FACES : At 97, Beatrice Wood Is Still ‘Laughing at the Human Race’

Beatrice Wood--whose bawdy works poke fun at such hallowed institutions as marriage and deal openly with fornication, birth control and adultery--probably isn’t a favorite of Jesse Helms and his right-wing circle. But at a time when cries of censorship have risen to a furor in the art world, the 97-year-old Wood has kept her sense of humor about her works, which she said arise from “mischievous ideas” and her “laughing at the human race.”

“I’ll laugh my head off if somebody chooses to ban it,” Wood said of her figurative works, a survey of which is at the Craft and Folk Art Museum through Oct. 28. “If that happened, it would show to me that some of our government men should read some fabulous literature, should be taken to museums around the world, and should have their heads split open and find out what’s happening in the world.”

But despite her humor, Wood--who said her greatest concerns in life are education, the homeless and preserving the world’s museums--was worried enough about the current arts climate to write letters to her congressman, President Bush and several newspapers around the country. And the artist--whose only debilitating sign of her age is a problem with her hearing--was quite vocal on the subject during an interview at the opening of her current exhibition.

“I think it’s ridiculous to censor anyone,” Wood said, likening a country in which art was restricted to Nazi Germany. “If the whole world wants to be obscene, let it be obscene. Anything that’s forbidden will draw attention. Natural curiosity about sex is something that everybody, every child, has, and the moment that you hinder things there is going to be interest in it. That certainly was the case with me. . . . If somebody wants to make (a piece of art) that’s obscene, that’s not a problem. The problem is when people flock to it. The people who should be arrested are the people who go to see it just because it’s obscene. If it’s obscene and they know it, then they’re the ones that are breaking the law.”

Wood, who smiled mischievously when referring to her interest in “young men” and sat nibbling on a box of chocolates during her opening (her 1988 piece “Chocolate and Young Men” is included in this show), still spends several hours a day on her art and keeps up with the world’s events through her favorite television show--Ted Koppel’s “Nightline.”

But despite her age (“I’m only three years away from 100--it’s obscene”), she has about another century worth of goals still to achieve.

“There’s so much I’d like to do,” Wood said, noting that she plans to grasp onto her mortician’s hand even when being placed in her coffin. “I’d like to be a geologist, I’d like to be a belly dancer--and I mean this--and I’d like to be in public welfare. Above all else, I’d like to be President and change the world.”

THE SCENE

A total of 16,259 postcards in support of the National Endowment for the Arts have been sent to NEA panel members and chairman John E. Frohnmayer through the L.A. Center for Photographic Studies exhibition “Art Protection Services.” The exhibition, mounted by artist Karen Atkinson and her “ARTtorney” associates, consisted of a mock attorney’s office set up to fight on behalf of unrestricted federal funding of the arts. The exhibition closed June 15, but packets of 43 pre-addressed postcards to NEA officials are still available through LACPS. The packets sell for $3; $9 with stamps. Information: (213) 482-3566.

Friends of Russian Artists, a group dedicated to aiding artists in the Soviet Union, has been formed by La Cienega Boulevard’s Sherberg Gallery along with Omni Editions, the American Cinematheque and the International Assn. of Cultural Workers/Moscow. The main goal of the organization will be to provide supplies for artists living in the Soviet Union.

“FORA was created out of concern for the dilemma of the fine artists in the U.S.S.R. today,” said the gallery’s Zinovy Shersher, who is himself a Russian emigre artist and serves as FORA’s committee chairman. “For the first time in almost 80 years, there are no political restrictions on creativity, but because of chronic shortages and unwieldly bureaucracy, the most elementary of art supplies are not available. Sadly, given the past history of Russia, it is not clear to anyone how long this period of creative freedom will last.”

According to Sherberg, both he and his partner Michael Ayzenberg have been inundated with requests for basic materials since opening Sherberg Gallery last fall, as have American art dealers who have visited the Soviet Union. Thus FORA’s first activity was to run an ad in the Soviet arts magazine Soviet Kultura, asking artists to write and describe their proposed projects and the materials they were lacking.

The gallery, which specializes in contemporary Soviet art, will donate to FORA a portion of proceeds from its new show, “Freedom: New Visions Since Glasnost.” The show opens Thursday and runs through Aug. 25.

And the galleries shuffle continues . . . Christopher Grimes Gallery is the latest to take up a new home. The gallery, which already had its digs in the growing scene in Santa Monica, this week moves a few blocks down the street to its new home at 1644 17th St. The gallery opens its new location on Thursday with a survey of graphic works by John Baldessari, which runs through Aug. 23. The opening reception will be held from 7-9 p.m.

OVERHEARD

“Where in the world did the Saudis get all this seafood?” inquired a woman to her tuxedoed companion at the black-tie opening reception for “Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today,” an exhibition at the L.A. Convention Center focusing on the nation’s cultural achievements. “They probably got it from all the oceans anywhere near the country,” replied the man, as he devoured his first serving of cold shrimp, crab and lobster while waiting in line for another plateful.

CURRENTS

The California Community Foundation has awarded $150,000 in grants to 19 Los Angeles-based artists and organizations through the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts.

The grants will support such activities as a lecture series at Santa Monica Public Library sponsored by the L.A. Center for Photographic Studies, the creation of a new annual open competition at Santa Monica Museum of Art, the production of a new suite of work by a Japanese master serigrapher and six local Latino artists at Self-Help Graphics, and the exploration of light and sound as sculptural elements by artist Betye Saar.

In the individual artists category, seven artists received fellowships of $10,000 each. They were media artist Gregg Araki, photographer Dennis Olanzo, sculptor Carl Cheng, painter Alice Fellows, new genre artist Harry Gamboa, performance artist Rachel Rosenthal (for a new piece incorporating computer graphics and film) and mixed-media artist Saar.

In the organizational category, grants ranged from $4,000 to the downtown LACPS to $9,500 each to Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Santa Monica’s Highways and the Woman’s Building. Other grants went to Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Pipeline Inc. and the California and West Coast New Art Assn. ($5,000 each). Also receiving organizational grants were the Long Beach-based Art Matrix ($6,000), Self-Help Graphics and the Gay and Lesbian Media Coalition ($6,500 each) and Visual Communications ($7,500).

DEBUTS

The first solo gallery exhibition of works by Dean DeCocker opens Friday at Saxon-Lee Gallery on Beverly Boulevard. DeCocker’s sculpture is based on an early interest in airplanes and investigates interior structural forms with the manipulation of two-dimensional material into three dimensional objects. The show runs through July 28.

Hong Kong-born artist Cissy Pao has her first L.A. solo show at Boritzer Gray Gallery in Santa Monica Thursday through July 22. Pao, who maintains studios in both Tokyo and New York, combines figurative, landscape and abstract constructural forms in her paintings on eccentrically shaped canvases.

HAPPENING

Czechoslovakian artist Thomas Ruller, one of Eastern Europe’s premier performance artists, will perform at Angels Gate Cultural Center next Sunday as part of “11 Artists,” an exhibition addressing local military history and broader concepts of cultural and political change. The free performance is at 7 p.m. Information: (213) 519-0936.

Artist Stephen Glassman will perform with his moveable “Zoo” sculptures during Thursday’s opening reception for “Of Nature and Nation: Yellowstone, Summer of Fire,” at Security Pacific’s Gallery at the Plaza. The opening begins at 6 p.m., with Glassman’s free performance at 8 p.m. Information: (213) 345-7039.