Looking to 1989--A Year With a Distinct Character : Along with the usual exhibits, we’ll be celebrating photography’s 150th birthday and examining Latino art

Historic periods, issues and ideas, artists, collections. The usual suspects are lined up for a 1989 preview of art exhibitions. When you get down to particulars, however, this year’s list has a distinct character, heavily influenced by celebrations of photography’s 150th birthday and examinations of Latino art.

Historic Periods: Museums across the country will note the fact that on Jan. 7, 1839, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre revealed his method of fixing a photographic likeness on a silver plate and that a few weeks later, on Jan. 31, William Henry Fox Talbot announced his invention of a process for creating duplicate prints from a single negative.

The most extensive local commemoration of photography’s sesquicentennial is at the J. Paul Getty Museum. It’s an appropriate gesture for the institution that in 1984 debuted as a mega-photography collector with the purchase of nine collections of 18,000 photographs reportedly worth $20 million. The museum has planned a series of five exhibitions surveying the history of the medium under the umbrella title of “Experimental Photography.” The first installment, “Discovery and Invention” (Jan. 17-April 2), will be followed by “The First Golden Age” (April 11-June 25), “The Painter Photographer” (July 5-Sept. 17), “The Machine Age” (Sept. 26-Dec. 10) and “The New Subjectivity” (Dec. 19-March 4, 1990).

The County Museum of Art last week launched its birthday celebration with “The Formative Decades: Photography in Great Britain, 1839 to 1920” (to March 19). The show features 130 images from the revered collection of the University of Texas at Austin (see Art News, Page 79). LACMA will close the year with “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: 150 Years of Photography” (Dec. 21-Feb. 25, 1990). The exhibition of 400 images from collections throughout the world will premiere at the National Gallery in Washington (May 7-Aug. 13) and travel to the Art Institute of Chicago (Sept. 16-Nov. 26) before coming to Los Angeles.

About 125 images from Dr. R. Joseph and Elaine Monsen’s Seattle-based collection of photography will provide an overview of the history and uses of the medium at the La Jolla Museum of American Art (Feb. 3-April 2).

Running late, the Museum of Modern Art will stage its celebration next year (Feb. 18-May 29, 1990) when it presents “The History of Photography,” a selection of 250 images and “a revised statement of photographic tradition” by John Szarkowski, director of MOMA’s department of photography.

Other art-historical highlights of 1989 include “The Gods Delight: The Human Figure in Classical Bronze,” a show of 75 engaging figurative works at the County Museum of Art (Feb. 9-April 9), and “The Sforza Court: Milan in the Renaissance 1450-1535” at the University Art Museum at Berkeley (Jan. 18-March 12). The Sforza exhibition will examine Milan’s Golden Age in a selection of 125 paintings, drawings, sculpture, illustrated books, prints, metalwork and textiles from an international array of collections. Organized by the University of Texas at Austin, the show will travel to the Yale University Art Gallery (April 16-June 4).

“40 Years of California Assemblage” is the annual exhibition of the UCLA Art Council (March 28-May 21). Sandra Starr explored the topic last summer in a five-gallery show. For the UCLA event, all under one roof, guest curator Anne Ayres has chosen 100 works by 52 artists.

Issues and Ideas: A round of contemporary Latino art shows in Southland museums and galleries attempts to rectify the notable absence of this work in mainstream showcases. “Hispanic Art in the United States,” a national traveling show of about 130 works by 30 painters and sculptors of Hispanic origin, will make its penultimate stop at the County Museum of Art (Feb. 5-April 16), then close at the Brooklyn Museum (June 10-Sept. 4). Carlos Almaraz, Robert Gil de Montes, Robert Graham, Gronk, Gilbert Lujan, Frank Romero and John Valadez are among Los Angeles artists represented in the show, organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington.

“Mexico Today: Painting and Sculpture,” at USC (Jan. 31-Feb. 18), is a reaction to the widely publicized “Hispanic Art in the United States.” Curator Robert Littman, formerly of New York University’s Grey Gallery and now at the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City, has assembled works by Mexico’s leading contemporary artists to demonstrate that not all Mexican talent has fled to El Norte.

“Latin American Presence in the United States, 1920-1970,” at the San Diego Museum of Art (May 22-July 16), offers yet another geographic slice in a show of works by artists of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of South and Central America and the Caribbean, organized by the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

Japanese-American artist Masami Teraoka takes a serious look at another social issue--the destructive effect of AIDS--in “Waves and Plagues,” a show of 37 watercolors and a kabuki-style screen (all executed in the style of Japanese woodcuts) at the Long Beach Museum of Art (March 19-April 23). The new Contemporary Arts Center in Honolulu last October presented the show as its inaugural event.

