Washed It!

Meg Whitman’s record-breaking spending in the race for governor has enabled her campaign to blanket California with more TV ads and mailers than any other in state history, while also tapping new technologies to further broaden her reach.

With nine weeks left until election day, Whitman has donated $104 million of her own money to the campaign, more than any other candidate in California history and within striking distance of the national record for a non-presidential contest, the $109 million spent by businessman Michael Bloomberg to secure a third term as mayor of New York City.

Those donations have allowed her to target her campaign mailings to the smallest subsets of voters and sort out which television shows are popular among independent voters. (It turns out they are big fans of “Bones,” the crime show rife with romantic tension, on which Whitman has aired ads.)

Dozens of outside consultants and a paid staff the size of some presidential campaigns run an operation that seems to be the living embodiment of Whitman’s book title: “The Power of Many.” After record amounts spent on television advertising, mail and ground organization, there has even been enough money left over to sponsor a youth soccer team.

“She has the money to do everything,” said Garry South, a Democratic consultant who ran Gray Davis‘ campaigns for governor, “and she is doing everything.”

The heart of the race is still to come, yet Whitman’s personal donations already represent more than twice the amount Arnold Schwarzenegger spent in the last gubernatorial election from all sources of money.

Her campaign spent $25 million on television over the summer, more than what Schwarzenegger spent on TV in his yearlong reelection effort. By the beginning of July, she had spent $7.5 million sending mail to voters, almost double Schwarzenegger’s 2006 tally and a figure that does not count the more recent flurry of mail against her November rival, Democrat Jerry Brown.

Overall, she has nearly tripled the previous California record of personal donations to a campaign, set in 1998 by Democratic businessman and gubernatorial candidate Al Checchi.

Still, for all the spending, polls show Whitman and Brown in a competitive race. Although her campaign points to the millions of dollars organized labor is pouring into the contest on Brown’s behalf, that spending pales in comparison to Whitman’s.

Whitman campaign officials say her personal donations were needed to introduce the former EBay chief and first-time candidate to California voters, to whom she was a mystery a year ago.

“We’re doing things much more aggressively than they’ve ever been done before,” said spokesman Tucker Bounds. “The frequency of the activity and the size of the political organization is an enormous investment, but we believe it will pay off on election day.”

In its ability to do more of everything, Whitman’s campaign most resembles that of President Obama, who was able to translate his immense fundraising operation into a deep use of traditional campaign tactics and a broad reach into new ones, including those harnessing the Internet for his political benefit.

Much attention has been drawn to Whitman’s television outlay, but her spending in less-visible political arenas is eye-opening as well.

Through June, Whitman had spent more than $1.2 million on polling and research, dolling out nearly $227,000 to two firms in June alone.

Democratic consultant Darry Sragow said a typical candidate might spend $300,000 on polling in the primary and a like sum in the general election. Whitman’s figures suggest a sharply different strategy than anything seen before.

“They know as much as anybody could know about the mind-set of the California electorate,” he said.

Allan Hoffenblum, a former Republican consultant who runs the Target Book, a nonpartisan compendium of political races, said Whitman was “doing stuff that is on the level of what an incumbent president would be doing running for reelection.”

Whitman’s research contributes to a detailed voter file that identifies voters by their issue interests and then targets them through an aggressive direct-mail program. Whitman’s mail effort, and her simultaneous television barrage, was devastating to her primary election rival, Steve Poizner. His campaign estimates she sent as many as 20 mailers to Republican homes in the last month of the campaign.

Whitman is now unloading on Brown, releasing ads and mail pieces almost weekly. According to the Brown campaign, Whitman’s ads showed up at least 170,000 times in state media markets from the primary through third week of August, even as multiple mailers were arriving at selected voters’ homes.

Whitman demonstrates the power of her money

California pension officials are investigating the pay received by former top officials of Bell with an eye toward excluding large chunks of their salaries from retirement calculations.

A ruling against former City Manager Robert Rizzo and his colleagues could affect other officials across California who receive salaries from several government agencies simultaneously.

Rizzo is set to receive a pension of about $600,000 a year, which would make him the highest-paid pensioner in the California Public Employees’ Retirement fund. That amount is calculated from a salary of nearly $800,000.

