L.A. Endowment Awards $316,537 to Visual Arts

The visual arts account for $316,537 of $2,844,925 in L.A. Endowment for the Arts grants, which will be formally announced by the Cultural Affairs Department next Sunday.

Many of the programs financed involve working with children, ranging from latchkey kids to troubled teens. Some of the more interesting projects include $15,000 for a video artist-in-residency program for disabled artists at the Exceptional Children’s Foundation, $7,600 to artist Suzy Kerr to collaborate with artist Diane Malley on a series of silk-screen posters addressing women and AIDS, $5,000 to the Weingart Center Assn. to produce a 50-week series of exhibitions by homeless artists and conduct weekly art classes for those artists, and $5,000 for a bilingual traveling poster exhibit commemorating “the continuing struggle for equality and human dignity” during the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage, mounted by the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Other projects include: $20,000 to Self-Help Graphics to publish and present an exhibition of silk-screens by 20 L.A. artists, which will tour under-served L.A. communities in 1992; $2,000 to the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles to clean up and protectively coat several L.A. murals; $11,250 to Irene Fertik to produce and exhibit an ongoing photo-documentation of L.A. artists engaged in public art projects, and $5,800 to Deborah Lawrence to produce six collages on freedom of expression to be placed in the Recycler newspaper.

Other grantees include the L.A. County Museum ($50,000), UCLA’s Wight Art Gallery ($15,000), L.A. Center for Photographic Studies ($14,000), the Latino Museum ($10,000), Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art ($5,000), California & West Coast New Art Assn. ($5,000), L.A. Artcore ($3,000), Museum of Jurassic Technology ($2,000), St. Elmo Village ($7,500), Boys and Girls Club of Venice ($6,000), Friends of Franklin Avenue School, Inc. ($5,000) and El Centro del Pueblo ($2,500).

Other individual artist grantees, who received a total of nearly $145,000, are Alejandro Rosas ($15,000), Joyce Dallal ($14,890), Stephen Callis ($14,600), Daniel Freeman ($14,500), Michael Kless ($13,567), Sheila Lynch ($12,000), ($11,250), Mariona Barkus ($8,000), Carolyn Applegate ($7,500), Laura Silagi ($6,350), Rosalie Copeland ($6,335), Kim Abeles ($5,000) and Milton Aviles ($2,145).

Public Art: Twenty-nine temporary murals created by local artists and art students at Otis/Parsons School of Design have been installed around MacArthur Park Lake, which has been drained for construction. The murals are intended to enhance the park during the next two years, while the second segment of the Metro Rail Red Line subway is built. The 4-by-8-foot murals--by artists including Alfredo de Batuc, Elliott Pinkney and Shinobu Tobita--are funded by the L.A. County Transportation Commission.

Also recently installed are public artworks by Los Angeles artists Elizabeth Bryant and Steve Dobbin in the city of Manhattan Beach. The works are part of a two-year, temporary installations program funded by the city. Bryant’s work, which consists of the word “Progressus” and a geometric wrought-iron sculpture, is mounted on the stone-and-tile structure in the center median strip at Manhattan Beach Boulevard, near the intersection of Aviation Boulevard. Dobbin’s work is installed in the Manhattan Heights County Library and consists of three free-standing interactive sculptures speaking to issues of family life.

Open Sundays: In an attempt to entice more weekend visitors, several local galleries have expanded their hours and will now be open on Sundays. Those galleries include Santa Monica’s Dorothy Goldeen, Robert Berman, B-1 and Bess Cutler, Beverly Boulevard’s Sue Spaid and Fairfax Avenue’s Tom Solomon’s Garage.

Studio Hotline: California Lawyers for the Arts’ new ArtHouse program has begun a Live/Work hot line, which carries recorded announcements of studio and live/work space available to rent, lease or share. The free hot line--(213) 629-8897--is updated every Friday and lists open spaces by geographical area.

Entries: Aug. 1. is the entry deadline for the American Film Institute’s 1991 Video Festival to be held in Los Angeles Nov. 7-10. New works by independent artists, including video art, experimental narratives and independent documentaries will be accepted. The submission fee is $30. Information: (213) 856-7771.

Goodby: The downtown Woman’s Building is holding an open reading and garage sale of items including video equipment, art supplies, building memorabilia and office equipment today. The building will close July 15 due to financial problems. The sale runs from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Information: (213) 221-6161.