Movers and Shakers Behind the Art Makers

Despite its growth and evolution as a major art center, Los Angeles has never developed a support structure equal to its home-grown talent. That’s the bottom line, and it hasn’t changed significantly in the 1990s. But new players have emerged. Adding fresh energy and new dimensions to the art scene, they have bolstered more entrenched forces that continue to make things happen:

MUSEUM PEOPLE

Paul Schimmel became chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1990 and mounted a definitive blockbuster in 1992. “Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s” had an enormous influence on worldwide perceptions of contemporary art in L.A. His next big project, opening Dec. 7, is “Out of Actions: Performance and the Object,” an international examination of how actions and performances evolved into works of art from 1949 to 1979.

Two top curators joined the J. Paul Getty Museum’s staff in 1994. David Jaffe, curator of paintings, has overseen one major purchase after another, from Fra Bartolommeo’s High Renaissance masterpiece “Rest on the Flight Into Egypt With Saint John the Baptist” to a classic Cezanne, “Still Life With Apples.” The Getty’s new curator of drawings, Nicholas Turner, has been busy too, acquiring Old Master works to enhance the Getty’s increasingly distinguished holdings.

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the biggest change--effected in 1995-96--is a bifurcated administrative structure, with Andrea Rich in the top spot as the museum’s first paid president and Graham W.J. Beal as director. But the public hasn’t seen much evidence of their efforts, which have focused on strategic planning and inside operations.

Meanwhile, J. Patrice Marandel became LACMA’s curator of European painting and sculpture in 1993 and immediately got to work on the permanent collection, reorganizing galleries and acquiring Old Master paintings with funds from the Ahmanson Foundation.

At the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, Edward J. Nygren succeeded Robert Wark, who had served as the Huntington’s curator of collections for 34 years. Since 1990 Nygren has overseen an eclectic parade of exhibitions, including a dazzling selection of European portrait miniatures from the collection of Queen Elizabeth II.

Two other relatively new arrivals, Lynn Zelevansky, associate curator of 20th century art since 1995 at LACMA, and Connie Butler, curator of works on paper since 1996 at MOCA, are very much on the scene but just beginning to have a curatorial presence. Zelevansky will debut on June 5 with the inaugural exhibition in LACMA’s “Contemporary Projects Series”; Butler made her curatorial debut last fall with “The Power of Suggestion,” a show of conceptual artworks that stretched the definition of drawing.

SCHOOLS

Southern California’s rich mixture of art schools was formerly dominated by CalArts, which opened in Valencia in 1971 and quickly became the hot spot for budding artists. Now UCLA has claimed that position. One measure is the “1997 Biennial Exhibition” at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The show is routinely panned by critics, but it takes the pulse of art making across the nation. This year UCLA had the strongest vital signs. Ten of the 72 artists represented either teach at UCLA (Chris Burden, Lari Pittman and Charles Ray) or studied there (Douglas Blau, Charles Burnett, Martin Kersels, Jennifer Pastor, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades and Vija Celmins, who lives in New York).

COLLECTORS

It’s the ‘90s, not the ‘80s, so no one has picked up the torch of L.A.’s mega-collectors Eli Broad, David Geffen and Michael Ovitz. But there’s plenty of money here, and some of it is being spent on art. Among the most prominent new acquisitors is Dean Valentine, president of Walt Disney Television and Walt Disney TV Animation, who is building a major collection of contemporary art.

Clyde Beswick, a direct-mail executive, emerged early in the ‘90s as the collector of young artists, but he was waylaid by a divorce and a business-related lawsuit that have forced him to sell part of his holdings. He’s still on the scene, most recently as a curator of “outauction ‘97,” benefiting the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, so perhaps he’ll reemerge as an important collector.

PATRONS

As public and corporate support of art has dwindled, the need for private patronage has escalated. Music industry mogul David Geffen came through with a $5-million gift to the Museum of Contemporary Art that transformed the popular Temporary Contemporary into the Geffen Contemporary.

Audrey Irmas and her late husband, Sydney, contributed $3 million to MOCA’s $25-million campaign, and Audrey has blossomed as an energetic philanthropic leader. She’s president of MOCA’s board of trustees. Among its promising new members are Ronald W. Burkle, head of the Yucaipa Cos., parent firm of the grocery chain that recently donated $15 million to Disney Hall, and Cleon T. (Bud) Knapp, former chairman and chief executive officer of Knapp Communications, who also serves on the boards of LACMA and Art Center College of Design.

GALLERIES

The ‘90s gallery scene has been characterized by more shrinkage than growth, but the situation appears to have stabilized--with several notable changes.

Bergamot Station, the arts complex that opened in 1994 in Santa Monica, is the major addition. The sprawling complex, developed by dealer Wayne Blank with financial backing from Tom Patchett, attracted leading dealers such as Patricia Faure, Rosamund Felsen and Burnett Miller and became a destination for locals and tourists alike.

A few blocks away on Nebraska Avenue, the so-called “Baby Bergamot” galleries--ACME, Marc Foxx and Dan Bernier--have added younger juice to the scene, although imminent takeover of their building by a movie studio will soon force their relocation to another site.

Beverly Hills also raised its art profile, as two top-of-the-line New York operations, PaceWildenstein and Larry Gagosian, opened galleries there in 1995.

Hard times have forced many former specialists to become generalists in order to keep their doors open. But several dealers with distinctive expertise have emerged in the ‘90s, and the art scene is richer for it.

Regen Projects, a modest space in West Hollywood owned and operated by Stuart Regen and Shaun Caley, has become the gallery to watch for major new talent and cutting-edge work by established artists. In the last two years, Regen and Caley have presented critically acclaimed exhibitions of works by Raymond Pettibon and Lari Pittman, whom they represent, and by Sam Reveles, Sue Williams, Gilbert & George, Jack Pierson, Elizabeth Peyton and Richard Billingham.

Louis Stern, an Impressionist and Modern art specialist who opened his first gallery in Beverly Hills in 1990 and moved to West Hollywood in 1994, has staged exhibitions that can’t be seen elsewhere in Los Angeles: Matisse works on paper, Leger paintings and drawings and a 25-year survey of work by Mexican artist Alfredo Ramos Martinez. Stern plans a 1900-60 survey of paintings by French abstractionist Jacques Villon, in cooperation with Paris’ venerable gallery Louis Carre, for the Los Angeles International this summer.

Ceramics dealer Frank Lloyd--who took over the former Garth Clark Gallery on La Brea Avenue--has opened what is arguably the most attractive gallery at Bergamot Station, where he has heightened the visibility of art in clay.

AUCTION HOUSES

While New York remains the nation’s undisputed capital of art auctions, Sotheby’s and Christie’s have enlarged their facilities in Beverly Hills. Sotheby’s christened its Wilshire Boulevard space in 1995, with Andrea Van de Kamp at the helm. Christie’s will follow suit May 30, unveiling a refurbished building on Camden Drive. Andrea Fiuczynski, a European furniture specialist formerly based in Berlin, is Christie’s principal auctioneer in L.A. and chief of West Coast operations.

PUBLICATIONS

L.A. is known for killing off publications, not supporting them. But Art issues. magazine, edited and published by Gary Kornblau, has done more than survive. It has emerged as the smartest voice in print about lively relationships between art and entertainment.

INSTITUTIONS

When it comes to visibility and clout, nothing can compete with the J. Paul Getty Museum. It’s been around since 1954, but its collections have shaped up significantly in the ‘90s in preparation for the early-December opening of the new museum at the Getty Center in Brentwood. No question about it, that will be L.A.’s cultural event of the decade.