Day Without Art Observance Turns Into a Day Without Crowds

Most Southern California museums participating in the national Day Without Art observance reported a disappointing turnout for Friday’s activities marking the impact of AIDS on the arts community.

“We didn’t particularly attract crowds, despite the free admission,” said La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art spokeswoman Diane Maxwell. “I think it’s reflected the fear--I don’t think people particularly wanted to deal with (events promoting AIDS awareness).”

Nevertheless, the La Jolla Museum, which showed films on AIDS throughout the day, reported one of the best responses in terms of turnout. About 150 people visited the museum on Friday, up from the usual 100, Maxwell said. In addition, the museum collected about $100 in its two donation boxes.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles, which also offered free admission, attendance was down to about 290 visitors from the usual 400, although about $650 was raised for AIDS Project Los Angeles. Spokeswoman Cynthia Campoy said that the museum attributed the low turnout to publicity reflecting that several museum and galleries were closed for the day.

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which also admitted all patrons for free and passed out envelopes for patrons to mail donations to AIDS Project Los Angeles and other AIDS organizations, 843 people visited the museum--about 50 more than usual for a Friday, museum officials said.

The museum also darkened a Robert Longo artwork called “Black Planet (for A.Z.),” which the artist dedicated to Arnie Zane, a friend who died of AIDS in 1988. Instead, a spotlight was made to shine on a sign explaining the significance of a Day Without Art. Howard Fox, curator of contemporary art, said that museum-goers’ response was “very effective. It was very poignant. It was in a place that everybody had to stop by, and everybody was stopping to read (the explanatory sign).”

At the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, which darkened its photography gallery to display a photograph of Samuel Wagstaff Jr., an important collector who died of AIDS in 1987, staff members said the reaction of museum-goers was very positive, although attendance was “pretty normal for a Friday.”

The Getty will donate about $800 from Friday’s sale of 47 copies of Wagstaff’s book, “A Collection of Photographs” to the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

There were about 35 people at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, about a third of the regular Friday attendance, according to executive director Tom Rhoads. He attributed the low attendance to the fact that the museum’s windows were blacked out, making it appear closed. About $100 was raised for AIDS Project Los Angeles.

Attendance was up from the usual 100 to about 120 at the Laguna Art Museum, where a Red Cross representative offered information on AIDS.

But at Newport Harbor Art Museum in Newport Beach, a performance by Tim Miller drew “a much larger and wider audience than we had anticipated,” said museum spokeswoman Maxine Gaiber.

Miller, a Los Angeles-based performance artist, presented a solo focusing on his experiences as a gay man, to a standing-room only crowd of 140 people.

The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego had a smaller crowd than usual Friday but collected about $200 for donation to a local AIDS research organization, said director Arthur Ollman.

Zan Dubin and Mary Helen Berg contributed to this article.