INDIAN PHOTO EXHIBIT OPENS

SAN DIEGO —  The first national tour of a major American Indian photography exhibit opens locally today at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park.

The wide-ranging show of 60 pieces by 26 Indian photographers, representing tribes from New York to Alaska to California, runs through June 29. The show’s curator is Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, an abstract expressionist painter who lives on a reservation in northern New Mexico. The exhibit was designed initially for the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Okla.

Tlingit, Onandaga, Comanche, Hopi and Choctaw photographers are among those featured in the show titled “Photographing Ourselves: Contemporary Native American Photography.”

Organized by Smith and ATLATL, a Phoenix, Ariz., arts service organization, the exhibit is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arizona Commission on the Arts, which is coordinating the tour.

ART POLITICS: The approach used by the San Diego City Council to replace four of the original members on its Public Arts Advisory Board (PAAB) will not go down as the finest hour in America’s Finest City.

Appointed two years ago when PAAB was founded, the four outgoing board members--artists Ed Pieters and Victor Ochoa and businessmen George Saadeh and George Driver--three weeks ago received a curt thank you and a vague notification that their time was up in a three-sentence letter from acting Mayor Ed Struiksma.

They learned of their imminent demise as arts advisers after spotting an agenda item for the May 5 City Council meeting concerning the appointment of six new members to the 11-member board. There were two vacancies.

When the matter came before the council for a vote, Struiksma allowed no public debate, as required. Only after artist Art Cole threatened legal action was discussion heard--a week after the May 5 vote.

Although the city attorney’s office had assured Cole’s attorney that the May 5 decision itself would be reconsidered, it was not.

“It was an example of political egotism--brute power,” said attorney Wade Sanders, who represented Cole when the City Council voted May 13 against rehearing the earlier vote. “It was like bringing in tanks to run over cavalry,” Sanders said. “They didn’t have to do that.”

Struiksma, who spoke and voted against reconsideration, said Monday: “I was content with the members that were appointed to the PAAB board the week before and saw no reason for undoing that.”

Outgoing PAAB Chairman Pieters said of the brief letter he received from Struiksma: “I worked hard for the board. Maybe it’s naive of me to expect some gratitude. . . . Yeah, three sentences. It’s great.”

SILVER CIRCLE: Since 1983, the San Diego chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has inducted an allegedly select group of 25 individuals each year into its “Silver Circle.” The award recognizes those who “devoted a quarter-century or more to the television industry and who have made a significant contribution to the San Diego television industry in particular,” a chapter letter advises “members and friends.”

Along with such obvious choices as Jim Dark, head of City College’s telecommunications department; Padres announcer Bob Chandler; KGTV (Channel 10) director V.J. Davis, and Desi Arnaz, who helped KPBS get started with a donation of former Desilu Productions equipment, are such significant contributors to the television industry as ad men Jordan Lansky, Bob Phillips, Tom Wilson and Ted Millan. That’s right, advertising execs.

What gives?

“We all consider ourselves as part of the industry,” said chapter secretary Terry Williams, who works for a public relations firm. Defending the choice of advertisers, she said: “They’ve made primarily television commercials. They are supportive and as incremental a part of the television industry as retired people. And there’s room for public relations people. They provide a lot of guests for programs like ‘Sunup.’ ” “Sunup San Diego” is an early-morning talk show on KFMB-TV (Channel 8).

By that reasoning, the San Diego Press Club should elect Roger Hedgecock as newsman of the year because he provided so much copy.

PLAYGOERS: The National tour of the musical “Zorba” with Anthony Quinn opened a two-week run Tuesday at the Civic Theatre. It marks the return of San Diego Playgoers, the local arm of the Nederlander Organization, the national producer and distributor of commercial theater productions.

After “Zorba’s” close June 1 will be “Legends!” a vehicle that allows Mary Martin and Carol Channing to use dirty language, June 4-8, and “La Cage Aux Folles,” Aug. 5-10. All shows are at the Civic Theatre.

GREAT GINDER: A positive review of a Los Angeles show by San Diego artist Robert Ginder did not run in the San Diego County Edition of The Times May 2 when the review was replaced by Robert McDonald’s At the Galleries column.

Critic Kristine McKenna said Ginder’s Los Angeles debut “features paintings combining elements of Byzantine altar painting with photo-realist depictions of idyllic ‘50s America as fabricated by Life magazine.” Ginder can get “a bit flashy,” McKenna said, but can find “a holy beauty in the seedy streets of Los Angeles . . . when he’s on, his work is stunning.”

The show continues through May 31 at the Hunsaker/Schlesinger Gallery, 812 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles.

ARTBEATS: “Shout Up a Morning,” the La Jolla Playhouse season opener, will open June 3 instead of June 1. Because the musical is tough on voices, the cast has been given a rest. The June 1 evening performance has been canceled. Opening night subscribers will have the option of seeing the show June 3 or any night they choose, a playhouse spokeswoman said. . . .

“The Third Party,” by local playwright Janet Schecter, will play in San Francisco this summer at the MacOndray Theatre. The play, about the first woman presidential candidate, Belva Lockwood, had its world premiere at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre in 1984.