Look around and be enlightened

If you’re driving around Malibu on Pacific Coast Highway and you see a 15,000-pound piece of bent steel valued at $300,000 in the middle of an open field, you can thank Carl Schlosberg.

Introduced officially to the public on July 1, the Summer Sculpture Exhibition in Malibu was developed by curator Schlosberg, who has been a fine-art dealer for 33 years and currently resides in Century City and New York City.

A total of 53 pieces of art can be found in three main locations just east of the Pepperdine campus, and they’ll be stationed there until Aug. 31. Schlosberg offers free, personally conducted tours, but he also encourages simple-to-follow self-guided tours.

Works created by seven artists can be found surrounding the playground at the Malibu Country Mart, outside the Malibu Racquet Club (although the club is private, the sculptures are open to the public) and on undeveloped land at the intersection of Webb Way and Civic Center Way.

Six of the seven artists are from Southern California, and the other, 90-year-old Edoardo Villa, lives in South Africa. At least 10 pieces were created specifically for the show, including Ed Benavente’s giant spoon, knife and fork called “Tools of Mass Consumption,” which attracts children from the playground nearby.

The show also features stainless-steel kinetic forms by Ken Bortolazzo that sway with the breeze in the Country Mart and outside the racquet club; sculptures by Gwynn Murrill of a horse and two men squatting in an open field that can be seen from PCH; and sculptures with flowing water by Lew Watanabe, who is back to work after a freak accident that left him partially paralyzed while installing art in 2003. The hard-to-miss bent-steel sculpture called “XO2000” was created by Bret Price.

Schlosberg, 69, who does not own or work out of a gallery, says he prefers the exhibitions he curates to be in open spaces, drawing more spectators and creating curiosity.

“I kind of consider the whole city to be my gallery,” said Schlosberg, who has displayed sculptures around Malibu on two other occasions in the last 12 years.

And because all the sculptures are displayed on private property, he had no one telling him what to do or how to do it. “I have creative freedom to do anything I want,” he said.

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Malibu 2005

Summer Sculpture Exhibition

What: Outdoor works by Ed Benavente, Ken Bortolazzo, Marlene Louchheim, Gwynn Murrill, Bret Price, Edoardo Villa and Lew Watanabe

Where: Near Pacific Coast Highway and Webb Way in Malibu

Info: (310) 556-5430; www.malibusculpture2005.com