O.C. ART / BENJAMIN EPSTEIN : A Question of Artistic Balance : Exhibits at three art museums raise questions of whether contemporary art ruptures, whether ethnic art can heal, and where the middle ground between the two might lie

There was a time when the unabashedly retro Bowers Museum of Cultural Art was about as stimulating as its latest acquisition of Southwest statuary. Attendance at the Santa Ana museum since its reopening in October is up. Way up.

There was a time when the scholastically superior Newport Harbor Art Museum was the most stimulating, challenging, provocative game in town. Attendance at the Newport Beach museum over the past two years is holding. At best.

One could speculate that excitement generated by Bowers’ reopening was, in and of itself, responsible for a virtual doubling in the number of paid gallery admissions. One could speculate that a changing of Newport Harbor’s directorial and curatorial guard in 1991 in and of itself had somehow compromised quality.

But perhaps something else is in the air.

“Ethnic art is healing art, whereas modern art is rupturing art,” Bowers spokesman Brian Langston said recently. “Ethnic art points to community, to communication and to comity, whereas modern art points to stridency, revolution and destruction--it points to social ills, but it doesn’t point to solutions.

*

“Modern art has gotten its ideas across--that the culture is brutish, that there is injustice and indignity. We all know that we can no longer maintain this fantasy that America is Ward and June Cleaver and Norman Rockwell. In that sense, modern art is a one-trick pony: Once you get the idea that it’s supposed to rock your sense of perception, how often do you want to get rocked?”

Perhaps the shock of the near--what goes on all around us, every day--has defused the shock of the new. Amid the hubbub, the wonder of the old and the distant has become more stimulating, challenging, provocative. Perhaps people--even the most artistically receptive people--don’t care to be shocked anymore.

Perhaps they’re looking for answers.

“Every piece in our African exhibit refers to a cultural solution, a ritual or rite or ceremony having to do with social or political cohesion or the harmony of the individual’s own mundane existence,” Langston said. “That is its power, and that power can have a visceral grab. People are up for hope.”

The exhibitions at Bowers--a recent show on Islamic prayer rugs or the sacred art of the Himalayas now on display--address our place in the cosmos, and as such seem timeless.

They drive home the fact that our slice of life is a very little slice, that whether you’re a Moslem in Mecca, a Buddhist in Katmandu or a Christian in Newport Beach, eternal concerns keep daily concerns in perspective.

Contemporary exhibitions, such as the Nam June Paik sculptures currently at Newport Harbor, generally address issues, albeit crucial issues, of our own time and place (in the case of Paik, the converging of the human and technological).

*

Will the impact of items from the museum’s “Beyond the Bay” show be measured in years, decades, centuries or millennia? It’s a matter of little questions versus big questions--or, so as not to belittle anybody, little big questions versus big big questions.

In either case, noted Newport’s chief curator Bruce Guenther, “there aren’t answers. What we’re hoping is to define questions such that solutions become evident over time.”

Guenther believes that a high level of public interest in exotic exhibitions such as those at the Bowers would be a fairly predictable sign of the times.

“We are in, or coming out of, the most severe recession we’ve faced in 40 or 50 years,” Guenther said. “We are coming to the end of a 100-year cycle and a 1,000-year cycle. The anomie of the present--the anxiety, uncertainty, disconnectedness--is too much with us. These are traditionally times when we seek solace in the past and assurance in the familiar--in restatement such as the continual retro-fitting of Victoriana in furniture.

“For us, Tibetan religious art is ‘the romantic other.’ The romantic other is not connected with strife in L.A. or the next house payment if I’m laid off. Safely ensconced in the romantic other--another time, another culture, another place--we are not reminded of the contentious present. In times of emotional, psychological or economic suffering, we revisit the familiar, historic and exotic. It’s like a salve, a balm on a burn.”

*

Bolton Colburn, Laguna Art Museum’s curator of collections, agrees.

“Looking at exotic cultures and the gold they produced is kind of a little escapist in our context,” Colburn said.

But Colburn also understands the value of accessible exhibitions versus “boring and didactic” shows that “garner lots of kudos” but earn only the respect of other art institutions.

“Not so long ago, dialogue within the arts community had gotten rarefied to the point that it had dead-ended,” Colburn recalled. “In the mid-’70s, when minimalism was going full bore in New York, the number of people understanding that dialogue might have been 5,000. The rest of the people were stumped.”

Contemporary, yet offering both the assurance of the familiar and the charm of the unusual--qualifying it as “balm on a burn”--an upcoming Laguna Art Museum exhibition focusing on the custom-car scene in Southern California may offer a provocative compromise between two great polarities in approach.

Is “Kustom Kulture: Von Dutch, Ed (Big Daddy) Roth, Robert Williams and Others” cultural modern art, or modern cultural art?

“I don’t see it (either) way, but if you do, that’s fine,” said Colburn. “We’ve been able to get an exhibition that not only is germane to the ordinary person but also has art historical relevance.”

*”Art of the Himalayas: Treasures From Nepal and Tibet” continues through July 31 and “African Icons of Power: Timeless Artworks From the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection” continues indefinitely at Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. $1.50 to $4.50. (714) 567-3600. *Video installations by Nam June Paik and “Beyond the Bay: The Figure” continues through June 27 at Newport Harbor Art Museum, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. $2 to $4 (free on Tuesdays). (714) 759-1122. *”Kustom Kulture: Von Dutch, Ed (Big Daddy) Roth, Robert Williams and Others” opens July 16 and runs through Oct. 31 at Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. $1.50 to $3 (under 12 free). (714) 494-6531.