Portraits of the Pre-Massacre Troubles in China at LACE

FACES

“Most people think (the events leading up to the Tien An Men Square massacre) happened so suddenly, but that’s not true,” said Li Huai, a Chinese-born artist whose installation, “Self Discipline,” at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions opens Monday in commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the massacre. “My whole show is about the long-term problems that have existed in China and have deep roots. These long-term problems are what led up to (the massacre).”

Huai’s installation, which runs through July 29 and is her first one-person exhibition in Los Angeles, is comprised of mural-sized plexiglass panes painted with either faceless Chinese workers looking up to their leaders or with traditional Chinese images such as an oversized Chinese New Year baby. Huai uses the images--which take on vastly different appearances when viewed from the front and the back of the panes--to point out what she sees as obvious problems in the Chinese system.

“I use Chinese propaganda--the symbols, the size and the scale--but when you look at it, you do see the problems. For instance, everyone is always looking in the same direction--at the leaders. And the leaders, they are big people, pink, happy and healthy and with no problems, and the sky is always very blue. . . . Everyone thinks the same way, lives the same way and works in the same direction, and which way they’re going comes from the government. So you really don’t see the individual. The problem here is so obvious, it becomes absurd.”

Huai, 34, who moved to the United States in 1983 after marrying an American professor, knows first hand about Chinese propaganda murals. During the cultural revolution--at which time she was sent for three years to rural parts of China to work in the fields--she spent nearly a year painting murals for the government as a means to obtain art supplies and attempt to gain acceptance of her art work.

“I know what they wanted--people always smile, they always have pink cheeks, and they use a lot of red color as a way of making you feel positive. But here I use these things, I think, with a different effect,” she said.

Huai, whose installation also includes quotes from both Chinese propaganda publications and first-person accounts of the massacre--both of which have shadows of various leaders painted behind them to show that “someone” is always listening--is also included in a group show opening this Saturday at Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro.

CURRENTS

More than 150 prominent artists have donated works valued at more than $1.4 million for “Artists for Amnesty,” a benefit exhibition for Amnesty International USA that will open Wednesday at BlumHelman and Germans van Eck galleries in New York City.

Artists whose works will be featured in the exhibition--from which all proceeds will go to the human rights organization--include Christian Bottanski, Fernando Botero, Herb Ritts, Keith Haring, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Longo, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenberg, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella.

A $75- to $1,000-per-person benefit dinner and reception will be held on Tuesday at the Columns restaurant in New York to officially kick off the “Artists for Amnesty” effort, which is being co-chaired by New York art dealer Leo Castelli and actor/comedian Steve Martin. The exhibitions--which will also include works by a few celebrity artists including actor Dennis Hopper, and rock musicians Ron Wood and Bono--run through June 16.

In addition to the exhibition and sale, “Artists for Amnesty” has adopted four political prisoners, including an artist from South Korea imprisoned for sending photographs of a politically controversial mural to North Korea. Exhibitions attendees will be asked to sign postcards addressed to the heads of state in which the prisoners are being held.

Organizers eventually hope to bring a similar “Artists for Amnesty” exhibition to Los Angeles.

THE SCENE

Santa Monica-based art dealer Fred Hoffman has scored a big coup in taking over representation of prominent Los Angeles artist Jill Giegerich. Giegerich, who had been represented by Margo Leavin Gallery since the early 1980s, was in Hawaii and could not be reached for a comment on her move.

“The Blue Boy,” arguably the most popular work at the Huntington Library, will be taken down from the museum’s walls for about two weeks beginning Tuesday. The work, painted in about 1770 by Thomas Gainsborough, will undergo “comparatively simple” conservation treatments to stabilize “a tendency to flaking” in it’s background, according to museum curator Robert Wark.

Said Wark: “There is always a disappointed outcry whenever ‘The Blue Boy’ is temporarily removed from the gallery. We are pleased that the present conservation treatment is so minor that the painting can be quickly returned to public display.”

DEBUTS

Persian-born artist Habib Kheradyar has his first one-person exhibition in Los Angeles at Karl Bornstein Gallery through June 23. In his abstract paintings, Kheradyar, who was included in last summer’s exhibition in Czechoslovakia, “Dialogue/Prague/Los Angeles,” embodies multiple cultures, combining his Eastern upbringing with his Western arts training and a recent interest in Eastern European culture.

New York artist Patrice Caire has her first West Coast solo exhibition at Shoshana Wayne Gallery Saturday through July 14. Her mixed-media installations trace the material effects of radical transformations in high-tech communication devices. Caire, who was born and educated in France, is the recipient of a 1990 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, an Adolphe and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant and a Sculpture Space Residency Award. She has solo shows scheduled later this year at the university art museums at UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Clara.

HAPPENING

More than 50 downtown-area artists, including many new and emerging artists will open their studios Saturday and next Sunday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. for the 1990 Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Open Studios Tour. The self-guided tour has been divided into two localized groupings (one for each day), and tickets are $7 per day, $5 for LACE members and free for children under 12. Information: (213) 624-5650.