ART / CATHY CURTIS : An Opening Question: Can You Count on a Party? : The Newport Harbor Art Museum, citing costs, makes a ‘one-time’ decision to skip a reception for two exhibitions. Most institutions say the perk is not endangered but that they want to cut its expense.

A bow-tied bartender is pouring white wine into plastic cups and taking orders for the harder stuff, a table is spread with tempting hors d’oeuvres, and you are gossiping and talking business with friends you haven’t seen for weeks. You excuse yourself to wander through a new exhibition that won’t open to the public until tomorrow.

“Membership has its privileges,” as the charge-card saying goes. The cachet of getting an advance peek at a show, the chance to meet artists, curators and collectors, and the pleasure of attending a quasi-private party give openings their perennial appeal.

After all, unlike going to the theater--an activity that takes place at a set time, in the company of hundreds or thousands of others--museum-going is essentially a solitary pursuit, done at odd hours. The museum opening is the closest equivalent the art world has to “opening night”: a moment of heightened excitement about a show’s contents and a chance for supporters to see and be seen.

So it came as a surprise last week to discover that Newport Harbor Art Museum wouldn’t be having an opening reception for “Nam June Paik” and “Beyond the Bay: The Figure,” two exhibitions that opened Friday.

The reason is money, according to museum spokeswoman Maxine Gaiber: An opening costs between $2,000 and $3,000 for food, invitations and mailing costs.

She was quick to add that this is “a one-time decision” and that an event is planned to celebrate the opening of “Terry Allen: Youth in Asia” and “Jean-Michel Basquiat” in July. (Another museum event, scheduled for Friday, is limited to people who have become members during the past few months.)

“It is a trade-off,” Gaiber said, adding that the museum has “chosen to do the widest good for the most people” by maintaining a brisk exhibition schedule and tightening up the formerly weeks-long dark periods between shows, while other cash-strapped institutions have been extending exhibitions well past the usual two-month span.

Gaiber said Newport Harbor members still get as many opening events as in the past--one in spring, summer and fall--and in any case, “they were never promised an exhibition opening for every exhibition.”

Still, even a one-time decision raises the question: Will museums someday be opening shows with no fanfare at all?

None of the other Southern California museums I contacted were planning to abandon openings, although the staffs at several institutions are devising ways to cut the expense of these events.

“You can talk about the other ‘perks’ of membership, but this is the one that really counts,” says Dawn Setzer, press officer at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, where some 2,000 people--out of a membership of 13,000--generally attend the member openings. “You get to see the exhibition before anyone else does.”

Additionally, the event serves as an attention-grabber for members, she says: “Getting an invitation is like a flag going up that the exhibition is opening.”

At the Fullerton Museum Center, only about 100 of the 700 members are likely to turn out for an opening event, said director Joe Felz, but it will also attract “other people from different parts of the community” who are invited because of their presumed interest in the exhibition theme. “It’s an easy way for people to become involved.”

Both Setzer and Felz emphasize that even if visiting a museum may strike some visitors as a daunting or solitary activity, the social aspect is familiar and friendly. As Felz says, “You’re going to a museum, but you’re also going to a party.”

Brian Langston, public relations coordinator for the Bowers Museum, said he believes “it would be tough to figure out equally effective ways of building interest other than an event. New is a very powerful term in marketing in America.”

Yet “there doesn’t seem to be any lock-step relationship between the relative luxuriousness of an opening and its popularity,” Langston said. Although wealthy patrons are accustomed to attending black-tie events, for people invited to the general-membership openings, “it may be the first time they’ve ever been to an opening. They don’t notice that (restaurateur) David Wilhelm isn’t serving his coconut shrimp.”

Langston echoes the view of nearly everyone interviewed for this story when he confesses that the phenomenon of the exhibition opening exists primarily because “our members like it.”

Still, money is tight everywhere, and most museum staffs are figuring out ways to offer the sizzle with a cheaper cut of steak.

At the Laguna Art Museum, where some 3,000 invitations are mailed out to the membership for each exhibition, printing and typesetting costs normally run about $1,200, roughly a third of the opening costs. But the July 17 opening for “Kustom Kulture” will be announced with a a four-page invitation on newsprint (at $190 for 5,000 copies).

