Extension for Lannan Gallery

Citing complexities of giving away its 1,500-piece collection of contemporary art, the Los Angeles-based Lannan Foundation has granted a 9 1/2-month reprieve to its exhibition program and gallery.

The foundation--a $170-million nonprofit organization that supports visual art, literature and charitable causes--shocked the art world early in 1994 when it stopped buying art. The tremors were compounded last May with an announcement of plans to terminate the Lannan’s critically acclaimed exhibition program, close its elegant facility in Marina del Rey and disperse its art holdings. “Robert Frank: Moving Out,” a photography show that opens Saturday and runs through May 19, was scheduled to be the final exhibition.

But the foundation on Thursday announced that its headquarters will remain open until March 1997 and that two additional exhibitions will be staged in the gallery. J. Patrick Lannan Jr., foundation president, attributed the extension to difficulties of dispersing the collection.

“The plan is the same. The only thing that has changed is the time frame,” he said in a telephone interview from his office in Santa Fe, N.M. “The dispersal has just taken a lot longer than we expected, for a lot of reasons that I won’t go into.”

The foundation’s lease on the building, which was due to expire at the end of August, has been extended for six months, to March 1, 1997. “Since we were keeping the building longer, we thought we might as well use it,” he said of the decision to host more exhibitions. Projects are being discussed, including “Stations,” an installation by Bill Viola.

An analysis and appraisal of the collection is expected to be complete by June. Then talks will begin with three institutions designated as recipients of the artworks--Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Most of the artworks will be donated, as formerly announced, but Lannan disclosed that the foundation also plans to sell some pieces to raise money for “Roden Crater,” artist James Turrell’s massive project transforming an extinct volcano in northern Arizona into an artwork. No fund-raising goal has been established because costs of Turrell’s project are undergoing analysis and the market value of the Lannan collection has not been established, he said.

Calling the dispersal “a very complicated deal,” Lannan said many aspects of the process are unresolved. “If the three museums take all the artworks [in a combination of donations and purchases], that will be it,” he said. If not, the foundation may contact other, as-yet-unnamed institutions.

When the foundation stopped collecting art, its $2-million to $3-million acquisition budget was shifted to programs in Native American communities. But Lannan emphasized that additional funds to be raised or saved will benefit the arts. The $1.5 million that has been spent each year on exhibitions, art loans and building maintenance will be channeled into the Lannan’s grants for the visual arts and literature, and proceeds from art sales will be used “only for art purposes,” he said.

A beefed-up grant program will be outlined in May, he said. Kathleen Merrill, formerly of the New York office of the American Center in Paris, has been appointed to the newly created position of director of the art grant program.

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 active 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, his primary residence at the time. Lannan subsequently moved to Santa Fe, but he said he doesn’t know if the foundation’s office will relocate there.

Since the 1987 opening of its 4,500-square-foot exhibition space and adjacent 3,000-square-foot sculpture garden in Marina del Rey, the foundation has hosted a variety of adventurous exhibitions, providing a significant alternative to local museums and galleries. Among the most notable events are installations of Chris Burden’s monumental sculptures and “Gary Simmons: Erasure Drawings,” a critically acclaimed show that was a turning point for the young New York artist.

The Lannan’s collection includes prime works by modern masters Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Agnes Martin, Brice Marden, Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Isamu Noguchi. The holding also contains unusually 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.