Many and Diverse Latin Flavors : Exhibit: San Diego Museum of Art's Latin American art show opening today has already ruffled the feathers of some local art dealers.

By LEAH OLLMAN

March 16, 1991 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Museum of Art has billed “Latin American Drawings Today,” which includes more than 100 works on paper by 40 artists from 12 countries, as “the most comprehensive exhibition of drawings by contemporary Latin American artists ever presented in the United States.”

Although they have not yet seen the show, some local gallery owners who deal in Latin American art have less flattering things to say about the show, which opens this morning, and the way it was put together, using terms from “disappointing” to “damaging.”

How the show was organized and its content both have become issues between the show’s curator and her critics.

Mary Stofflet, SDMA’s curator of modern art, did not follow the conventional route of curating the show entirely by herself, nor did she invite a guest curator from outside the museum to do it. She formed a committee of five advisers: Marc Berkowitz, critic, Rio de Janeiro; Jorge Glusberg, director, Centro de Arte y Comunicacion, Buenos Aires; Belica Rodriguez, director, Museum of Modern Art of Latin America, Washington; Rafael Squirru, critic, Buenos Aires, and Gloria Zea, director, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota.

“One of the things that has been a big concern of people in this area with recent shows that have touched on these issues (of Latin American art) is that there wasn’t much involvement with people in the countries the work comes from,” Stofflet explained. “We came up with the idea of a team of advisers as a way of overcoming that particular problem.”

Each of Stofflet’s advisers sent her a list of artists’ names, from which she chose those she wished to contact. Stofflet then selected works for the show from the responses she received.

The owners of three local galleries that deal in Latin American art--Tasende, Iturralde and Linda Moore--expressed doubts about the effectiveness of Stofflet’s method. One complained that the show lacks coherence or a single “curatorial thread.” Another suspects that most of the real curatorial work was done in the United States, and that the advisory committee was merely a cosmetic device. The lack of an adviser from Mexico was also a concern.

The owners of all three galleries offered access to their libraries and their foreign contacts to Stofflet while she was planning the show, but none feel that she took advantage of their resources.

The most critical gallery owner is Jose Tasende of the 12-year-old Tasende Gallery in La Jolla, which has several Latin Americans on its roster of internationally known artists.

Early in the planning of the show of Latin American drawings, Stofflet invited Tasende to recommend names for the show’s advisory committee. According to Stofflet, all of Tasende’s recommendations were heeded. Tasende’s story is different, and the conflict between the two accounts has engendered a quiet but bitter misunderstanding.

“They asked me my opinion, they asked me to participate,” Tasende explained. “They made the exhibition and they didn’t contact the people on the list I recommended. I was not informed of who was going to participate or who was on the committee.

“My position is simple. I don’t want to be associated with this exhibition. If they call me again to participate in something, I will put some different conditions from the beginning. But they excluded me from the possibility of correcting any gross mistakes.”

The most blatant of those mistakes, according to Tasende and the other dealers, is the exclusion of the Mexican artist Jose Luis Cuevas, whom Tasende represents, from the show.

“That is very ominous to me,” Tasende said. “It’s like if you make an exhibition about pop art without Jasper Johns. You start to wonder what kind of a show this is.”

Cuevas, who is known exclusively for his work on paper, “wasn’t on anyone’s list,” Stofflet said. “Or, if he was, I wrote to him and he didn’t reply. Those are the only possible reasons” that he would not be included in the show, she said.

Tasende scoffed at Stofflet’s explanation, noting that he has a large collection of Cuevas’ work available in his gallery if Stofflet were truly interested in including him in the show.

Some may dismiss the dealers’ criticisms simply as sour grapes over the fact that the artists they represent may not be in the show. All of the dealers interviewed insisted that their primary motive is the desire that the museum serve its local audience well and show respect for Latin American culture.

Stofflet defends her choices by saying that she wanted to feature artists who didn’t have as much opportunity to be seen here.

“There seems to be a level of artists that a lot of people in this country are familiar with and another level that are not known at all here and haven’t exhibited. This looked like a good opportunity to hit the level that not many people in this country know about yet, and I was delighted to do that,” Stofflet said.

Many of the artists in the show have had a good deal of American exposure, however, in part because a quarter to a third of them now live in the United States. That, according to one gallery owner who requested anonymity, is highly detrimental to the concept of the show.

Linda Moore, who features an international roster of artists at her new Linda Moore Gallery in Mission Hills, described Stofflet’s choice of artists as “uneven.”

“I want the museum to be proud of what they’ve done, but to realize that they didn’t go far enough. We’re all here to help them in any way that’s appropriate.”

Teresa Iturralde, co-owner of the 4-year-old Iturralde Gallery, which shows Latin American art exclusively, agreed that Stofflet “overlooked a lot of very important people.” Concurrent with the museum’s show, the Iturralde Gallery will be staging its own drawings exhibition, featuring 24 Latin American artists of this century.

Though Tasende had the most input of any of the dealers, his charges against the museum are the fiercest and most far-reaching. He suspects that the show was organized merely to please members of the museum’s Latin American art committee who helped fund the show, but who know little about Latin American art. He accuses the museum of staging other shows that assuage the egos of its patrons but may not hold up to more rigorous critical standards.

Because of his early advice on the show--whether in fact it was followed or not--Tasende feels he may be held responsible for its flaws and wants to distance himself from it beforehand.

“I don’t think they should be upset that I don’t want to be associated with this show,” Tasende said of the museum. “They put me in a position where I have to say what I have to say. It won’t make me friends, but that is life. The life of the dealer is very difficult.”

Tasende is thanked in the acknowledgments of the show’s catalogue, Stofflet said. “I’m sorry if he’s upset by that.”