New Director Will Orchestrate Armory Center’s Expansion

FACES

As the new gallery director of the Armory Center for the Arts, Jay Belloli says his presence will be felt mostly through an “increased breadth”--both in terms of the cultural backgrounds of the artists shown and the media in which they work--in the Pasadena center’s exhibition program.

“The plans in some ways are to do more of the same, but also to expand them,” said Belloli, noting the armory’s programs will become “more ambitious” with the growth of the still-fledgling center, which just began its second year of exhibition programming.

An example of that expansion, he said, will be “more emphasis on artists who come from mixed cultural backgrounds” and more collaborative shows, like a large performance and installation exhibition planned for February that is being jointly organized by the Armory, L.A. Performance Exchange and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.

“One thing I really want to do is bring in shows and artists that wouldn’t otherwise get here,” said Belloli, 46, noting that he will look to areas of the country other than usual spots like New York and San Francisco. But the 2,800-square-foot gallery will continue to show “a large number of exhibitions on works from California,” he said.

Although Belloli has previously served as a curator at such institutions as the La Jolla (now San Diego) Museum of Contemporary Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Ft. Worth Museum of Modern Art, and has spent the past three years on independent curatorial projects (including last April’s “Artists and the Environment” show at the Armory), he is not planning to curate many shows at the gallery.

“The decision was made early on, long before I got here, that the majority of exhibitions will be done by guest curators,” Belloli said. “It’s a funny position to be in. I feel like a kind of conductor, but not a composer.”

Belloli said one of his main interests as gallery director will be to work with the Armory’s educational and outreach programs to ensure that “the exhibitions will not be the dog that wags the tail of the educational department.

“The biggest challenge is really working the other people and creating a different kind of program,” Belloli said, adding that he hoped to reverse the traditional museum procedure in which the exhibitions are planned independently, with educational material developed in the follow-up stages. “This place is far from being a traditional museum, and I want to work to enhance that.”

THE SCENE

Fans of one of L.A.’s funkier galleries, Melrose Avenue’s Zero One, may want to take a drive over to Venice to check out Market Street’s Marquardt Gallery, where former Zero One director Jordan Halsey has taken over the duties.

“I want to explore the idea of ethnographics and put it into a contemporary setting--hopefully with a little humor,” said Halsey, who has brought a new direction to the Venice gallery. Marquardt opened a few months ago with a show by Jon Serl, and the original intent was to focus on outsider art.

“I want to do the same type of things that we did at Zero One, but in more of a proper art context, with more of a curatorial eye, and without the organizational problems,” Halsey said, noting that Zero One’s owner, John Pochna, will continue to run the trendy Melrose space. “No matter how funky you want to be, you still need to worry about things like painting the walls, having proper lighting and having a front window.”

The Venice gallery’s current show, continuing through Dec. 6, features the Los Angeles debut of two young Philadephia-based painters, Bruce Pollock and John Ferris. Halsey said future exhibitions will feature several artists who have previously shown at Zero One, including Chaz Bojorquez, Peter Zecher and Nick Gadbois.

The 20 Jules Olitski paintings going on view Tuesday at Beverly Hills’ new Salander-O’Reilly Galleries are actually part of a much larger effort--in fact a global, five-city effort--in which more than 100 of his works are going on view in a four-decade survey.

In addition, the multilocation show will be accompanied by a five-volume, trilingual catalogue. Other sites of exhibitions by the 68-year-old New York artist include Paris’ Galerie Montaigne, London’s Graham-Dixon Gallery, Madrid’s Galeria Afinsa and Galeria Almirante, and Salander-O’Reilly’s New York location. The Los Angeles show runs through Dec. 29.

Works by several Los Angeles artists, including Lita Albuquerque, Barbara Carrasco, Joe Grant, Seiji Kunishima and Eric Orr, go on view Monday in the L.A. International Airport’s Tom Bradley Terminal. The exhibition, called “Rhythms of Earth and Water: Los Angeles Artists Interpretations,” is the third rotating art show sponsored by the city of Los Angeles and the Board of Airport Commissioners.

