Sticking His Neck Out : Gallery owner/auctioneer builds reputation by showcasing Latino art featuring strong political content

Within the Los Angeles art community, Robert Berman may be best known as a gallery owner who specializes in Hispanic artworks.

Berman is also the first gallery owner to showcase hit-and-run guerrilla artist Robbie Conal.

Some people in the art community first heard Berman’s name when he brought the popular Keith Haring/Andy Warhol show, “Andy Mouse,” to Santa Monica from New York three years ago, and they are anticipating Berman’s upcoming fall show (Oct. 19-Nov. 15) with Haring, who this time collaborates with Beat-generation icon William Burroughs.

Berman’s career, including 10 years dealing in and displaying contemporary art in Los Angeles, could also be characterized by a series of incidents surrounding a single billboard.

“It was part of the cultural landscape of L. A. for five months,” said Berman, 41, referring to a billboard designed by artist Daniel Martinez, which went up in November. “It was scheduled to be whitewashed.”

You may have seen it. Ferocious, barking dogs pictured with a brief caption, “Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds You.” At 28 by 40 feet, it was hard to miss, especially because it was placed across the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

To save the piece, Berman spent thousands of dollars to buy it from Patrick Media, the billboard company that originally commissioned the project. But what does the owner of a 375-square-foot art gallery do with a 28- by 40-foot billboard?

“Either it travels, or I have a lot of firewood,” Berman recalled saying to himself.

Luckily, Berman convinced a curator planning a European show featuring L. A. Hispanic art that the billboard would be an invaluable addition. He agreed, and though Berman had to incur the initial shipping costs (about $5,000), the potential washout is one of the hits of the show, called “Demon Angels,” traveling through Europe.

“He reached into his own pocket and saved the artwork,” Martinez said. “Now it’s going to travel to museums all over the world.”

“I just don’t know what I’ll do if it ever comes back,” Berman said. Perhaps, he jokes, he’ll have to auction it off piece by piece.

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A veteran art auctioneer, Berman not only holds auctions for his own gallery but is sought by charities and art organizations to perform the money-raising events for them. He has helped put together auctions for the Graphic Arts Council (a support group at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), acted as auctioneer for an organization that aids Central American refugees and ran a benefit auction for Amnesty International on July 14, which he held at a space he is temporarily occupying down the street from his smaller B-1 Gallery, called B-1 Contemporary Exhibitions.

Because of his appetite for Latino art with strong political content, his relationship with Robbie Conal and his choice of charities, Berman is aware that some people might suspect that he is more interested in polemics than paintings. Not so, he says.

“I think of myself as an art dealer. I really don’t involve my political concerns with my business, though it appears that way.

“I love political art and the idea of art having different levels of involvement. It has immediate impact on people. You’re hit in the face with it whether you like it or not. People might say I only show liberal art, but that’s because the only good political art I find is liberal.”

Berman’s reputation for showcasing strident political art was enhanced when he became the first gallery owner to offer Conal a show. Conal is famous for his irreverent black and white portraits of public figures plastered on buildings, walls and fences around Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas; his “Men With No Lips” poster caught Berman’s eye during a visit to New York. When Berman found out that the controversial artist was a Santa Monica resident, the Westside art dealer sought him out.

“He’s one of the liveliest dealers in Los Angeles,” Conal said. “And he’s very honest, which is rare among gallery slime.”

Although Conal believes that “the whole world is my gallery,” he credits Berman with helping him become legitimized within the art community by showcasing his oil paintings.

Berman says the Conal show, which opened in April, 1987, produced some tense moments.

“I used to get a few threatening phone calls back then,” Berman said. “But Robbie was the one really taking chances, and he was doing all the work.”

Conal said: “He was the first person to stick his neck out, but he has a history of digging up local art that the mainstream art establishment won’t touch.”

East Los Angeles artist George Yepes is one of those who felt neglected by the local art scene until Berman showcased his paintings. Yepes, 33, began his career as a muralist but is best known for the cover illustration he did for rock group Los Lobos’ recent album, “La Pistola y el Corazon.”

“I have a long, documented exclusion as an artist. I wasn’t getting good representation,” Yepes said.

But that changed when Berman squeezed him into his busy gallery schedule for one week in January. That week turned into a successful three-week run where Berman sold eight original Yepes paintings.

“There’s nobody selling my work like him,” Yepes said.

But just as important to the artist is Berman’s willingness to exhibit his paintings that aren’t for sale, specifically two pieces--with graphic anti-war themes--banned by an ad agency that was organizing a show of Hispanic art.

“This ad agency said they couldn’t expose their clients to this type of art,” Yepes said. “Everybody uses Hispanic as a label for everything from Taco Bell to Palomo Picasso,” he said.

“Until I’m proven otherwise, his is the only gallery persistently and actively promoting and displaying true Hispanic and Chicano art.”

Berman acknowledges his role in helping local Latino artists find a forum, but says he doesn’t want to get pigeonholed as a promoter exclusively of Chicano art.

“I don’t deal with Hispanic art or Chicano art. I deal in good art,” he said. “But I like the sensitivity of the artists of Latin origin, mainly because I see the fire and the anger of it. It’s not your American mainstream, elitist, white-collar art.”

The work of German-born Zara Kriegstein fits Berman’s preference for figurative, colorful art that makes a statement, although she is neither Latino nor a Los Angeles resident. But Kriegstein’s passionate, political pieces are reminiscent of some Mexican muralists, including Diego Rivera, whose influence is noticeable in Kriegstein’s “Amnesty” mural, which is prominently displayed at the larger B-1 Contemporary Exhibitions.

“I am not well-known and have only been shown in a few galleries,” said Kriegstein, who lives in Santa Fe, N. M. “Robert bought my work because he really likes it. He’s willing to take risks.”

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Chicago-born Berman was educated as a painter and sculptor at the Art Institute of Chicago, but soon became more interested in the commerce of art. Calling it an important part of the creative process, Berman decided to make art dealing his mission in life when he was only 19.

After spending four years in Paris dealing in art and other collectibles, Berman settled in Santa Monica in 1978. On Hill Street, he started a gallery that lasted four years until he moved to Main Street, where he opened B-1.

The raw qualities of the Venice/Santa Monica community that first attracted Berman have diminished with the recent growth of Main Street and the surrounding area, but he still finds the atmosphere worthwhile.

“It was a lot rougher than it is now, like a run-down downtown area,” he said. “It’s become very yuppified, but there are strong checks and balances in Santa Monica.”

Berman has his eye on the burgeoning Pacific Rim as a prime art-dealing territory of the future, a situation that he believes could catapult Los Angeles to the top of the contemporary art world much like New York was in the 1960s.

“This is the time for art in L. A. The Japanese and even the Europeans are looking here,” said Berman, who has organized shows in Tokyo and is a prime mover behind the “Demon Angels” show, which he plans to catch up with Nov. 15 for its opening in Barcelona, Spain.

“Los Angeles has a chance to be the next vestige of creativity and commerce.”

Give Berman his wish, though, and he’s collecting, not dealing.

“My dream is to be able to accumulate enough great art that when I die, it will all be in a museum where they’ll say, ‘That was Robert Berman’s collection.’ That is the ultimate contribution I can probably leave.”