L.A.’s close encounters of the artsy kind

So you’re resting on a bench, devouring a scone from Trader Joe’s before you head into Macy’s for new socks. Little did you know that you’re dribbling crumbs on a notable artwork.

The scene is Pasadena, behind the Shops on Lake Avenue, where children race along the twisting, bending curves of the sinuous, molded, slate blue fiberglass bench. Drivers heading to a parking garage probably figure it’s just some inspired playground equipment. But it’s a sculpture, known as “Mobius Bench,” by artist Vito Acconci, who is a well-regarded name in art circles.

Realizing that your crumbs are resting on an artwork is sort of like discovering that you’re standing in line at the bank next to Leonardo da Vinci or waiting for coffee with David Hockney. But having an encounter with art isn’t reserved for museums and galleries. Art, even the really good stuff by famous names, is all over Southern California, in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

While you’re waiting for an elevator, a prescription, a bus, a bank automated teller machine, a funeral or a green traffic light, art is waiting for you to discover it.

Private benefactors have donated pieces to museums for years, but city governments, tourism boards and building developers also understand that a compelling drawing, sculpture or painting has power not only to please the eye, but also to become a landmark and a tourist attraction that adds vitality to public and quasi-public areas. Now all manner of artworks dot the landscape, from Santa Monica State Beach to freeway underpasses to downtown loft developments.

Municipal governments have provided much of the money and energy behind the growth. In the 1960s, Los Angeles became one of the first cities to require developers to incorporate art into new projects by reserving 1% of the building cost. With set-aside development funds, Los Angeles worked to build its reputation as a world-class destination along with its skyline. By 1985, the Community Redevelopment Agency had targeted Bunker Hill, the central business district and Little Tokyo for art and development projects.

At Citicorp Plaza in downtown L.A., a collaboration between poets and sculptors created a series of installations that reflect on the pressures of modern business, including climbing the corporate ladder. “Corporate Head” by artist Terry Allen and poet Philip Levine features a businessman with his head buried in a wall -- a piece that office workers touch for good luck.

Downtown has become densely populated with public art, and other agencies have adopted art policies, including the Metropolitan Transit Authority and, in July, Los Angeles County.

In Beverly Hills, former Mayor MeraLee Goldman championed several programs beginning in the late 1990s that brought art closer to citizens and visitors. Now the bronze torso by Auguste Rodin is no longer hidden in the Beverly Hills Public Library. It’s in the rotunda of City Hall, as is Henry Moore’s sculpture “Girl Seated Against a Square Wall.”

The public location of the pieces makes the experience “up close and personal,” Goldman says.

“You can see the hand of the sculptor, the way the bronze reproduces clay. It gives you an important opportunity to make friends with a piece of art.”

In another part of the city, you can park your Escalade under a Warhol at the Beverly Wilshire Center. The building at Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard houses one of the most gorgeously decorated parking garages imaginable. It’s owned by Guess Inc. founder Georges Marciano and is liberally decorated with Marciano’s collection of prints, paintings and sculptures from the canon of contemporary art. A building alcove shared by tenant Bank of America opens onto a lobby filled with works by Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Jim Dine and John Chamberlain.

The Beverly Wilshire building’s collection is not well known except to those who do business with the tenant entertainment companies. But as the ranks of private collectors grow, their influence is having a ripple effect.

Some of the most ambitious collections in quasi-public places in the area got their start because a well-known private collector wanted to make art a part of healing.

The grounds and walls of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and UCLA Medical Plaza are liberally decorated with original art. Dr. Bruce Samuels, chairman of the Arts Council at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said that the hospital’s collection began when legendary art collector Marcia Weisman discovered that her husband, Fred Weisman, hospitalized after a serious and disorienting head injury in 1976, was able to recognize one of their paintings.

“Marcia was so impressed that it could help her husband that she thought art could contribute to the healing environment of the hospital,” Samuels says. “She donated to Cedars a large portion of her art collection ... and convinced all of her friends to donate art to Cedars to get this program off the ground. Thanks to Marcia, we built a collection that was so substantial we could beautify the medical center.”

Weisman, who died at Cedars in 1991, also inspired the Medical Art Assn. at UCLA, a donor-fed organization that procures and places art throughout the miles of corridors at the university’s medical offices.

“She was a pioneer in placing museum quality contemporary art in medical settings,” says Debby Doolittle, curator of the UCLA Medical Art Assn. Weisman met with museum officials and persuaded them to begin the program.

“She was an amazing arm-twister like you never saw,” Doolittle says. “She thought nothing of goading people into donating.”

The program is now so extensive that Doolittle and her husband, Bob Sage, work nearly full time to install, solicit and catalog the collection, which includes everything from original children’s book art to Chinese textiles to nature photography by Robert Glenn Ketchum and sculptures by Los Angeles artist Gwynn Murrill.

