No monkey business

Dave Brooks

After gobbling down a salty fish taco, Tomoko Suzuki looked across

the smattering of Mexican beer bottles collecting at her friend’s

table inside a local eatery and offered her first observation on that

night’s gallery visit.

“Just because he’s really popular with his company doesn’t change

the fact that he’s a good artist,” she said, her friends offering

expressionless nods of agreement.

Was this the sign that internationally known clothing designer

Paul Frank had made it: the tacit approval of five Long Beach art

students, these arbitrators of cool in the avant-garde-paced world of

modern art?

Not that Frank really needs to win anyone over. Ninety minutes

earlier, he was doing his best to greet an endless stream of people

who wound themselves around his green low-rider to get a chance to

share a moment with the Huntington Beach clothing designer at a

reception for his new art exhibit at the Huntington Beach Art Center.

As he signed an array of handbags and T-shirts carrying his

signature chimp logo, Julius, Frank reluctantly found himself, like

his car wheeled into the gallery floor, on display.

“This is something I feel I have to do,” he said. “On the one

hand, I want my anonymity, but on the other hand, I don’t want people

to think that I’m a monkey.”

His exhibit, “Things Happen in Threes,” is a multi-medium

presentation of his work, with his famous animal characters affixed

on just about everything including hot-pink cruiser bikes and a

Zebra-striped longboard. At times it’s hard to tell if this is an art

show or an IKEA floor display for his company, Paul Frank Industries.

Julius, the monkey character inspired by a sock puppet his

grandmother created, is everywhere -- Julius as a Frenchman, a

British Bobby, even an astronaut. We even see Julius conformed into a

working toilet.

“There’s really a million stories about Julius that you can choose

from,” Curator Darlene DeAngelo said. “His characters are a

narrative, a charming story.”

DeAngelo said she created the exhibit to showcase the three phases

of Paul Frank’s work: idea, conceptual plan and finished work.

In one room of the exhibit, the viewer is presented with several

pirate-themed shadow boxes, each character perfectly cut from vinyl

and sewn together to create an amusing sea scene. Accompanying the

art are designs for each piece -- a display on how Frank created the

pirate’s black hat or dozens of sheets of transparent paper,

detailing the anatomically correct outlines of a scurvy skeleton.

Perhaps the most revealing part of the exhibit is a collection of

black-and-white photographs capturing Frank as he brings his designs

to life in his ocean-side Orange County studio. Compiled in no

particular order, viewers can piece together Frank’s creative process

by connecting photos with Frank wearing the same trucker hat or band

T-shirt.

“As an artist, he really is an inspiration to me,” Costa Mesa

resident Tiffany Graff said as she peered at the pictures through a

pair of pink, rhinestone eyeglasses.

Nearly everyone at the reception related that they had been

affected by Frank in some way -- he had touched something inside

them, generated an interest in art or, as one girl said, “just has

something about him that makes me smile.” Frank says he still gets

thrilled when he sees someone wearing one of his shirts or carrying

one of his bags.

“It’s like they want what I creatively thought of in my head,” he

said. “Sometimes you know in your gut, like seriously, I have strong

ESP -- I almost know something’s cool before it’s cool.”

That ability is what attracted many art fans to the exhibit, said

art collector Kenneth Kleinberg, wearing a shirt with four frames of

Julius dressed like Andy Warhol.

“People who collect art are looking for what’s here,” he said,

pointing to one of Frank’s designer Julius wooden stools. “These are

the prototypes, the originals.”

As for concerns that Frank’s work is commercial, Kleinburg offered

a timeless retort.

“Anything can be art, if it’s done artistically.”

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at dave.brooks@latimes.com.