01:00 AM EST on Thursday, December 29, 2005

BY BRYAN ROURKE
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- To truly appreciate art, you probably should see it.

So pay your taxes. Register to vote. Or just walk into Providence City Hall. You'll see.

Art abounds.

At the moment, it's called "Cuba Oriente: Contemporary Painting from Eastern Cuba." The exhibit, the latest in a series at City Hall, involves 64 paintings, 14 artists and one fundamental idea: Art needs an audience.

City Hall can help.

"Entering a museum or a gallery takes a certain sort of pretension to walk through the door," says Paul Brooks, the city's chief of protocol.

This is art for the masses, whether they want it or not. There it is.

You want to research real estate, get a dog license or whine about your taxes? That's fine. Welcome to City Hall, where you run a risk of cultural enrichment.

"People who come in to pay their taxes comment all the time about the art," Brooks says. "The nice thing about the exhibit is, it gets people talking about something other than themselves."

The dark years

You might be wondering why the city's chief of protocol takes such an interest in City Hall art. If you guessed that he's a 1975 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, you'd be right, partly. But the real reason is Brooks is the curator of City Hall's gallery, also known as the second- and third-floor hallways.

The grand central stairway of City Hall has been an art exhibition space, roughly one show a month, for the past three years -- ever since David Cicilline became mayor.

"In the years before, the dark years, there was nothing except for a few portraits of dead mayors," Brooks says. "It was not used for a serious exhibit space until Mayor Cicilline was elected. This is really his thing."

Before being elected mayor, Cicilline was a collector of paintings and glass, and, according to Brooks, an appreciator of art in general. Now he's a promoter of it.

"The mayor believes in the arts as an economic generator and one of the major forces in our city," Brooks says.

While City Hall may not have the aesthetic cachet of a gallery, Brooks says, it does have a huge captive audience of potential viewers, and no gallery fee to artists, which, according to Brooks, can be about 50 percent.

"The nice thing about the space is, it's open all the time," Brooks says. "A lot of people see the art."

The artists whose works are exhibited in City Hall range from international artists to local professional ones, and amateurs, too.

"It's a community space," Brooks says. "It's interesting because when children in particular see their art hung in a space like this, they take themselves much more seriously."

Lush landscapes

The current exhibit in City Hall, "Cuba Oriente," features the works of Eastern Cuban artists.

The works are realistic, surrealistic, impressionistic, abstract and cubist -- a bit of everything. Some are acrylic on canvas. Most are oil on canvas.

In general, what you see are lush agrarian landscapes showing ordinary village life -- peasants farming, dancing.

"There is a naive quality to a lot of the work," Brooks says.

While the United States bans trade with Cuba, the exhibit's artworks technically come from Florida. There, a man named Clyde Hensley has been collecting Eastern Cuban art since 1995.

"I have no idea how he gets it," Brooks says. "But you can buy a Cuban cigar anywhere."

Hensley's collection is being shown around the country by the Meridian International Center in Washington. Unlike other exhibits at City Hall, none of the art is for sale. The exhibit went up Nov. 28 and will come down Jan. 27.

On Jan. 10, the exhibit has its official opening, hosted by Cicilline and Stephanie Chafee, wife of Sen. Lincoln Chafee, and attended by representatives of Meridian International.

On his own time

Brooks makes it clear that he serves as City Hall curator on his own time.

"That's so no one in the city thinks the city is paying for this," he says. "I hang things on the weekends. People are concerned about where their tax dollars are going."

What's accepted for exhibit in City Hall is entirely Brooks' decision. He says it must be of a particular quality; must be able to be hung on the walls; must fill either one floor or two floors of the exhibit space; and must be scheduled for when the space is available.

Generally, the only time there's no art on the walls is on a weekend between exhibits.

"When the walls are blank, the building is like a tomb," Brooks says. "The art really enlivens it. It does what art is supposed to do, make people question things, and think."

Providence City Hall is at 25 Dorrance St., on Kennedy Plaza. With the exception of holidays, it is open weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. School groups interested in viewing the current exhibit should call (401) 421-2489, ext. 733.

SEE a slide show of some of the works from the "Cuba Oriente: Contemporary Painting from Eastern Cuba" exhibit at Providence City Hall.

projo.com/cubanartshow