Laguna Looking Gift Sculpture in the Mouth : Art: Commission backs sculptor’s offer, but some residents don’t want 23-foot-high figure to spend a year on city’s Main Beach, free or not.

Free gifts aren’t always eagerly received here, especially presents from artists who want to display their sculpture on the city’s beloved Main Beach.

Currently, Ron Taybi, an artist and longtime Laguna Beach resident, is offering to lend to the city for a year a 23-foot-high contemporary sculpture, a swirl of bright aluminum commemorating a woman who demonstrated for the emancipation of women in the Middle East.

The gift isn’t shoddy, although its market value is somewhat debatable. Taybi, a 40-year-old Iranian emigrant, said he wouldn’t sell the work for less than $120,000.

Unable to get his price for it, Taybi said he is now prepared to have the sculpture put on public display for nothing. The city’s Arts Commission has unanimously recommended that the City Council accept the offer.

Taybi, who acknowledges that he is much better known for the modernistic staircase railings he designs and builds than for his sculpture, says this piece possesses great sentimental value for him and reflects a central tenet of his Bahai faith: equality of the sexes.

The work is entitled “Tahirih” after an Iranian poet who made a symbolic gesture for the emancipation of women 140 years ago by removing her face veil in public. She was later martyred for her beliefs.

Taybi said the abstract sculpture is designed in the shape of a large, sweeping veil with only a woman’s eye and eyebrow showing.

Laguna Beach Arts Commissioner Thomas Jeavons said: “The theme of the sculpture is as bold as the concept of placing it on Main Beach. It represents the town’s stand against prejudice of any kind.”

The sculpture also won the admiration of the Newport Beach Arts Commission, which, in response to Taybi’s request, was once going to recommend that it be placed on the lawn outside Newport Beach City Hall.

Maggie Leyden, coordinator of the Newport Beach Arts Commission, said she did not refer the matter to the Newport Beach City Council for a final decision after she learned in October that Taybi also had offered the sculpture to Laguna Beach.

Leyden contends that Taybi’s simultaneous offers were “unethical.” Taybi said he was “desperate” to find a long-term home for the sculpture.

Meanwhile, the Laguna Beach Arts Commission agreed with Taybi that Main Beach Park, the popular 1,000-foot stretch of sand, grass, boardwalk and volleyball and basketball courts fronting the city’s downtown business district, would be the best place to show off the sculpture.

After sundown, the sculpture’s aluminum arc glows white with halogen lighting and the ball and partial moon that represent the eye and eyebrow shine a fluorescent fuchsia.

“The entire thing is like a huge lamp. It would be a source of light to attract people at night to the beach,” Taybi said.

While one local art dealer who requested anonymity said he doubted that the tall, 1,500-pound sculpture could withstand even a moderately strong ocean wind, Taybi said it has been engineered to resist toppling, and a clear epoxy coating will protect it against corrosive salt air.

Taybi also promised to pay for insurance against vandalism or safety hazards.

“It will cost the city nothing,” said Bobbi Cox, who chairs the Arts Commission. “It is an artwork of international importance and stature and would be an asset to Laguna, which is an art colony. I think the offer covers all the objections that might be raised.”

City Manager Kenneth C. Frank was so convinced of this that he placed the sculpture proposal on the calender of items expected to be approved without debate Tuesday night by the City Council.

“I thought it would be non-controversial,” Frank said. “After all, it is temporary in nature.”

But he didn’t anticipate the protective feelings many Laguna Beach residents share for Main Beach Park and anything that goes on it.

Although the proposal to place the sculpture on Main Beach was not widely known until this week, residents filled the council chambers to protest what they called an obstruction to the city’s “window to the sea.” They also disagreed that the sculpture’s loop design makes it virtually transparent.

In response, the City Council late Tuesday night was expected to postpone a decision and set a date for a public hearing.

“It is too important a consideration to be placed on the consent calender,” Councilwoman Lida Lenney said. “People forget that Main Beach means a lot to every citizen who lives in this community. We all feel a sense of ownership. We like it the way it is, and we don’t want to change it.”

Lenney recalled that in 1980 another modernistic sculpture by another local artist was placed near the same spot proposed for Taybi’s sculpture.

“I remember driving down Broadway and seeing this huge hunk of rusting iron,” she said.

Ultimately the controversial sculpture, called “Vestige,” was removed by the city in response to a flood of complaints.

Phyllis Sweeney, a former mayor of Laguna Beach and an active member of Village Laguna, a local grass-roots political group, said she only learned of the proposal on Monday, and opposed putting anything on that spot. She and others also questioned the altruism of Taybi’s offer.

“I imagine many sculptors would be eager to have their work on exhibit in the park for a year,” Sweeney said.

Taybi, however, said: “I’m not trying to use this as a marketing scheme. I want to get the message across that the time has come for men and women to have equal rights in governing the affairs of mankind because that is a prerequisite of international peace.”