His most recent contract split up his compensation so that his pay came not only for his work as city manager but as executive director of Bell’s Surplus Property Authority, Community Housing Authority, Public Financing Authority and Solid Waste and Recycling Authority.

The pay arrangement made it difficult for outsiders to determine Rizzo’s full salary, and it might come back to haunt him.

Brad Pacheco, a spokesman for CalPERS, said the fund is investigating whether pay that Rizzo received for jobs other than city administrator should count toward his pension. CalPERS is also looking at compensation for former Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia and former Police Chief Randy Adams, he said.

If CalPERS rules that pay drawn from other agencies cannot be counted for retirement calculations, it could reduce pensions received by retired Bell council members. For example, former Councilman George Cole, who during some of his tenure received pay from various agencies, is receiving a pension of nearly $50,000 a year for the part-time job.

A Times survey of city managers’ pay last month turned up officials in several cities who had been receiving payments for more than one municipal job.

Rizzo’s salary and pension benefits have prompted widespread outrage and legislation that limits the raises of local government officials.

Rizzo’s attorney, James Spertus, said he would fight efforts to reduce his client’s pension.

“Mr. Rizzo never agreed to accept less compensation or to do anything that would impact his retirement,” Spertus said.

Rizzo’s latest contracts were signed by himself and Mayor Oscar Hernandez. Former City Atty. Edward Lee said he neither prepared the contract nor approved it. Hernandez did not return calls Friday.

CalPERS itself has been sharply criticized because it knew about the high salaries paid to Rizzo and Spaccia four years ago and did nothing to stop them.

Pedro Carrillo, Bell’s interim administrative officer, said CalPERS officials recently spent about three weeks at city offices going through records. He said he expected to receive a draft report identifying any problems within 10 days.

“The salaries and pensions of certain individuals are certainly a concern of myself, the city attorney and most folks in the city of Bell,” he said.

Along with the CalPERS audit, the Los Angeles County district attorney and state attorney general have launched wide-ranging investigations in Bell that include the high salaries city officials received and allegations of voter fraud and improper business dealings. The state controller is also conducting an investigation.

A review of records by The Times showed that City Council members were paid for their work on commissions that rarely met or did so for only a few minutes.

Questions about Rizzo’s pension may be the result of five new contracts he signed in September 2008, two months after his previous one went into effect. Old contracts paid him for being city manager. The new contracts paid him as city manager and as executive director of the four city commissions.

His total compensation remained the same. He received about $221,460 a year to run the city, and the remaining $566,177 was split among the authorities.

This final contract was not provided to The Times in its original request for Rizzo’s contract in June, a violation of the California Public Records Act.

In addition, Bell’s City Council on Friday announced plans to sue former city administrators, consultants and attorneys for actions that led to the city’s crisis.

City leaders said they suspect Rizzo conducted city business using his personal e-mail account and issued a subpoena to obtain copies of messages and computer files going back five years

The decision to subpoena the e-mails came after The Times reported that Rizzo had given city loans of nearly $400,000 to two businesses without public notice or council approval.

Rizzo was ordered to appear in person and produce copies of the e-mails by the next City Council meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 20.

Spertus said his client wants the facts to come out, but the city has refused to talk to him.

“It would not surprise me if the city of Bell or other agencies in this political time … tried to pursue criminal or civil actions against Mr. Rizzo that are unfounded,” Spertus said.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

ruben.vives@latimes.com
In wake of Bell scandal, CalPERS may change pension calculation rules

Although Jonathan Franzen’s novel “Freedom” came out only on Tuesday, it has been the subject of impassioned debate for the better part of a month now, both in the review pages of most major media outlets — he is the first living writer to appear on the cover of Time magazine in a decade — and in the more ethereal corridors of the digital world.

Well before publication, novelist Jennifer Weiner organized a Twitter campaign, under the hashtag “franzenfreude,” to gather negative reaction to the book, which tells the story of a middle-American family in slow collapse.

Weiner’s label is a variation on “schadenfreude,” or pleasure taken in the misfortune of others: “Franzenfreude,” she told NPR late last month, “is taking pain in the multiple and copious reviews being showered on Jonathan Franzen.”

