Diversity Rather Than Blockbusters in the Coming Year

If schedules could speak, this year’s roster of art exhibitions would emit a tone of quiet confidence while delivering a message of modest but persistent challenge.

No loud clamoring for attention appears to be on the books for 1991. Instead of boisterous blockbusters, the year promises a solid, steady schedule of shows diverse in content and intent.

More than a handful of countries will be represented in this year’s lineup, and more than a few thousand years will be spanned. From ancient Greek jewelry at the San Diego Museum of Art (“Gold of Greece,” opening Feb. 16) to the latest provocations from the Border Art Workshop (at the Centro Cultural de la Raza, starting April 5), the schedule leaps from the remote to the regional, from the safe to the sublime.

Promising to be among the more unusual offerings of the year will be site-specific shows by Polish artist Mikolaj Smoczynski. The artist, from Lublin, will be in residence in San Diego for several months, under the auspices of Quint/Krichman Projects, which began a visiting artist program last year. In February, Smoczynski will open a show at the San Diego State University Art Gallery titled “Work for America,” which will include photographic work as well as an installation.

Later in the spring, he will have a show at Quint/Krichman’s exhibition space in the Miramar area. Smoczynski’s installations in the past have entailed gluing canvas to walls, then peeling portions of it back so that layers of the wall itself are removed. The process is likened to an archeological exploration.

SDSU’s gallery will continue its focus on Eastern Europe with a show in April by Paul Kos, a San Francisco artist whose installations address current issues in Czechoslovakia.

In May, downtown’s Oneiros gallery hopes to present the work of a Czech surrealist painter.

Other international offerings include an installation by Tokyo artist Noburu Tsubaki at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art (beginning in August), shows on Tibetan, Indonesian and Palestinian folk art at the Mingei International Museum, the first United States exhibition of masks and other art from the Central African SalaMpasu tribe at San Diego Mesa College (opening Feb. 21) and the long-awaited debut of the San Diego Museum of Art’s collection of Indian paintings from the Binney estate, in December.

California and its southern neighbors will continue to get the lion’s share of attention paid to contemporary art in local shows. Los Angeles artist Daniel Martinez will unveil a billboard commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in February as part of its long-term program of exhibitions and other events examining borders, both geographic and psychological.

California’s urban landscape will be explored in paintings, photographs, videos and three-dimensional work in the Museum of Art’s summer show, “California Cityscapes.” Also at the museum during the summer will be a show of four San Diego landscape painters--Maurice Braun, Alfred Mitchell, Charles Reiffel and Charles Fries--who worked from the turn of the century until World War II. In March, the museum will unveil its recent gift of contemporary California work from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation.

Los Angeles artist Alexis Smith, whose “Snake Path” will enter the Stuart Collection of Outdoor Sculpture at UC San Diego later this year, will be featured in a show of photographs, plans and models at the university’s Mandeville Gallery, opening Jan. 12.

San Diegans Patricia Patterson, James Luna, Richard Lou and Robert Sanchez will all leave their marks at Palomar College’s Boehm Gallery this spring, while Raul Guerrero, David Baze and Eugenie Geb will have one-person shows at the David Zapf Gallery.

Photographers Walter Cotten and Steve DePinto will present their collaborative “Desert Work” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Jay Johnson and Robin Bright will share a show at the Thomas Babeor Gallery. The David Lewinson Gallery will feature new work by local artists Gary Ghirardi and Peter Stearns in separate shows this spring.

Moving south, Tijuana artist Hugo Sanchez will mount a large mural on the themes of racism and justice at Sushi Gallery beginning Jan. 11. The contorted, depraved figures of Mexican artist Jose Luis Cuevas go on view this Saturday at the Tasende Gallery in a large show of drawings.

At the Museum of Art beginning in March, “Latin American Drawings Today” will survey work on paper from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and several other countries.

Several other hopefuls for the year feature American artists focusing on issues of identity and history. Celia Alvarez Munoz will show her installation, “El Limite” (The Limit) at the Museum of Contemporary Art from February to June. The El Paso-based artist bases her work on her own bilingual, bicultural upbringing, and the oral storytelling traditions of the Southwest.

“Counter Colon-ialismo,” at the Centro Cultural in the fall, will address America’s encounter with Columbus from an unconventional perspective. A traveling show accompanied by symposiums and performances, “Counter Colon-ialismo” is intended to dispel historical myths and to present alternative views of history.