Artists Cash In on Empty Bank Building : Art: Visual and performance artists are given a free hand at FAR BAZZAR, an alternative to the annual art fair held at the Convention Center.

In a direct reaction to economic woes and the declining number of commercial exhibition outlets such as those showcased in ART/LA92, nearly 300 visual artists and an additional 50 or so performance artists have taken over and literally transformed the historic Federal Reserve Bank Building at Olympic and Olive for the FAR BAZZAR, an event organized as an alternative to the event at the Convention Center.

“Originally, the idea started with the disappointment over last year’s art fair,” said Holly Wilder, event co-organizer and board member of Foundation for Art Resources, the nonprofit alternative artists organization producing the event. “There were so few galleries, especially from L.A., and it didn’t represent L.A. art at all. And now, with so many (commercial galleries) closing, everybody’s opening up alternative galleries and spaces in their homes . . . so we wanted to do an art fair for them, too.”

The event features small exhibitions by community organizations including the L.A. Center for Photographic Studies, Angels Gate Cultural Center and East L.A.’s Self-Help Graphics; alternative spaces such as TRI and Food House; and trios of individual artists such as Laura London, Phyllis Baldino and Wendy Adest who have used the opportunity to create their own gallery-like offerings--commercial viability be damned.

Collaborative efforts include those between students from the Southern California Institute for Architecture and the graffiti group Inner City Murals Project, and first-time unions between artists, such as the team of Jacci Den Hartog, Jamey Garza, LouAnne Greenwald, Eric Magnuson, Christian Mounger and Kerrie Peterson who have turned an upstairs bathroom into a “Dressing Room,” complete with altered mirrors, makeup-filled sinks, clothing-inspired objects and an image of a nude woman on the shower door that was created with body oil and talc.

Some of the most exciting work takes place in the room-sized installations and environments of individual artists, such as Andreas Hessing’s avocado grove, created in what was once a 12-by-16-foot tile-covered bathroom that now includes a small water-filled stream complete with weeds “growing” out of the floor.

“It’s great to be able to just go to town and play in a space like this,” said Hessing, a recent Claremont graduate who figures he spent close to 100 hours creating his piece. “It’s just the chance to be able to do it (that makes the effort worthwhile)--having carte blanche to do whatever you want to a space. . . . This is what I’ve always wanted to do--to be able to play with architecture and break things down.”

Hessing was able to do so because of the FAR BAZZAR’s location. The use of the historic building was donated by Urban Strategies, a development company that plans to gut the building and redevelop it as a subsidized artists’ studio complex. Thus artists have been allowed to do practically anything they want to the building including ripping out floors and walls, plugging toilets and sinks, and decorating everything down to the flag poles and rented portable toilets as part of their art pieces.

“Everything that they can do, they’ve pretty much done in this building,” said co-organizer Franklin Odel, noting that FAR received more than 180 proposals for the 60 sites available on the building’s first two floors.

Odel said the idea has stuck close to his original idea for a “thieves market” atmosphere “spoofing” the annual art fair--an atmosphere in which nonprofit community galleries, alternative galleries and individual artists could mix without any commercial competition.

ART/LA92 director Brian Angel, acknowledging that his venture “cannot hope to cover the total breadth of local talent,” called the FAR BAZZAR “another dimension to art activity in L.A. which we welcome very much. We believe the fair provides the catalyst for local collaborations of art . . . and we’re very happy that this has come about. It’s a superb new complement to the fair, and we’ll do all we can to promote it.”

But artist Rory Devine, who runs the alternative space TRI out of his home and was an early participant to sign up for the FAR BAZZAR, said he hoped that the event would become not just such a “complement,” but perhaps one day, the main event.

“I think the art fair is a joke. It’s become such a drag, and it gets less and less interesting each year,” Devine said. “But this should be fun. If everything works out with this event, there’ll be no reason for that one, because this one is so much more interesting.”

The FAR BAZZAR, which opens with a preview Thursday and opening party and marathon series of performances Friday night, has been described by organizers as a “labor of love” that came about through the “sheer enthusiasm” of exhibiting artists.

Operating on a budget of only $6,000 ($5,000 from a FAR fund-raiser and $1,000 from the Community Redevelopment Agency), organizers are charging $1 admission in the hopes of covering insurance and security fees.

“This is really life-saving for artists, with the economy drying up, the galleries folding, and with teaching positions so hard to get,” said Odel. “This is about us creating our own opportunities for exhibition and creating a wide audience at the same time. . . . We’d like to get people who wouldn’t normally see something a little bit on the edge. The question for us was, ‘How do you get those visitors (at the fair) to experience things like what’s going on at (spaces) where they normally wouldn’t go? Even for those who would be open (to alternative venues), if someone comes from Germany, for instance, they’re never going to find a place like TRI.”

* FAR BAZZAR, Old Federal Reserve Bank Building, 409 W. Olympic, (310) 289-4181. Thursday, noon-6 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.-midnight; Saturday, Sunday and Dec. 11, 13, 18 and 20, noon-6 p.m.; Dec. 12 and 19, noon-midnight, with evening performances.