Established
artists lead art symposium on campus
By Christine G. Adamo
On-line Forty-Niner
Five
revolutionary artists, revealed the personality
traits and strategies that have won them
“Staying Power” in the arts as participants
in a University Art Museum symposium at
Cal State Long Beach Saturday.
 “Cultural
Discovery III,” hosted by the UAM, consisted
of a noon reception, a five-artist panel
discussion entitled “Staying Power,” and
a 5 p.m. lecture by Ken Price whose “Small
is Beautiful” series of exclusive works-on-paper
is on exhibit at the UAM.
The engaging professionals who comprised
the artists’ panel have had their work exhibited
for more than 30 years. Peter Plagens, an
art critic, artist, author and scholar,
led the panel discussions.
Plagens is a contributing editor to Artforum
magazine and has served as Newsweek magazine’s
art critic for more than 10 years.
Eleanor Antin, Wayne Thiebaud, Alexis Smith
and William Brice were the featured speakers.
Each showed a minimum of four slides of
their work and made a personal statement
about achieving longevity within the arts.
“This isn’t something that’s difficult to
accomplish,” Plagens said. “Good [artists]
overcome all of their historical and career
decisions.”
Antin, an emeritus professor of visual art
at UC San Diego, was the creator of the
1970’s mail-art project “100 Boots.” The
installation consisted of 100 boots aligned
in various political and activist poses
and was immortalized in book form by Running
Press in 1991.
Thiebaud is a former cartoonist, advertising
designer and professor of art at UC Davis.
Alexis Smith is a multimedia artist who
favors collage art. Smith is a teacher whose
work has been commissioned by the Getty
Center in Brentwood, UC San Diego and the
LA Convention Center.
Brice was a professor at UCLA from 1953
to 1991. His work has traveled worldwide
for more than 50 years.
Curator of Exhibitions Mary-Kay Lombino
said she spent one year planning the free
event and hopes to keep it that way in order
to encourage student participation.
Lombino said the UAM considers faculty and
student participation when gauging the success
of museum-sponsored activities. If
participation does not increase, fees may
be assigned to UAM programs.
Ilee Kaplan, associate director of the UAM,
estimated that 200 people were on hand for
the two-hour panel discussion.
“We had reservations for 230 to 240,” Kaplan
said, adding that she felt the event was
a success.
Additional information on upcoming events
can be obtained by calling the UAM at 562-985-5761
or by signing on to csulb.edu/uam.
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