Yet in an irony noted by several Twitter commentators, Weiner tangled up the reference. “Franzenfreude,” one Tweet suggests, “would translate to pleasure in Franzen”; apparently, it would have been more accurate to call it “schadenfranzen.”

Word games aside, Weiner is incensed about what she perceives as the engrained sexism of mainstream media, especially the New York Times, which showers coverage on male writers such as Franzen while leaving women out.

That’s a valid concern; this week, Slate reported that, of 545 works of fiction reviewed in the Times between June 29, 2008, and Aug. 27, 2010, only 207, or 38%, were written by women. Even more, of the 101 books to receive two reviews during that stretch (one in the daily paper and the other in Sunday), just 29 were by female writers.

The numbers are probably similar at most major newspapers, including this one. It’s exactly the kind of issue we should be discussing. But none of this, really, is what the uproar over “Freedom” has been about.

With 300,000 copies in print, “Freedom” is No. 1 at Amazon.com; it has received critical raves and even the president is said to be reading it. The furor over its success smacks of gossip, envy, a mean-spirited approach to literary life. It’s personal, people reacting to a writer they don’t like.

An Aug. 26 Newsweek piece made that point explicitly, calling Franzen “the writer we love to hate.” For writer Jennie Yabroff, the issue isn’t Franzen’s writing, which she acknowledges is, at best, “fantastic,” but his position in the culture, his “peevishness,” which, she believes, “undermines the humanistic intentions of his work.”

In the age of the Internet, Yabroff insists, it is “difficult to separate how you feel about an author’s personal life from how you respond to his work, despite your best efforts to read the writing, not the writer.”

She continues: ” ‘Freedom’ comes from the man who dissed Oprah, complained that the Tony-winning musical ‘Spring Awakening’ was a bastardization of the 1891 Frank Wedekind play (which Franzen himself had recently translated from the German), called [New York Times] book critic Michiko Kakutani ‘the stupidest person in New York,’ and claimed such affectations as writing in an earmuff-and-blindfold-equipped sensory-deprivation chamber.”

Really? Is that where we are now, framing the discussion over literature in terms of public image rather than language and narrative? What does this have to do with the quality of Franzen’s work?

Writers have always been eccentric, outspoken, unpleasant, even dangerous — it’s an inevitable side effect of a profession that requires you, to steal a line from sportswriter Red Smith, to “sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”

Norman Mailer brawled and bragged his way to literary celebrity, stabbing his second wife, Adele Morales, at a party, and writing about himself in mock-heroic terms.

Hemingway was unbearable, Celine a Nazi sympathizer, Dorothy Parker a maudlin drunk. It’s all irrelevant to their writing, which sings and screams with a music of its own.

This is true of Franzen’s work as well. He is the most ambitious novelist of our moment — not for who he is, but for how he writes, his willingness to explore the emotional depths and complexities of the most apparently mundane lives.

At heart, the tempest over “Freedom” reveals a fundamental immaturity in our collective thinking, a child’s eye view of the way art and culture works. This is not a new thing, but it’s distressing to see it so widespread.

Rather than a discussion of what gets covered and how, we have a campaign of personal invective, turned against a single author. Rather than a consideration of the book, we have a conversation about the writer’s image, as if that matters in our reading of the work.

In his 1968 book “Miami and the Siege of Chicago,” Mailer described his ambivalence about a youth culture that seemed to him as much of a threat as the conservative status quo. He did not want “to lose even the America he had had” because “it had allowed him to write…. He had lived well enough to have six children, a house on the water, a good apartment, good meals, good booze, he had even come to enjoy wine.”

Had Twitter existed then, Mailer probably would have been pilloried for his counter-revolutionary sentiments, but all these years later, his observation rings with the weight of truth.

What he is talking about is the difficulty of being a grown-up, the necessity of looking inward, at our contradictions, and reconciling them as best we can.

That’s the message of “Freedom” also, as it was of Franzen’s previous novel “The Corrections,” and it stands as a powerful rebuke to those who judge the novel — or any novel — on terms other than its own.

david.ulin@latimes.com

Critic’s Notebook: With Jonathan Franzen, judge the novel, not the man

Pressure on President Obama to do something about the weakening economy intensified Friday with new government data showing that hiring remains lackluster, nudging the nation’s unemployment rate up to 9.6%.