The Laguna Beach museum--in common with other institutions--sometimes benefits from donated catering by local restaurants, but the Fullerton Museum Center has come up with an unusually innovative scheme for reducing food costs. Beginning with the opening for “Conrad” on June 12, culinary school students in the North Orange County Regional Occupational Program will be preparing and serving food as part of their Friday afternoon class. The center hopes to get raw foodstuffs donated from two Fullerton restaurants that work with the program, Felz said.

Alternative catering projects are unlikely at the Bowers, where Topaz--Wilhelm’s museum-based restaurant--is the institution’s exclusive caterer. Exhibitions the museum deems “major” will still be celebrated with black-tie gala events for high-level donors (who usually pay a ticket fee).

But the Bowers has decided to emphasize “more comfortable and friendly openings” that can be announced with postcards rather than engraved invitations, Langston said. He estimates the cost of these events--for a membership of about 3,000--at somewhat more than $3,000.

“Although some of this (change) is financially driven, the major impetus is that we didn’t like the idea of separating members into ‘high’ and ‘low’ categories,” he said.

At MOCA--where the Asahi Beer Co. supplies one free beer to each guest at every members’ opening--the corporate sponsor of an exhibition usually pays for one opening event, Setzer says. (Philip Morris underwrote the “directors’ ” opening for “Hand-Painted Pop” last fall, the first of three consecutive openings--for different membership levels--that are customarily held for each show).

When a show doesn’t have a corporate sponsor--as is the case with “Thinking Is Form: the Drawings of Joseph Beuys,” opening next month--MOCA dispenses with the upper-level events and just holds the regular members’ reception, Setzer says.

She doesn’t think the question of whether to eliminate opening events has ever been discussed. Rather, the museum staff discusses ways to cater to members’ needs, such as having certain openings on a Saturday afternoon so families can attend, or combining an opening with an educational event.

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which has a membership of 70,000, only members who pay at least $100 annually--almost twice the lowest membership fee--are invited to the opening receptions.

The museum’s $31-million budget from the City of Los Angeles was cut by $2 million this year, resulting in major staff layoffs, and memberships and donations are both down. So it isn’t surprising to hear that menus at the opening receptions have been “scaled back,” according to assistant public information officer Jessica O’Dwyer. But she was reluctant to provide details.

“We’re hoping no one would notice,” she said. “People would be irritated. It’s not something we want to announce publicly.”

In contrast, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego is in an expansive mood with the opening of a new space in downtown San Diego last February (in addition to the main site in La Jolla).

After the opening gala at the downtown location (free for members, including new members who signed up for the basic $35-per-year fee), membership increased by 1,200--one-third of the present total, according to Charles Castle, the museum’s assistant director. Attendance for the opening party was 4,000, more than 2 1/2 times as many people as the museum had anticipated.

Next year, Castle says, in addition to the usual “low-key” openings for exhibitions, the entire membership will be invited, at no extra charge, to two “expanded parties” with live music. One will be a summer event on the ocean terrace of the La Jolla building; the other will celebrate the first anniversary of the San Diego location.

(At Newport Harbor, the third annual “Black and White Bash”--a big food-and-music event at Fashion Island on July 17--costs $50 per person. As museum benefits go, this is inexpensive, although it is in a different league from a free perk-of-membership blast.)

Including invitations, food, drinks, security and (sometimes) music, the MCA’s openings cost anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000, but the higher end of the scale includes volunteer help and donated catering worth “maybe $2,500 to $3,000,” according to Castle.

“We will try and figure out a way to have larger and more fun parties without spending too much more,” he says. “Members have indicated it’s a way they enjoy spending time at the museum, and we’re prepared to spend the money it takes . . . . It makes sense, given the phase the museum is in right now.”

Could there be a non-financial reason not to have openings?

The only one I heard came from Gaiber at Newport Harbor. Members come for the openings, she says, but they often don’t return to see the show. Eliminate the opening, and members will be obliged to visit during regular hours.

Well, no one ever claimed openings were the best times to look seriously at exhibitions, and, in fact--unless a show is especially provocative--there are always many more people clustered around the hors d’oeuvre tables than earnestly pondering what’s on the walls. But the social interaction at these events has a life of its own that feeds into the curious blend of scholarship, status, marketing and gossip that is the lifeblood of U.S. museums.