Austria’s Eva Schlegel Is Positive: Negatives Work Best

FACES

Austrian artist Eva Schlegel, whose first solo show in the United States opened Saturday at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, doesn’t want her art to provide any easy answers.

“I want the viewer to be confused a little bit and to really look to see what it is,” the 30-year-old Schlegel said of her works, which consist of negative images from old photographs printed on lead, related graphite drawings and graphite blocks, and lacquer paintings.

With her photographs, for instance, Schlegel said she works with negative images rather than positives so as to obscure the prints.

“The positives are too clear. You can read the time on the positive, and that’s an aspect I’m not concerned with,” said Schlegel, who lives in Vienna and had her first solo show in Berlin’s Centralpark in 1985. “I don’t want nostalgic pictures. I want you to have to work to see what they depict. You have to really concentrate to see what is going on.”

But viewers are not the only ones who must fill in some blanks. Schlegel herself doesn’t know the history of any of the photographs she uses.

“They’re found photographs,” Schlegel said, noting that she once discovered a large batch of old negatives from the ‘20s and ‘30s in a hazardous waste dump site in Vienna. “I’m in the same situation as the (viewer). I don’t know the story, I don’t know who took the picture, and I don’t know where they were taken.”

Schlegel, who has also been selected for a 1991 group show at New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art, combines her photographs on lead with matching graphite pieces that depict abstract drawings of the images. Together, these couples make a clear picture come into view, but then vanish just as you begin to see what it really is, she said. The idea behind her lacquer pieces, which depict abstract landscapes and sunsets, is similar.

“The graphite pieces, they are very closed and very hard, and the only way you can find (images) in them is through the black drawings,” Schlegel explained. “And the lacquer pieces, although there are some open spaces, are closed as well. I closed them with the lacquer and the shine. The picture looks endless, but it is closed very hard, so you can’t quite get into it.”

Interviewed the morning after her arrival in Los Angeles, Schlegel admitted she was curious to see how her work would be received here. But she has an even larger audience coming up in a few weeks, when she will be included in the Aperto section of the prestigious 1990 Venice Biennale.

THE SCENE

Actress Jane Fonda stepped in last week to help with efforts for “Dialogue/Prague/Los Angeles,” simultaneous shows of works by 11 Czechoslovakian artists scheduled for this June at Otis/Parsons Art Institute and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. A total of $25,000 was raised to help bring in the Czech artists during an old-fashioned political-style fund-raiser--complete with speeches--held at Fonda’s Santa Monica home.

About 200 people, including collectors Eileen and Peter Norton, Merry Norris and Ahren Berg, showed up to both support and pledge funds for the cause. In addition to Fonda, the garden reception was also hosted by Marcia Weisman and the Ahmanson Theatre/Mark Taper Forum’s Gordon Davidson.

“We still need about $20,000 more, but we’re over the hump,” said exhibition organizer Barbara Benish, one of the American artists that showed in the first part of the exchange, in which U.S. artists went to Prague last summer. “We were hoping for $60,000 but we can do it for $45,000 if need be.”

The exhibitions are scheduled for June 29-Aug. 18 at Otis/Parsons and June 30-July 15 at the Santa Monica museum. Benish is still taking donations to mount the show and can be contacted at (213) 413-5857.

For those who have always wanted to wear works by their favorite artists, 30 small jewelry pieces by 10 artists including Alexis Smith, Red Grooms, Jim Morphesis, John Okulick and DeWain Valentine are available in limited editions for $400 to $2,500 each. An example of the pieces available is Smith’s gold-vermeil bracelet which resembles an old-fashioned toy watch and is inscribed with a Marlene Dietrich line from the 1932 movie “Shanghai Express”: “I can’t replace your ideals, but I’ll buy you a new watch when we get to Shanghai.”

The pieces, executed in silver, gold-vermeil, or both from the designs of the artists--who also include Lynda Benglis, Fletcher Benton, Joan Brown, Lysiane Luong and William T. Wiley--have been exhibited under the title “American Artists in Jewelry” at galleries including Santa Monica’s Dorothy Goldeen. They are available through the Beverly Hills-based Artist Editions Limited. Information: (213) 275-5757.

OVERHEARD

“It’s a very nice Cole, but not as nice as ours,” mused a tailored lady in her 60s to her similarly aged husband as they perused Thomas Cole’s 1825 “Mountain Sunrise,” while sipping champagne and nibbling pasty hors d’oeuvres during a preview in the Rodeo Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel. The small canvas, once the property of legendary Museum of Modern Art director Alfred H. Barr Jr., is expected to pull between $300,000 and $500,000 when it goes on Christie’s auction block May 23. “Well, it’s not a fair comparison,” the gentleman replied. “Ours is at least twice as big.”

CURRENTS

Laguna Art Museum has added seven new works to it’s permanent collection, including the 1979 mixed-media piece “Jerry Can Standard” by Edward Kienholz. The other works--donated by various museum supporters--include Lita Albuquerque’s 1987 painting, “Untitled”; Claude Buck’s 1942 oil on panel, “Untitled,” and Lynn Coleman’s environmentally themed 1988-89 work, “Future of the Planet.”

Other donations include reciprocal gifts by artists Gerald Brommer and Milford Zornes, who each donated a work of the other’s that they had collected. Zornes donated Brommer’s 1969 watercolor, “Cannery Row--Silvery Morning,” and Brommer donated an untitled watercolor by Zornes.

The final donation was by mixed-media artist Ilene Segalove, who is currently showing at the museum in a major survey through July 8. She donated her 37x30-inch 1987 work “Fishy Date,” an autobiographical black-and-white photographic montage and collage with applied color.

The seven works will be on view at the museum annually in rotating exhibitions.

DEBUTS

Harry Orlyk--who paints decaying factories, farms and houses from the environment in his home town of Salem, N.Y.--has his first Southern California solo exhibition at Tatistcheff Gallery through June 2. Orlyk, who has been showing in New York City since 1986, uses a palette limited to the primary colors and white, with no medium or turpentine. His Tatistcheff show includes about 25 canvases.

HAPPENING

Acclaimed Oaxacan woodcarver Manuel Jimenez will be at the Southwest Museum on Saturday where he and his two sons, Angelico and Isaias, will demonstrate woodcarving and painting techniques. The free demonstration, which is part of the folk artist’s first-ever visit to California, will be held from 1-3 p.m. in the museum’s courtyard. Information: (213) 221-2164.

“Thomas Hart Benton: The Man, his Music and his Art,” a free performance featuring songs from Benton’s personal collection, readings from his writings and anecdotes from interviews with his friends and relatives, will be presented at 8 p.m. on Wednesday at the L.A. County Museum of Art (with a special seniors matinee scheduled for 2 p.m. on Tuesday). Information: (213) 857-6139.

“Artist Survival Skills,” a two-day workshop designed to help the working artist improve and maintain an active system of self-support, will be held Saturday and next Sunday at the Woman’s Building. Cost for the 10 a.m.-5 p.m. workshop, which will be taught by career development specialist and artist Nat Dean, is $40 per day, and pre-registration is required. Information: (213) 221-6161.

Seven local artisans will display and demonstrate their works on Saturday from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Center for the Study of Decorative Arts in San Juan Capistrano. Admission is $3 for adults; $2 for students, seniors and children. Information: (714) 496-2132.

ETC.

Danny Ray Leopard of San Diego, Azian Nurudin of San Francisco, Kevin Frayser of Long Beach and Jeffrey Marino of Berkeley have been selected for the Long Beach Museum of Art’s “Open Channels VI: Television Production Grant Program.” As part of the program, the video artists will each receive a $2,000 cash grant.