SAN DIEGO ARTS : Art

Brian Angel, director of Art/LA ’87 (the contemporary art fair to be held in Los Angeles Dec. 10-14), will present the first of this fall’s Balboa Lectures Thursday at the San Diego Museum of Art. Angel will discuss “The New Art Fair: Los Angeles in an International Context.” The lecture will be at 7:30 p.m. in the museum’s Copley Auditorium. Admission is $7.50 for museum members and students, $10 for non-members. Series tickets are also available. Beginning this month, local artists and arts organizations can hear the latest on California Arts Council grants through the CAC hot line. Organized by David Beck Brown of Grossmont College, the hot line will offer basic information on CAC grants in all the arts. The tape will be changed monthly, and can be reached free of charge by calling Grossmont College at 465-1700 during switchboard hours.

Local artist Mario Lara has returned from Atlanta, where his work “Nexus” appeared as part of the Arts Festival of Atlanta. Responding to the theme “Architecture as Culture,” Lara’s project consisted of scaffolding wrapped with fiberglass and set into a hillside. Visitors entered the structure and viewed the surrounding landscape from a new vantage point, which Lara hoped would “offer an expanded view of the world.” Lara and three other artists were selected to participate in the 1987 National Endowment for the Arts Site Works program by Ronald Onorato, senior curator at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art.

A new bookstore specializing in literature on art criticism, theory and politics has opened at Installation (930 E St.). The store, which also sells used art-related books at a discount, expects to carry artists’ audio and video tapes as well. The bookstore is open during gallery hours, Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Donations of books, periodicals and catalogs are tax-deductible.

In conjunction with the exhibition “Black Sun: The Eyes of Four” (through Sunday), the San Diego Museum of Art is presenting a program of new Japanese video. The 75-minute program features independently produced experimental and documentary videotapes by some of Japan’s foremost artists. Admission to the program, on Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Copley Auditorium, is $4 for museum members and $7 for non-members.