ART/LA89 Draws Mixed Reviews From Local, Out-of-Town Dealers

How successful was ART/LA89, the fourth annual international contemporary art fair that closed Monday night at the Convention Center?

That depends on whom you ask:

* “Business was great,” said Santa Monica dealer Karl Bornstein, who had sold three big paintings by Lawrence Gipe during the first 15 minutes of the Wednesday night preview and soon dispensed with nearly everything else in his booth--plus securing commissions for sculptor Michael Davis. Like most local dealers, Bornstein is an enthusiastic advocate of the fair and plans to come back next year.

* “I’m fed up with this fair. It’s boring,” said Ghislaine Hussenot, a major dealer from Paris who has participated all four years but has vowed not to return.

“The problem is not sales. I’ve sold nearly everything I brought. But none of it is staying in Los Angeles. It’s all going back to Europe or to other places in North America. I have Los Angeles clients who buy from me in Paris, but I’ve seen more collectors from San Francisco here than from Los Angeles,” she said.

With 15 similar events to choose from--including European fairs in Basel, Paris, Madrid and Cologne, and the grandfather of U.S. fairs in Chicago--there’s no point in footing the enormous bill for bringing art all the way to Los Angeles when it is greeted with so little enthusiasm by local collectors, Hussenot said.

* “There’s a big improvement over two years ago, when I first checked out the Los Angeles fair, but it’s still less intense than the one in Chicago,” said Chicago dealer Roger Ramsey, taking the middle ground. Chicago attracts more serious buyers, including museum-sponsored collectors councils and an association of art consultants whose annual meeting is scheduled to coincide with the fair, he said.

“I’ve made a few small sales, but I can sell all this work in Chicago. I have to ask myself why I need this aggravation when I have a gallery in Chicago that is doing nothing now because I am here. People who come from a distance have to justify the expense with some intensity of business,” Ramsey said.

Responses to the five-day fair ranged from glowing endorsements to scathing criticism, both of which seem to be drawn along geographic lines. With a few exceptions, the farther people travel, the more money they spend to participate and the more trouble they take to introduce unfamiliar artists to Los Angeles, the less pleased they are with the fair.

Those who are most unhappy say that they have gone to great expense to provide an international luster for what is fundamentally a regional art fair. What sells in Los Angeles is California and blue-chip art, not cutting edge work by Europeans, they say. These critics blame the local audience’s lack of education, the fair’s rather sleepy ambiance and organizers’ failure to make visiting dealers feel that they are part of the fair.

“I get nonstop inquiries about prices and lots of compliments about the work I am showing, but all my sales have been to former clients,” said Farideh Cadot, who has galleries in Paris and New York. She said her experience in Los Angeles has been so disappointing that she doubts that she will return.

“I have arranged seven shows for my artists, but I didn’t need to spend $40,000 to do that. I could have accomplished the same thing by flying here with my artists’ slides and resumes,” said Timothy Persons, owner of Persons and Lindell Gallery in Helsinki.

These complaints are not new. The difficulty of developing a truly international assembly of first-rate galleries has dogged the fair since its inception. Organizers have had persistent difficulty attracting top galleries from great distances. Dealers who are persuaded to come are often discouraged by weak sales and the audience’s lack of knowledge about European contemporary art.

What’s to be done about the problem?

One idea is to give the international dealers a leg up. “Los Angeles can take care of its own and it does that, but if the city wants to put the word international in front of its art fair, it has to take care of the international galleries. The organizers should set up situations so that we can meet major collectors, cooperate with other dealers and make connections,” Persons said.

Another notion--which has little if any support--is that the fair should reduce its reach and become a national event.

Still another, voiced by Los Angeles dealer Marc Richards, is that there are so many successful fairs in other cities that Los Angeles’ art community might be better served by a different kind of international event, perhaps a symposium that would bring major figures here for an exchange of ideas.

But next year’s international contemporary art fair is already scheduled for Dec. 6-10 at the Convention Center and many of this year’s participants say they will be there.

Evelyn Aimis Gallery of Toronto will be back for a fourth time, according to director Paul Petro. “We have settled in and we feel that a lot of people appreciate our efforts,” Petro said.

Helena Aberg and Hans Langre of Wetterling Gallery in Stockholm said their experience at ART/LA89 was “mixed” but positive enough to bring them back next year.

Galerie Guy Pieters of Brussels dropped out of the fair after a big disappointment in 1986 but returned this year and made sufficient sales to merit a return. “Next year we’ll have a bigger, more centrally located booth,” Dellaert Guy said.

On the local front, response was strongly positive. “It has been very gratifying,” said Los Angeles dealer Alice Ovsey.

By most accounts, the fair has come a long way from its rough debut in 1986. Attendance jumped from about 14,000 in 1986 to 26,000 in 1987, then crept up to 28,000 last year. This year’s gala and first four days brought in 26,298 people. The total attendance for ART/LA89 was expected to reach about 30,000 by Monday night, according to fair director Brian Angel.

Most participants praise improvements in organization and user-friendliness.

This year’s layout was notably less claustrophobic because dealers tended to take larger booths, put up fewer walls and leave a bit of breathing space in their exhibits. A central corridor featured Marlborough Gallery’s striking show of massive sculpture by Fernando Botero and such smartly restrained displays as Castelli Gallery’s show of just two works by Richard Serra and Margo Leavin’s elegant presentation of works by Robert Morris, Donald Judd, Jannis Kounellis and Donald Flavin.

The fair certainly has come of age to the degree that it functions as a focal point for art activity in the city.

“The great thing about the fair is that it generates enthusiasm about the arts in Los Angeles and gives a sense that a lot is going on here,” said Los Angeles dealer Meredith Palmer. Many local dealers agreed and reported a surge of business at their galleries during fair time in addition to the business they did at the Convention Center.