ART/SNEAK PEEK: CURATOR MAKING HIS MOVE TO RESHAPE L.A. ART SCENE.

So what if Jaime Villaneda has a few beefs with L.A.'s contemporary art scene? Hey, he has a few problems with L.A. - period.

``I don't like L.A., even to this day. I'm still not sold on the charms of L.A.,'' says Villaneda, one of a handful of professional Latino art curators working in Southern California.

An odd confession? Perhaps. After all, the 31-year-old Yale grad is a successful product of the city's Echo Park district, the vibrant polyglot neighborhood where his family immigrated from Mexico in the early 1970s. Later, Villaneda became an academic star at John Marshall High School, launching him toward a double major in art history and Latin American studies.

Since 1994, the soft-spoken son of a factory ironing woman has been gallery coordinator at Pasadena's Armory Center for the Arts, where he recently curated his first exhibition to laudatory reviews.

``He's the best assistant I've had since 1982,'' says Jay Belloli, the Armory's director of gallery programs for the past seven years. ``Somebody this smart and this good needs opportunities.''

Villaneda also puts in 20 hours a week lecturing children's groups at downtown's Museum of Contemporary Art and helps out at a nonprofit foundation that provides arts training to talented L.A. students.

So what's not to like about this L.A. art gig, anyway?

Put it this way: When he goes gallery-surfing on weekends, the young curator often finds more to stimulate his intellect than his eyes.

``L.A. is very conceptual-art based,'' Villaneda says. ``I think it's more, like, witty, cold wit, `let's get our pun,' or whatever. I'm tired of going to museums and `reading' a work of art. Art is very visual.''

Or, at least, it used to be. As 20th-century art moved from surrealism to abstract expressionism to cryptic installations and opaque assemblages, Villaneda believes that certain things tended to get lost. Things like beauty, mystery and narrative.

``The one thing about L.A. that I laugh about is, they're always trying to be, like, `What's new, what's up and coming?' I thought it would be interesting instead of going forward to stop and look back.''

That interest recently culminated in his debut Armory exhibition, ``Romanticism and Contemporary Landscape.'' Consisting of 43 paintings, drawings and photographs, the exhibition focused on contemporary works that reach back to the 19th-century Romantic movement, which was obsessed with moody landscapes and elegiac poetry.

Villaneda almost too easily fits the cliche of an immigrant success story. But after Yale, he endured a frustrating period in New York City as a free-lance curator and gift shop manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He quickly learned that selling Vincent Van Gogh note cards and Andy Warhol print ties wasn't the same as working in the arts.

``I felt like I was doing glamorized Bloomingdale's,'' he says dryly.

After holding internships at two prominent contemporary galleries - Andre Emmerich in New York and Margo Leavin in Los Angeles - he leapt at the chance to take a part-time job at the Armory. And though he's still not sure what to make of his hometown, his complaints seem more like a native's affectionate grumblings than a true L.A.-basher's chronic discontent.

``The thing that I like about L.A. is there's a huge Chicano culture,'' he says. ``There's a thriving Chicano art community, but it's funny. You go to the art openings, you keep seeing the same faces. I don't think we as a race have really been taught to go to art museums.''