Directions |

Check Cart

Southern California's premier modern and contemporary art museum.

visit

modern art museum orange county california

los angeles long beach contemporary art

visitors gallery

Congratulations to the 'Do It Yourself Activation' Contest Winner Peter Ganulin and runners-up, Joli Kishi and Sarah Wilkinson!

Alongside the artist, our lucky winner Peter will be at OCMA to activate a painting machine within the Richard Jackson artwork, Do It Yourself Painting (Still Life) 1998, Los Angeles County Museum Of Art on March 24 at 4:00pm. Come and cheer him on!

The Orange County Museum of Art announces the opening of a new interactive family space, titled the Visitors Studio, in conjunction with the special exhibition, Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy. The space is open to the public during all regular museum hours for the duration of the exhibition, April 10�September 4, 2011.

The 1,000 square foot interactive space was curated by the education department and designed to support and enhance the visitor experience. Lisa Silagyi, the museum�s Director of Education and Public Programs, explained that the space has been designed �in a deliberately low-tech way, using every day and recycled materials, in keeping with the spirit of Calder and the exhibition.�

This participatory space is for visitors of all ages to enjoy engaging in the process of making sculpture. Inside, there are seven distinct stations, including a response wall, stations for visitors to build sculptures out of yarn, paper and recycled materials, a pulley system with weights to employ the principles of balance, and a reading area. There is also a video monitor playing Calder�s Le Grande Cirque Calder, 1927.

From the Q&A Wall inside the Visitor's Studio: Question of the Month

Visitor Question: What does the hanging black form in your sculpture mean to you? (In reference to contemporary artist Martin Boyce's sculpture Fear Meets Soul)

Answer by artist Martin Boyce: In 1942, the American designers Charles and Ray Eames produces plywood leg splints for the U.S. Navy. Ray Eames came from an art background and she carved a number of sculptures from some of these leg splints. The black shape hanging from the mobile is a copy of one of Ray Eames' sculptures and it is cutr from and original 1942 leg splint. The wooden mask-like form on the mobile is also cutr from a leg splint, it is from the middle of knee section and the red steel bar replicates a leg from an Eames storange unit which was designed in 1949. The bar is bent and looks like it has been damanges or perhaps used to inflict damage.

I have always been fascinated with the form of the mobile, how each element requires the other to maintain its existence. I often equate it to how a memory funtions. You have fragments of recollection that aren't entirely stable but that together form an image of something. With the mobile Fear Meets Soul, you have a strange mask, a damaged piece of steel and a curious, almost figurative shape cut from wood, I thinkt he work has a noir-ish feel, there is something quite graceful about the balance but also something dark within the possible relationships between these objects. The leg splint itself as an object has of course a relationship with trauma; it was used to cradle and injured leg. For Ray Eames to find sucha a beautiful and organiz shape within a mass proiduces piece of medical equipment is amazing and I often have thought about it as how she perhaps revealed the soul of this object.
Submit your own questions on the Q&A wall inside the Visitor's Studio and it may just get selected as the question of the month!

Special thanks to Anna Brouwer, Nathan Carter, Kristi Lippire, Albert Lopez, Fatima Manalili, Glenn Peters, Brooke Rapaport, Dennis Szakacs, Anna Sanchez, Kirsten Schmidt and curator Lynne Warren for their contributions to this space.

Photos by ColinYoung-Wolff.com
Calder�s Circus � 2011 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art curator Lynne Warren and exhibiting artists Kristi Lippire and Nathan Carter answer visitor-submitted questions from the Visitor Response Wall within the Visitor's Studio.

View the Questions and Answers on the OCMA Facebook Fan Page!

2010 California Biennial on view October 23, 2010�March 13, 2011

Follow the 2010 CALIFORNIA BIENNIAL BLOG!

View footage from opening weekend of the 2010 California Biennial on YouTube!

Image: Curator Sarah Bancroft with a few of the 2010 California Biennial artists.

New Art for a New Century: Contemporary Acquisitions, 2000�2010 on view May 2�September 19, 2010

The comments and questions below were expressed by OCMA visitors in the museum's Feedback space during the New Art for a New Century exhibition. Some of comments/questions have been addressed by individuals that include curators art professionals, and artists. Also represented is some of the dialogue that has developed between visitors addressing each other's comments. The staff at OCMA thank these and the many other individuals who have take time to share their thoughts with the museum and we welcome more to visit the Feedback space to share their own comments on the exhibitions and the art world in general.

Comments taken from the OCMA Feedback space:

August Comments:

Visitor: Stay with buying photography. Much more interesting than this �New Art�!

Visitor: I�m questioning what makes these works significant (works on view in New Art for a New Century)? Why were these purchased? Or does it even matter if I just like looking at them.

