Going, Going, Garden

Los Angeles is losing one of its most beloved public artworks to a small college in Wisconsin. Siah Armajani’s “The Poetry Garden”--designed as a peaceful retreat and a site for literary readings in a courtyard at the Lannan Foundation’s facility in West Los Angeles--will be moved to the campus of Beloit College, 90 miles north of Chicago.

“The Poetry Garden,” inspired by “Anecdote of the Jar,” a poem by Wallace Stevens describing the transformative power of art, was installed in 1992 in the 3,000-square-foot courtyard. The artwork is composed of 30 3-foot-tall glazed ceramic jars; four lecterns resembling open books; wood benches and high-backed chairs with the poem’s text printed above them; and various landscape elements.

The jars, benches, chairs and lecterns will be moved to Wisconsin, Armajani said, but he is redesigning the multi-part artwork for its new location.

“It will be totally different. The garden will be four times as large and I will probably add new elements,” he said, with an air of excitement about expanding the artwork.

“I was very, very, very sorry when I heard the foundation was going to close the garden,” Armajani said. “Lisa Lyons [former director of the Lannan’s art programs] worked very hard on it. She is 100% professional. But this opportunity has revived my optimism.”

The move is only the latest event in the foundation’s effort to disperse its 1,400-piece collection of contemporary art. During the last three years, the Lannan has shifted its philanthropic emphasis from contemporary art to Native American communities.

While maintaining its $1-million-a-year grant program for visual art, the foundation has stopped collecting art, has closed its exhibition space and is in the process of dispersing its collection through gifts and sales. About 300 works have been given to museums so far, with the largest blocks going to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Chicago’s Art Institute and Museum of Contemporary Art. The Art Institute also purchased 48 pieces by modern masters.

Beloit might seem an odd choice for relocating “The Poetry Garden,” but the college has strong connections with both the foundation and the artist. College President Victor E. Ferrall Jr. is an old friend of J. Patrick Lannan Jr., president of the foundation established in 1960 by his father, a longtime director of International Telephone and Telegraph and a voracious art collector. Armajani, who was born in Iran in 1939 and immigrated to the United States in 1960, is a former college classmate of Alan G. McIvor, vice president for enrollment services at Beloit.

Ferrall said “The Poetry Garden” is being given to Beloit because he asked for it.

“I’m very excited about it,” he said. “First of all, it’s gorgeous. “It also fits very well. We have strong programs in writing and poetry. I think it will be used continuously, from class meetings on sunny days to students’ readings.” The garden is expected to be installed and ready for use in the fall.

Armajani, who is based in Minneapolis, has built large sculptural and environmental works all over the world, including the giant caldron that held the Olympic flame at Atlanta last summer and a tower and bridge leading to the stadium. But Beloit is fast becoming a major site of his work. As a result of his friendship with McIvor, Armajani installed another work, “Gazebo for One Anarchist (Emma Goldman),” on the campus in 1993 and donated it to the college last year. He also has been commissioned to build the “Beloit Fishing Bridge,” a 660-foot structure on an old railroad trestle spanning the Rock River, as the centerpiece of a city redevelopment project.

Coincidentally, Beloit College has attracted another art export from Los Angeles. On Feb. 1, Thomas H. Wilson, director of the Southwest Museum from 1992 to 1995, became director of the Beloit College Museums and museum studies program. He will oversee the college’s renowned Logan Museum of Anthropology and the Wright Museum of Art, which will present an Armajani retrospective this fall.

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NOT PRETTY: “On the Ugly,” a symposium presented by UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture--Wednesdays at 5 p.m. in Dickson Auditorium--continues this week with a talk by avant-garde dancer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer.

In upcoming sessions, critic Rosalind Krauss will speak on “Formless: A User’s Guide” on May 7; artist Fred Wilson, who deals with racial issues in contemporary culture, will talk May 15; and critic Hal Foster will present a program, “The Art of Missing the Point,” on May 21.

The symposium, organized by UCLA art department Chairwoman Mary Kelly, explores art that is perceived as ugly because it is out of place, is shocking or exposes raw aspects of reality. Admission is free; parking is $5. Information: (310) UCLA-ART.

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FIVE DECADES REMEMBERED: A 50-year retrospective of Los Angeles-based artist June Wayne’s work opens Saturday and continues through June 22 at the Neuberger Museum of Art, on the campus of the State University of New York at Purchase. Wayne will also receive the museum’s premier lifetime achievement award.

Meanwhile, another exhibition, “June Wayne and the Cosmos: My Palomar, Solar Flares and Stellar Winds,” runs simultaneously at the New York Academy of Sciences in Manhattan. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will present a smaller version of the retrospective next year.

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MOVING UP AT MOCA: Two staffers at the Museum of Contemporary Art have been promoted. Kathleen Sterritt Bartels, former director of administration, is now assistant director of the museum. Second in command to Director Richard Koshalek, she will have an expanded role in general operations and daily management of all museum departments. Among special projects under her purview is the Sam Francis retrospective, scheduled to open in the fall of 1998.

Julie Lazar, a curator at MOCA since the museum’s opening in 1983, who organized the current exhibition “Uncommon Sense,” has been named director of experimental programs. She will explore new technologies and art-making practices in an effort to develop new audiences.

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BIG BIRD: A life-size bronze eagle on a 20-foot-tall pedestal by Los Angeles-based Gwynn Murrill was commissioned for the U.S. Embassy’s new building in Singapore and installed there last year. Now the eagle can be seen in Southern California--in a new casting with a darker patina--at the Patricia Faure Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. The sculpture is the centerpiece of an exhibition of Murrill’s new work, through May 17. Information: (310) 449-1479.