With congressional elections less than eight weeks away, Obama appeared in the Rose Garden to say that he would soon propose a new package of tax cuts and other incentives to spur employment.

“We are confident that we are moving in the right direction, but we want to keep this recovery moving stronger and accelerate the job growth that’s needed so desperately,” the president said.

Obama spoke after the Labor Department reported that the nation lost 54,000 net jobs in August, fewer than economists had expected but still dismal. The private sector’s weak gain of 67,000 jobs was wiped out largely by the number of federal census jobs that ended.

The unemployment rate edged up to 9.6% from 9.5% in July, the first increase in that figure since April.

The president is expected to use a speech in Cleveland on Wednesday to outline a series of measures to kick-start the economy, which could include extending research and development tax credits for business, increasing spending on highways and other public works projects, and retaining the middle-class portion of the Bush administration tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year.

Many analysts believe that those measures will have only a modest effect, especially in the short time remaining before the midterm elections. But with Republicans lined up solidly against the Democratic administration on economic policy, more far-reaching proposals are considered out of the question.

“The key will be whether it’s smart — getting bang for the buck — and if it’s big enough,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning research group in Washington. “And I’m concerned on both of those fronts.”

One idea that has received some support from Republicans is a three-month payroll tax holiday for all workers and businesses.

That would amount to a 6.2% tax cut for each, freeing up money that employers could use for new hiring and workers could use to boost consumer spending.

But White House aides indicated that Obama will not embrace the idea. It would cost the government about $120 billion in revenue if adopted for two months — and a staggering $700 billion if continued for a full year.

Also, an unrestricted tax holiday would not be narrowly focused on Obama’s goal of adding jobs.

“I think the notion of giving payroll tax holidays is not very well targeted,” said Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. “That’s going to go to all kinds of firms, even those that are reducing their employees.”

Instead, Alan Krueger, the Treasury Department’s chief economist, said Obama asked his economic team to “review options that are targeted and responsible” — that is, more narrowly focused and less likely to aggravate the government’s budget and deficit problems.

Recognizing that many Americans have an unfavorable view of last year’s massive stimulus program, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has been taking pains to caution that “some big new stimulus plan is not in the offing.”

Among the narrower options under consideration is extending a tax break signed into law in March that exempts employers from their share of payroll taxes for the remainder of 2010 and provides other incentives if the employer hires someone who has been unemployed for at least 60 days.

The law, known as the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, or HIRE, passed with bipartisan support, and one of its main backers, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), recently urged a six-month extension.

A White House aide, Jen Psaki, would not lay out specifics, but said that “the options under consideration build on measures the president has previously proposed.”

The moves being discussed are unlikely to change the jobs picture any time soon, Burtless said. He noted that the R&D tax credit, which expired Dec. 31, has repeatedly been renewed and is expected to be extended again this year.

Obama to propose new incentives to spur employment

%content%
London Stone shrouded in mystery and myths

More of the shine of the Golden State’s real estate market lost a bit more of its luster as the total value of California’s properties fell for the second year in a row — and for the second time since records were first kept in 1933 at the depths of the Great Depression.

The value of all types of properties fell 1.8% this year to $4.4 trillion, the California Board of Equalization reported Thursday. The total value fell 2.4% last year.

Forty-eight of California’s 58 counties saw totals fall — nine by more than 5%. Only two counties, oil-rich Kern and tourist-destination San Francisco, posted expansions of their property tax rolls of 2% or more.

The negative numbers make for more bad news for county governments. They’ve had to curtail spending on basic municipal services because falling values have resulted in lower property tax revenues.

“It’s a decline that’s outside of their control” and unlikely to reverse itself until California starts creating tens of thousands of new jobs, said Board of Equalization Vice Chairman Jerome Horton.

The contraction of the last two years contrasts with California’s historic growth in its real estate value, Horton said, with “constant increases of 5% to 15% per year” for the last 77 years.

“Those numbers tell us we have a ways to go, and we have some work to do to bring balance back in our economy,” he said.

Some experts suggest that things could get even worse before they get better.

