By Tyler Stallings Walking into Amy Adler’s exhibition Nice Girl at the Orange County Museum of Art, curated by Heidi Zuckerman, OCMA’s CEO and Director, you immediately notice the cinematic arrangement of twenty-one identically sized paintings. They line the curved wall, evenly spaced, like frames from an analog film strip. Adler first came to prominence in the 1990s through a distinct process. She drew intricate representations from photographs, photographed these drawings, then...
orange county museum of art
Martin Creed and the Museum of Ice Creamification
Martin Creed: Work No. 3868 Half the air in a given space Orange County Museum of Art Newport Beach, CA By Chris Hoff Recently I was listening to the Art Angle podcast interview of Joshua Citarella, facilitator of the burgeoning online platform Do Not Research. In this wide-ranging conversation Citarella forecasts a total atomization of the art world where everything resembles Tik Tok and predicts the fall of institutions and museums. He argues that this fall of institutions will be brought...
Alice Neel: Feels Like Home at the Orange County Museum of Art
By Liz Goldner Kudos to OCMA for mounting an exhibition of Alice Neel’s artwork. The painter has been described by art critic Roberta Smith as, “equal if not superior to artists like Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon and destined for icon status on the order of Vincent van Gogh and David Hockney.” Residing most of her life in New York City, Neel (1900-1984), a feminist and bohemian, painted and socialized with people of color, gays, radicals, civil rights and political leaders, Warhol superstars,...
Chicano Artists and Friends at Santa Ana College
By Liz Goldner Gilbert “Magu” Luján was a visionary artist who helped define and promote Chicano art. The founder of the art collective, “Los Four”—which first exhibited Chicano artwork in 1973 at UC Irvine—wrote in 1969, “I believe there is a Chicano Art form and that it has been around for many years without formalization and recognition…Most Chicanos are aware of our current new breed renaissance which has flowered many investigations, probes and introspection in most areas of our life...
Getting Your OC Art Fix During the COVID-19 Pandemic
With the art world on lockdown, and with many of us desiring, even needing, to feed our art addictions, many visual and performing arts organizations throughout the OC are getting creative with how they remain relevant to the larger OC art scene. Luckily, many art organizations are offering opportunities for the public to still engage and enjoy art digitally, whether it be through live streaming, virtual tours, social media engagement, online art collection browsing, film screenings, videos of...
OC Art Blog Abroad: FMOCA Kyoto, Japan
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Kyoto, Japan during peak fall season. As I understand it the last two weeks of November are the prime time in Kyoto to visit temples, explore zen gardens, and take in the sight's and sounds of this unique city, while the local foliage burns red, yellow and orange. In between visits to the many breathtaking temples and gardens, we found some time to take an art break and check out the fairly new contemporary art museum in Kyoto, the Forever Museum of...
Ching Ching Chen at The Irvine Arts Center
Saturday night I made it to the opening of Re:Balance at the Irvine Arts Center. All around a great show but the stand out in the show was the work of Ching Ching Chen. I wanted to write something more detailed here but for the sake of transparency, I bought a piece from the show. That's how much I liked the work. As I was standing in front of one of the pieces from the Letting Go series, I overheard a couple behind me discussing the work. The woman said the work wanted to make her cry. I...
Where is Your Art World?
As I was watching the Price of Everything last night on HBO, the latest documentary to examine the white hot contemporary art market, I found myself one more time, in fascination with the art world. I love these sorts of documentaries, probably not for the reason the producers would hope for, because I imagine they would want me to walk away from this sort of project with a bit of amused skepticism, or exuberant cynicism. However, after this show was over, I was once again inspired, hopeful,...
Opening Day for Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy
Opening Day for Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy Sunday, April 10, 2011 Museum hours: 11 am-5 pm Free admission 11 am-4 pm Visionaries Free 2nd Sundays Art projects, exhibition tours, & special performances 1-1:30 pm Curator's Talk with Lynne Warren 1:30-3 pm Meet and greet with exhibiting artists 2-2:15 pm Artist talk with exhibiting artist Kristi Lippire 2:30-2:45...
The OC Art Blog was created in 2004 as a way to build community and promote the marginalized but dynamic Orange County art scene.
Latest Posts
Daisy Chain Fields Sets Bigger ‘Expectations’
By Maggie Luy Paper decor fluttered overhead as baby doll dresses and flower crowns filled the crowd. Women-owned vendors lined the walkways as festivalgoers moved through the sunlight, surrounded by bursts of color and music. That vibrant atmosphere captured...
The Tipping Point: Einar and Jamex de la Torre at the Laguna Art Museum
By Mason Fujikawa The Tipping Point is a two-story installation at the Laguna Art Museum by Einar and Jamex de la Torre. The de la Torre brothers, glassblowers by trade, are prolific mixed-media artists who have exhibited internationally for over thirty years. Born in...
42nd Irvine Annual Takes a Closer Look
By Maggie Luy Take another step and lean in. Ordinary objects reveal deeper stories than they first appear to hold. From delicate threads woven into a portrait to bold images capturing moments of social change, the 42nd Irvine Annual transforms familiar...
Nothing But Net: From Hoop Dreams to Art Scenes at Great Park Gallery
By Maggie Luy Where does the game end, and the art begin? A basketball court is usually defined by rules and competition. In “GAME! Basketball and Contemporary Art,” that definition expands as the court becomes a surface for design and intervention. The...
The Machine in the Studio: OC Artists and Gallerists Reckon with AI
By Chris Hoff There’s a particular kind of vertigo that comes with watching a technology arrive faster than the culture can metabolize it. Photographers felt it in the 1840s. Painters felt it again when Photoshop showed up. Now it’s AI’s turn, and the stakes feel...
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