Two New Works for MacArthur Park

THE SCENE

Two installations produced as part of the Foundation for Art Resources’ Outside Art Works series will be erected today in MacArthur Park.

Steve Hurd’s “No Picnic” will recreate Manet’s masterpiece, “Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass),” on the underside of a picnic table behind the park’s bandstand. The artist says the piece is intended for viewers to consider the relationship between the picnic table and the masterpiece, and the corresponding relationship between the public and the private elite.

Paul Boettcher’s “Dotted Line” will comprise a broken line bisecting the park’s lake from north to south. The line will be constructed of sod floating on plastic foam rectangles resting on the lake’s surface. According to Boettcher, the line represents the “separativeness and reconciliation” of the park in terms of the many new immigrants that regularly gather there.

Artist Genevieve Pacana is appealing for the return of her black-and-white oil painting, “The Inevitable,” which was stolen from a front window of downtown’s L.A. Central Library during the L.A. Festival’s “Open Windows” program.

The 14x15-inch painting, depicting a suspended man about to be pierced by a swinging clock, was stolen earlier this month when the thief apparently broke the library’s window.

Pacana asks that anyone with information about the painting call her studio at (818) 241-9522.

The L.A. Art Show, a three-day event featuring more than 50 exhibitors of 18th-, 19th- and 20th-Century art at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, will be held Friday through next Sunday.

Produced by Caskey-Lees, which also mounts the annual U.S. Art Show in San Francisco, the show will be open from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. on Friday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. on Saturday, and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. next Sunday. Tickets are $10.

In addition, a special $50-per-person preview gala to benefit the Santa Monica Museum of Art will be held on Thursday from 6-9 p.m. Information: (213) 455-2886.

OVERHEARD

“There’s too much going on in this town,” said an entertainment industry publicist during a recent Melrose Avenue gallery opening, noting her rare attendance at fine-art events. “Most of the time you have to choose. It’s either an art opening or a screening . You can’t do both.”

HAPPENING

The Santa Monica Arts Foundation’s annual “Eat for Art” benefit will take place Monday beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Santa Monica Pier carousel. The event, whose poster is being designed by artist Ed Moses, will feature cuisine by Venice and Santa Monica hot spots, including DC-3, 72 Market St., Gilliland’s and Broadway Deli.

Tickets for the event, which benefit the foundation’s art education programs, are $125 per person. Information: (213) 458-8350.

“Insights Into Art: 1990-1919 in Reverse,” an eight-session survey course beginning with contemporary art and then examining the foundations on which it is built, begins Wednesday at Newport Harbor Art Museum.

The course continues on Wednesdays from 10-11:30 a.m. through Nov. 20, and includes slide lectures, class discussions and field trips to museums and galleries. The fee, including bus transportation for field trips, is $60. Information: (714) 759-1122.

Scholars and conservators from Europe and the United States will meet at the L.A. County Museum of Art for a two-day symposium Saturday and next Sunday to discuss historical and conservation issues in conjunction with the museum’s new exhibition, “The Fauve Landscape: Matisse, Derain, Braque and Their Circle, 1904-1908.”

The symposium runs 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-2 p.m. next Sunday. Admission is $6 per day. Information: (213) 857-6010.