Many homeowners purchased or refinanced residences in 2005 or 2006 and could face interest rate hikes from the variable-rate mortgages, said Tracey Seslen, a real estate professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business. Tight financial markets and underwriting standards could make it hard for them to refinance at lower rates, she said.

“With the stricter lending measures in place, removal of the home-buyer’s tax credit and with uncertainty in the economy and the jobs picture, we have a large confluence of factors that are all going to be putting downward pressure on the housing market,” she said.

Other housing specialists, though, think that the board’s data, based on Jan. 1 figures, already may be out of date.

“In many areas of California, prices have found a floor and have even recorded three or four months of guarded recovery,” said Stuart A. Gabriel, director of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

“Hopefully, we have found or are close to a bottom” of the market,” Gabriel said, “and, we’ll be able to see some recovery of prices.”

The board’s data found that Los Angeles County, which accounted for about a quarter of the value of all property statewide, lost 1.8% of its property value. The steepest drops were in the high-desert cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, local officials said.

Plummeting commercial property values also are contributing to the reduction in the size of tax rolls, Los Angeles County Assessor Robert Quon said.

The county got hit with a one-two punch of “fewer changes of ownership and less new construction,” he said.

The weak market spurred Los Angeles assessors to review about 600,000 homes and condominiums. They lowered annual property tax bills on 400,000 properties purchased between July 1, 2003, and June 30, 2009, Quon said.

By getting their properties reassessed to reduce taxes, homeowners were able to save an average of $1,800 on a single-family home and $1,500 on a condominium, according to the county.

Across Southern California, property values fell 4.4% in Riverside County, 4.3% in San Bernardino County, 1.5% in San Diego County, 0.5% in Orange County and 0.3% in Ventura County.

Inland areas lost about twice as much of their property value as coastal areas did. The state’s hardest-hit counties were in the Sacramento and Northern San Joaquin valleys and the Inland Empire, the board said.

marc.lifsher@latiimes.com
Value of California’s properties falls 1.8% to $4.4 trillion

As employers struggle with rising healthcare costs and a sour economy, U.S. workers for the first time in at least a decade are being asked to shoulder the entire increase in the cost of health benefits on their own.

The average worker with a family plan was hit with 14% premium increase this year, pushing the bill to nearly $4,000 a year, according to a survey by the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.

That is the largest annual increase since the survey began in 1999 and a marked change from previous years, when employers generally split the rise in the cost of premiums with their employees.

The average employer contribution to a family plan did not go up at all this year, meaning the entire increase was borne by workers.

At the same time, nearly a third of employers reported that they either reduced the scope of benefits they are offering this year or increased the amount that workers must pay out of pocket for their medical care.

Workers saw average copayments for routine office visits increase 10% and deductibles continue their surge upward.

In 2010, more than a quarter of American workers with employer-provided health coverage were in plans with deductibles of at least $1,000.

“It’s really bad news for everybody,” said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, an organization of large employers that provide coverage to about 50 million workers, retirees and dependents.

Overall, premium growth slowed slightly this year to 3%, with the average annual cost of a family health plan reaching $13,770. Workers picked up 30% of that bill. The average plan for an individual cost $5,049.

The squeeze, reported by employers between January and May, largely reflects the fallout of the ongoing economic slowdown and may be ameliorated in future years as the new healthcare law is implemented.

But it could further complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to rally support for the law, which is expected to do relatively little in the short term to contain rising medical bills.

“There have been times when employers have been able to absorb costs. This is not one of those times,” said James Gelfand, health policy director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading critic of the new law.

The law, which focused on expanding coverage for Americans who don’t get insurance through work, was designed to largely preserve the existing employer-based healthcare system.

Independent analyses of the law estimate that most Americans will continue to get insurance through their employer, as about 157 million do now.

Administration officials Thursday pointed to two new studies from the Rand Corp. and the Commonwealth Fund that predicted small businesses in particular would probably expand coverage in coming years, in part with help from billions of dollars of in new tax credits.

“We have really just begun our efforts,” said Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, emphasizing the growing number of tools government regulators have to control insurance premiums.

The Kaiser survey found that the percentage of firms offering health benefits rose to 69% from 60% this year, an unexpected increase that analysts speculate may reflect the failure of many businesses that didn’t offer benefits.

