'World News' Tells Other War Story : Exhibit: Media coverage of the Persian Gulf War inspired artists to portray the uglier side in a multimedia show that stops in Fullerton.

By ZAN DUBIN

April 24, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

FULLERTON — In the tense, chaotic weeks preceding the Persian Gulf War, artist Kim Abeles was driven to make art that spoke out about the looming conflict, particularly since she felt the media were depicting it in a one-sided, flag-waving manner.

“It was hard knowing I didn’t feel (the same) way. I’m patriotic, but that didn’t mean I necessarily wanted to jump into a war I didn’t understand,” she said recently.

Abeles soon discovered that she wasn’t alone. Others, she found, had been creating war-related works “from the heart, (not because) some gallery was asking them to do something.” So she quickly organized a touring exhibit that, 14 months later, comes to Muckenthaler Cultural Center this weekend.

Working with fellow Los Angeles artists Barbara Benish and Deborah Lawrence, Abeles curated “World News: Artists Respond to International Events,” which debuted last year in Los Angeles and is to be previewed here tonight from 7 to 11 p.m. during “A Night in Fullerton.” The official opening is Sunday.

The no-holds-barred, multimedia exhibit consists of some 70 pieces by as many contributors, most from Los Angeles, but some from as far away as Saudi Arabia.

In media ranging from marking pens to metal sculpture to computer, the show encompasses well-known artists, non-professionals, American soldiers and Kurds, all presenting images provoked by Operation Desert Storm that contrast starkly to most of those shown by CNN or other news purveyors:

A knife, on which rests a crucifix, severs a man’s outstretched tongue in a monoprint by Manuel Ocampo, who is currently featured in “Helter Skelter,” a major show at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Cartoon star Bart Simpson rides a lit time bomb, bears a rambunctious grimace and wields a machine gun in a painting by an anonymous Gulf War soldier done on the door of a temporary military shelter in Saudi Arabia.

“War Kills Children” is written in bold, red letters over what appears to be an abstract field of dead or horribly maimed children, in a painting by Zuhdi Sardar, a Kurdish immigrant.

And, for what may be the show’s most startling piece, Los Angeles-based collaborators Kerr and Malley have made a diptych composed of adjoining silk-screen prints.

A graphic medical illustration of a woman giving birth with the aid of surgical instruments, superimposed over a World War II photograph of goose-stepping Nazis, forms one half of the diptych. A caption beneath the print reads, “You’re Going to Make a Lovely Little Mother.”

An illustration of helmet-clad babies spilling from a horn-of-plenty held by a goddess-like figure is superimposed over another vintage war photo--this one of a cemetery--to make up the second half. Its caption reads: “You’re Going to Make a Bunch of Cannon Fodder.”

The piece, Abeles said in a recent phone interview, deals with the idea that women are encouraged to have more children during wartime in order to fill up the military ranks, and the notion that humans become pawns in war.

Several works use media appropriations--such as still photographs taken from network news shows and newspaper clippings--that comment on the way the media portrayed the war.

“There was such an illusion that we were getting a minute-by-minute account, but you really didn’t see much except military footage that was pre-screened,” Abeles said.

To present an immediate response to the Gulf conflict, “World News” was put together hastily. It premiered with roughly 25 pieces in February, 1991, at L.A.’s Onyx Cafe and Gallery. With the addition of several works, the show moved to the Beyond Baroque art venue in Venice.

Adding works not only allowed more artists to participate, but brought in works reflecting changes in the Gulf situation--such as the crushing failure of the Kurdish revolution--or new revelations about it.

“When people started finding out there were a lot of people injured and displaced and killed, suddenly it wasn’t a really good war to back,” Abeles said.

The Muckenthaler installation, which Abeles arranged after taking part in a recent group show there, offers the “first opportunity to see all the work” at once, she said. Beyond Baroque was so small that three rotations were needed to display the exhibit’s full inventory.

While much of the art seems clearly anti-war in tone, an effort was made to include different opinions. Abeles, known lately for images composed of toxic particles trapped with smog-collecting stencils, contributed a sound installation she made by randomly calling people listed in the Los Angeles telephone directory and recording their diverse feelings about the war.

“I personally thought it was important to get many points of view, because I don’t think this was an ‘I’m against it--I’m for it kind of war. . . . Just because I was against the war didn’t mean I was for Saddam Hussein,” she said.

Robert Zingg, Muckenthaler’s exhibition administrator, said he’s changed his views since seeing the exhibition.

“I don’t have such a gung-ho attitude anymore,” Zingg said. “I think the show will really make the audience realize (the war’s impact) on individuals, and that it wasn’t just about one country against another.”

“World News: Artists Respond to International Events,” Sunday through July 19 at Muckenthaler Cultural Center, 1201 W. Malvern Ave., Fullerton. Preview tonightfrom 7 to 11. Regular hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Gallery walk-through and lecture Sunday at 8 p.m. Suggested donation: $1 for adults, 50 cents for students or senior citizens. (714) 738-6595.

For the 28th annual “A Night in Fullerton,” 14 sites in and around downtown Fullerton will offer free music, drama, dance and visual art programs continuously tonight from 7 to 11. (714) 738-6575.