Los Angeles may not be known for close-knit artists’ colonies like those found in some other areas of the country, but a current exhibition in Venice’s new Gallery B and B (at 1154 Palms Blvd.) aims to prove that we’re not at a complete loss. The show, called “Palms Boulevard Exposition Group,” features works by seven artists--including Peter Erskine, Ned Evans and Ed Moses--who all live within walking distance of each other and the new gallery. The show runs through Dec. 8.

OVERHEARD

“I never expect these things to start on time, but when a program is planned for 7, you expect it to at least be underway before 8,” said a stylishly dressed woman to her male companion while waiting for the start of a recent “Art and the Environment” program held at Santa Monica’s Karl Bornstein Gallery.

“Well, you know,” said the blond, bespectacled man as he sipped on a glass of apple juice, “it’s during the waiting times like this when real business gets done in these places. “

CURRENTS

A $35,000 reward is being offered for a portfolio of 25 Andy Warhol works stolen in August from a private residence in West Hollywood. Among the works were Warhol’s 1982 silkscreen “Easter Eggs,” several original graphite-on-paper works and 11 photographs. Anyone with information on the stolen pieces are asked to contact the FBI’s Virginia Malloy at (213) 477-6565.

The city of Ventura is offering a $55,000 public art commission as part of the $3.5-million renovation of the historic Ventura Pier, which was built in 1958 but has been partially closed since 1986 due to storm damage. The commission will involve a design collaboration between the selected artist and the renovation project architect. The entry deadline is Dec. 21. Information: (805) 654-7800, ext. 809.

DEBUTS

New York City-based artist Daniel Gendron, who has previously had one-man exhibitions in Paris, Montreal and New York, opens his first Los Angeles solo exhibition at Santa Monica’s Karl Bornstein Gallery on Tuesday. The influence of Gendron’s doctorate studies in medieval art history can be seen in his series of paintings called “The Archaic Technique of Ecstasy.” The show runs through Dec. 15.

Seattle-based artist George Chacona, who paints and etches on marble, has his first Los Angeles show at Daniel Saxon Gallery on Beverly Boulevard through Dec. 29. The subjects of his paintings range from Pompeiian tomb sculpture to the children of Armenia.

DEADLINES

Dec. 10 is the entry deadline for the Art Walk ’91 T-shirt competition. This year’s judges for the competition--which in the past has been won by such noted artists as Jeffrey Vallance, Carlos Almaraz, Billy Al Bengston and Jonathan Borofsky--include L.A. County Museum of Art curator Howard Fox and L.A. Festival director Peter Sellars. In addition to the T-shirts, the selected image will be featured on an outdoor billboard during the month of May, 1991. Information: (213) 392-8630, ext. 343. . . . All entries must be received by Saturday for the Fifth Annual National Small Print Exhibition, which will be held at this year at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Jan. 13-Feb. 24. The prints can not exceed 18 inches in any dimension. Information: (414) 553-2581. . . . Works are also being accepted for the California Museum of Photography’s eighth annual Photographers’ Holiday Card Show, to be held at the museum Dec. 8-Jan. 6. Information: (714) 787-4787.

ETC.

Elizabeth Smith, associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, has won a special commendation from the American Institute of Architects for her work on the exhibition “Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses,” which was on view at MOCA’s Temporary Contemporary last winter. The exhibition’s designers, Craig Hodgetts and Ming Fung, were also honored. . . . New multiples by Robert Longo and Brower Hatcher have been released by Los Angeles-based Park Granada Editions. Longo’s “Ornamental Love” combines silkscreen, lithography and cast bronze, and is inspired by a major work of the same name from 1983. Hatcher’s “Double Dreaming” is a figurative mixed-media work of cast iron, bronze, stainless steel and aluminum.