City Arts Program Aims at Taking the ‘Pain Away’ : * Riots: Adolfo V. Nodal, general manager of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, hopes L.A. can tap into healing power of the arts.

It’s been said that art can heal the soul, and that’s just what Adolfo V. Nodal, the city’s cultural czar, hopes will happen in the wake of last week’s riots. As general manager of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Nodal began planning for what he called “the re-Renaissance” of Los Angeles even while the riots were still in progress.

“There has to be an immediate response within the arts community; the arts can really symbolize the healing process,” said Nodal, as he discussed his multi-pronged Arts Recovery Program. “The arts can build the image of L.A. You can rebuild the mini-malls, but one of the only tools we’ve got for rebuilding understanding is the arts. There’s a great need to address the emotional and psychological damage, and there’s nothing but the arts that can take that pain away.”

The first portion of the Arts Recovery Program, a hot line for artists and other volunteers, was activated Wednesday through (213) 688-ARTS, which normally is used to promote programming. The hot line will match visual and performing artists with venues in strife-torn areas where poetry readings, video programs or dance classes may help “promote the human communication” needed in the riot’s wake, according to Nodal.

The program has also put out a citywide call for donations--ranging from art supplies to furniture and office supplies to building materials--that will be distributed to artists and arts and community organizations, either to sponsor art projects in blighted areas or to aid artists who have been hurt by the riot. Donations will be distributed through the existing Materials for the Arts Program, (213) 485-1097.

But the main thrust of Nodal’s program will be an Arts Recovery Fund to provide immediate grants for programs in affected areas. The fund already contains about $100,000 from the department’s uncommitted arts programming funds, money saved from canceled events and leftover money from the city’s Endowment for the Arts. In addition, Nodal has applied to the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council for emergency funding, and plans to contact corporations and private foundations in the hope of raising “close to $1 million.”

“What we can contribute is culture--nobody can symbolize all these feelings (brought out through the rioting) like the arts,” Nodal said. “I don’t think anybody will question our spending money on the arts (as opposed to rebuilding). Everybody knows now, if we don’t walk together, what can happen.”

While Nodal noted that it would take a couple of weeks to set up the fund, he hopes to award the first batch of grants within 30 days. Nodal said granted programs--which could include anything from music and dance performances to murals and monuments to local heroes--would have a special focus on youth and senior citizens, who the department believes were the hardest hit by the riots.

“What the fund will do is provide the arts as a tool for healing and address all that (youths and the elderly) have been going through. The arts is the only thing we can use to symbolize the struggle . . . and continue the communication.”

Other elements of the plan include “stepping up” the department’s citywide Community Arts Program, ironically, the area hardest hit by city budget cuts in recent years. Nodal said his staff will reassess the department’s already-strained $10.3-million budget proposed for 1992-93, and shift funds to place more emphasis on “getting artists into communities and out on the street.”

In addition, the department will become a “service center” for the arts community to report damage. The center will also help members of the arts community who were affected by recent events. Although no cash assistance will be available, staff will provide technical aid to “help those in need get through all the bureaucracy,” said Nodal, who on Wednesday began a series of meetings with cultural leaders to assess further needs and was also scheduled to brief an ad-hoc committee of City Council members about his plans.

The department will also cosponsor two L.A. Philharmonic “healing” concerts on May 23 in Koreatown and South-Central Los Angeles.

A damage report issued late Tuesday by Cultural Affairs assistant general manager Rodney Punt confirmed early reports that no physical damage was incurred to any city-owned arts facility, including the Watts Towers and William Grant Still Arts Center, both of which were within one block of severe damage.

But the report tallied financial losses of $21,293 incurred by the department as a result of lost ticket revenue from canceled events ($7,498) and extra security at arts centers including Watts Towers and the Los Angeles Theatre Center ($13,795). Not included in the report was an additional $22,000 lost by the department through the cancellation of the weekend’s Pacific Islander Festival, for which about 30 performing groups had already been brought to town.

Although the damage to all public artworks has not yet been assessed, only two murals have thus far been found to be destroyed: an Olympic-themed mural called “Exposition Park Welcomes the World” by Joe Gonzalez and Robert Arenivar at 40th and Vermont, and another at 6th and Bonnie Brae, which depicted gang imagery and such classic imagery as the masks of Greek comedy and tragedy.