“There needs to be variety here because our patient population is so diverse,” Doolittle says. Edgy, unsettling works are out; colorful, ethnic, engaging works are in. There are lovely gardens and sculptures that oncology patients gaze upon during treatments, along with vivid works that enliven spare corridors and soothing drawings that provide comfort.

Daily, the art fulfills its mission. Outside the Pfleger Liver Institute recently, Fontana resident David Urban left the waiting room and stopped in his tracks to study the Nancy Webber pair portraits.

“This pulls you away from what’s going on inside there,” he says, gesturing into the waiting room. “That’s the purpose of art.”

Unlike rugged art installed in public parks and plazas, semi-private collections maintain a low profile. Curators like Doolittle are cautious about promoting the collections, which include museum-quality works by David Hockney, Alexander Calder, Christo, Frank Gehry, Joan Miro and more.

Cedars officials are similarly guarded about their collection, which includes pieces by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly, Claes Oldenburg and California sculptor Fletcher Benton. Yet very little is shielded under off-putting plexiglass or cordoned off in special galleries. Instead, the art becomes a natural extension of the environment.

Indeed, near a nurses station at the UCLA hospital, a framed art photograph shares wall space with children’s crayon drawings and photocopied signs to turn off cellphones.

Also on UCLA’s campus, the several buildings within the Anderson School of Management house a collection of contemporary works, some given as gifts from alumni groups and successful, very successful, graduates. Benefactors Maxine and Eugene Rosenfeld donated cash and many pieces, including Calder’s woven-jute rug “#6” and Victor Vasarely’s “Yia” to the graduate school. The nearly 2,000 graduate students and faculty members who routinely travel the hallways can’t help but encounter high-quality examples of contemporary art.

Though the paintings at UCLA and elsewhere are hung as if in a museum, with descriptive labels, public art is slowly become less of an object to be observed from a distance and more of a physically engaging experience. The giant beach roller “Walk on L.A.” by Carl Cheng embosses the sand at Santa Monica State Beach with scenes of the city -- until the surf or footsteps obliterate them.

The interactive trend is turning electronic in projects approved for future downtown developments, says Kiara Harris, spokeswoman for the Community Redevelopment Agency. Cameron McNall and Damon Seely, installation artists who call themselves Electroland, are proposing that a loft building at 11th and Flower streets include their work “EnterActive.” In the entry walkway, the duo would place a field of glowing light emitting diodes that respond to a visitor’s presence. Lights on the building’s face would mirror the patterns of the entry.

And if plans are approved, even “Mobius Bench” will be moved, to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, to make way for an interactive video installation at the shopping center, says David Wasserman, principal with Wasserman Real Estate Capital of Providence, R.I., the developer that paid for “Mobius Bench.”

Art, after all, is an ever-changing reflection of our times. Even the relatively tamer art for public spaces shows the trend, says Ruth Wallach, head of the USC architecture and fine art library.

In the early 20th century, she says, art was more integral to the built environment. “There was an idea of beautifying architecture. So as architecture became more minimalist, the idea of beautification separated from the buildings and became a separate idea,” Wallach says. “And we started calling it public art.”

On her website, www.publicartinla.com, Wallach maintains one of the most comprehensive catalogs of public art in Los Angeles. Though the site can take visitors on a virtual tour of nearly 5,000 pieces, Wallach advocates experiencing it in person.

“That’s the nice thing about public art,” she says. “You can touch it.”

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Art scenes

Art is all around us, whether you’re banking or just walking to the bus stop. Here is a list of some of the area’s more unusual art locales.

Bank of America Plaza

333 S. Hope St., downtown Los Angeles

Alexander Calder’s “Four Arches,” a towering red-painted steel sculpture, defines the courtyard and has become a downtown landmark.

Beverly Wilshire building

9465 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

Prints, paintings and sculptures from the private collection of the building’s owner, Georges Marciano, a founder of Guess Inc., are displayed in the lobby and even in the parking garage, where it’s possible to see dozens of works by some of the top names in contemporary art, including David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol.

Bunker Hill Steps

Bunker Hill, 633 W. 5th St., downtown Los Angeles

“Source Figure” is Robert Graham’s bronze sculpture of a woman that marks the beginning of a waterfall stairway designed by San Francisco landscape architect Lawrence Halprin.

California Department of Transportation

District 7 Headquarters, 1st and Main streets, downtown Los Angeles

“Motordom” by Keith Sonnier is a new neon artwork on the plaza level of the exterior atrium. It’s intended to create a kinetic experience and allude to mobility and transformation.

Another new work, “Ten Past Five O’Clock” by Alan Rath, is dispersed throughout the fourth floor and comprises a series of 15 variously sized elements, each with a motorized, rotating arm.

