LACE Director Will Take a Leave to View Some Art

“I just need some time off to get back to what I do it for in the first place,” said Joy Silverman as she announced a six-month paid sabbatical from her post as executive director of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) beginning Sept. 1.

“This job is more than a full-time job,” said Silverman, who has led the alternative arts center for six and a half years. “I need to get back and see art. I will be enriching myself and LACE. I’ll spend about half the time in Manhattan and the rest traveling in Europe, with some time in L.A.”

Beside viewing art, Silverman said she will continue on-going work on “a couple of big projects for LACE,” other art endeavors and such non art-related efforts as volunteer work with the local AIDS Hospice Foundation.

Programming will continue as usual at LACE, Silverman said.

Laurie Garris, LACE’s development director, will serve as acting director during Silverman’s leave.

Silverman, 36, was assistant director of Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) in Washington, D.C., before she was appointed LACE director in 1983.

TC TO CLOSE--TEMPORARILY: The Museum of Contemporary Art’s Temporary Contemporary will be closed from Aug. 14 through Sept. 14 for installation of “Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses.” That long-awaited exhibit, on view from Oct. 17 to Feb. 18, is a historical retrospective of the experimental houses designed and built in Los Angeles between 1945 and 1966 by architects such as Richard Neutra, Craig Ellwood and Charles Eames. The museum’s Grand Avenue building will remain open during this period.

LOOK AND LISTEN: “Art of Music Video” is the title of an unusual four-part festival offering “an alternative vision of the (music video) form as art,” to be held at the Long Beach Museum of Art on Thursday evenings from Aug. 3 to Aug. 24. Screenings, in the museum’s sculpture garden, will start at 8:30 p.m.

Combining both commercial and experimental work not shown on television, the festival will feature more than 80 videos with such artists as Laurie Anderson, Bad Brains, David Bowie, David Byrne, Devo, and Tom Waits. Its four segments explore pioneers of music video, important influences in commercial work, underground independent work and the future of music video.

In conjunction with the $5 festival, a panel discussion on the relationship between the media arts and music video will be presented at UCLA on Tuesday, Aug. 15 at 8 p.m.

SIGNED OFF: “A Forest of Signs” winds up on Aug. 13 at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Temporary Contemporary facility in Little Tokyo, but not before three speakers present their views on the massive exhibition of language-inspired art. Writer Benjamin Weissman will talk at the TC on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Gary Kornblau, publisher and editor of Art Issues magazine, will lead an informal discussion on Aug. 3 at 6:30 p.m. Artist and critic Fred Fehlau (who is showing his art at the Newport Harbor Art Museum) is scheduled for a talk on Aug. 6 at 3 p.m. These events conclude the museum’s “Art Talks” series sponsored by the W.M. Keck Foundation.

SPEAKING OUT: In response to the controversy over governmental funding of the arts, Robert Reid, director of the California Arts Council, has written a letter to California congressmen urging that they work for an increased budget for the National Endowment for the Arts.

The controversy, which recently prompted the House of Representatives to vote for a $45,000 cut from the NEA’s $171-million budget and other politicians to call for its complete eradication, was sparked in part by an NEA-funded exhibit that included “Piss Christ,” artist Andres Serrano’s photograph of a crucifix immersed in urine.

“The important issue that is obscured by this (controversy) is the need for increased direct support to the arts and the NEA,” Reid wrote. “Increased public support generates increased private support. Just as the physical environment must be preserved and nurtured, so too, must our cultural institutions and artists be protected. One exhibit found by many to be tasteless and deeply offensive will fade from sight against the thousands of artists and arts organizations who receive and merit our support.

“I urge you to support an increased budget to the NEA for the good work it does throughout the nation.”

NEW AT NEWPORT: Erik Bulatov, one of the Soviet Union’s leading artists, will make his Southland debut in a one-man show at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, Friday through Sept. 24. Bulatov worked primarily as an illustrator before glasnost allowed him to exhibit his personal expression. The Newport show will feature his 1971-1988 paintings, which transform Social Realist style images of political leaders and glorified views of Soviet life into poster-like paintings.

The museum continues its “New California Artists” series with exhibitions by Erika Rothenberg and Fred Fehlau. Rothenberg’s room-size installation, called “Which Country is the Best Country?”, explores political propaganda in the media and the effect of advertising on American values. Fehlau’s abstract constructions, combining painted panels with sailcloth, mirrors and aluminum, walk a tenuous line between painting and sculpture.

A selection of photographs from the museum’s permanent collection is also on view, in celebration of photography’s 150th birthday.