The Real Picture on Women Artists : Kenna Love captures 50 women interacting with their art in the ‘Exposures’ exhibit at the L.A. Photography Center

FACES

Los Angeles-based artist Ruth Weisberg exuberantly leaps in front of her colorful, dream-like painting. Performance artist Kaylynn Sullivan peers out from her Harlem rooftop. Painter Joan Semmel mimics the expression in her huge self-portrait. Jean Edelstein is at work, painting a fluid model with a large brush.

These women artists are captured in the photographs of Los Angeles photographer Kenna Love. They’re part of a book Love put together with art critic Betty Ann Brown and art historian Arlene Raven called “Exposures: Women and Their Art.” And the photographs compose an exhibit of the same name that runs through Aug. 12 at the Los Angeles Photography Center.

Love has photographed 50 women artists interacting with their art, and, in the process, she has created art herself. She said she didn’t just shoot away; the process of getting the photos just right was painstaking. “I met with the artists, looked at their work, and tried to envision what they’re trying to say with their art, and convey that into a photo,” said Love, who works out of a downtown loft.

Because she was dealing with creative women, she tried to make the project collaborative. “I asked the women artists to contribute, to come up with their own ideas of how they wanted the pictures to be taken,” said the 43-year-old Love.

The result is a collection of photos Love said is as diverse and unique as the artists represented. Love took pictures of young women and older women--painters, sculptors and performance artists--from throughout the United States.

“The hardest thing was making all the photographs different,” said Love, but it was a task she accomplished. Some of the women seem quiet and pensive next to their work, others are in frenzied motion. Some are pictured in studios, homes or outdoors, and one is in front of her work along with her perky young son, who appears in her painting.

Love’s favorite is the photo of Weisberg, as she dances past her huge painting of men and women with arms linked. “That one is just special to me,” she said.

To Love, a predominantly commercial photographer who sees the exhibit as her breakthrough to the art world, the message of the exhibit rings loud and clear: that women artists are not second-class citizens in the art world. “I want to promote greater awareness, that women are out there doing substantial art also.”

So far, Love said, it’s been empowering for women to see the photographs. “Women really get involved. It’s a powerful connection they’re making between the artists and their work, as well as what this says about women artists.”

THE SCENE

Artists including Jenny Holzer, Robert Nedboy and Robert Yarber have joined MTV: Music Television’s latest advertising campaign by creating a series of print ads that premiered in Thursday’s issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Each of the artists has created an original work to visually interpret the cable TV channel’s signature line, “Just when you think you know what it is, it’s MTV.” MTV hopes the artists’ involvement in the ads will help bring back maturing viewers who “grew up with MTV but are now kind of falling out of it.” The first artist to be featured in the campaign is painter and illustrator Janet Woolley, who has exhibited in several galleries throughout Europe and is a lecturer at London’s Central St. Matin’s School of Arts.

The L.A. Municipal Art Gallery will be turned over for architectural shows this month, with two exhibitions opening Tuesday and running through Aug. 19. “Recycling L.A.” presents six theoretical projects critiquing L.A. architecture, and “Pride in Civic Architecture II” presents the works of 10 firms that have received the L.A. Cultural Affairs Commission Awards for Architectural Design 1990.

Jack Rutberg Gallery is making some changes, but it is not joining the rush to Santa Monica. The gallery has decided to remodel its current La Brea Avenue home and will be closed until approximately the end of September. The gallery plans a re-opening celebration in October.

Advance tickets for the L.A. County Museum of Art’s major exhibition “Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: The Annenberg Collection” go on sale Monday at all Ticketmaster outlets including May Company and Music Plus stores. The show runs from Aug. 1 to Nov. 11 and features 54 impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, watercolors and drawings.

OVERHEARD

American art “lacks the age-old connection between heaven and Earth,” according to a gray-haired artist from Leningrad, when asked how he liked art in the United States, at a reception at the Dorothy Goldeen Gallery. A Southern California critic responded, “Well, God is dead now anyway.”

At the same reception in Santa Monica, a visiting Soviet art critic observed that her American counterparts aren’t critical enough. “You just say nice things. Criticism is controlled by the market,” she said, speaking to a small group through a translator. How had she arrived at this conclusion? By reading Art in America magazine, she said.

CURRENTS

The Woman’s Building is searching for a new director to replace former director Pauli DeWitt, who is now heading Barnsdall Art Park’s Junior Arts Center.

“The ideal woman is someone with a sense of vision, who is strong in fund-raising, and has experience in feminism and the arts,” said Cheri Gaulke, the Building manager who is helping conduct the search.

Acting as executive director until a new one is found is Sandra Galvin, who said, “We want someone who can help us make the transition from where we are now to where we want to be.” She added that fund-raising will be a factor in achieving that goal. But, she noted, “If we have a vision for the Woman’s Building in the ‘90s, fund-raising should fall into place.”

The job was advertised last week in Artweek magazine. The application deadline is Friday. Send qualifications to 1727 N. Spring St., Los Angeles 90012. Information: (213) 221-6161.

UCLA’s Wight Art Gallery has received a $50,000 grant from the Anheuser-Busch Co. to support a large educational curriculum complementing its major exhibition “Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985,” that will be held Sept. 9-Dec. 9 as part of the Los Angeles Festival. The exhibition, dubbed the most comprehensive national exhibition ever presented on the history of Chicano art, was organized by the gallery in conjunction with a distinguished national advisory committee comprised of 50 Chicano scholars, artists and community arts organizers. “CARA” will feature 150 works of art by more than 90 Chicano artists from throughout the country, and the educational outreach component will include an educational curriculum for use by kindergarten through secondary-level educators in both public and private school systems. The curriculum aims to address multicultural and minority education issues within the context of Chicano art, culture and history.

Visual AIDS, the New York-based organization that organized last December’s “Day Without Art,” in which nearly 1,000 museums, galleries and artists’ organizations either closed down their doors or gave AIDS-related presentations, has received a 1990 New York State Governor’s Art Award. A second “Day Without Art”--the name is a metaphor for the possibility of continuing widespread deaths in the arts community due to AIDS--is planned for the end of this year.

HAPPENING

A van tour of more than a dozen Venice, Santa Monica and Westside galleries including L.A. Louver, Angles, Shoshana/Wayne, Karl Bornstein, Koplin, Linda Cathcart and James Corcoran will be held on Saturday from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. The tour, sponsored by the nonprofit art organization SITE, will include docent-led discussions on the exhibitions and lunch at the Penguin restaurant. Paid reservations are required, and the fee is $40; $30 for SITE members. Information: (213) 395-6079.

Artist Hye Sook, whose paintings are at downtown L.A.’s Koslow Gallery through Aug. 31, will present her performance piece, “Walking Into a Blue Space” at the gallery Friday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 each, and proceeds will benefit the City of Angels Hospice. Reservations are required. Information: (213) 487-7610.

Internationally known photographer Thomas Barrow will lead a four-day Master Artist Workshop Thursday through next Sunday at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. Reservations are required. Information: (714) 552-1018.

Suzanne Muchnic contributed to this column.