Sculpture

A sculpture best described as an astronomical jungle gym appears destined to become the newest attraction on Santa Monica's beach--despite protests from oceanfront homeowners who complain the artwork will ruin their scenic views. The piece by artist Nancy Holt received a final go-ahead from the Santa Monica City Council last week, culminating a five-year plan to place "interactive" artworks on that community's southern beaches. Construction is expected to begin within 90 days. Holt's sculpture is a web-like network of black steel pipes pointed toward the ocean.

The newest addition to the city's acclaimed Art in Public Places program, a bronze sculpture titled "California Dream," has been installed with extra security measures after last year's thefts of two outdoor pieces. The 8-foot sculpture, on permanent display at Central and Tamarack avenues, depicts California sea lions swimming through an ocean of kelp and marine life.

The great grizzly bear may yet come home, but nobody expects to see everybody's favorite businessman again--at least not in one piece. The two life-size bronze sculptures were stolen late last month from the exterior of separate Brea office buildings. "Doublecheck," famed artist J. Seward Johnson Jr.'

For every hot new artist who captures the headlines with a buzz-fueled solo debut, there must be an old cold one who has fallen off the radar screen. For the past 10 years, veteran Los Angeles painter Michael Roberts has been flying so close to the ground that his work hasn't shown up on anyone's radar. Holed up in his Hacienda Heights studio, Roberts has been working on a series of multi-panel abstractions that is at once exceptionally focused and generously open-ended.

Harry Jackson, an acclaimed Western artist who created the bronze equestrian sculpture of cowboy movie legend John Wayne that was installed in front of what was then the Great Western Savings & Loan office building on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills in the 1980s, has died. He was 87. Jackson died Monday at the VA Medical Center in Sheridan, Wyo., after dealing with a number of health issues over the last year, said his son Matthew. The Chicago-born artist was considered one of the most promising New York Abstract Expressionist painters in the early 1950s before he turned to realism and became a highly successful Western artist in the tradition of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell.

The oldest and largest architectural sculpture from the Mayan civilization yet discovered has been found by UCLA archeologist Richard Hansen in the Guatemalan site called Nakbe. The massive head of the bird-god Itzam-Ye was sculpted on the side of one of the first pyramids built in Nakbe and later mysteriously hidden from view by a stone-and-earth terrace. The carved-stone head is 34 feet wide by 16 feet high and covered with painted stucco.

"Moon Dial," a sculpture in a Beverly Hills park that has roused debate over what kind of art is fit for public view, will be staying where it is. The artist, George Herms, turned down a city offer to move the sculpture--consisting of five rusted buoys surrounding a rusted window frame and a winch--to a less public location. "In my view, any alternative site would not fit the nature of the work," Herms said in a letter to a City Council committee that had offered to move the work.

The City Council will consider a project Monday to decorate the new downtown parking structure with solar-powered, illuminated sculptures of a Chumash canoe. Ventura's Art in Public Places Committee unanimously approved spending $80,000--10% of its $800,000 of public art funds--on the modern sculpture project last month. The project must receive council approval because it costs more than $25,000. The sculpture was designed by Blue McRight of Inglewood.

"Union Passage," a larger-than-life sculpture of a man and women clasping arms and lending one another strength and support, was dedicated this week in a quiet, grass-covered corner of the Civic Center between two tall pine trees. The 11 1/2-foot-high bronze sculpture by Guy Angelo Wilson is the second statue to be erected in the city's Arts in Public Places program. It cost $59,000 and was financed by developer fees and took about 2 1/2 years to complete.

The Newport Beach City Council tonight will consider spending $1,500 to move a huge metal sculpture from the lawn in front of the old Newport Center Library to a grassy area on the east side of the intersection of Superior Avenue and West Coast Highway. The hulking sculpture, "Metalphor," by Bret Price, was donated to the city in 1986 by resident Warren Hancock, a fan of Price's work.