L.A. Center for Photographic Studies Finds a Home

The Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies is no longer homeless.

On Saturday, LACPS opens its new downtown gallery space--the organization’s first home in two years--with an inaugural exhibition featuring photographic installations by Los Angeles artists Kim Yasuda and Jody Zellen, and large-scale photographic mixed-media pieces by the collaborative team of Todd Gray and Stephan Reusse.

“This is a big step for us,” said LACPS Director Suzy Kerr, who explained that the nonprofit organization has been working to establish a permanent home since 1988, when it received a $25,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant for that purpose.

Kerr said that up until now, the organization has been operating out of an office located in the same building as the new gallery, and has held its programs--including exhibitions, lectures and workshops--in other venues, such as Beyond Baroque, the Fullerton Museum Center and USC.

Kerr said that while the organization still will continue to collaborate with other locations and venues for its larger exhibitions, the new gallery will be used to show “local artists doing emerging work.”

“We were lucky to get it,” said Kerr of the 350-square-foot space, which she described as “more of a small, New York-style gallery space than a Los Angeles gallery space.” Located at 1048 W. 6th St., the 35x11-foot gallery, which formerly housed a sign shop, was redesigned by architect and LACPS board member Josh Schweitzer, and contains a large store-front window facing out to 6th Street.

Kerr said that she had been too “overwhelmed” with finishing the physical work necessary for the gallery’s opening to set many future programing details, but that the gallery’s second show, to open in late March, will feature the work of photographer Pat Ward Williams. Programing decisions beyond that, she said, will be made by LACPS’ newly formed program committee, chaired by local artist Daniel Martinez.

“We’re going to put out a call for entries and suggestions. We want to make this space as open as possible to the community . . . so we want to work on a fairly spontaneous basis,” Kerr said.

But while the new home is certainly a step forward, it isn’t the last for LACPS, which was formed in 1974 to encourage the growth and appreciation of photography as an art form.

“We plan to move again in a couple of years to a larger, better, permanent home,” said Kerr, noting that the organization’s ultimate goal is to have a 300,000-square-foot gallery space in the downtown area.

In the meantime, however, Kerr said she expects more than 300 people to attend the gallery’s opening on Saturday. In addition to the regular gallery opening, the organization will throw a $10-per-person party from 7-10 p.m. in the building’s 10th floor penthouse. The local band Gutbucket will perform.

The Yasuda, Zellen and Grey and Reusse works will remain on view through March 9.

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Long Beach’s Public Corporation for the Arts will accept slide entries for the city’s fifth annual Art Expedition poster through Thursday. To qualify, entrants must live and produce their work in the city of Long Beach, must have been working as a professional artist for at least three years and must already belong to or be ready to join the PCA’s Visual Arts Registry. For information, call Mary Sullivan at (213) 499-7777.

Also accepting entries is the Downey Museum of Art, which is preparing for its March 22-May 6 “Ceramics Now: 1990” show. For consideration, artists must submit slides by Feb. 14. The competition is open to all artists working in ceramics, and the museum is seeking work that is representative of current trends in the medium. For information, call (213) 861-0419.

NOTES: The Norton Simon Museum of Art has added Gustave Courbet’s early portrait, “Peasant Girl with a Scarf,” to its collections. The portrait of a young peasant woman wearing a checked cotton scarf was painted about 1848, during the first decade of the artist’s maturity. . . . Noted Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, whose first solo museum show in the U.S., “External Encounters, Internal Imaginings: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide,” is currently at the San Francisco Museum of Art, will present a free slide lecture on Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m. at San Francisco’s Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission St. Iturbide will discuss--in Spanish and accompanied by an English translator--her experiences as a photographer working in Mexico and the United States. . . . Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, and the Downey Museum of Art are among 23 arts institutions receiving matching grants through the National/State/County Partnership. LACE will receive $10,000; LACPS $5,000 and the Downey Museum $2,500. The grants recognize “significant contributions being made by emerging and innovative organizations.”