A Place in the Sun

Los Angeles' city parks blossomed with 500 paintings and sculptures last week. The exhibits had been culled from no less than 3,000 art works submitted in a city-sponsored contest. They boasted no big names, but for sheer weight of unknown ones the shows were impressive.

Art was everywhere except underfoot. It hung from trees and on bushes, on fences and around a swimming pool. Chartered buses covered the shows with a grueling ten-hour tour. Mexican dancers, Negro-spiritual singers, Hollywood starlets and a borrowed elephant livened the proceedings. The artists themselves hovered near at hand, ready with explanations and price lists. "It makes me feel good to be looked at," one of them informed a gaping bobbysoxer, "but I wish people would look at my pictures instead."

Actually few of the displays merited a second look, but the city's Municipal Art Commission had done a bang-up, Hollywood-style job of putting them before the public and the public apparently enjoyed seeing art in the sunlight. "I don't like galleries," said one elderly park-goer, "they remind me of funerals." His wife agreed: "Outside you don't mind looking at pictures, and even statues, so long as they're not vulgar."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.