Round 1 in New Getty Art Funding Program

Two artists and two arts organizations based in Los Angeles have been awarded a total of $30,000 in the first round of a new $3-million funding program of the J. Paul Getty Trust.

Artists Cindy Bernard and Lari Pittman each won $7,500 fellowships, and Filmforum and the Plaza de la Raza Center for the Arts and Education have been given $7,500 apiece by the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, which supports individual artists and small to mid-size arts organizations.

According to initial plans for the fund, the two organizations were to receive $15,000 each, twice their grant amounts. But income generated from the endowment, which this month totaled $1 million and is expected to reach $3 million by 1990, this year came to only about $30,000, not $45,000, as hoped for, said Jack Shakley, president of the California Community Foundation, a Los Angeles-based organization that is managing the fund.

“We had to set up our criteria for using the money before the Getty Trust would send it to us,” Shakely said, “and we’re spending income only so we can build up the fund. But rather than wait another 90 days to generate another $15,000, we thought it was more important to get the grants to the organizations now.”

The diminished funds in no way diminished the appreciation of their recipients.

“Not only is it money in our pocket, but it opens the door for other foundations (to award grants), which is desperately needed for smaller organizations like ours,” said Richard Amromin, administrative director of Filmforum.

The grant will be used at Filmforum, now 14 years old, to present about 45 non-commercial experimental films in 1989 at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions downtown, Amromin said.

Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center in East Los Angeles will use its grant to help pay for a full-color catalogue for “The First Annual Nuevo L.A. Chicano Arts Show,” a current exhibit featuring works by 41 local emerging Latino artists, said Gema Sandoval, executive director of the 19-year-old center.

“The whole thrust of exhibiting new artists is the hope that some will reach a higher level,” Sandoval said. “But that can only happen for them is if we give them first-class treatment, vis-a-vis a catalogue.”

Artists Bernard and Pittman were equally grateful for their awards.

“Obviously, it feels good when an institution like the Getty shows support for your work,” said Bernard, 29, who had her first solo exhibit in a local gallery this year and plans to use her fellowship to produce a series of photographs taken through a microscope.

“It was an honor to be the first in line,” said Pittman, who took part in the prestigious Whitney Biennial in 1987 in New York and has had several local solo gallery shows. He intends to paint a series of life-size portraits on mahogany with his funds.