FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 2014
Media contact: Kirsten Schmidt
(949) 759-1122 ext 207 ● [email protected]
Orange County Museum of Art Advance Exhibition Schedule
September 2014 - May 2015
NOTE: Exhibition dates and titles subject to change.
Please refer to www.ocma.net for updated information.
The Avant-Garde Collection
September 7, 2014–January 4, 2015
The Avant-Garde Collection traces the museum’s acquisitions across
five decades, with a specific focus on the evolving definition of avantgarde during that period. In the 1920s, Cubism was as adventurous
asmost artists could get, whereas, by 1950, abstract expressionsism
was the vanguard. In the 1960s it was cutting-edge to employ imagery
from popular culture. In the 1970s performance and installation were
the bywords of innovation. In the 1980s new media and appropriation
Vija Celmins, Eraser, 1967; acrylic
appeared on everybody’s radar for the first time, while the 1990s in
on balsa wood. 6 5/8 x 20 x 2 1/8
retrospect were mostly about identity politics and post-colonialism. Due
inches. Collection OCMA, gift of
Avco Financial Services, Newport
to the pluralist tendencies of the 21st century that make the notion
Beach, CA
of avant-garde seem quaint, the challenge for artists to produce work
that conceals the influence of generations past is more demanding than ever. Drawn entirely from
OCMA’s collection, the selection's underlying premise is to combine the retroactive gaze that enables
us to determine which artists transcended the avant-garde of their time and which did not, with an
historical effort to reconsider works that may have been visible in their heyday but have since slipped
from view, awaiting future scholarly reassessment.
The Avant-Garde Collection is organized by the Orange County Museum of Art and curated by Chief Curator Dan Cameron
and Curatorial Associate Fatima Manalili.
Tammy Rae Carland, I'm Dying Up Here
(Glitter Drapes), 2011; photograph; 30 x
40 in. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica
Silverman Gallery, San Francisco.
Alien She
February 15–May 24, 2015
Alien She is the first exhibition to examine the lasting impact of Riot
Grrrl on artists and cultural producers working today. A pioneering
punk feminist movement that emerged in the early 1990s, Riot Grrrl
has had a pivotal influence, inspiring many around the world to
pursue socially and politically progressive careers as artists, activists,
authors, and educators. Alien She focuses on seven figures whose
visual art practices were informed by their contact with Riot Grrrl at
critical junctures in their creative development. Most of these artists
work in multiple disciplines, such as sculpture, installation, video,
documentary film, photography, drawing, printmaking, new media,
social practice, music, writing, and performance—a reflection of the movement's artistic diversity and
mutability. The artists—Ginger Brooks Takahashi, Tammy Rae Carland, Miranda July, Faythe Levine,
Allyson Mitchell, L.J. Roberts, and Stephanie Syjuco—are each represented by several projects from
the past 20 years. With more than 900 objects, the exhibition includes sculptures, photographs, videos,
artists publications, drawings, and hundreds of self-published zines and hand-designed posters from
institutional and personal archives.
Alien She is organized by the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University. The national tour includes Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA
(March 7 – April 27, 2014); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA (October 24, 2014 – January 25, 2015); and the
Pacific Northwest College of Art: Feldman Gallery & Project Space, Portland, OR (September 3 – November 27, 2015).
Fred Tomaselli: The Times
February 15–May 24, 2015
Fred Tomaselli (b. 1956, Santa Monica, CA) has developed a
body of work with psychotropic properties; creating a pathway to
altering and rearranging our perceptions of reality. Over the course
of a career that begins in Orange County and spans three decades,
Tomaselli has transformed his daily life expierences and many
obsessions—gardening, birding, fly-fishing, recreational drugs—into
mind-bending, consciousness-expanding paintings. Fred Tomaselli:
The Times showcases approximately 70 works from his recent
series, The New York Times—surreal compositions that are
ruminations on the absurdity of news cycles and provide the artist
with a space to respond to a variety of issues from regional
Fred Tomasselli, Feb 11, 2009
anecdotes to global crises. In this brilliant time capsule of recent
(2014); collage, gouache, and
world events, Tomaselli intrepidly and colorfully reimagines the front
archival inkjet print on watercolor
paper; 8 ¼ x 10 ½ inches.
pages of newspaper with gouache and collage. Additionally, the
exhibition will feature several of the artist's resin paintings that draw
upon art historical sources as well as Eastern and Western decorative traditions to create mesmerizing
patterns that appear to grow organically across his compositions. The results are meticulously crafted,
richly detailed, deliriously beautiful works of both abstract and figurative art. Tomaselli received his
B.A. from California State University, Fullerton, and has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the
United States and Europe. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Fred Tomaselli: The Times was organized by University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's Museum of Art, in collaboration with
James Cohan Gallery, New York
Sunset Transplanted, 1976, ink, acrylic
paint and collage on offsetprinting on cardboard on hardboard; 15-1/2 x 21-1/4
inches. Collection OCMA, Gift of Ben
Wunsch
Dieter Roth
February 8–May 24, 2015
Swiss artist Roth (1930–1998) was internationally acclaimed as
one of the most inventive figures of the late 20th century art, and
OCMA is fortunate to possess a series of twenty-two small
painting executed in 1976, along with two drawings and three
print portfolios from the late 1970s that together, contain 26
lithographs and six serigraphs. For the first time since these
mixed-media paintings were acquired by the Newport Harbor Art
Museum in 1985, all of the paintings and drawings as well as a
selection of the prints, will be presented in the Snyder Gallery.
Dieter Roth is organized by the Orange County Museum of Art and curated by Chief Curator Dan Cameron.
MUSEUM INFORMATION
Orange County Museum of Art is located at 850 San Clemente Drive in Newport Beach, California. Hours are 11
am to 5 pm, Wednesday through Sunday, with extended hours Thursdays from 11 am to 8 pm. Admission is $12
adults; $10 seniors and students; children twelve and under and OCMA members are free. Parking is free. All
facilities are handicapped accessible. For more information, call 949.759.1122 or visit www.ocma.net.