BLUM TO RETURN AFTER 13 YEARS IN N.Y.

Art dealer extraordinaire Irving Blum, who left Southern California 13 years ago to open a gallery in Manhattan, has confirmed rumors of the imminent re-opening of his gallery in Los Angeles.

“I have been looking forward to returning since I left,” he said in a telephone interview. “I always wanted to buy a house and spend more time here. Since my departure (after 16 years as a dealer in Los Angeles), I kept coming back each year, drawn by my ties to this city. Finally, six months ago I realized that not having a base of operation here sabotaged my desire to stay for longer periods of time.

“Los Angeles has grown tremendously since I left,” he continued. “A formerly disparate situation is coming together in a meaningful way with the expansion of the County Museum of Art, the advent of the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Getty Museum and the Weisman Foundation.” Asked about his new gallery’s location and opening date, Blum said he was still looking “and by the end of the month I should have further, more definite news.”

A new museum holding the modern and contemporary art collection of Dominique de Menil and her late husband John de Menil is expected to open April 5 in Houston.

The 100,000-square-foot museum building is being constructed on a site adjacent to the park, which contains the Rothko Chapel. The museum was designed by Piano and Fitzgerald Architects, a joint venture of Renzo Piano of Genoa, Italy, and the Houston firm of Richard Fitzgerald and partners. Renzo Piano, chief architect for the project, is best known for his design (with British architect Richard Rogers) of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Performance artist Barbara T. Smith, who in 1973 created an elegant four-hour dinner in celebration of the comet Kahoutek, has organized a series of dinner events called “La Comida del Arte.” She has invited five friends to join her in creating art works focused on food presented in special settings.

The series begins with Richard Newton, who invites everyone to an evening of movies and edibles at a “drive-in Saturday night in Venice,” on Aug. 29 and 30. Newton, a conceptual artist whose past incarnations include that of an ex-street preacher, engineer on the Minute Man III, daredevil stockcar driver, magazine editor, sun glasses designer and clothing manufacturer, says that opening his own drive-in theater and restaurant is “a life-long ambition about to come to fruition.”

Admission to his event is by reservation only at $30 per car load.

On Sept. 27, Smith will stage “The Cauldron,” described as “a meal, in a special environment.”

Allan Kaprow, known to the public as the originator of “happenings” and to his friends as a gourmet chef, will merge the two roles on Oct. 25.

Shiro Ikegawa, who has combined his own Japanese tradition of food preparation with contemporary ideas of process and performance art, is the featured player for “La Comida Del Arte” on Nov. 22.

Sheila Pinkel has agreed to produce a special Christmas surprise meal for the series on Dec. 20. Leslie Labowitz, who has for some time blended her interest in art and food growing, will prepare a feast on Jan. 24.

Call (213) 827-9159 for information, reservations and location. Series tickets are available at $175 per person; individual dinners cost $30.

The Woman’s Building has invited 10 prominent male curators, collectors and arts administrators to each select one woman artist for a group exhibition titled “Gentlemen’s Choice,” Friday through Oct. 3.

Dede Bazyk was selected by Marc Pally, Community Redevelopment Agency; Pat Berger, by Alan Sieroty, Cultural Affairs Commission; Jo Ann Callis, by Richard Koshalek, director, Museum of Contemporary Art; Judy Fiskin, by Robert Fitzpatrick, president of CalArts; Mary Jones, by Eli Broad, the Eli Broad Foundation; Rochelle Nicholas, by John Outterbridge, director, Watts Towers Art Center.

Stanley Grinstein, Gemini G.E.L., chose Betye Saar; Al Nodal, director, Otis/Parsons Exhibition Center, selected Carolee Schneemann; Alexis Smith was the choice of Joel Wachs, L.A. City Council; and Connie Zehr was picked by Maurice Tuchman, senior curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, the County Museum of Art.

This is the first time in the 13-year history of the Woman’s Building that men have been invited to participate in its curatorial process. According to a written statement by Hermine Harman, president of the board of directors, “ ‘Gentlemen’s Choice’ is a way to poke fun at so-called reverse discrimination and at the same time acknowledge and thank those men who have been supportive during the years of struggle for recognition of women’s art.”

Some 86 works of art by French, British and American masters dating from the 18th to the 20th centuries are on view at the National Gallery of Art’s West Building through Oct. 19. They were selected from the 822 works donated by Paul and Rachel Mellon since 1964.

Among artists represented are Americans Winslow Homer, George Bellows, Thomas Eakins and Maurice Prendergast; and Europeans Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, William Hogarth, John Crome and Richard Wilson.

French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, most of which were acquired shortly after World War II, form the major part of the exhibition. Included are three works recently seen in the exhibition “The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886”: Claude Monet’s “Woman with Parasol--Madame Monet and Her Son” (1875), Berthe Morisot’s “Hanging the Laundry out to Dry” (1875) and Georges Seurat’s “The Lighthouse at Honfleur” (1886).