Art in a Parallel Universe

“Until I become the next Brad Pitt, I gotta do this,” sighed Dan Sapienza, one of 10 young actors who slathered themselves in green greasepaint to earn $50 for posing as “statues” at the Pasadena Art Alliance’s biennial benefit, Artopia 2001. The event, which funds grants for arts programs, was staged in the giant tent at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in a freight yard off 4th Street in L.A.

Co-chairwomen Janice Bea and Denise Mitchell described the party theme as “a creative space divided into parallel universes representing creativity, dreams, sensuality and the abstract.”

Which translates into this: An Apple Annie-type hovering by the door of her trash-packed sedan greets arriving guests. Amid a tableau-vivant cocktail-party scene, a guy waxes eloquent on Plato and the permanence of art. Performance artist Norton Wisdom frantically paints and erases portraits on a fiberglass screen. A topless mermaid splashes in a portable pool. “No backstroke, folks,” she sputters. “It’s all in the legs.”

To gaze and graze, more than 400 guests paid $225.