But the survey suggests that the coverage workers are being offered is becoming increasingly unattractive as employers try to control their costs in the down economy.

“We were all so focused on the reform debate that I think we took our eyes off the fact that what we call heath insurance in this country is changing,” said Kaiser foundation President Drew Altman. “What workers get looks less and less like the comprehensive coverage their parents had.”

U.S. employers push increase in cost of healthcare onto workers

Israeli and Palestinian leaders formally reopened peace talks Thursday by setting a work plan for the next year, but adjourned without progress on their conflict over Israeli housing construction in disputed areas, an issue that threatens to quickly undermine the negotiations.

Meeting at the State Department, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to meet again on Sept. 15 and to work out an outline as the first step to reaching a final peace deal by next September. The two leaders, whose last face-to-face session was 20 months ago, plan to hold discussions every two weeks.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hosted the four hours of talks, praised the two leaders.

“The decision to sit at this table was not easy,” she said. “We’ve been here before and we know how difficult the road ahead will be.”

But diplomats said officials on both sides as well as their American colleagues remain deeply anxious over the settlement construction dispute. A partial Israeli moratorium on new settlements in the occupied West Bank ends on Sept. 26 and Jewish leaders are reluctant to extend it. At the same time, Palestinians have threatened to walk out on the talks if construction resumes.

U.S. officials have urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stop publicly declaring their positions, in hopes that it will be easier for each to give ground in coming weeks, according to diplomats who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.

U.S. officials are hoping that if the talks gain momentum in the coming weeks, it will give officials on both sides the political cover to make compromises that, at the moment, only are likely to inflame their constituencies.

As talks continue, it also will become more difficult for the leaders to break off their participation, diplomats noted.

Yet diplomats and outside observers also say it’s still difficult to see how a compromise could be reached.

Under one proposal, by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Daniel Meridor, Israel would allow construction only in the large settlement blocs in the West Bank that Israel expects to annex in a final peace deal.

But critics say it will be difficult to sort out precisely which areas would be headed for annexation.

Akiva Eldar, a columnist for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, said on Israel Radio on Thursday that the Meridor proposal would be hard to implement because it would require both sides to agree, before negotiations take place, on which settlements would be part of Israel and which would be dismantled.

He said there will probably be sharp disagreement over settlements such as Ariel, which is about 12 miles inside the West Bank.

“Talking about the settlement blocs without a detailed map is like playing chess with yourself,” he said. “The Palestinians [will] say, ‘You won’t get them for free. Show us a map.’ “

Another possibility is for Israel to privately agree to construction limits while publicly announcing that the moratorium is over. Netanyahu reportedly agreed to such a deal in recent months regarding building in Jerusalem.

Under such an arrangement, Netanyahu could use his influence to block any large-scale construction.

But Yossi Beilin, a left-leaning analyst and former Knesset member, said that without a moratorium, the possibility would exist for a project to proceed and set off an uproar that would bring the talks to a halt.

“This is the wrong way to have negotiations,” he said.

Despite behind-the-scenes U.S. pressure, Palestinian officials insist their position on the issue is firm. Some officials privately suggested they are willing to face the political consequences of publicly embarrassing President Obama by breaking off the talks.

Middle East talks begin with work plan

“Chefs-d’Oeuvre?”

The question — “Masterpieces?” — posed by the inaugural exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz is a matter of many opinions.

Four months after the quirky museum with a swooping white fiberglass and Teflon roof, designed by Shigeru Ban of Japan and Jean de Gastines of France, opened its doors in this little-known town 175 miles east of Paris, visitors continue to ask if the strikingly modern building near the majestic old train station resembles a Chinese straw hat, a hut for the Smurfs or a manta ray in flight.

The masterpieces query is a weightier matter and it comes with lots of historical baggage. Composed of about 800 works, the sprawling show is a think piece about the ever-changing meaning of a term coined in the Middle Ages to judge the work of craftsmen in the European guild system but often dismissed as quaintly irrelevant these days.

“I have no definitive definition of a masterpiece,” Laurent Le Bon, director of the Metz museum and curator of the exhibition, states in a publication accompanying the show, “but, in my view, it is a work that permits diverse interpretations, indeed contradictions.”

