LACE Heads List of Visual Arts Grantees

Visual art accounts for $332,750 (or 11.1%) of the $3 million in cultural grants announced Monday by the city’s Cultural Affairs Department.

L.A. Contemporary Exhibitions tops the list of 21 organization grantees, receiving $35,000. Other recipients include Self-Help Graphics ($15,000), UCLA’s Wight Art Gallery ($12,500), the L.A. County Museum of Art ($10,000), Black Choreographers of California ($6,400), St. Elmo Village ($6,000), and the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art ($5,000).

Individuals grants range from $15,000 for Orell Anderson to $3,495 for Alyce Quinonez. Most of the 14 recipients are relatively unknown, but the list does include names like J. Michael Walker (7,875), Robbie Conal ($7,300), Jacqueline Dreager ($5,800), Rudy Mercado ($5,650), and Manuel Ocampo and Barbara Benish ($5,000 each).

Related grantees in the interdisciplinary and folk arts categories include the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center ($102,000), Craft and Folk Art Museum ($65,757), Southwest Museum ($15,000) and Angels Gate Cultural Center ($10,000).

The visual arts are also featured heavily in the rest of Cultural Affairs’ $10.3 million 1992-93 budget. As part of the new $1.7 million Public Arts Program which will employ dozens of artists, the department will hire a curator for the city-owned art collection and maintain an artists’ slide registry.

In addition, Ed Leffingwell’s position as head of visual arts and director of the Municipal Art Gallery was phased out. Noel Korten will take over as chief curator for Muni, with Barnsdall Art Park director Earl Sherburn handling administrative responsibilities.

Other art programs given line-item funding by the department this year include SPARC’s “Neighborhood Pride” mural program ($350,000), mural and public art

conservation ($80,000), the Museum of Contemporary Art ($25,000), city-sponsored video arts programs ($20,000) and the L.A. Photo Center’s annual Dia de los Muertos celebration ($9,000). Additionally, the department plans to spend $526,801 on 90 visual art exhibitions mounted at Muni and the other city galleries.

GALLERY NEWS: Several local galleries are trying new means of beefing up business this summer.

* Randall Scott/TBA Gallery in Santa Monica is hosting the “First Annual TBA Art Grab” on July 16 from 7 to 10 p.m. Admission is $10 and the gallery will sell 200 tickets ($45; $75 for two) for a drawing of 100 artworks donated by L.A. artists including Dani Tull, Lisa Adams, Yolande McKay and Craig Roper. Proceeds will go to continuing the gallery’s exhibition schedule.Information: (310) 828-1125.

* Beverly Boulevard’s Studio Raid is holding an “S.O.S.” party from 8 to 11 p.m. on Thursday. The gallery will offer more than 100 works by 20 gallery artists at “substantially” reduced prices in an effort to save the 2-year-old gallery from closure or downsizing. The works will be on view through Aug. 20. Information: (213) 939-8085.

Santa Monica’s Tortue Gallery is also offering a recession buster with its current show of gallery artists and others, with prices 30%-50% off, through Aug. 29. Information: (310) 828-8878.

In other news, Orlando Gallery in Sherman Oaks will donate 40% of proceeds from work by gallery artists and African art to cancer and AIDS research organizations. The event is next Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Philip Orlando’s Encino home. RSVP: (818) 789-6012.

NEW VENUES: Artist Charles LaBelle has begun Nomadic Site, a series of 12 exhibitions at rotating venues curated by L.A. artists including Jody Zellen, Lauren Lesko and Jorge Pardo. The first show opens today from 2 to 5 p.m. at the alternative Pasadena space Bliss. Curated by Adam Ross, the show (Sundays from 1-4 p.m. and by appointment through July 16), features drawings by eight artists including Russell Crotty, Patrick Nickell and Sarah Seager. Information: (818) 938-0855.

ENTRIES: Friday is the postmark deadline for the “LACE 7th Annuale,” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition’s Sept. 1-30 show for emerging L.A. artists. Information: (213) 624-5650.