POMODORO COMES TO USC

“Arnaldo Pomodoro: A Quarter Century,” an exhibition surveying the work of the Italian contemporary sculptor, opens in USC’s Fisher Gallery on Wednesday and runs through Oct. 19. About 60 works from 1956 to 1982 will be shown, including 24 large bronzes, 14 maquettes in varied media and numerous works on paper and a selection of prints.

Pomodoro’s sculpture is usually in a geometric shape: a sphere, disc, cube or column, with highly polished surface areas broken by ragged fissures that reveal densely textured interiors.

Born in 1926, the artist first designed stage sets and jewelry, eventually focusing on sculpture. He first visited the United States in 1959, for exhibitions and teaching stints, primarily at Mills College in Oakland.

In 1964 he won the first International Sculpture Award at the XXXII Biennale in Venice. His work is in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Volksschule in Cologne, among others. The exhibition was organized by the Columbus Museum of Art.

A joint memorial exhibition of works by the late Lucille Brokaw and Richard Haines opens next Sunday, 3 to 5 p.m., with a reception at the Los Angeles Art Assn. Galleries, 825 N. La Cienega Blvd. The exhibition, on view Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m., through Oct. 6, is sponsored by Artists For Educational Action and the LAAA.

A film on Brokaw’s work will be screened Sept. 15, 3-5 p.m., at the gallery.

Open competitive shows: The L.A. Printmaking Society’s ninth National Exhibition, scheduled for the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, UCLA, Jan. 14 to March 2, 1986, requests submissions from artists/printmakers who live in the United States and Canada. Sole juror is Nathan Oliveira.

Awards and prizes totaling $4,000 are available. For a prospectus, write to: Ninth National Exhibition, L.A. Printmaking Society c/o Joseph Corso, 325 West 7th St., San Pedro 90731 or call 832-3104.

Deadline for submission of entries for the Arco/Long Beach Photo Contest is Friday. Mail entries to Arco Center, 200 Oceangate, Suite 520, Long Beach, 90802, Attention Photo Contest. For more information, call 435-8200.

The work of four masters of street photography may be seen at the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, through Oct. 13.

Titled “Masters of the Street II,” this second of a three-part series contains 120 photographs by Andre Kertesz, Helen Levitt, William Klein and the late Lisette Model.

The Hungarian-born Kertesz, now 91 and living in New York, is considered a seminal figure of 20th-Century photography. More than any photographer, Kertesz discovered and demonstrated the special aesthetic of the small camera. Although Henri Cartier-Bresson coined the term “decisive moment” (as applied to documentary photography), it was Kertesz who first used the camera to capture a chosen moment.