Critical reactions to the show include proclamations that it’s the most impressive assembly of 20th century art in all of Europe and accusations that it’s so confusing and anti-hierarchical as to be meaningless. In art historical circles, the exhibition has revived a debate about the concept of masterpieces. Interviews with curators indicate that there’s hardly a consensus on the subject, with some saying it’s a valuable way of measuring quality and others pointing out the flaws of any such system.

The Pompidou Center, a Parisian cultural powerhouse that houses the French National Museum of Modern Art, built the satellite in Metz to share its 60,000-piece collection with a city of about 200,000 people. But visitors expecting the Pompidou’s greatest hits are in for a surprise. What they get is an eclectic array of paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, installations, architectural models, furniture and printed material.

An introductory section on the ground floor tracks the evolution of masterpieces “from Middle Ages to revolutionary genius” in works lent by various institutions. But the bulk of the show ending Oct. 25, which continues on three upper floors, is drawn from the Pompidou’s 20th century and 21st century holdings. The final display, “Masterpieces ad infinatum,” grapples with notions of uniqueness in an age of endless reproductions.

As the exhibition unfolds, major works by such stalwarts as Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, Louise Bourgeois and Bruce Nauman share gallery space with examples by relatively little known European figures and a few sculptures from Africa, Asia and Oceana. The works on view rarely conform to conventional ideas about masterpieces as paragons of beauty or tours de force of skill and they aren’t necessarily the best examples of the artists’ output.

But pieces such as Bourgeois’ enormous installation “Precious Liquids” sum up essential themes — in her case, conflict between the artist and her father and bodily liquids that symbolize pleasure and pain. Other works mark zeitgeist moments that have influenced ideas about what a masterpiece might be.

Marcel Duchamp, who famously said that a masterpiece is created by the viewer, not the artist, is represented by his first “readymade,” a bicycle wheel mounted on a wood stool in 1913. Georgio De Chirico’s 1914 painting “Premonitory Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire” is a Surrealist tribute to a leading avant-garde poet and critic, portrayed as a classical statue wearing sunglasses.

Alain Jacquet’s 1964 painting “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe” is part of his “Camouflages” series based on widely distributed reproductions of masterpieces from bygone times. His version of Edouard Manet’s celebrated Impressionist work recasts the luncheon on the grass as a poolside picnic obscured by a silk-screen pattern.

The most recently made pieces have yet to pass the test of time. A stunningly detailed photograph of commercial goods packed into a 99 Cents Only Store is a seminal image by Andreas Gursky. But it was made in 1999 by a German artist whose reputation and work continue to grow.

Experts’ views

Once upon a time, a masterpiece was a creation that met rigid standards of artistry and craftsmanship. These days, the term usually refers to the best work of an artist’s career or an example of outstanding creativity or skill, but there’s little agreement on the meaning and relevance of the term, particularly in modern and contemporary art.

Consider what a few Southern California authorities have to say in interviews and e-mail exchanges:

Douglas Fogle

Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, Hammer Museum

That word has so many heavy connotations with connoisseurship and a certain attitude about art history, that one masterpiece comes after the other. There are great works, absolutely. In contemporary art, there are seminal or building-block works that changed everything. You can point to a Rauschenberg combine painting. “Monogram” is a great work in that way. You can point to Jackson Pollock’s first drip paintings.

It’s a masterpiece, whatever that means

The fate of the U.S.-sponsored peace talks launched Thursday in Washington could hinge in part on how things play out in this hotly disputed West Bank city, where extremists on opposite sides suddenly find they share a common purpose: to sabotage the process.

The militant Palestinian movement Hamas, which hasn’t openly attacked West Bank settlers in about two years, renewed its campaign of violence this week with two drive-by shootings. It claimed responsibility for killing four settlers near Hebron on Tuesday and injuring two others a day later near Ramallah.

Jewish settlers around Hebron responded by throwing rocks at Palestinians and setting fire to a field. On Thursday, they demonstrated their contempt for what they termed the “fancy ceremonies” in Washington by rolling out bulldozers and cement mixers to resume construction in defiance of Israel’s 10-month moratorium. Settlers are also calling for the reinstallation of West Bank checkpoints and the waiving of gun permits to enable settlers to carry weapons.

