Artists

TWO OF Cuba's artistic exports -- 20th century Modernist Wifredo Lam and emerging artist Carlos Luna -- have landed side by side at Long Beach's Museum of Latin American Art, in shows offering two variations on the theme of Cuban identity. "The identity of being Cuban is not a one-way road," says painter and sculptor Carlos Luna, via his wife and translator, Claudia.

LOS ANGELES art dealer and curator Patricia Hamilton points to a decadent and colorful two-frame Indian cartoon with English-language text. "It's like a surreal drama," she says of the work of the artist Chitra Ganesh. "She gets a cartoon, photographs it, draws into it and then adds all the text. She adds the drama." It would be easy to label Ganesh the Indian Roy Lichtenstein or Max Ernst. A bit too easy.

Despite ALL the well-worn warnings preaching otherwise, how we imagine the world, feel and very worth of a book often has much to do with its cover. The book industry spends millions attempting its own game of clairvoyance, trying to predict what will push certain buttons; what will spur investment of not just money but time. However, what intuitively makes a book the right book, if one only has the cover to go by? What sort of imagery both piques interest and reflects discernment.

SRINAGAR, India -- At times it was enough just to stay alive, or to keep from breaking down when friends were dying and soldiers came knocking. Ugliness replaced beauty, and the finer things -- art, music, poetry -- seemed unbearable luxuries, like a rich dessert on an empty stomach.

SOUNDING like it was lifted from a Rudyard Kipling novel, "expedition artist" may be one of the world's most intriguing job titles. And Tujunga painter Danielle Eubank will be doing just that aboard the Phoenicia, documenting Philip Beale's attempt to circumnavigate Africa in a replica of a 600 B.C. Phoenician cargo ship. "I try to document everything as we go along, but I don't know ahead of time everything I'm going to paint.

The MAN in the two-tone Ray-Ban glasses looked familiar, but Lawrence Shapiro couldn't place him. He was cheerfully holding out a box of Italian cookies to anyone walking through the door of Bergamot Station's Track 16 Gallery -- which was where Shapiro happened to find himself -- and his shock of gray hair and youthful bounce twanged something in Shapiro's memory. The cookie bearer introduced himself as Robbie Conal.

When last we left our embattled arts activists at Self Help Graphics, they were on the verge of eviction from their longtime headquarters in East L.A. Even some true believers were ready to count out the struggling community-based institution that has been a beacon for Chicano art for almost four decades. But the group is still alive and kicking as it prepares for its biggest event of the year, the Day of the Dead on Nov. 2, with a display of colorful altars, a procession and a concert.

The Obamas aren't the only White House visitors getting face time with the president in recent days: George W. Bush honored the nine recipients of the 2008 National Medal of the Arts, managed by the National Endowment for the Arts, at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Monday. Among those presented with the medals by the president and First Lady Laura Bush were Los Angeles comic book writer and producer Stan Lee, the man behind Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men, and Academy Award-winning songwriting brothers Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman, who wrote the music for several Disney films, including "The Jungle Book" and "The Aristocats," and won two Oscars for "Mary Poppins."

Video artist Mark Leckey on Monday won the 2008 Turner Prize, the United Kingdom's top contemporary-art award. "It's great to do something that has some kind of effect on British culture," said the 43-year-old artist whose work includes "Felix Gets Broadcasted" and "Made in 'Eaven." The prize, awarded in London, includes $37,230. Leckey was selected over three other finalists, all women: Runa Islam, Goshka Macuga and Cathy Wilkes.

It has been a tough peace for Ali Salem. His plays don't have a stage. Intellectuals shun him; the writers union refuses to pay his pension. He sits in a cafe window, typing on his laptop and defending his choice long ago to cross the border into Israel and make friends. Egypt and Israel made peace in 1979, but that treaty remains as agitating to Egyptian artists and intellectuals as a sliver of glass beneath the skin.