MUSEUM ENDS PURCHASE AWARD PROGRAM

The County Museum of Art has discontinued its 23-year-old Young Talent Purchase Award in favor of an ongoing acquisition program that contemporary art curator Howard N. Fox calls “a more professional relationship with the art community.”

“There was some question on the Modern and Contemporary Art Council (which administered the award), and definitely within the art community, as to whether dealing with artists as grantees was professional,” Fox said. “So we’ve increased our commitment to local acquisition.”

Fox said that museum curators and the council are still actively seeking works by Southern California artists for purchase, but the effort is no longer in contest form. There is now no age limit, and professional artists from Santa Barbara County south are eligible to have their work seen by the council.

“We are in the public service of building our collection, and to some degree, to reflect the culture of our time. There shouldn’t be winners or losers,” he said.

The new program, tentatively titled “Art Here and Now,” will allow the museum to purchase as many local works as the budget allows, so long as at least one work a year by a Southern California artist is bought. The $3,000 formerly used for each award, as well as additional monies, will be used to buy works, Fox said.

The County Museum had given awards to promising artists under age 36 since 1963. Each year, museum curators and the council would choose artists who received a monetary award (originally $1,200, later increased to $3,000) and the promise of a museum show. The artists in return would give the museum a work for its permanent collection. The current “Young Talent Award Exhibition” at the Museum (to Sept. 20) is part of four artists’ award contract and has nothing to do with the change, Fox said.

Although hundreds of artists applied for the award each year, critics charged that it was merely a way to placate local artists and thus dispel its reputation for ignoring area talent. Others complained of age discrimination, or that the money wasn’t enough to pay a year’s rent on a Los Angeles studio.

Some former award winners agree the change is for the better. “It seems to me they’re expanding the award instead of getting rid of it,” said Jim Morphesis, 39, a 1983 award recipient and an exhibitor in the current “Young Talent” show. “This gives them an opportunity to be a lot more fair.”

Sabina Ott, 31, one of last year’s award winners (along with Ilene Segalove), also approves of the new program. “The museum should hold true with giving more exposure to local artists in a different way,” she said. “It seems like it was time for it to change.”

Joe Fay, 36, a 1982 awardee, doesn’t agree. “They’re breaking a tradition,” he said. “I think the award was a good way for people who were emerging to get some notoriety and get a show. There was always a lot of instant notoriety, a lot of pomp and circumstance. It was a good thing for people to get.”

“The acquisitions are a good thing,” Fay said. “But so was the tradition of the awards.”