OCMA Response: The museum�s collecting strategy is to acquire works by a diverse group of artists who represent California�s vital role in modern and contemporary art as well as current trends from around the country and across the globe. The museum is particularly interested in art that is new or innovative in its form or medium, thought provoking in its content. In this exhibition, the curator focused on the past ten years to present new an innovative art, and for the most part, works by artists who work in California; many of whom have relocated to the state from throughout the country or outside the U.S., thus addressing local, national, and global perspectives. These works also address the museum�s strategy to collect artwork that is thought provoking and judging by the divergent interpretations, questions, and comments currently posted in the Feedback space, this art does provoke.

Visitor: Very interesting and bizarre exhibits! I had a great time here today at the OC Museum.

Visitor: Filled with energy about how complicated life is with our fears, our wishes, what we know and what we hope to know and don�t want to know. The art makes me want to create art.

Visitor: Art is sometimes amazing and some what weird. But that�s what makes it interesting.

Visitor: I don�t understand art some of it�s pretty but most of it just took a lot of scribble scale.

Visitor: This place is cool. But I am not very into art. I am into fashion though. I think that when I become an adult, I will have more of a perspective, but for now, all I think, wow this place is cool, but when I grow up, I will appreciate this place more.

Visitor: I DON�T GET IT?

Visitor: Where are all of the Ansel Adams works?

OCMA Response: In the exhibition �15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol� the names indicate approximate �bookends� for the period of photography on view. It speaks to the collecting strategy of the museum�both modern and contemporary art�presenting works that span the 20th century and into the 21st as well.

Visitor: There are body parts that I don�t want to see.

OCMA Response: Throughout history and across the globe, artists have presented nudes in various ways. Some of the works on view maintain this aspect of human creativity.

Visitor: A bit of context would be nice; artist bio, curator�s comments. Why these ten over the last 10 years? Local, �important,� available?

OCMA Response : New Art for a New Century: Contemporary Acquisitions, 2000�2010 offers visitors this type of information through a specially developed Guide by Cell that includes an introduction by the exhibition curator, Karen Moss. On this dial-in audio guide, Moss gives an overview on the curatorial focus of the exhibition and it also includes 11 interviews by artists themselves, whose works are on view. Together, these 12 interviews give visitors in-depth insight into the exhibition. To access to the Guide by Cell, anyone may dial (949) 203-3053 to listen to the content.

Visitor: The power of the photograph! Wow. I�m blown away; so appreciate this interaction.

Visitor: In one of the rooms there�s a piece that looks like a jungle gym. Why is that there? It�s really weird, but the art�s great.

Visitor: I think that things like orange squares and blue circles shouldn�t be in an art museum.

Visitor: See, the art is fascinating. It is to me, but my little sister doesn�t because she is a three-year old and that her job being a three-year old. I love art!

July Comments:

Visitor: Hey OCMA, I'm a biker who rides a custom Harley, I'm not really into art. But some of this stuff is pretty cool. Makes me want to give art a second chance.

Visitor: I think I've been jacked, I've seen better pictures taken by a 2-year old! Signed, Ripped Off

Visitor 1: Don't buy art! Feed starving children so they can live to adulthood and BE ART.
Visitor 2: Buy art and feed starving children
Visitor 3: Starvation in kids = Bad; starvation in artists = Bad

Visitor: Why is the art here? What does it have to do with OC? How does it help explain/comment on what Orange County is? Does art in OC mean something different than art from OC?

Visitor: Really cool stuff! How come you never showed this stuff before? My favorite piece is the floating cyborg and the white brick. Great sculpture choices!

Visitor: Che betrayed his people!

Visitor: Does Kori Newkirk do commissions?

Visitor 1: All work but no art?
Visitor 2: A recipe for disaster
Visitor 3: and they wonder why things are the way they are
Visitor 4: thank you, OCMA. Your existence = our existence

Visitor: Lovely photos, but lack of creativity in the studio field. Which is completely opinionated, but I think art is more so with a brush than a camera. Very bold though, and mildly inspiring.

Visitor 1: Some of the art is very vulgar. There should be more censorship in art so things like this are not displayed. Signed, a concerned mother.
Visitor 2: Well, concerned mother, art isn�t always pretty flowers and rainbows. Maybe you shouldn�t have brought your kids. Beauty is vulgar. Signed, a bitchy teen.

Visitor: What you see mainly depends on what you look for.

Visitor: How come you can�t touch anything? The guards are so annoying!
Reply from OCMA: The gallery guards at OCMA (as in all museums) serve a very important role in the preservation of artworks. Many of the materials used by artists in their works are delicate and can be easily damaged. While performing other roles, such as a source of information for visitors, the guards must make sure that the artworks are safeguarded and that often means reminding visitors that works cannot be touched.

Visitor: Great show, great works. If this is the future of contemporary art and a contemporary art institution, then I�m excited!

15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol on view May 2�September 19, 2010

The photographs below were taken inside the museum's Photo Op photo booth installation as part of 15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol.

View the entire photo album on the OCMA Facebook fan page.

Thank you for posing!