Kaleidoscope’s misfortune brought out a more critical viewpoint . . . .

The weekend heat wave brought ill fortune to Kaleidoscope 90, the second running of the annual art show that the Glendale business community hoped would place it on the cultural map of Los Angeles.

With temperatures topping 100 both Saturday and Sunday, no more than a few hundred spectators ventured to the unsheltered stone surface of the Allstate Plaza, where the work of 35 artists and students from several local schools was on display.

The action was so light that some of the artists packed up early and went home.

To the sponsors of the show, the heat itself offered the most obvious explanation of why their eight months of preparation came to so little.

“I’m sure it was the heat,” Kaleidoscope Chairman Tom Miller said.

But Kaleidoscope’s misfortune brought out a more critical viewpoint that has been steaming up for some time.

Art is a subjective and ego-driven business. And not all of the Glendale art scene’s egos had been in perfect harmony on Kaleidoscope.

The ego most out of tune is that of Frank Furgal, an artist of a minimalist-pointilist bent who makes a living as a teacher for the cities of Glendale and Burbank and by selling his work at shows.

Furgal is vice president in charge of exhibitions and shows for the Glendale Art Assn., a 68-year-old organization of artists. Its 250 members range from casual arts enthusiasts to those who live by their craft.

Accordingly, Furgal’s view of art is democratic. His idea of an exhibition is one with lots of art by lots of artists all lined up in rows.

He’s cool to juried shows where “if you’re not as good as that person, you’re rejected.”

He says: “Let the people decide” what’s art.

For some time, Furgal has been grumbling quietly about what he considers the elitism of Kaleidoscope.

He is hardly an unbiased critic.

Last year, he entered his work in Kaleidoscope’s juried show. The jury turned thumbs down. Furgal decided not to enter this year. It’s no fun, he said, sending in $35 only to be told that you’re not good enough to show your work in your own town.

Nevertheless, a touch of elitism has been evident in Kaleidoscope since the day a group of business leaders called the Glendale Partners invited the press to the Verdugo Club last spring to announce their sponsorship of an art show that would reach far beyond Glendale for its content and its audience.

Exactly what kind of art they had in mind was never as clear as their ambition to give the city an event of status.

This year, the business leaders handed the show over to the Glendale Regional Arts Council, a private arts group that sees its role as cultivating business and municipal connections to build the presence of all the arts in Glendale.

Its president, David Ferguson, said the council decided to stick to the original goal of creating a regional art show, considering that Glendale already has several art shows that are open to all comers.

However, by the time the entry deadline passed, it was clear that neither the artists of Glendale nor those of the Southland saw it as their show. Only 56 artists submitted work. The jurors picked only 18 entries as good enough for the show.

Allstate Plaza is a large, bold space outlined by long, rippling geometric pools. It would have swallowed up 18 artists.

Furgal proposed that the sponsors change the concept by opening the show to everyone.

“What I suggested to Kaleidoscope was that they create an inner circle,” he said. “The jurors select 25, or something like that, and give those artists the prime locale or the prime walls to show their work. . . . Everything is possible. It’s how you present it to the world.”

Ferguson said the proposal came too late to be given consideration.

The sponsors instead selected 17 more artists from the rejected entries, creating a separate invitational show.

“We are trying to make available the finest art possible to the largest public audience possible,” Miller explained in a pre-show press release. “That’s why we created three sections--Juried, Invitational and Student--it’s a real Kaleidoscope of art.”

Whether it was heat or merely lack of excitement that kept the crowds away may be a matter of opinion.

Furgal, predictably, wasn’t excited:

“The plaza dominated the show, as opposed to the art show dominating the plaza,” he said. “The architecture of the buildings and the fountains was so wonderful in comparison to the little artwork that was shown. That was the original piece of artwork there.

“I hate to be a critic because people are going to make the same criticism of my work.”

At this point, they’re probably going to do a lot more than that. Furgal has not endeared himself to the arts council and may have even estranged the leaders of his own organization. But someone should be listening.

Like the shrill ramblings of Cassandra, his criticisms are painfully accurate in identifying that classical Greek failing called hubris.