A Graphic Lesson in Popularity

The first local retrospective for graphic designer April Greiman was already aimed at surprising the regular clientele of the Turner Dailey Gallery, a dealer in early 20th-Century paintings and rare posters. What the gallery’s owners weren’t expecting was the nearly overwhelming crowd of young graphic designers at their first contemporary art show.

The 2-year-old gallery was suddenly the center of the sort of activity that Steve Turner said he is more accustomed to seeing at nearby restaurants, and the gallery quickly sold out its initial supply of 75 copies of Greiman’s new book, “Hybrid Imagery.”

“It was eye-opening for us,” said Turner, who co-owns the gallery with Victoria Dailey. “We had no idea what to expect, and people were waiting outside the door. Usually, we deal with older things, and it’s a much different mentality. People were coming to this show to learn.”

Based in Los Angeles since the mid-1970s, Greiman is usually put on the short list of important modern graphic design innovators. Her work, which has included designs for the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC), has already been part of group exhibitions at the New York Museum of Modern Art and elsewhere. The Turner Dailey show spans the last 12 years of her career, including collaborations with photographer Jayme Odgers and her more recent computer-generated designs.

Since 1984, the Macintosh computer has developed into the artist’s paintbrush of choice. This emphasis was symbolically underlined recently when Greiman delivered electronically an entire poster design for a graphic art exhibition to a printer in Minneapolis.

“Graphic design before now has been considered only two-dimensional,” Turner said. “Hers has many layers. It has a lot of depth and is very playful. She likes experimenting and seeing what happens.”

There are no plans to change the gallery’s current emphasis, including its desire to rediscover forgotten local artists. But the success of its first contemporary show has its owners talking of presenting at least one exhibition of new work every year.

“It’s good to shake up the old ideas,” Dailey said. “We wanted to link the past with something that is going on now and show that it is still being made and is still significant. It sort of validates what we’re doing.”

Graphic design by April Greiman, through Sept. 1, Turner Dailey Gallery, 7220 Beverly Blvd., L.A.; (213) 931-1185. Open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays.

A MAPPLETHORPE DEBUT: The political controversy over the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and the sexual content of much of his work hasn’t yet reached the career of Edward Maxey, a former Mapplethorpe assistant. But the two photographers have more in common than an appreciation of large, crisp imagery and elegant lines inspired by Edward Weston.

Maxey, who uses his mother’s maiden name, is Mapplethorpe’s younger brother. The 30-year-old New Yorker is also enjoying his first Los Angeles exhibition at the Fahey/Klein Gallery. It’s a collection of portraits, nudes and still-lifes created over the last two years.

Gallery co-owner David Fahey acknowledged some similarities between the photographs of Maxey and his controversial brother. One striking image in the show is a recent self-portrait that virtually mirrors a well-known 1980 self-portrait of Mapplethorpe in a black leather jacket. But Fahey added that Maxey demonstrates his own distinct style in the other photographs.

“Robert’s work first explored the homoerotic area, sort of the New York sexual underground,” Fahey said. “Ed’s work isn’t coming from that, per se. It’s rooted in a very straightforward classical approach. The simplicity of the object is really what he’s trying to bring forth in his work.”

Meanwhile, in the main room of the gallery, Fahey/Klein is presenting the first gallery show of Duane Michals since 1978. The 58-piece exhibition gathers a wide collection of sequences, painted photographs and portraits, including the disturbingly funny 1972 “Self-Portrait as the Devil on the Occasion of My 40th Birthday.”

“I wanted to show the broad range of his work, only because it hadn’t been seen in Los Angeles for quite some time,” Fahey said. “He’s one of the great modern masters . . . in this era of Mapplethorpe and all the other commotion going on in art and photography. I think a lot of people have forgotten he’s out there.”

Photographs by Duane Michals and Edward Maxey, through Aug. 31, Fahey/Klein Gallery, 148 N. La Brea Ave., L.A.; (213) 934-2250. Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. VATICAN ENDORSEMENT: The Roman Catholic Church headquarters in Rome has a long history of art appreciation, of course. In an earlier age, the Vatican commissioned the design and decoration of its Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica, employing artists such as Michelangelo and Raphael. And through its contemporary art collection, the church hasn’t left out the 20th Century.

Works by Abstract Expressionist Augusto Ranocchi are part of that collection, and a selection of his paintings and sculpture constitutes an exhibition at the Mayer-Schwarz Gallery in Beverly Hills.

Curator Fletcher Smith described Ranocchi’s work, which also includes mosaics and stained-glass commissions, as somehow more emotional than that of many of his contemporaries. The Italian artist, he said, reveals a more personal, self-probing vision that manifests itself in a lyrical use of color and shape.

“He’s not materialistic, and he’s not doing a lot of different things that Americans are burdened by,” Smith said. “He’s dealing with growth, regeneration, personal alienation, separation, love . . . breaking through the normal restraints and patterns. The picture in a lot of cases is like a window, but he also hems us in, and it can penetrate.”

Paintings and sculpture by Augusto Ranocchi, through Sept. 7, Mayer-Schwarz Gallery, 411 N. Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills; (213) 278-4666. Open noon to 6 p.m. Sundays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.