Lannan Ends Exhibitions, Collection : Art: Nonprofit group plans to close up its Marina del Rey space and disperse its 1,500-piece collection. Funds will be rechanneled into grants and other projects.

The Los Angeles-based Lannan Foundation--a $150-million nonprofit organization that supports visual art, literature and charitable causes--will terminate its exhibition program next year and disperse its 1,500-piece collection of contemporary art.

Lisa Lyons, a renowned curator, author and arts administrator who has directed the foundation’s art program since 1989, has resigned in reaction to the foundation trustees’ decision.

The foundation also will give up its elegantly appointed building in Marina del Rey in August, 1996, when the lease was to be renewed. The final exhibition in Lannan’s galleries will be “Robert Frank: Moving On, 1943-1993” from March 2-May 19, 1996.

Coming 16 months after the foundation shocked the art world by announcing that it would stop buying art--and shift its $2-million-to-$3-million annual art-acquisitions budget to programs in Native American communities--the latest move appears to be a devastating blow to Southern California’s art community, where Lannan has been critically acclaimed for presenting challenging and offbeat exhibitions that wouldn’t otherwise appear here.

But foundation president J. Patrick Lannan Jr. insists that the recent decision is merely a shift in strategy that does not amount to less support for visual art. “We are not deserting the art world,” he said in a telephone interview.

Lannan said the “museum-quality works” in the foundation’s collection will be donated to public institutions, where the art will have a much wider, more diverse audience.

“We are going to contact three museums--the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles,” he said.

An undetermined number of lesser-quality works will probably be sold, he said. All proceeds from art sales will be given to “Roden Crater,” artist James Turrell’s massive project that is transforming an extinct volcano in northern Arizona into an artwork. Lannan said that artworks will be sold carefully and not dumped on the market in a way that would damage the artists.

Lannan also said that artist Siah Armajani’s “Poetry Garden,” commissioned for a patio at the Marina del Rey building, will be saved at the present site or re-created elsewhere.

The foundation--which spends 6.5% of the total value of its assets, or about $9.75 million, each year--has been allotting about $1.5 million a year to its exhibition program and to maintenance and loans of its collections. That sum will be channeled into grants for the visual arts, literature and Native American communities in proportions that have yet to be determined, Lannan said. The foundation currently gives $1-million worth of visual art grants annually, plus $1.5 million to literature and $2 million to indigenous communities, he said.

Lyons confirmed her resignation in a telephone interview and released a statement:

“I came to the Lannan Foundation in 1989 because the position of director of art programs offered me a unique opportunity to support contemporary art and artists in a variety of important and dignified ways. . . .

“That opportunity no longer exists at Lannan and, consequently, I am resigning. I intend to move on so that I may use my talents more fully in another more appropriate position.”

The shift in the foundation’s focus “has nothing to do with Lisa,” Lannan said. “She has done a fantastic job for us and we are really proud of the quality of her work. . . . She’s a real pro. I’m sure she will move on to some kind of directorship.”

The foundation was formed in 1960 by Lannan’s father, J. Patrick Lannan, a Chicago financier, longtime director of International Telephone and Telegraph and an enthusiastic collector of contemporary art. After his death in 1983, his son took charge of the foundation and in 1986 moved the headquarters to Los Angeles. Four years later, the foundation opened a 4,500-square-foot exhibition space and a 3,000-square-foot sculpture garden in Marina del Rey.

The collection includes important abstract paintings and sculptures by modern masters Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Agnes Martin, Brice Marden, Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Isamu Noguchi. It also encompasses large bodies of work by Morris Louis, Robert Irwin, Wallace Berman, Chuck Close, Chris Burden, Kiki Smith, John M. Miller, Tom Friedman, Gerhard Richter, Jackie Ferrara and Mike Kelley.

Among the Lannan’s most notable exhibitions are Chris Burden’s monumental sculptures and “Photography in Contemporary German Art: 1960 to the Present,” organized by the Walker Art Center.