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‘Eco-Systems’ Exhibition Lets Life Imitate Art

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Just when it seemed that art had mined every conceivable medium, along comes an exhibit that’s alive with surprises. The works in “Eco-Systems” at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum incorporate more than 65,000 living creatures, namely snakes, frogs, guppies and swarms of ants and bees.

These animals populate large installations by Michael Paha, John Roloff, Mark Thompson and Remo Campopiano. The installations, all containing animals whose behavior can’t be predicted or controlled, are sort of “art as research,” said arts forum director Betty Klausner.

The gist of the show is summed up in a statement by Paha, whose 24-foot-long environment will be “like something we might find below city streets,” Klausner said before the artist had begun installation. The piece, “Other Worlds Near to Us,” will be a “dark, mysterious” habitat containing rocks, water, soil and urban debris--trash, bottle caps and spent shotgun shells--and snakes, frogs and insects, Klausner said.

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Writes Paha: “My goal is to set up the situation, arranging for a set of activities to occur by chance, and then letting all the elements take their natural course.”

Said Klausner: “All four of these artists are doing that: Setting up situations with live elements--with live animals--and then indeed, seeing what happens. This is art as research in a very major way.”

Roloff, who will construct two spherical glass and steel greenhouse structures, one installed at the arts forum, the other at Santa Barbara’s Museum of Natural History, “unleashes environmental conditions to see what happens,” Klausner said. Collectively titled “Oculus,” his forms will hold water where algae will grow over the length of the exhibit.

“He is seeking information about the unknown and what’s important to him is transformation and change,” Klausner said, noting the artist’s long-time interest in geology.

Thompson’s long-held passion has been apian. His work “Idiot Boy” immerses viewers in a room redolent with the scent of honey, illuminated by amber light filtered through wax-covered windows, and abuzz with the sound of bees--about 60,000 bees--swarming inside a hive. The title refers to a short story, posted outside the room, about a mentally retarded boy “immersed in the world of bees,” Klausner said.

The largest piece in the unusual exhibit is Campopiano’s “Fish-Breeder,” which consists of 10 wall-size test tubes. Filled with breeding guppies, the giant decanters deposit the guppies’ babies into a pond. In the pond are Styrofoam mounds covered with thousands of ants.

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“Around the edge of the pond, there will be a place where you can actually kneel down and observe what’s going on with the ants and the guppies,” Klausner said. “It’s a combination of science--represented by the test tubes--and the natural world.

“As well as being sort of weirdly compelling imagery, these pieces will make you stop and think a great deal about our environment--what’s out there and what we’re doing with it,” Klausner said.

“Eco-Systems,” through April 8, is financed in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

PICTURES FOR POSTERITY: The Richard Avedon archive, consisting of more than 1,000 prints, negatives, transparencies, correspondence, books and memorabilia, has been acquired by the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography.

“The great weakness in art history is the confusion between the life of the artist and the life of the work,” said Avedon, renowned for portraiture and fashion photography, about the acquisition. The center, a leading museum of 20th-Century photography, “is the only museum of photography that honors that distinction and devotes itself to both. I feel that my work is now in better hands than my own,” he said.

ALL AROUND TOWN: A festival of exhibits, performances, classes and other cultural activities will be ooheld Saturday and Sunday at each of 10 art centers operated by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

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The festival, called “Center Connections,” will offer such events as a student-faculty art exhibit at the North Valley Arts Center in Granada Hills and a mono print workshop at Art-in-the Park in Arroyo-Seco Park.

Free bus transportation between the art centers will be offered. Information: (213) 485-2433.

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