HUMAN-ANIMAL CONNECTION UNUSUAL EXHIBIT OPENS IN SANTA MONICA TODAY.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

SANTA MONICA - ``Elephant jazz'' and shipping containers have taken over the beach, where a sensitive man with a gray-streaked ponytail dances with whales.

At ``Ashes and Snow,'' the mind-blowingly odd exhibition by photographer, filmmaker and author Gregory Colbert that opens today next to the Santa Monica Pier, nothing is normal. After 14 years of hard work and millions of dollars in expenditure, the marriage of photography, art and architecture attempts to reduce the divides between the human and animal worlds.

``If you ever want to collaborate with sperm whales,'' said the 45-year-old Colbert, in a quiet, modest tone, ``track their migratory patterns, go there after feeding and wait until the day after the full moon.''

This would seem a little odd in most places. But in a museum constructed from shipping containers and huge paper tubes, in front of a screen that flickers with sepia-tone images of Colbert romping with the 50-ton cetaceans, the statement slides by as perfectly normal.

Nominally, the project is a collaboration between the Canadian-born Colbert, a former documentary filmmaker who seems to find a way to relate everything to jazz music, and Shigeru Ban, a Japanese architect known for his expertise in prefabricated housing. To hear Colbert tell it, though, the true collaborators were the falcons, anteaters, elephants and cheetahs who interact so casually with the women and children who populate the photographs.

In the huge images, printed on handmade Japanese paper using ancient techniques the artist refuses to divulge, pachyderms bow down to children, while not far away a weathered Namibian woman, her grandchild and a lynx embrace. In another shot, Colbert engages in an Esther Williams-esque aquatic ballet with whales, a row down from a woman reading a book to a curious orangutan family.

Though some of the shots look downright impossible, Colbert steadfastly maintains that he used no digital trickery or camera gimmicks to bring man and beast together. To obtain his whale shots, he tracked the massive mammals for more than two years, following them across the ocean to learn enough to be comfortable swimming and shooting among them.

The setting, a 56,000-square-foot temporary building assembled at a cost of $2.5 million, makes the experience even stranger. To obtain permission to erect the so-called Nomadic Museum, last seen on Pier 54 in New York City, the structure had to pass Santa Monica's rigorous seismic standards. As a result, the museum, which must be gone by Memorial Day, can withstand a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a 100 mph wind.

``When I met him for the first time, he said he didn't want to do this in a regular museum,'' said Ban, who shares Colbert's taste for stylish black suits and cultivates a rakish-looking mustache. ``He's constantly growing and creating more, so we couldn't just have a fixed box.''

The entire exhibit can fit into eight shipping containers, with the other 144 returning to the Long Beach shipyard where they were rented. With Italy and New York behind it, organizers of the exhibit hope to take it next to Asia after its May 14 closure.

Though Paul Hawken, president of the exhibition, expects between 400,000 and 600,000 visitors during the five-month run, it has not always endeared itself to critics in its past showings.

``The structure's interior, Mr. Colbert's domain, is Anne Rice by way of Pottery Barn, a setting worthy of induction rites for the cult of Isis,'' wrote Roberta Smith in The New York Times. ``The lights are low and the music eerie.''

And given the present location, that eerie music intermingles with the sound of trucks rattling along and motorcycle engines revving on Pacific Coast Highway. But Colbert, who calls the museum a work of art, inseparable from the works that hang within, says there'll be many more exhibitions in the vein of ``Ashes and Snow.''

``If Shigeru drives carefully and I don't get eaten,'' he said, without more than a touch of mirth, ``there'll be a lot more happening in the next 40 years.''

Brent Hopkins, [phone]

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

WHAT: ``Ashes and Snow''

WHERE: Adjacent to the Santa Monica Pier, Pacific Coast Highway at Colorado Avenue

WHEN: Opens today, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sundays, noon-7 p.m.; Tuesdays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays are open to groups by appointment.

COST: Adults, $15; seniors, $12; students, $10; children 6 and under, free; groups of 10 or more, $10 a ticket.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) Elephants bow down to an African child in artist Gregory Colbert's strange photographic-and-film exhibition.

(2 -- color) A Namibian grandmother, her grandchild and a lynx cradled in the woman's arms embrace in one of Gregory Colbert's photos.

(3) This photo shows artist Gregory Colbert joining three whales in an aquatic ballet.

(4) The Nomadic Museum, made of shipping containers and other recycled materials, houses the ``Ashes and Snow'' exhibit.

(5) Architect Shigeru Ban, left, and artist Gregory Colbert are the brains behind the exhibit next to the Santa Monica Pier.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)