In the cafeteria, “Code: Survey” by Renee Green is composed of 168 1-foot-square panels, each with an image that pertains to California or its transportation system.

California Market Center

110 E. 9th St., downtown Los Angeles

One of many Jonathan Borofsky sculptures in the city, the 22-foot “Hammering Man” portrays a lean figure who hammers endlessly.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

S. Mark Taper Imaging Center, 8700 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles

The front lobby of the center features “Bermuda Petral,” a hand-colored serigraph with oil by Frank Stella.

Chiat/Day building

340 Main St., Venice

Artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen collaborated with architect Frank Gehry on the design for the former headquarters of Chiat/Day and the building’s integral, signature piece, “Giant Binoculars.”

Citicorp Plaza

Poet’s Walk, 7th and Figueroa streets, downtown Los Angeles

“Corporate Head” by Terry Allen, with poetry by Philip Levine, is a sculpture of a businessman with his head buried in a wall. Along with the poetry, it represents a man losing his head in pursuit of a corporate dream and has become office workers’ cautionary totem.

City Hall

450 N. Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills

The public building features some world-class art, including “Monumental Torso of the Walking Man” by Auguste Rodin, “Girl Seated Against a Square Wall” by Henry Moore and “One Through Zero” by Robert Indiana, the last a temporary installation of oversized numerals meant to reflect the progress of man from birth to death.

Federal Center

Temple Street, between Main and Alameda streets, downtown Los Angeles

One in the series of Jonathan Borofsky’s “Molecule Man” sculptures is on view in the central plaza of the center, which includes the L.A. Metropolitan Detention Center, the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and the V.A. Outpatient Center.

Gas Co. Tower

Bunker Hill, 555 W. 5th St., downtown Los Angeles

Frank Stella created “Dusk,” one of the world’s largest murals. It covers about 35,000 square feet of wall space -- about the length of a city block.

Main Street

between 5th and 6th streets, downtown Los Angeles

On an exterior wall of a parking structure, Frank Romero’s 1990 “Homage to Downtown Movie Palaces” combines scenes of the glorious buildings of another era.

Santa Monica State Beach

north of the Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica

“Walk on L.A.,” a giant concrete rolling pin by Carl Cheng, can emboss the sand with images of Los Angeles.

Santa Monica Civic Center

1855 Main St., Santa Monica

Paul Conrad, a former Los Angeles Times political cartoonist, created “Chain Reaction,” a 26-foot-tall sculpture made of heavy chain links to represent an atomic bomb’s mushroom cloud.

Shops on Lake

401 S. Lake Ave., Pasadena

“Mobius Bench” by Vito Acconci sits outside Macy’s lower level. By day it’s a popular play place for children. By night its embedded fiber-optic strip glows.

UCLA Anderson School

of Management

Westwood

Pablo Picasso’s “Le Gout du Bonheur #5” serigraph is in the facility’s James A. Collins Executive Education Center.

“Death in Venice” by Laddie John Dill, mixed media with cement wash, is in the Collins center.

Victor Vasarely’s “Yia,” a silk-screen printed on aluminum, is in the Collins center.

“Dogtown No. 21 -- 1993,” Tony Berlant’s collage of found metal mounted with steel brads, is in Entrepreneurs Hall.

“Open Series, Untitled, 1974” by Robert Motherwell is in the Clark & B.J. Cornell Hall.

“The Basque Suite” by Robert Motherwell, an oil painting, is in the Maxine and Eugene Rosenfeld Library.

UCLA Medical Plaza

Westwood

One of the largest prints by Joan Miro, “Le Grand Ecaillere,” hangs just inside the entrance to Building 200 at the university’s medical offices. The brightly colored image includes handprint and shell shapes and stretches more than 7 1/2 feet tall. A few feet away is “Four Arches,” Alexander Calder’s print of his large red arch sculpture at Bank of America Plaza.

David Hockney’s black-and-white portrait “Celia” anchors the far wall of the pharmacy waiting area (officially the Muriel and Abraham Lipsey Clinical Laboratory). It’s flanked by two Peter Alexander lithographs of resting cats, “Pink One” and “Pink Three.”

USC

Fisher Gallery, 823 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles

What appears to be a row of benches in a lovely garden is in fact Jenny Holzer’s “Blacklist,” a tribute to 1st Amendment rights and the Hollywood 10 who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Venice Renaissance building

Rose Avenue and Main Street, Venice

“Ballerina Clown” by Jonathan Borofsky is a three-story ballerina with a stubbly male face. The figure hangs from the building’s corner.

Wells Fargo Center Plaza

333 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When Louise Nevelson’s “Night Sail” sculpture was installed in 1985, the artist said she was inspired by the vast open spaces that surrounded Bunker Hill, which had yet to be populated by skyscrapers.