The Aesthetic of the Pacific Rim : Sprawling, ambitious 1990 L. A. arts festival helps define city

Is Los Angeles little more than a suburban stream of consciousness--a haphazardly constructed lattice of locations where people happen to live?

Or is it a more or less connected and unified (though most admittedly not united) cosmopolitan metropolis--with an underlying identity attributable in no little measure to its very international cultural diversity?

You can get good, loud debate on that question, but the organizers of Los Angeles Festival 1990 have taken the upbeat view of Los Angeles as they put together one of the most astonishing and ambitious arts festivals imaginable. It starts today, and it’s worth attention. For unlike its two predecessors, this diverse and sprawling arts festival is a celebration of the arts and cultures that rim our Pacific: Asia, Latin America and Oceana. Los Angeles has never seen its like.

The 17-day festival will run a gamut of cultural and artistic experience. Movies from Taiwan. Dance from Java. Photography from Japan. Handicraft from Laos. An extraordinary and dazzling kaleidoscope of Third World artistic expression.

Nothing exceptional is ever launched without a measure of risk. This is not the standard Dinner Theater middle-of-the-road approach to an arts festival. It is designed to challenge, provoke and educate, but consciously assembled to avoid patronizing. As a commercial venture, therefore, it runs a considerable risk. It’s nothing a David Merrick, say, would produce. But its importance cannot be challenged.

Inevitably, because this is Los Angeles, the sites of the various performances and exhibits are spread out almost as widely as the games of the 1984 Olympics. But RTD has set up a gigantic grid of bus connections--call 1-800-LA-RIDE to find out how to get to what you want to see if you’re not driving. And call 213-688-ARTS to find out what’s on.

Los Angeles is about to be challenged by an unprecedented effort to bring to the city the artistic sensibility of the Pacific Rim.