The show from hell

Satan is in Santa Ana -- and God is coming to Laguna Beach.

No, that’s not a quote from a sandwich-board sign worn by a street wanderer with a tangled beard and a wild look in his eye. This dual visitation is occurring because two Orange County art galleries decided to court the same exhibition: “100 Artists See God.”

The leadership of Cal State Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana did its best to lure “100 Artists See God,” the brainchild of Los Angeles artists John Baldessari and Meg Cranston, to their gallery. But that exhibition had already been snagged by the Laguna Art Museum, which could provide a larger space for the show. The “God” exhibition, which made its debut in April at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum, opens Sunday in Laguna and will continue on a tour that includes British Columbia, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Grand Central’s advisory board members were naturally disappointed to find that God had already booked another gig. But board chairman Shelley Liberto, an Orange County intellectual-property attorney, was possessed by a devilish idea: Said Liberto: “Why don’t we do ‘100 Artists See Satan’? “

Liberto, who lives in Huntington Beach, has also been a supporter of the Laguna Museum and is a longtime advocate for the arts in Orange County. While he’s a staunch supporter of his county, he likes the idea that “Satan” will challenge the reactionary minority in this politically conservative area.

“We have been graced, for example, with anti-abortion protesters brandishing large pictures of aborted fetuses along PCH for shock effect,” Liberto said by phone from Morocco, where he is spending a year on business. “We are constantly hounded with curses and promises of hell and damnation when we stroll down Main Street for a walk on the pier. If you are not with God, you must be with Satan.”

The board loved Liberto’s idea, and what might have remained just a joke blossomed into an irreverent show featuring 115 artists of both the blue-chip and up-and-coming variety, offering their take on the Prince of Darkness. Some images were created specifically for the show, while others were part of the artists’ existing body of work. Mike McGee, director for Cal State Fullerton’s art galleries and curator of the show, attributes the fact that there are 115 artists featured in “100 Artists” to “demonic math.”

According to the artists, the devil is everywhere. For Mat Gleason, whose work is always about baseball, the devil appears in the form of Mo Vaughn, formerly of the Anaheim Angels, in his digital print “Dark Angel.” A Jim Shaw mimeograph proclaims “The Devil is a MARTIAN!”

Santa Ana art center board president Greg Escalante, a Newport Beach bond trader, became one of the exhibition’s primary supporters.

“I’ve been afraid of Satan since childhood, from growing up Catholic,” he says, “and the exhibition has made me more comfortable with the devil.”

Andrea Harris, director of the Santa Ana center and organizer of the Satan exhibition, says that “Satan” is cramming at least as many artworks into its gallery as the larger Laguna Art Museum will for the “God” show -- but that’s OK.God, she says, demands a heavenly sense of limitless space; a Satan exhibition should convey gleeful gluttony, an overstocked “chamber of evil.” “100 Artists See God” curators Baldessari and Cranston had no part in the decision to take their exhibition to Laguna Beach rather than Santa Ana. Their show, inspired by what is seen as the media’s obsession with God in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was put together by Independent Curators International, a New York nonprofit that assembles shows and finds galleries to display them.

While both artists reserve judgment on “Satan” because they haven’t seen it yet, Cranston predicts, with a laugh, a “lively contest” between the exhibitions. About 15 artists, including Mike Kelley, Chris Burden, Ed Ruscha and Raymond Pettibon, were invited and chose to contribute to both shows.

Baldessari and Cranston point out that in many ways the devil is less controversial than God, at least in the arts community. Most artists in their exhibit tended to represent God as a concept but shied away from making statements about their own religious beliefs. “There were some cases when artists turned us down because they said they didn’t believe in God so they couldn’t address the topic,” Baldessari says.

There have been no protests against “100 Artists See Satan,” which opened July 3 and continues through Sept. 19. In fact, organizers note that far more fury attended the gallery’s spring offering “Thomas Kinkade: Heaven on Earth,” featuring the self-described “Painter of Light” -- whose unabashedly inspirational scenes have made him arguably the most financially successful living artist -- in his first art gallery exhibition.

In that case, the devil was Kinkade’s commercial success, thought to be incompatible with high art, Harris says. “We had people calling us saying: ‘Take that art off the walls, you should be ashamed,’ ” she recalls. “I had a woman come up to me and scream in my face, ‘You’re a loser, you’re a sellout.’ ”

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The devil made him do it

Among the invitees to the “Satan” exhibition is John Geary, a performance artist who made a media splash in 1994 by deciding to dress in a devil costume and appear mysteriously in cities all over the United States. That project came to a halt in Santa Monica when Geary was arrested for disturbing the peace by the 405 Freeway. Geary has created a new montage of film footage of the 1994 “devil sightings.”

Artist Erika Rothenberg says she wanted to do something “that had a touch of evil inherent in it, something a little devilish or transgressive. I wanted to do something that was ... wrong.” To that end, she created a red album with blank pages looking much like the guest book for a wedding. On the cover it says: “If everyone was allowed one free kill a year ... WHO WOULD YOU KILL?” Beside the book lies a black quill pen.

Rothenberg wondered whether people would have the guts to sign. The book was filled the first day.

“Included in the book are the names that of course you would expect -- George Bush many times over, Dick Cheney many times over,” Rothenberg says. “And a few people had written my name. That was pretty funny.”

“100 Artists See Satan” opened with an appropriately gluttonous all-day bash with nine live bands and an “exorcism” involving a costumed devil, birthday cake and beer, performed by the Rev. Ethan Acres, an artist and ordained minister whose sculpture “Die, Satan, Die” is part of the exhibition.

Acres is among those who is contributing to both the God and Satan shows. “As a minister and as an artist, I am concerned with both the notion of good and the notion of evil, the yin and the yang,” he says. “On the cosmic scale, you can’t have one without the other. And of course I’m also really fascinated with the character of Satan, a brash, beautiful angel who dared to want to conquer heaven and was therefore cast down,” Acres continues. “I think we can all understand a longing for power, especially here in Hollywood, I mean, look at Michael Eisner!” Jeffrey Vallance is another artist participating in both exhibitions; he was also organizer of the infamous Kinkade show. “I’ve been dealing with that kind of imagery, religious and Satanic imagery, for my whole artistic career, since 1981,” he says. “It goes hand in hand, of course; you can’t have good without evil. I’m happy to have these two different shows; it makes each one stronger and more interesting.”

Just as “100 Artists See God” begot “100 Artists See Satan,” Southern California will soon see yet another show of similar inspiration: “Perceptions of Our President” -- informally dubbed “100 Artists See Bush” -- opening Sept. 11 at the KOOS Art Center in Long Beach. But KOOS co-director Dennis Lluy, who sits on the Grand Central Art Center’s board, says the plan is not to deify or demonize the president.

“The theme is not necessarily to slam Bush, just to put together all the different perceptions of George Bush,” Lluy says. “He’s been highly animated through the media as almost a cartoon character. Most importantly, we’re planning to use it to promote voter registration.”

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‘100 Artists See Satan’

Where: CSUF Grand Central Art Center, 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana

When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Ends: Sept. 19

Price: Free

Contact: (714) 567-7234 or www.grandcentralartcenter.com

Also

Where: “100 Artists See God,” Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Aug. 1 through Sept 5; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily beginning Sept. 6

Ends: Oct. 3

Price: $7

Contact: (949) 494-8971 or www.lagunaartmuseum.org.