subjects, Bray said. In “All Orientals Look the Same” (1986), Soe, a fourth generation Chinese-American, shows a melange of Asians of varying roots, from Samoan to Korean.

“If a non-Asian had made that tape, it would have read very differently, it would have read like all Asians do look alike,” Bray said. “Instead, it becomes very clear that Asians look very different.”

Other videos in the exhibit, which runs continuously during LACE hours, are by Paula Levine, Moyra Davey, Wendy Gellery, Jeanne Finley and Joyan Saunders.

BREEZY ART: Ten sculptures that move with the breeze now liven up the lawn of Westwood’s Federal Building at 11000 Wilshire Blvd. Using principles of engineering, Japanese artist Susumu Shingu crafted the delicate works, collectively called “Windcircus,” on view through Jan. 21.

“For many years, I have been creating objects that use the basic elements of the Earth--wind and water and form--to translate the messages of nature into artistic movement,” Shingu says.

The kinetic display, a traveling exhibit, is presented in cooperation with Nagoya, Japan, one of Los Angeles’ sister city, and the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs.

ARTISTS OF SAN DIEGO: “San Diego Artists” (Artra Publishing, Inc., 223 pages) by Robert Perine and I. Andrea, crystallizes the city’s emerging artistic prominence and details its wealth of resident talent. With short artists’ interviews and color photographs, the book details the area’s visual arts landscape, highlighted by the achievements of such important figures as Manny Farber, Newton and Helen Harrison, and Kenneth Capps.

Cold Tofu, the Cast Theatre and the Gay and Lesbian Media Coalition are among 18 local arts organizations that, along with 20 local individual artists, have been awarded $100,000 in grants from the Brody Arts Fund.

A program of the California Community Foundation, the fund supports artists and small emerging institutions, particularly those within the multicultural and other minority communities of Los Angeles.

In addition to the Cast Theatre, organizations receiving Brody Arts Fund Recognition Awards of $5,000 are East West Players and the Inner City Cultural Center.

Along with Cold Tofu and the Gay and Lesbian Media Coalition, these organizations received awards ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 in the fund’s Grant Program: American Indian Registry for the Performing Arts, ARTS Inc., Brockman Productions, City Hearts Performing Arts, Deaf Communications Foundation, Downey Museum of Art, Lola Montes and her Spanish Dancers, Rudy Perez Performance Ensemble, Repertory Dance Theatre of Los Angeles, Lula Washington Contemporary Dance Foundation, Meridian Theatre and Academy, Rhythms of the Village Arts Center and Southeast Symphony Assn.

Artists receiving the funds’ $2,500 fellowships are: Pat Berger, David Robert Bungay, Dennis Olanzo Callwood, Rose-Lynn Fisher, Betty Tosu Fong, Margaret Garcia, Roberto Gil De Montes, Mineko Grimmer, Peter Lodato, Leo Limon, Daniel Martinez, Susan Mogul, Maria Nordman, Peter Reiss, William Roper, Deborah Roundtree, Pat Shamroy Shaw, Hye Sook, Patssi Valdez and Ann Alexander Wolken.