USC’s Mall Gallery to Close Up Shop

The USC Atelier, which has operated in the Santa Monica Place shopping center for more than seven years, will close April 1 due to financial constraints.

“The old battle to keep the art spaces alive is pretty tough sometimes,” said director Noel Korten, who has been with USC’s satellite gallery since it opened in 1982. “There aren’t any good guys and bad guys in this one, it’s just that there’s never been quite enough money for the arts.”

According to Korten, the gallery, which opens its final exhibition on Tuesday, has “been in a tenuous situation for the last couple of years.” But until recently, USC had hoped to save the gallery by opening a nearby museum shop which would generate income for the program. But Korten said Santa Monica Place, which donates the Atelier’s space, could not come up with a permanent location for such a shop, so in December, the School of Fine Arts decided to close down the gallery.

“Right now (the School of the Arts) is streamlining its priorities and had to re-evaluate and make a basic commitment to academics. But nobody there is happy about this,” Korten said.

Korten added that the gallery, which has hosted site-specific installations by artists including John White, Richard Turner and Margit Omar, has operated on a budget of about $60,000 a year. Of that, about $8,000 a year was covered by grants from the California and Santa Monica arts councils. Korten said the idea of charging admission to help cover the gallery’s costs was never even considered.

“I feel that would have compromised the whole idea of what we were trying to do, which is to make contemporary work accessible to people on a daily basis,” said Korten, noting that an average of 800-1200 people visit the gallery each week. “To charge admission would have discouraged people from coming in at all, and I don’t think it would have made a substantial difference anyway.”

Korten said the gallery’s final exhibition, “4 X 90,” has been planned since last summer and does not deal with the issue of the impending closure. For the exhibition, the gallery has been divided into four equally-sized corners, in which artists Steve Appleton, Ellen T. Birrell, Ernest Scott and Kim Yasuda will each create individual installations. For the gallery’s tiny Avago window gallery, Korten is creating an installation, entitled “Social Fabric,” which “focuses attention on some of the individuals who spend a lot of time in the mall.” Both the exhibitions and the gallery will close April 1.

“I feel sorry that the gallery is closing, for a variety of reasons,” said Korten, who added that he may still work with USC doing independent curatorial projects for the school’s Fisher Gallery. “(The Atelier) has been a successful program. Nobody in the school wants to do this. We’re not happy.”

AUCTION: The Museum of Contemporary Art will hold its fourth biennnial art auction and party on Saturday at the Temporary Contemporary (152 N. Central Ave.). About 60 works by major contemporary artists will be on the blocks in a live auction, and another 140 available in a silent auction.

The artists whose work will be featured include Sam Francis, Carlos Almaraz, Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Laddie John Dill, Charles Garabedian, Robert Graham, George Herms, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Longo, Matt Mullican, Claes Oldenburg, Man Ray, Ed Ruscha, Alison Saar and Andy Warhol.

The silent auction begins at 6 p.m. (it closes at 10 p.m.), with the live auction held from 7:15-8:30 p.m. John Marion, chairman and chief auctioneer of Sotheby’s North America, will preside. Tickets are $250 per person and include a dinner and dancing. and on Friday from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. For information, call (213) 621-1748).