ART/SNEAK PEEK : KITSCH IS JUST GRIST FOR THE KAMM COLLECTION.

Who's big in the New York art world this season? What's hot in Paris, Prague and Peoria?

More pertinently, who cares?

Not Sonny and Gloria Kamm. When it comes to collecting contemporary art, the Encino couple refuse to obey the fashion police. Mood, not method, defines their approach. And if someone finds their tastes a little on the kitschy side, well, that's fine with the Kamms.

``I think it's sort of like the word pornography,'' says Sonny, who practices law in downtown L.A. ``One person's kitsch is another person's ...''

``Stuff,'' says Gloria, finishing the thought.

Whatever you think of the Kamms' ``stuff,'' you're unlikely to find it dull. Loud, warm, whimsical, edgy - yes. But dull - never.

From the disturbing Freudian flotsam of Robert Jessup's oil painting ``Savage Interior,'' to the cheekily placed spout on Anthony Bennett's ``Red Devil Teapot,'' the Kamms' collection kicks and screams against easy classification. Yet there may be a common thread to their current exhibition at California State University, Northridge.

``Humor is very definitely there - humor and irony,'' says Louise Lewis, director of the CSUN Art Galleries, which is hosting ``All Figural: Many Media,'' an exhibition of 110 figurative works acquired by the Kamms during the past 20 or so years.

A number of the pieces in the show are refugees, restored following the Northridge Earthquake. The 1994 temblor rattled the Kamms' extensive holdings of ceramics, contemporary glass and 3,000 teapots, spraying glass shards across the couple's 5,000-square-foot split-level home. Since the quake, the Kamms have learned the virtues of adhesive wax pellets and steel-reinforced shelves.

Precautions like those weren't necessary when Sonny Kamm started collecting as a kid in Chicago. You name it, he hoarded it: seashells, sugar packets, coins, baseball cards, stamps, matchbooks and insects. No cereal-box prize was safe with him around.

``Sonny's theory is that anything that's worth doing is worth overdoing,'' says Gloria, also a Chicago native.

Marrying young, the Kamms didn't start collecting seriously until their three kids were grown and unlikely to smear chocolate pudding on the decor.

First they bought a few pieces of tempered glass, then a few more. They began asking questions. They met artists and dealers from around the country.

They met five other couples on an airplane in 1987 and founded the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass (the group now boasts 400 members). At one point they even took over a small gallery on Melrose Avenue and ran it for 12 years.

All the while, their tastes expanded to include fiber, marble, clay and mixed media, but still with a heavy accent on three-dimensional objects - ``things you can touch,'' as Sonny puts it.

Touching, naturally, is frowned upon at the CSUN show, but you'll be tempted to handle the goods. Take Beverly Mayeri's ``California Marriage,'' in which a pair of sensuously entwined male heads sprout from the fingers of a clay-and-acrylic hand. Or Michael Lucero's ``Turtle Map Dreamer,'' a kind of glazed ceramic skull overlaid with surreal shrubbery and mountain peaks.

While art-collector friends fly off to Manhattan to shop, the Kamms are just as likely to hit the L.A. flea markets. No pricey art ``consultants'' or interior decorators for them, just plain old Midwestern gut instinct.

If they make an occasional mistake, so what? What art lover hasn't?

``I think people just don't want to do dumb things, or be perceived as having done dumb things, and they need someone to say, `That's OK,' '' Sonny says. ``We're pretty open to begin with. What you see is pretty much what you get.''

THE FACTS

What: ``All Figural: Many Media,'' contemporary art from the Kamm collection.

Where: Art Galleries, California State University, Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St.

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Admission:` Free. Parking available in student lots for $1.75. For information, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) David Riebel's mixed-media ``Lost Track'' is part of the Kamm collection in ``All Figural: Many Media,'' on view through Saturday at the Art Galleries, California State University, Northridge.

(2) ``Texas Bow Tie Building,'' Roger Brown's oil on canvas, depicts a high-rise crammed with tenants puffing cigars and wearing 1940s-style hairdos.