Art / L.A. ’90 to Turn Convention Center Into Gallery

THE SCENE

Art/LA ‘90, Los Angeles’ fifth annual International Contemporary Art Fair featuring 160 world-class galleries from more than 50 cities in 19 countries, comes to the downtown L.A. Convention Center Thursday through Dec. 10.

The event features exhibitions of contemporary painting, sculpture, drawings, prints and photographs, as well as special components such as a series of educational programs on art and the environment.

Art/LA opens Wednesday with a $75-per-person preview to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council from 6-10 p.m. Beginning Thursday, the fair will be open daily from noon to 7 p.m. Admission is $12; $8 for museum members, students and senior citizens.

Several local galleries that will have booths at the fair have extended their regular gallery hours and are presenting their most important artists to catch visiting collectors. In addition, the 25 member galleries of the Santa Monica/Venice Art Dealers Assn. are holding an open house next Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Other fair-related activities include a pre-Art Fair brunch sponsored by Kurland/Summers Gallery next Sunday at 10:30 a.m. at the Seventh Street Bistro restaurant, 815 W. 7th St. The $30 event benefits the environmental group Heal the Bay and includes an all-day pass to the art fair.

For information, call (213) 271-3200.

“We’ve virtually rebuilt the gallery from top to bottom,” says Jack Rutberg of his newly designed space at 357 La Brea Ave., which re-opens Saturday after five months of renovations with a major show of sculpture by Alexander Calder.

Rutberg says renovations were necessary to bring the pre-1930 building up to par with current earthquake-safety codes. Rather than add “support elements that would have been very difficult aesthetically,” he decided to redo the entire gallery.

“There literally isn’t a wall that isn’t new; the only thing that wasn’t rebuilt, structurally, is the floor,” Rutberg says of the space, which he has occupied for nine years. “Sometimes out of the ashes comes something beautiful. I wasn’t too happy about having to do all of this, but I really wasn’t prepared to go, because I just couldn’t duplicate this place anywhere else in L.A. So I decided to make a real commitment to the space.”

CURRENTS

Kathy Clark, a visual, video and performance artist who was festival manager of the 1990 Los Angeles International Gay & Lesbian Film & Video Festival, has been named artistic director for the downtown Woman’s Building.

Clark, who also spent seven years on the staff of the Northwest Film & Video Center of the Oregon Art Institute in Portland, had previously been a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Inter-Arts grant program, the Seattle Arts Commission, Oregon Arts Commission and Portland’s Metropolitan Arts Commission. Her recent film and video works have been screened locally at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, L.A. Freewaves, CalArts and Barnsdall Art Park. She spent eight years with the performance-art group The Girl Artists.

DEBUTS

Peter Halley, previously known for his “hyper-real” paintings using Day-Glo colors and accentuated textures, has his first sculpture exhibition at Santa Monica’s Michael Kohn Gallery, opening Tuesday and running through Dec. 29. Halley used artificial building materials and rocks to make geometric forms, which were then cast in fiberglass to create large-scale reliefs. Three relief sculptures, which are mounted to the walls, will be on view.

The first showing in Los Angeles of paintings by Jane Wilson, whose works are included in collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, goes on view Saturday at Earl McGrath Gallery on Robertson Boulevard. Wilson has been recognized as a leader of the painterly Realist movement since the 1950s. The show includes her works from 1965-1990. It runs through Jan. 3.

Patrick Nickell has his first solo show at Sue Spaid Fine Art on Beverly Boulevard through Dec. 30. The show, called “Built for Speed,” features constructed sculptures made from everyday materials: cardboard, bubble wrap, plastic, glue, felt pens. Nickell’s purpose: to “lift the component of ‘high’ style” from the work to “indicate the way style often functions as . . . an over-abused prop reminiscent of art/life in the Reagan era.”

HAPPENING

A symposium in conjunction with an exhibition of unique works and multiples by conceptualist Marcel Duchamp at Santa Monica’s Shoshana Wayne Gallery will be held on Saturday at the Santa Monica Library, 1343 6th St. Contributors to the upcoming publication “West Coast Duchamp” will speak. The symposium runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a lunch break from noon-1 p.m. The event is free, but space is limited. Reservations: (213) 451-3773.

Louis Stern Galleries in Beverly Hills is holding a reception for ECO, the Earth Communications Office, on Thursday. Bonnie Reiss, the organization’s director, will speak. The gallery is also donating to ECO a portion of proceeds from its current show, “Stamens & Pistils: Interpreting the Flower 1790-1990,” which runs through Jan. 15.

ETC.

Sherberg Gallery, a recently opened La Cienega Boulevard space specializing in contemporary Russian art, has become the Ayzenberg Gallery. Zinovy Shersher, former co-owner/director of the gallery, has left to devote himself full time to painting, and Michael Ayzenberg will continue as the sole owner. A new show, “More From the Soviet Underground,” goes on view Saturday. . . . Parker/Zanic Gallery on La Brea Avenue is making a holiday donation of 10% of all proceeds from its current group show, “Introductions,” to Community of Friends, an organization developing permanent housing for the homeless and mentally ill. The show features nine artists and runs through Dec. 29. . . . A photo caption in the Nov. 18 Art World incorrectly identified Jay Belloli as the new director of Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts. He is actually the gallery director. Elisa Crystal is the center’s executive director.