Gallery Owner Adds Realism to the Picture : Rebecca Rutledge’s gallery reflects her view that downscaling is vital in the ‘90s

This is a tale of the highflying 1980s turned realistic ‘90s.

Two years ago--at a time when opening a new art gallery still seemed a reasonably fine idea both economically and aesthetically--Rebecca Rutledge started the Market Street Gallery in Venice with the financial backing of a partner in the entertainment industry.

One year ago, she had to close it when her partner decided that he had other economic priorities. Rutledge retreated into being a private dealer, vowing to try to return.

And she has, with Rutledge Contemporary Art, a one-person operation that occupies less than 900 square feet in a new building developed by producer and director Tony Bill at 100 Market St. in Venice.

“This space is perfectly realistic; it’s intimate--it’s a perfect space for the ‘90s and for being on one’s own,” Rutledge said. “I don’t have administrative problems; I don’t have a staff. I can be involved very directly with the art, the artists and the collectors. And I’m thrilled to be doing this without investors or partners.

“The catchword you see in business is downscaling. And it’s about time--I think the excesses of the ‘80s are over.”

In choosing work to show, Rutledge said, she is often attracted to a certain painterliness, although the work may otherwise fall anywhere along the abstract-to-representational spectrum. She generally does not take on young artists straight out of school. “I tend to work with artists that are more mature even though they may be ‘emerging’ or mid-career,” she said.

On the gallery walls recently were small-scale paintings by three artists: a spare representational series titled “Corners” by Fritz Scholder; a suite of highly textural encaustic-on-panel paintings called “Oaxaca” by Susan Venable (who is generally known for her copper-wire and steel-mesh sculpture) and a bevy of small paintings of horses by Santa Barbara artist Marilyn Brooks.

Opening Friday is a show of illusionistic wood sculptures by James Loney, whom Rutledge met through artists Ed and Nancy Kienholz. Loney--who lives in Moscow, Ida.--carves and then paints wood for assemblages that might include oil cans, purses, axes, baseball gloves and/or radiators. In Idaho, Rutledge took for the real thing a life-size Loney sculpture of a yellow forklift--which in fact was all painted wood “down to the dust on the dials,” she said.

Rutledge is also curating art hung on the walls of the nearby restaurant 72 Market Street, which can accommodate much larger-scale works. On view now is “One from 1977/Two from 1991,” three pieces by Laddie John Dill.

Rutledge said she hoped that the 100 Market St. complex might become another mini-gallery row: The Boritzer/Gray Gallery, which had been on Main Street, is relocating next door to her space--and there has also been a nibble from another gallery. She noted that there’s even a public parking lot behind the building--no mean convenience in Venice.

Whatever happens, Rutledge--who with four years of experience as an art dealer is still a relative newcomer--sounds prepared to settle in for the long haul.

“It just seems as if I’m fated to be in this business,” she said. “The bottom line is that I love to sell art, and I love to work with artists--and I’ll find a way to do it, come hell or high water.”

“James Loney: Sculpture and Drawings” Friday through May 31 at Rutledge Contemporary Art, 100 Market St., Venice. (213) 399-3998. Open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday .

AGONY AND IVORY: “There are a lot of animals that are endangered, but there’s just something about the elephant that captured my heart,” says artist Jacci Den Hartog. “The elephant is the largest land animal; it’s highly intelligent; it has a very strong family structure and a complex way of communicating.”

Even before she overtly seized on the subject, forms related to elephants started showing up in her work, Den Hartog said. But for her first solo show at Sue Spaid Fine Art, the artist had planned to be very specific--with an installation that would dramatize the decimation of the elephant species by humans harvesting tusks for ivory.

Den Hartog, who usually works with cast rubber and with a less overtly activist message, imagined a series of clear plastic “tusks” that she would fill with the ivory jewelry and other ivory items that were the end result of the elephantine slaughter. The tusks would be life-size--ranging from the pencil-thin tusks of baby elephants to the massive ones of adults, she said--and hang in the gallery at levels corresponding to various elephant heights.

Last year, Den Hartog began soliciting donations of ivory to be sealed into the tusks--which would not be for sale, but would travel for educational purposes, the artist said. Den Hartog added that she has been urged to send the piece to Japan in time for an upcoming international convention involving trade in endangered species.

“The reason I think people are willing to donate ivory,” Den Hartog said, “is once they know where it came from--and the death and mutilation or endangerment of an entire species that is involved--they don’t even want it around them.”

Especially over the past few months, Den Hartog has received numerous donations of mostly small-scale ivory for her piece--but not enough to construct it.

So her show at Sue Spaid Fine Art consists of other work with elephant elements and a circus theme. Included, for instance, are cast-rubber silhouette portrayals representing three caged elephants from American circus history: Mama, who was considered intractable and was beaten for years--until it was discovered that she had been trained to respond to commands in German; Mandarin, who was thrown overboard in the middle of the Atlantic; and Jumbo, who was killed while trying to push a baby elephant from the path of an oncoming train.

But Den Hartog still intends to complete the tusk project, and is still seeking donated ivory for it.

“Every once in a while I realize that it’s a really huge undertaking--but now I have a responsibility to see it through,” she said. “Because for everyone who’s sent me a valuable object--it becomes their project too. I really can’t let all those people down.”

“The Captive’s Dream,” work by Jacci Den Hartog, through April 28 at Sue Spaid Fine Art, 7454 1/2 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. (213) 935-6153. Open 1 to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday .

ON-THE-JOB EXPOSURE: What better place to develop as a photographer than in a photo lab? The material that passes through a top lab for custom printing can serve as a photography education in itself--or as a constantly rotating gallery show.

Which is why Don Weinstein, owner of Photo Impact, a Hollywood photography lab specializing in custom black-and-white printing, made room for a gallery when he started the venture eight years ago.

Over the years, Weinstein has shown work by clients such as Greg Gorman--”When I see some interesting work come through here, I ask if I can do a show”--or photo-historical figures such as George Hurrell. A set of shows called “The L.A. Nude I & II” featured the work of 25 top local photographers.

“I’ve always supported photography and always wanted to give something back as a photo lab,” Weinstein said. “We get so many different people coming in here--I saw the gallery as a way to reach a whole audience of photographers and other creative people.”

Now Weinstein is giving his own staff a chance, with an exhibition showcasing the images of 23 photographers who work at the lab. Their output runs the gamut from landscapes to portraits to conceptual photography. Not surprisingly, a number of the photographers use distortion and other advanced darkroom techniques.

“Because they work in a lab, they have the opportunity to do more experimentation,” Weinstein said. “There’s a lot of research and development that goes on here. If we try something new, they are the first to jump on it.”

“Out of the Dark: Selected Works by the Staff of Photo Impact” through May 15 at Photo Impact, 931 N. Citrus Ave., Hollywood. (213) 461-0141. Open 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday .