LAGUNA BEACH : Too Much Pageant, Festival Artists Say

Behind the sleek production of the Festival of the Arts and the Pageant of the Masters, which opens today, are rumblings of discontent, according to some artists who exhibit at the festival.

Artist David Sabaroff has written to board members asking them to encourage a “separate identity” for the festival, which he says has been reduced to serving as a backdrop for the pageant. Emphasizing the pageant, which draws crowds but which some artists say has little artistic merit, demeans the Laguna artists, Sabaroff says.

“The pageant is the thing and the festival is the backdrop,” Sabaroff said. “What we have is an image by default for the last 40 years.”

Sabaroff was one of six artists placed on probation after participating in an “Elvis Presley Memorial Barbecue” on the festival grounds on its final day last year. Board members said the artists’ behavior that day was inappropriate and that they had violated rules forbidding radios in booths and alcohol on the premises.

Five of the six artists are exhibiting in the festival again this year, while one refused to participate. The festival opened Thursday.

Board member David Young said the complaining artists represent a scant percentage of the approximately 180 exhibitors at the event on Laguna Canyon Road. Profits from the pageant subsidize artists and provide up to $150,000 in scholarships, Young said.

“It’s the only city I know of in the world where art subsidizes the city rather than the city subsidizing art,” he said.

The Pageant of the Masters is a seven-week nightly show held at the Irvine Bowl on Laguna Canyon Road in which models are arranged on stage to simulate famous works of art. The Festival of the Arts is a juried art show.

While several artists acknowledge the financial benefits of the events, they say staleness has replaced creativity.

“The thing I have against the pageant is it’s one of the most boring kitsch acts ever created in the history of mankind,” said Andy Wing, an exhibitor for 30 years. The festival, he said, has become boring as well.

“It’s too slick, it’s too finished, it’s too perfect,” he said. “It’s like middle-class America, and that’s not what art is about.”

Artist Kate Riegler said the organization must deal with “a lot of problems” if better artists and serious buyers are going to be attracted to the festival grounds. “I don’t know what will change it,” she said. “People have been trying to change it for years.”

Sabaroff said he will begin polling artists for suggestions and then may ask the board to hire a separate public relations firm to promote the festival.

But current publicist Sally Reeve said many artists are thankful for the festival because it draws customers. Of the approximately 200,000 people who buy a ticket each year, about 149,000 people are en route to the pageant, she said.

“I am so grateful to the festival,” echoed Mia Krantz, a 25-year exhibitor. “I just feel they do us a wonderful service.”

Riegler, however, said the more “serious buyers” of art might be attracted if different events were staged on the festival grounds, such as a Sunday jazz concert.

Shifting the way the festival is promoted might draw Los Angeles artists to view the show, said exhibitor Jennifer Griffiths.

“I would love to see that happen,” she said. “I think because there isn’t any advertisement or promotion along those lines, it doesn’t draw that kind of clientele and it doesn’t always draw that kind of artists either.”

Publicist Reeves, however, maintains that she spends as much time promoting the festival as she does the pageant. But, she said, “an art show is not unique in the world. But the pageant is.”