Of pelicans, plein air, and horizon lines - Museum of Contemporary Art and other galleries in La Jolla, CA

Sunset, Jan, 1997 by Peter Jensen

The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and a handful of local galleries have made La Jolla an important art destination

A few years back, while walking along the cliff trail north of the ramshackle La Jolla Caves gift shop, I stopped to talk to an artist as he worked on a plein air-style painting of La Jolla Shores. His brushstrokes showed a crescent of sand, the Scripps Pier, and eucalyptus-curtained hills in hazy impressionism. All seemed harmonious until a sudden shift of ocean breeze brought an aroma of rotting fish so powerful we almost gagged.

"Pelicans," he said. "They roost on the cliff just below us. That smell is one of the hazards of painting here."

Despite the odor, this was the right place for an artist to be. Indeed, Alfred Mitchell (1888-1972) and others came here again and again to capture in oil the kelp-strewn sea, Soledad Mountain's motherly curves, and the bent-backed golden headlands dozering their way into the waves.

My first visit to the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (as it was called from 1971 to 1992) was not quite as dramatic as that encounter with the artist above his pelican perch, but the appropriateness of its collection of minimalist art overlooking the ocean was a revelation all the same. I had expected a lot of gauzy-toned California impressionism. Instead I encountered dozens of spare canvases and restrained pieces of sculpture - staples of much post-1950 modern art.

Somehow it all made sense. After all, the absolute blue line of the Pacific Ocean's horizon, visible from the museum, is as minimalist as it gets. La Jolla, it seemed, was a fitting home for spartan aesthetics, too.

Today, the search for either form of art in La Jolla is more pleasurable than ever, thanks to the year-old $9.5-million expansion and renovation of the museum, now called Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. The expansion, by contemporary architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, has resurrected the facade of turn-of-the-century architect Irving Gill's masterful Ellen Browning Scripps House. It has also affirmed MCA's role as the anchor of La Jolla's art scene (attendance is up about 40 percent), while giving the museum's curators far more flexibility when it comes to mounting shows.

This month (through January 29), New York artist Louise Bourgeois exhibits Spider, an 11- by 22- by 15-foot steel sculpture, in the Axline Court - a star-shaped cupola near the museum's entrance. The octogenarian artist has caught the lift and creepy spread of her creature's machinelike legs with unsettling realism. It's bound to be the don't-miss sculpture event of the year in Southern California.

Also this month (through January 22), the Dennis Hopper Film Retrospective runs in the museum's theater, and a survey of his photographs and paintings is on display through February 23.

MCA is at 700 Prospect St., La Jolla; (619) 454-3541.

MCA'S DE FACTO SATELLITES

Within walking distance of the museum are six other acclaimed galleries - and we're not talking about the dozens of little places that trade in cowboy bronzes, LeRoy Neiman prints, "new masters," and "collectibles." A visit to any of these six is not unlike venturing into a satellite gallery of the MCA.

Tasende Gallery (820 Prospect; 454-3691) represents Eduardo Chillida, Isamu Noguchi, Lynn Chadwick, Henry Moore, and other internationally known artists.

Quint Gallery (7661 Girard Ave.; 235-6282) represents Manny Farber - his work always justifies a visit.

Athenaeum Music & Arts Library (1008 Wall St. at Girard; 454-5872) has only a small gallery, but its shows are uniformly good.

R. B. Stevenson Gallery (7661 Girard; 456-0392) focuses on works by contemporary painters.

SOMA Gallery (7661 Girard; 551-5821), which moved from downtown San Diego to La Jolla in late 1996, exhibits such artists as Kim Frohsin and Ken Kewley.

Artists Gallery (7420 Girard; 459-5844) is home to fine local artists like Ken Goldman, Georgeanna Lipe, Vera Felts, Jim Hubbell, and Thurman Hewitt. You may even spot that view of La Jolla Shores, sans pelicans.