Mixed Feelings : Benefits: Some artists aren’t sold on donating pieces for auctions, arguing that lower prices devalue work and that the gifts are ‘bribes.’ Others like the exposure.

The Laguna Art Museum should raise a bundle of much-needed dough tonight at its 11th annual benefit auction. Some 215 California artists who have donated works will get much-needed exposure, guests will go home with art at bargain-basement prices, and everybody will get dinner.

Now what could possibly be wrong with that?

Plenty, according to several artists who have mixed feelings about such events.

Art auctions bring up such fundamental questions as whether arts institutions--which purportedly have cash-strapped artists’ best interests at heart--should be asking those artists for freebies.

“I usually turn them down flat,” says artist Billy Al Bengston, chiefly because artists are allowed only to claim tax deductions for the costs of their materials (whereas art collectors can claim the value of the finished piece).

“Artists are treated as second-class citizens in terms of the tax structure,” Bengston said. “Why should you (give away your work) when everyone else gets a deduction or some other financial gratification from it?” (Artists have the option to keep 30% of proceeds, museum officials said).

Bengston ended up giving a colorful print to the Laguna for tonight’s auction, but only, he said, because he’s tired of fending off endless requests.

Peter Shire, another well-known artist from Los Angeles, said he sometimes worries about the impact of telling a museum “no thanks.”

“Unless you are the most powerful artist,” he said, “you think, ‘Will they remember (this rejection) when it comes time to do a show of my work? Will they think, “Oh yeah, that jerk”?’ ”

Along those lines, Bengston says he thinks that if museums “are taking (donated artworks) from the people they’re showing, they’re accepting bribes.”

Other artists objected that, because auctions are widely viewed as fire sales where works typically go for quarter- to half-price, such events can lower the overall value of work and hurt the commercial galleries on whom artists depend.

Other artists, however, have no reservations about donating works for auction.

“I didn’t think twice about” donating, said Kim Dingle, who gave an antique photograph she altered by painting a tiny gun into an infant’s hand. “Laguna is so supportive of new and struggling artists, and they take risks,” she said of the museum.

Some artists said they believe few donate their very best work, but Dingle said she tries “to be very careful to give a really good example of my work” because she is mindful of the exposure she can get through an auction. (The Laguna displays works for more than a week before they go on sale.)

Participating in an auction “does cost me,” she acknowledged, “but it’s hard to measure what I get back in exposure. Some collectors of mine from Orange County drove all the way up to a Pasadena Art Alliance auction this year because they knew I’d have a piece there.

“And they bid until they got it, and they paid the normal price. It wasn’t even a bargain.”

Patrick Merrill, who chaired an auction at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art last month, said he thinks auctions can help artists gauge the market value of their work.

“I thought some people underpriced their work, and it sold for much more,” Merrill said. “They know now to raise their prices.

Laguna director Charles Desmarais and exhibit curator Bolton Colburn said that auctions often help breed new collectors. “This can be the entry level for a collector into a particular artist’s work,” Colburn said. Initially prompted to buy because they “get a good deal,” budding collectors will buy more later, he said. “I know that that’s happened.”

“I have seen many collections that were started because people first got interested through the auction,” Desmarais agreed.

A vast array of works in various media will go on the block tonight for what traditionally is the museum’s most important annual fund-raiser. Last year’s brought in $75,000. Proceeds from the event, organized and run by volunteers, will benefit museum education programs.

The Laguna Art Museum 11th annual benefit art auction will be held today at the museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach. Bids for items to be sold in a silent auction will be accepted throughout the day. A buffet will be served from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and a live auction will begin at 8 p.m. $75 per person, includes buffet, wine and an auction paddle. Tickets may be purchased at the door. Proceeds benefit museum education programs. Information: (714) 494-8971.