The developments serve as a reminder that before Israeli and Palestinian negotiators can tackle big-picture issues such as the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and refugees, the peace process will have to survive some daunting short-term challenges. Among them are the Sept. 26 expiration of Israel’s construction moratorium and a spike in Palestinian violence.

Hebron, home to more than 150,000 Palestinians and 400 Jewish settlers, is often at the center of the storm, and it is once again. Residents are bracing themselves and warn that violence could spread to other parts of the West Bank.

“The talks have renewed the cycle of violence,” said Khaled Amayreh , a Palestinian journalist and analyst. “Things are heating up.”

The next month will test the resolve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, analysts say. Friction and violence at the launch of peace talks is nothing new. The question is whether the leaders will press ahead despite provocations or use them as justification to walk away.

The two leaders agreed in their first direct talks Thursday to meet again in the Middle East in two weeks, and then to reconvene about every two weeks thereafter. U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell cited a “constructive and positive mood” in the meeting.

However, the unresolved conflicts also were apparent. Netanyahu raised the issue of the attacks on Israelis in the West Bank this week. Abbas called on Israel to end all settlement activity.

“In every conflict, the closer the sides have gotten to an agreement, the more the peace spoilers started coming out of the woodwork,” said Professor Tamar Hermann, senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a research group. “But this is a transitional phase and if we give in to it, we will miss the opportunity.”

The settlement construction issue could offer the first glimpse of how committed both sides are to talks. Netanyahu has resisted Palestinian demands to extend the freeze, whereas Abbas has threatened to quit talks unless the freeze continues. Both men are under tremendous domestic pressure to stick to their positions and equally strong pressure from the U.S. and international community to bend.

Analysts have said that the two sides need to find a way to finesse the issue in coming weeks so they can move on to other, equally weighty topics.

Netanyahu’s position will demonstrate how serious his intentions are, wrote Eitan Haber, Israeli analyst and former advisor to assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on the Ynet news site Thursday. “Americans and Palestinians will view the freeze as a test case.”

At the same time, if Netanyahu refuses to budge, Abbas will face a similar dilemma over whether to reverse his stance or abandon what many experts believe could be the last round of negotiations for some time.

The attacks against Israeli settlers upped the ante for both men.

Netanyahu rejected immediate calls for him to quit the talks and return home.

David Wilder, spokesman of the Jewish Community of Hebron, blasted the U.S.-brokered peace process as an attempt to “sink Israel…. These attacks cannot continue, and the only way to stop them is to stop acquiescing to Obama and the terrorists who want to destroy us.”

The killings also hardened the resolve of many Israelis against pressure to extend the construction moratorium, a move they argue could now be seen as rewarding terrorism.

For Abbas, the killings meant being forced onto the defensive just as negotiations began. They bolstered Netanyahu’s demand that talks begin on the issue of security, rather than borders or settlements, which are Palestinian priorities.

Hamas leaders promised the violence would only continue, calling the first two attacks the start of a “series of operations” to be carried out by its militant wing.

Although Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million Palestinians live, its operatives in the West Bank moved underground after the 2007 split with Abbas’ more moderate Fatah movement. In response to the Hamas attacks this week, Palestinian Authority security officers arrested several hundred Hamas supporters, Hamas officials said.

The attacks marked a turning point for Hamas, which has generally avoided armed assaults and rocket attacks against Israeli citizens since Israel’s 22-day assault against Hamas’ positions in the Gaza Strip in late 2008 and early 2009. Though rocket attacks from Gaza have continued to strike southern Israel, other militant groups claimed responsibility and Hamas had even tried to prevent such attacks, arguing that they were not in the “Palestinian national interest.”

That informal policy appears to have changed, probably because of the resumption of peace talks. Hamas officials say the resumption of armed attacks in the West Bank is not an attempt to spoil peace talks, but critics note that the Islamist movement has been harshly critical of the process.

The group’s attacks could soon present another challenge to budding peace talks. So far, Israel has not responded militarily, but Hamas officials are bracing for a round of retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza once Netanyahu concludes the peace summit in Washington.

edmund.sanders@latimes.com

Batsheva Sobelman in The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau and special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.
West Bank city of Hebron could be powder keg as Mideast peace talks begin