Sculpture

The lion stands mid-stride, mouth agape in a toothy roar, his tail curled into a giant arc. Visitors expect to see a giant cat at the Los Angeles Zoo, but unlike those that prowl their enclosures, this feline is mute, a concrete animal atop a stone plinth, snarling a greeting to visitors wandering down to the entrance.

With a spray of water, Guy Gleichmann surfaces from a 40-foot dive during which he helped set his mother's remains in their final resting place: a sunken city where brightly hued fish shimmy among fantastical architecture. "I didn't want to leave," Gleichmann says, doffing mask and mouthpiece. "It's so beautiful down there. It's so serene." The 48-year-old investment manager and diver from Pompano Beach, Fla.

AS a child, Cal Lane watched her grandma put lace doilies on top of cupcakes, then sift icing-sugar over the top to create a pretty pattern. That child grew up to be an industrial welder, and then an artist who never forgot her grandmother's technique. Now Lane places lace over metal objects and wields her torch or plasma cutter to create sculptures and wall hangings that are startlingly delicate and domestic, yet as tough as the metals that are her medium.

A police report was filed, insurance claims were settled and the "Ship of Oblivion," a sculpture that vanished about three years ago, seemed destined to live up to its name. Hence no one was more astonished than Laura Clemons of the Bill Lowe Gallery in Santa Monica when Peruvian artist Margarita Checa's sculpture -- valued at $95,000, Clemons says -- showed up on the gallery's doorstep last week. "In perfect condition," Clemons said.

Seven-year-old Hannah Cohen and her brother Brandon, 9, first touched the strings tentatively, almost afraid they would break the one-of-a-kind musical device. Then with exuberance, they swept their hands across the unusual 60-string harp to help launch a 60-hour Los Angeles celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary. The instrument is designed in the shape of the Hebrew letter samech, which represents the numeric value of 60.

A pair of ancient marble sculptures, "Venus de' Medici" and "Dancing Faun," have been major attractions at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence since 1688, and that's not likely to change. But in a few months, bronze casts of the life-size Hellenistic figures will become the centerpiece of the neoclassical sculpture galleries at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

On Monday, the Greek marble statue of a man playing a harp located in the center of the Prehistoric and Bronze Age Arts gallery at the J. Paul Getty Museum will be cloaked in black cloth. But it's not being prepped to be cleaned. Nor is there maintenance work to be done. Its concealment is emblematic of the creative loss in the arts community by AIDS.

Two works of public art proposed for the front of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium have drawn complaints from some residents and preservationists. The sculptures, mixed-media contemporary pieces, are being criticized not so much for their artistic expression, but because of their prospective size and location.

FORGET the stiff family portrait, the black-and-white nature photography, the tasteful print so carefully framed. Why hang art when the wall itself can be sculpture? New panels and wallpaper tiles aim to transform boring blank rooms into textured, three-dimensional canvases. These products range in size from 12-inch squares made of recycled paper to 4-foot-by-8-foot panels made of medium density fiberboard.

HE stands just shy of 5 feet 3 and weighs in about 300 pounds. He lost his right foot a while back. And he hasn't shut his mouth for close to five centuries. But "Saint John Capistran," a 450-year-old work in glazed terra cotta by the Italian artist Santi Buglioni -- is an honored new arrival at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.