Student Artists Emerge Into Critical Light at Annual Shows

It’s springtime, the season of student art shows with their annual opportunities for sniffing out budding talent.

Throughout most of the year, the art galleries at local colleges and universities try to mount thought-provoking shows of work by established artists for the edification of their students (and of the general public). But at the end of the spring semester, the galleries are festooned with the work of the students themselves. The exhibitions are sometimes juried events, with submissions judged by impartial panels of local artists or other art-world figures.

In more ways than one, the shows provide students a bracing taste of the professional art world: They expose them to the competition involved in getting work shown, to the thrill of having their creations exhibited publicly--and, potentially, to the satisfaction of a sale.

For the public, the shows offer an opportunity to discover emerging talent at a very early moment, to take a look at what’s on young artistic minds and to buy original artworks--often at prices in a two- to three-figure range unheard of in commercial galleries. (Most pieces shown are available for purchase.)

Probably the best known of the shows is the annual weekend sale of student art at Otis/Parsons School of Art and Design, to which 2,000 to 3,000 members of the public throng annually. It was held this year March 28 to 30.

But there are other lesser-sung (and less crowded) shows to peruse. Among them is the show of graduate and undergraduate student art at Cal State Northridge, which opened last week.

The show, which includes everything from paintings and sculpture to video, glass, ceramics and graphic and industrial design, was juried by a three-member outside panel that culled about 65 works from among 350 entries.

“Like an actor has to get used to an audience, an artist has to get used to rejection--in the sense that there is an opinion about the work,” exhibition coordinator Ann Burroughs said of the student-show process. “There is that disappointment and excitement.”

This year, the best-in-show award went to painter Zohar Wertheim--who already has been discovered by a gallery, Burroughs said.

At Mt. St. Mary’s College in Brentwood, the annual student art show at the Jose Drudis-Biada Art Gallery also went on view last week. It features more than 100 works by 20 students--not all of whom are art majors. “It’s a little art department--but it’s a good one,” exhibitions curator Olga Seem said.

Gordon Fuglie, director of Loyola Marymount University’s Laband Art Gallery, said he recently reviewed attendance records for his gallery’s shows last year--and found that the annual student art show ranked second in terms of visitors. Fuglie said he and members of the art faculty usually review multiple submissions from about 80 students and choose 85 to 100 pieces to show. “We usually have a very strong photography section,” Fuglie said. This year’s show begins Tuesday.

At UCLA, two different shows of graduate and undergraduate art are mounted at the Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery in June. The MA and MFA Thesis Exhibitions, including both fine art and design, will show the creative projects that are the final requirements for master’s degrees.

Finally, of the 21,000 undergraduates at Santa Monica College, about 8,000 take courses in the art department--whose 29 instructors submit two works from each of their classes for the annual student art exhibition. Hanging such a show, says gallery director Sanford Susan Wakefield, is always a challenge.

“I don’t want it to look like a hardware store--a little bit of everything,” she said. “It takes a lot of designing to make the colors and sizes blend, and to make every student’s work look special.”

“Student Art Show 1991” through June 28 at Cal State Northridge Art Gallery, CSUN Fine Arts Building, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge; (818) 885-2226. Open noon to 4 p.m. Monday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. After May 24, the gallery will be open by appointment.

“Annual Art Student Show” through May 3 at the Jose Drudis-Biada Art Gallery of Mt. St. Mary’s College, 12001 Chalon Road, Brentwood; (213) 476-2237. Open noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

“Student Exhibition,” April 30 to May 11 at the Laband Art Gallery of Loyola Marymount University, Loyola Boulevard at West 80th Street, Los Angeles; (213) 338-2880. Open 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.

“Student Art Exhibition,” May 24 to June 8 at the Santa Monica College Art Gallery, 1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica; (213) 452-9231. Open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday; 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Closed Memorial Day weekend.

“MA and MFA Thesis Exhibitions,” June 11 through June 30 at the Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave., Westwood; (213) 825-1461. Open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. PAJAMA ART: With a name like Mama Pajama, it’s instantly clear that the place can’t be your standard spare and white-walled art venue.

In fact, Mama Pajama is a combination espresso bar, resale clothing store, singer-songwriter-performance art showcase and art gallery--named with a tip of a pre-owned hat to a Paul Simon lyric.

“We wanted something nurturing,” Landrum said of the “Mama” in the name. “And as for pajama--we sell clothes here.”

A “sober bar,” Mama Pajama was founded in 1988 by Nora Landrum and her daughter, who was a graduate of a nearby sober-living home for recovering alcoholic women; part of Mama Pajama’s proceeds originally benefited that establishment.

Since then, Landrum has shown everything from sculpture and ceramics to flamboyant dress designs in her colorfully clothes-cluttered space--with a lot of painting and photography along the way. Most of the work is by local artists.

Landrum said that she may give a slight edge to work by artists who are in recovery and that she likes to support women, but otherwise her criteria for granting a show are extremely democratic.

“I just say, ‘Nothing satanic,’ ” she said simply.

On view through Tuesday are paintings and photographs by Henry Lee Kahn, who impressed Landrum with his attitude when he came in one day. “He had just had open-heart surgery and was full of life,” she recalls.

For Kahn, who worked as a free-lance engineer in the construction industry to support his wide-ranging travels and his art, the show serves as something of a self-revelatory retrospective. “I’ve never seen my stuff hanging up like that all together, where I can see my progress and my variety,” he said.

Kahn is one who believes that anything--including art--is possible for those who make a go for it. “If you really want it, you can have it,” he said. “The only thing you can’t do is flap your wings and fly.”

“An Artistic Contribution,” paintings and photography by Henry Lee Kahn (a.k.a. Hank/Bones) through Tuesday at Mama Pajama, 3786 S. Durango Ave. (corner of Venice Boulevard), West Los Angeles; (213) 558-4904. Open 11 a.m to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.