The Frenetic Pace of Frank Romero

FACES

“It’s a busy time--I’m in the midst of all these projects,” says noted Chicano artist Frank Romero, whose show of paintings and pastels on “The Great Theme of Transportation”--featuring his first pastels in five years--opens Saturday at Long Beach’s Williams/Lamb Gallery.

In addition to the Long Beach show, Romero is just finishing up a show of new paintings and prints at downtown’s Future Perfect Gallery (it closes Friday), and is featured alongside his wife, Nancy, in a master/apprentice exhibition at William Grant Still Arts Center (through Oct. 28). He also has prominent works in both UCLA’s major Chicano art retrospective and the Municipal Art Gallery’s “Aqui y Alla,” and he had a large altar in one of the L.A. Festival’s recent traveling “Art Trucks.”

But one can’t really sense Romero’s workload without glancing around his huge new Elysian Park studio. The main wall is covered with his 8x32-foot mural in progress for Barnsdall Art Park’s Junior Arts Center, and the other walls are spotted with various small and large paintings for the Long Beach show.

Then there’s his work table, upon which are spread several of his new lithographs, which are done in a new waterless process called “planography.” Three of the politically-themed planographs were just purchased by the U.S. Library of Congress, Romero says.

Several three-dimensional works fill the space as well: tucked into one corner is his large public art piece, “L.A. Pyramid,” complete with all of his “favorite stuff” such as hearts, cars, horses, boats, blimps and Peruvian textile designs. It will be installed this week in the new First Interstate Library Tower building. In yet another corner is an already constructed wooden altar base that Romero will adorn and dedicate to his late pal Carlos Almaraz as a centerpiece for the L.A. Photo Center’s annual “Dia De Los Muertos/Day of the Dead” show, which opens Oct. 23.

In addition, Romero is in the midst of his work as chairman of the Central American Refugee Center’s upcoming benefit art auction, scheduled for Nov. 10 at the Daniel Saxon Gallery, and he is already making references to his eighth annual Christmas show, at which he presents a private grouping of works by six to eight young artists in his studio. And a peek at Romero’s well-organized slide collection reveals yet another work-in-progress: his “Homage to the Downtown Movie Theaters” mural on a garage near the Los Angeles Theatre Center, which will be dedicated Oct. 15.

“I’ve been painting pretty feverishly,” says Romero, who gets a twinkle in his eye when he mentions that he has sometimes been criticized for finishing individual paintings too quickly.

“I go a little crazy and I do tend to finish them in one fell swoop,” he says. “Most of them take two to three weeks, but I have been known to finish one in three hours. Funny thing is, the three-hour ones are the best, because there’s no hesitation. It’s not the time you spend on it, it’s what you do with that time.”

THE SCENE

“It’s a drag, because I thought I was doing something important for the Los Angeles situation,” said gallery owner Dennis Anderson, who closed down his Madison Avenue gallery Saturday after 2 1/2 years of presenting emerging artists straight out of CalArts and other art schools.

“I don’t have any money, it’s as simple as that,” said Anderson, who said he had operated his gallery without a financial backer and has no immediate future plans but is considering applying for a museum curating position or possibly opening a gallery in Europe with the help of friends there.

“I didn’t sell much in July and August--I don’t think anybody did,” he said, “but unlike the others, I have no cushion to fall back on.”

Another hindrance to his operation, Anderson said, was that he couldn’t “keep up with the offers of the big-time money people” and many of his artists, including Rachel Lachowicz, Chris Wilder and Jim Shaw, later moved on to larger galleries like Linda Cathcart, Ace and Burnett Miller.

Lita Albuquerque, Karen Carson, Lawrence Gipe, Mineko Grimmer, Gronk, Mike Kelley, Daniel Martinez, Lari Pittman, Betye Saar, Masami Teraoka and Jeffrey Vallance are among the more than 130 artists who have donated works for Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition’s 11th Annual Benefit Art Auction, which will be held Saturday at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica.

The auction begins at 7:45 p.m., and a dinner reception preceding the auction will be held at 5:30 p.m. at Santa Monica’s Border Grill restaurant. Tickets are $75 including dinner, the auction and an auction catalogue.

Previews of the works will be held on Wednesday at 6 p.m. (with a special presentation by Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Howard N. Fox at 7:30), Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday from noon-5 p.m.

Information: (213) 624-5650.

OVERHEARD

“He said people have been asking him what he’s been doing for the last six months, but he didn’t answer that question, “ said a tall thin man in khaki shorts and a suit jacket referring to Museum of Contemporary Art Senior Curator Paul Schimmel’s comments at a recent Art Dealers Assn. of California symposium. “He certainly hasn’t been spending his time going around to the galleries. Instead, he’s been eating at the country clubs (wooing collectors). “

CURRENTS

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission will accept qualification statements through Oct. 30 for artist-and-architect teams to design identification pylons for the Los Angeles Metro Rail system.

The pylon, to be no more than 20 feet tall and cost no more than $20,000-$30,000 to construct, will display the system logo and mark station entrances throughout the rail network.

The winning team, which will be paid a flat fee of $10,000, will be selected in December.

Information: (213) 236-9408.

The Reader’s Digest Assn. is sponsoring a program in which three American artists will be selected for six-month residencies at Claude Monet’s famed home at Giverny, France.

The artists will each receive a $12,600 cash award, round-trip transportation to Giverny, and a furnished living studio in the town. The three artists will share another 400-square-foot working studio.

Application deadline for the program, which is administered by Arts International, is Nov. 7. Applicants must have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience and be U.S. citizens. Winners are selected through a peer-panel review process.

Information: (212) 984-5370.

DEBUTS

Sacramento-based artist Michael Stevens, who has shown extensively in Chicago and San Francisco, has his first one-person show in Los Angeles at the Ovsey Gallery, opening Friday and running through Nov. 10. Stevens transforms tree branches, twigs and hand-carved wood pieces accentuated with high-gloss paint into free-standing sculptures and wall constructions.

Geometric painter Michael Bisbee opens his first L.A.-area solo show at Karl Bornstein Gallery on Tuesday. The show runs through Nov. 10.

New York-based artist Peter Cain also has his first one-person exhibition, at Santa Monica’s Daniel Weinberg Gallery through Nov. 3. Included in the show are several of Cain’s recent paintings and drawings.

HAPPENING

“In Situ: The Dynamics of Public Art in Southern California,” a weekend symposium featuring speakers, panels, round-table discussions and workshops exploring broad issues and practical aspects of public art, will be held Friday through Sunday at Cal State Long Beach. The conference fee is $100, and 10 artist scholarships for the symposium are available.

Information: (213) 985-5761.

ETC.

Los Angeles-based artists F. Scott Hess, Jeff Gambill and Christopher Warner, and Alice Fellows of Santa Monica are among 20 artists receiving Western States Arts Federation fellowships for distinguished achievement in painting. Each artist will receive a $5,000 cash award and other benefits including the publication of a catalogue of their work. . . . Chilean-born artist Guillermo Bert’s installation “Altar/Temple: Recycling Social Images” at the L.A. Theatre Center has been extended through Oct. 28. The exhibition features diptychs and triptychs suggestive of medieval religious altar pieces.