A Solution to Urban Scrawl : CURRENTS

The L.A. Mural Conservancy may have finally found a way to solve the ever-present graffiti problems that have plagued the city’s public art works. The conservancy has signed a one-year, $5,000 contract with Genesis Coatings to keep six specific murals clean through use of a wax-based “sacrificial coating” called Graffiti Melt. The coating is sprayed over the murals, and when wiped off, takes away graffiti without touching the murals’ finish.

“We’re really hoping that aside from (enabling us) to clean up the murals, this will cut down on the frequency with which they get hit,” said Bill Lasarow, acting president of the conservancy. “It’s inevitable that kids will hit the murals, but what we’re hoping is going to happen, is that after the kids hit it and it gets cleaned away a few times, they’ll feel discouraged that their handiwork isn’t lasting very long.”

Although only six murals will be protected with the coating this year, Lasarow said the conservancy eventually plans to coat “all the quality murals” in the city. He noted that once the murals are coated, the whole clean-up process and the reapplication of fresh coating takes only about 45 minutes per mural.

The conservancy has already cleaned up the first mural to be covered with the coating--Kent Twitchell’s “7th Street Altar Piece,” in which renderings of artists Jim Morphesis and Lita Albuquerque loom over the Harbor Freeway. Lasarow said the conservancy plans to have all six murals cleaned up and coated by October.

Additional murals scheduled to receive the protective coating include Terry Schoonhoven’s “Landscape With Musicians” on Oceanfront Walk in Venice, Alonso Davis’ “Crenshaw Wall Series” at 51st Street and Crenshaw, Roderick Sykes’ “Reflections” on the Harbor Freeway at Adams, and “Read!” by the Chicana Center Artists on the East L.A. Public Library. Also scheduled to be coated is “Mark Bowerman’s “Running” on the Hollywood Freeway at Western, which Lasarow called “the single worst hit mural of this city.”

Lasarow noted that funding for the coating project came from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and the California Community Foundation’s Brody Arts Fund. He said he hopes to obtain future grants to be able to coat more murals in the future.

THE SCENE

More than 20 artists will open their studio doors next Sunday for the fifth annual Long Beach Art Expedition, a self-paced, city-wide tour of artists’ studios, museums, galleries and public art and architecture. Artists participating include Chicano artist Ben Valenzuela, whose mural, “Community of Music,” is featured in the event’s poster. Also taking part are multimedia artist Slater Barron, painters Clark Walding and Cindy Evans, and the Khmer Weavers and Hmong Needleworkers.

The starting point for this year’s expedition, which runs from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., is the Cal State Long Beach University Art Museum (1250 Bellflower Blvd.) or the FHP Hippodrome Gallery (628 Alamitos Ave.). Tour maps will be available at both stops, as will shuttle vans that will visit most of the venues. A 10-mile bike tour will begin at 11 a.m. at the Hippodrome Gallery.

Tickets for the event are $15 per person; $5 for students and seniors; and children under 12 free. Information: (213) 499-7777.

Robert Berman Gallery opens in a new Santa Monica location this week with “Rockets and Flooded Rivers,” a show of new work by landscape artist Stephen Hannock. The new gallery location is 2044 Broadway. Berman’s B-1 Gallery remains at its old Santa Monica location, at 2730 Main St.

OVERHEARD

“There’s so many things going against the artists in this town, that just to be able to work in your studio, you have to take on another job that you don’t like. At least the pleasure that comes from making the art is worth it.”--a young female artist talking to two female friends during a weekend Santa Monica gallery reception.

DEBUTS

The first West Coast exhibition of work by Ian Hamilton Finlay, which features eight neon text poems on “The Revolution and the Ocean,” opens Friday at Burnett Miller Gallery on La Brea Avenue. Finlay, who lives in Linark, Scotland, has exhibited widely in Europe, including shows at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, London’s Serpentine Gallery, Holland’s Kruller-Muller Museum and Paris’ Cartier Museum. The Burnett Miller show runs through July 14.

HAPPENING

The first in a series of free demonstrations by Native American artisans will be held Saturday at the Southwest Museum, when two Hopi artists--jewelry maker Michael Kabotie and weaver Louie Joseytewa--show off their techniques. Also scheduled in the series are Acoma pottery makers Delores Garcia and Emma Mitchell on June 30. Both demonstrations will begin at noon. Information (213) 221-2163.

A six-session, hands-on class emphasizing ceramic drums as musical and sculptural objects, begins next Monday through UCLA Extension. Taught by artist Nobuho Nagasawa, whose works have been exhibited in the United States, Germany, Italy and Japan, the course will include coil, slab and free form ceramic methods. The class will meet at the MOA Ceramics Studio (8554 Melrose Ave.) and will be divided into two sections, one from 2-5 p.m. and the other from 7-10 p.m. Course fees are $185, including clay and hide materials for one drum. Information: (213) 206-8503.

Also beginning next week through UCLA Extension is a six-session course on Post-Modernism, examining the work of contemporary artists in relation to such issues as advertising, high art, pop culture and pornography. The class, to be held on Tuesday nights from 7-10 p.m. in Room 4230 of UCLA’s Dickson Art Center, will focus on works by artists including Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger and Sherrie Levine. Course fees are $185, with attendance of the first session complimentary on a space-available basis. Information (213) 206-8503.

ETC.

Laguna Art Museum has hired Bonnie Brittain Hall in the new post of associate director/administration. Hall, who is currently director of development at Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory Theatre, will be responsible for overseeing development, finance and public information at the museum, as well as assisting with general planning and trustee and government relations. She takes her post July 15. . . . The San Jose Museum of Art will reveal its new 45,000-square-foot addition during a benefit to be held on Saturday. The first exhibitions in the spaces are tentatively scheduled to open during the spring of 1991.