Painter Hangs With Stars and the Big Girls in Beverly Hills

“Do you want me to chew your food for you?” booms Julian Schnabel when a reporter asks him to walk around the Gagosian Gallery and talk about the five works in his new show, “Big Girl Paintings.”

Well, er, no.

During an interview on a recent afternoon at the Beverly Hills gallery, Schnabel gestures animatedly, invites a homeless man in to talk about the art, and has a viewer try on two different pairs of shades to look at the color of the paintings.

It’s easy to get the sense that Schnabel is playing around as he waits for the crowd to arrive for the show’s opening.

And then he starts talking.

Between statements such as “I just like to [mess] around with paint,” and “It’s just a girl,” Schnabel gets serious..

The girls have no eyes, just a sweep of paint across their faces, and that absence negates any relationship, says the artist, who bases the work on a small, kitschy painting he found in 1987. Once you look at the eyes, it’s too late, he explains. You have begun a relationship with the paintings and their subjects.

It takes Schnabel a day to create one of the paintings using his hands and a spatula.

The results, which measure about 108 by 102 inches, fetch several hundred thousand dollars each--and this show was sold out before the opening.

The Big Girls attract a crowd, and by 8 p.m., the reception is more akin to a Hollywood premiere, with Dennis Hopper, Dustin Hoffman, John Waters, Elton John, Benicio Del Toro, Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Dillon, Marisa Tomei and David Lynch among the many guests in attendance.

“It’s crazy,” Schnabel observes to no one in particular, “and I don’t even know half the people inside.”

Mideast Violence Through Young Eyes

Remarkably, the buzz inside the Beverly Hills movie theater Friday--two days before the Academy Awards--had nothing to do with Oscars. The conversations, spoken mostly in Hebrew and Arabic, centered on the heartbreaking elusiveness of peace in the Middle East. The stars of the evening were three teenagers: twin Israelis, Yarko and Daniel, 16, and Sanabel, 15, an Arab who lives in the Deheishe Palestinian refugee camp outside Jerusalem.

As three of the seven Israeli and Palestinian children featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary “Promises,” the teens were eager to travel to the United States to share their views on the violence in their world, and the film’s nomination brought them to L.A. (Concern for the teen’s safety in this time of heightened conflict led filmmakers to withhold their last names.)

On Friday night, the crowd at the Laemmle Music Hall Theatre on Wilshire Boulevard had just viewed the film, which features the teens at their homes in and around Jerusalem from 1997 to 2000. Through interviews and meetings among the children, the filmmakers address the political and religious differences that divide them. The Music Hall audience had a lot of questions for the film’s articulate stars. (“Somehow, being together and being the center of attention has forced them to think very keenly about [their opinions],” said the film’s co-director, co-writer and co-producer, B.Z. Goldberg.)

One woman in the audience asked Yarko whether he believed God or fate had a hand in his meeting the Palestinian children. “It’s not from God,” the teen replied through an interpreter. “It’s from people.... If the politicians can’t do what they promise to do, then it’s up to the people on either side to put an end to the violence.”

Another audience member asked how their political views had changed from 2000, a time of relative peace compared with today’s intense violence.

Sanabel, now 15, said the recent conflict has left her feeling alone and isolated. But the teens take pride in the film and its message. Speaking through a translator on Friday, Sanabel is quick to emphasize the true purpose of her visit: to communicate the plight of the Palestinians. Touching her heart she says: “This is, for me, a huge responsibility.”

City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. E-mail angles@ latimes.com.