George Yepes: He Paints for History--and for the Movies, Too

FACES

“I refuse to be one of ‘the boys,’ ” said George Yepes, as he lashed out at what he called the current trend for curators, dealers and others to group all Latino artists together. “I don’t want to be grouped with the artists that are out right now. These guys today took the guts out of Hispanic art. People like Siqueiros, Orozco--the old Mexican masters--they are rolling over in their graves right now. But they have to pass the baton over to somebody.”

Yepes’ latest attempts to run with that baton went on view Thursday at Santa Monica’s B-1 Gallery. The artist’s reception for the show, called “Midnight Devil Dancing,” will be held June 28.

Featured are about 10 paintings, including the 25-foot “Self Portrait 1990: Rapture of the Sublime,” which depicts Yepes and his ever-present fiance locked in a kiss, surrounded by a number of fighters and slain figures representing “the casualties of war today.” Also included in the autobiographical work is a pair of boxers in a ring--reminiscent of the days when Yepes himself boxed--and a series of green-faced men, which Yepes said represents the attorneys now embroiled in his life because of disputes with East Los Streetscapers, a mural painting group that Yepes left a few years ago.

Yepes, 34, who recently completed the “Lady of the East Side” mural at 4th Street and the 101 Freeway, has four additional mural projects under discussion, as well as two more pending approval of Cultural Affairs grants from the city of Los Angeles. But his next project is for a totally different medium--the big screen.

The artist has been commissioned by the producers of “Bewitched Affair”--which stars Mark Hamill and Apollonia and begins filming this week--to paint works for a gallery that will be created as one of the film’s key locations.

For the film, which will include “a huge love scene” right under one of his works, Yepes plans to paint “kind of epic things” dealing mainly with passion and witchcraft.

The short-haired, clean-cut Yepes--dressed in a white Yves Saint Laurent dress shirt and black slacks and shoes--noted that he doesn’t look like a typical artist and doesn’t fit in with the “misdirected calling that says (to be an artist) you’ve got to have long hair or a beard, live like an artist, and have paint on your pants.”

Instead, he says: “What’s important is the art. I’d rather somebody know my work than know me. . . . I paint for history--for what they’re going to say about the artwork 50 years from now. I want history to look back . . . and say, ‘Wow, this guy could paint.’ ”

CURRENTS

The Laguna Art Museum will put its $8,500 National Endowment for the Arts grant toward the purchase of a set of the 150 prints produced to date by Los Angeles’ Self-Help Graphics. Included are works by 70 artists such as Diane Gamboa, Frank Romero and Gronk.

According to Self-Help Graphics’ curator Alex Alferov, the museum’s purchase will give more importance to the work done by the nonprofit workshop and its Hispanic artists.

Self-Help Graphics is excited about the purchase because being in a prestigious museum collection validates all the years of work founder and director Sister Karen Boccalero has done with the Latino artists, Alferov said. “For the artists it is a confidence builder and gives historical value to their work as it becomes part of a major collection.”

Self-Help Graphics began producing prints in 1982 by inviting Chicano artists from East Los Angeles to collaborate with master printers. The Laguna museum plans to exhibit the prints in a series of exhibitions.

Two fourth-grade classes from San Pedro Street School in downtown Los Angeles will participate in a new educational outreach program set up at the County Museum of Art in conjunction with the exhibition “The New Vision: Photography Between the World Wars.” The program, called “Family Keepsakes,” includes activities in both the museum and the classroom. The goal of “Family Keepsakes” is to introduce children to photography and other media as a means of creative expression and interpretation of the world around them.

Students in the program will create their own family keepsakes--an album of photographs, drawings or other objects they have created and collected. These projects will then be circulated by the museum’s Education Department to schools and public libraries throughout the L.A. area begining in the fall of 1990.

THE SCENE

Art dealers Richard Heller and Bennett Roberts are no longer content with simply running their own Richard/Bennett Gallery on La Brea Avenue. The two have now taken to curating shows for other galleries, the first of which is “The New Fabricants,” a show featuring 14 emerging artists, which opened Friday at Santa Monica’s Richard Green Gallery. Other curatorial projects underway for the duo include a group show opening June 21 at S. Bitter-Larkin Gallery in New York and a show scheduled for next February at Peter Weber Gallery in Munich.

Neo-pop artist Jim Evans will be honored on Wednesday at a special reception at 6:30 p.m. at the Karl Bornstein Gallery in Santa Monica. On view for the one-night only will be 30 of Evans’ original monoprints, proceeds from the sale of which will benefit Westside Sane/Freeze, a national peace and nuclear disarmament organization.

Evans was commissioned by Westside Sane/Freeze to create a work commemorating the eighth anniversary of the United Nations Special Session on Nuclear Disarmament, as well as the January, 1991, U.N. Conference on Disarmament. The work, “End of the Dream,” depicts Albert Einstein surrounded by symbols of the nuclear arms race and the scientist’s famous quote, “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”

OVERHEARD

“When you look at all that we’re competing against (such as movie premieres and other star-studded events), it’s nice to see that art can still draw a crowd.”--A publicist who handles prestigious fine art accounts, referring to the turnout--which included such artists as George Herms, Robert Graham and Lita Albuquerque as well as Meryl Streep, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kim Carnes, and several paparazzi and media types--at a recent Santa Monica gallery reception for “Artists Unite for Big Green,” a benefit for the Environmental Protection Act of 1990 initiative.

DEBUTS

Painter Judie Bamber’s first solo show in Los Angeles opens Saturday at Roy Boyd Gallery in Santa Monica. Each of Bamber’s paintings, which will be on view through July 21, consists of a small isolated object--all of which allude to female sexuality--against a square flat field of color.

HAPPENING

The Southwest Museum’s third annual “La Noche Mexicana--featuring strolling marimbas, authentic Mexican dishes and a traditional folk dancing performance by the Ballet Folklorico Ollin--will be held Saturday from 6-9 p.m. Tickets for the museum’s benefit are $30 per person, and reservations are required. Information: (213) 221-2164.

Painter Nathan Purdee collaborates with poet Victoria R. Herrick in “I Will Not Be Denied: a woman’s voice through a man’s vision,” a 45-minute multimedia performance piece to be performed Saturday and June 23 at 8 p.m. at Installations One Gallery in Encino. Tickets are $10. Information: (213) 466-1767.

Textiles, pottery, baskets, beadwork, sculpture, jewelry and paintings from more than 60 dealers will be on exhibit Saturday and next Sunday during the second annual L.A. Antique American Indian and Tribal Art Show at the Glendale Civic Auditorium. Tickets are $4 per person, and the show hours are from noon-7 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sunday. Information: (800) 326-6316.

ETC.

A legal defense fund has been set up for the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, which has already mounted more than $100,000 in legal expenses as a result of charges stemming from the center’s recent Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition. To contribute, call (513) 721-0390. . . . The Cal State Long Beach University Art Museum has established the Lawrence M. Herman Acquisition Fund to help acquire works of art for its permanent collection. Herman and his wife Jane were founding members of the museum’s Contemporary Council. Contributions can be made through calling (213) 985-5761.