Art Fair Makes Changes to Cope With Hard Times : Art: The event, beginning tonight with a preview party, will offer everything from paintings to eye wear. Organizers are trying to find a niche for the troubled show.

Bucking a grim economy, a depressed art market and a crisis of confidence among dealers and collectors, Los Angeles’ international art fair has slogged its way back for another round at the Los Angeles Convention Center. ART/LA93, this year’s version of the annual fair, begins tonight with a preview party, and continues through Sunday. More than 150 vendors from 14 countries will offer everything from contemporary paintings and computer-generated art to antiques, furniture and eye wear.

Antiques, furniture and eye wear? Well, ART/LA93, the eighth annual event, is “a new kind of art fair,” according to advance publicity. We’re talking hard times, and fair organizers frankly admit that they are struggling to find a new niche for the financially troubled event--and to replace contemporary art dealers who have dropped out of the fair in the past few years.

“We are operating under slightly forced circumstances,” fair director Brian Angel said. “The galleries have been hard hit. If we were going after the blue-chip, high-end galleries, the fair would be decidedly lackluster.”

But dropping the formerly exclusive focus on contemporary art and including a wide range of affordable, accessible items is more than a strategy of desperation, he claimed. The new format aims to draw a broader audience while putting fine art in context with architecture and design, according to Angel.

Whether the “eclectic mix” that’s being promoted will enhance or detract from the art remains to be seen, as does the overall quality of the presentation. But members of the fair’s advisory board are hoping the new look will be invigorating. “People who are interested in contemporary art aren’t interested only in contemporary art,” said Constance Glenn, a board member and director of the University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach. “I want Los Angeles to be like Vienna at the turn of the century, when architecture, design and all of the arts were so mingled that Vienna itself was a work of art.”

While agreeing that the new strategy may be the key to the fair’s solvency, many Los Angeles dealers doubt that it will help them sell fine art. Others are willing to give it a try. “I have no idea whether it’s going to fly or not, but at least it’s an attempt to create some energy,” said dealer Neil Ovsey, who joined ART/LA93 at the last minute and plans to show small, affordable works by about 20 Los Angeles artists. The redesigned fair is “a huge mystery,” he said, but curiosity finally got the best of him.

Local galleries participating this year range from Cirrus, a long-established showcase and print publisher, to adventurous newcomers Sue Spaid and Food House. Boritzer/Gray, Merging One, William Turner and Earl McGrath, among others, will show contemporary art, while Peter Fetterman offers photography, EZTV displays computer-generated works and Ernie Wolfe shows African art. Their wares will appear alongside furniture from Modern Living and Metropolis, decor from Lowrance Interiors and glasses from LA Eyeworks. Among other new additions, a section called “Fast Art”--including books, music, film, video, food and clothing conceived as artistic expression--is geared to appeal to a young crowd.

Contemporary art also will be on view in several exhibitions. One display will offer works by young artists from five adventurous New York galleries: American Fine Arts Co., Feature, Muranushi Lederman Productions, White Columns and David Zwirner. A presentation of the Museum of Installation in London will feature five installations created in Los Angeles by British artists. Another British production, “The Eastenders,” will feature works by artists affiliated with Space Studios, which provides artists with affordable accommodations in London’s warehouses and unrented buildings.

While the fair organizers have failed to entice Los Angeles’ most prominent art dealers to ART/LA93, they have made extensive use of locally based talent. Los Angeles dealer Sue Spaid has organized “EDGE,” an exhibition addressing how Angelenos deal with urban tensions. Michael Rotondi, director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture, has overseen the creation of seven architectural structures, based on tribal huts, which will span the fair’s central walkway and serve as reading rooms. And Los Angeles artist Eugenia Butler has invited an international slate of well-known artists to participate in “The Kitchen Table,” an ongoing arts discussion, to be viewed on television monitors.

The fair’s location--the Convention Center’s new building, designed by James Ingo Freed and enhanced with artworks by Alexis Smith, Matt Mullican and Pat Ward Williams--is expected to be a big attraction. Inside, architect and artist David Davis has designed a village-like floor plan with vendors’ booths clustered in blocks along curving avenues, and rest stops in settings that he likens to Japanese gardens. Unlike most fairs that relegate the least interesting booths to the periphery, ART/LA93 will have an aura of excitement around the edge, he said.

*

The art crowd will preview the fair tonight at an opening party, “A Night With Art,” planned in conjunction with “Day Without Art,” a nationwide commemoration of the impact of AIDS on the art community. A donation from party proceeds will be made to the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS. Tickets cost $45 when purchased in advance, $55 at the door.

For the second year in a row, BMW of North America Inc. has provided an undisclosed amount of financial support for the fair, but that hasn’t stopped questions as to whether the fair organizer, Andry Montgomery California Inc., will throw in the towel after ART/LA93. Absolutely not, Angel said: “We have had substantial losses for three years running, but we’re not going away. Our company is 98 years old and it has weathered recessions before. . . . We are committed to the city.”

* ART/LA93, Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa. Thurs. and Fri., noon-8 p.m.; Sat., noon-11 p.m.; Sun., noon-6 p.m. Tickets: $7 at TicketMaster; $10 at box office; $7 for students, seniors and museum members, at box office only; two-for-one special after 5 p.m. Sat., at box office only. Information: (310) 271-3200.