Aesthetic issues are the subject of “A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation” at the Museum of Contemporary Art (May 2-July 31), but often these notions are connected to popular culture. Such artists as Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer and Sherrie Levine will examine the concept of originality, the effect of mass media on perceptions of reality, the position of art in the art market and the role of artists as self-conscious producers of commodities. More than 300 works will be in this MOCA-organized show--an event that promises to engage the attention of contemporary art aficionados.

“Acceptable Entertainment,” a related exhibition at the Municipal Art Gallery (May 16-June 25), will present works by contemporary artists who use photography to investigate the phenomenon of television.

At the County Museum of Art (June 15-Aug. 27), “The Dada and Surrealist Word-Image” will examine the union of pictures and words, a marriage that continues to invite discussion.

Artists: They are mostly contemporary and overwhelmingly male. Looming largest on the winter horizon is the late Andy Warhol, the quintessential Pop artist. His name was in the news last year when his vast collections of fine art and bric-a-brac were auctioned in a 10-day spectacle at Sotheby’s New York. This year, Warhol’s name will be kept alive in an exhibition of 240 paintings from collections in nine countries. “Andy Warhol: A Retrospective” opens at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (Feb. 5-May 2). Not scheduled to come to Los Angeles, the show will travel to the Art Institute of Chicago (June 3-Aug. 13) and then to the Hayward Gallery in London, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Palazzo Reale in Milan before closing in August, 1990, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s retrospective will appear in Los Angeles, at the County Museum of Art (March 30-June 18), though it was originally scheduled to close a 15-month tour on Feb. 5 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The 100-piece show covers the influential artist’s long career in a selection of abstractions, still lifes, landscapes, flower paintings and New York cityscapes.

LACMA has also booked two big-name traveling exhibitions organized by the Museum of Modern Art: “Richard Diebenkorn: Works on Paper” (March 9-May 7) and “Frank Stella 1970-1987” (June 4-Aug. 13).

“Perpetual Motif: the Art of Man Ray,” at the Museum of Contemporary Art (March 19-May 28), will examine the Surrealist’s role as an influential innovator.

The 1989 exhibition roster also contains dozens of names well known to the trade but not yet household words. Texas artist Vernon Fisher, for example, will have his first retrospective of narrative assemblages and installations at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (Feb. 3-April 2). La Jolla will also host a 20-year survey of Jake Berthot’s paintings, including early Minimalist works and more recent painterly expressions (April 7-June 4).

The Newport Harbor Art Museum will pair exhibitions of paintings, sculpture and installations by German minimalist Gunther Forg with a 20-year survey of sculpture by Barry Le Va, who emerged in Los Angeles and subsequently moved to New York (Jan. 22-April 2).

“Stephen de Staebler: The Figure,” a show of 32 life-size sculptures by the Bay Area artist, organized by Lynn Gamwell, will appear at the Laguna Art Museum (June 2-Sept. 10).

Los Angeles sculptor Michael Todd’s work, which often resembles three-dimensional calligraphy, will be reviewed in a retrospective at the Palm Springs Desert Museum (Feb. 3-April 23).

New York artist Joan Snyder just opened a show at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (to Feb. 11), but it’s not the usual retrospective or update. CAF director Betty Klausner has assembled 36 paintings that the artist couldn’t bear to sell in “Joan Snyder Collects Joan Snyder.” Midway in a bicoastal tour, the show will head north to the De Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University (June 25-Aug. 20) and the University Art Gallery at Sonoma State University (Sept. 14-Oct. 29).

German artist Gerhard Richter, who was trained in his country’s official realist style but abandoned it for the avant-garde, will show 60 paintings and photographs in a wide range of styles at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (March 16-May 28).

According to schedules received so far, major exhibitions of historical figures seem to be rather scarce this year, but two out-of-town events sound particularly promising. “Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment” explores the effect of the Spanish Enlightenment on Francisco Goya, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Jan. 18-March 26). “Cezanne: The Early Years 1859-1872,” featuring 65 oils and 35 drawings from the artist’s formative years, will appear at National Gallery in Washington (Jan. 29-April 30).

An offbeat attraction at Cal State Northridge (March 13-April 14) offers models of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions, illustrating the Renaissance master’s visionary approach to science.

Collections: “An American Sampler: Folk Art From the Shelburne Museum,” at the County Museum of Art (Feb. 16-April 30), will bring a splendid array of examples from America’s leading institutional collector and preserver of American folk art. The exhibition marks the 40th birthday of the Vermont museum.

After touring the world for years, 60 works from the Frederick R. Weisman collection will settle down in the collector’s hometown, at UCLA (Tuesday-Feb. 26).

And finally, as if to prove that soaring auction prices haven’t cut everyone but billionaires out of the market, the Long Beach Museum of Art has scheduled “Collecting on a Shoestring: Works From the Collection of Jeri Coates” (May 7-June 11). The local collector’s “knowledge and persistence have transcended the limitations imposed by modest means,” according to a press release.