COSTA MESA, CA (September 28, 2022)—A new cultural landmark for modern and contemporary art, the Orange County Museum of Art, led by CEO and Director Heidi Zuckerman, will open in its new home on the campus of Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California on October 8 with a 24-hour celebration. Giving OCMA a more central location within Southern California than it has ever had before, the new building, designed by Morphosis under the direction of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne and Partner-in-Charge Brandon Welling, offers the museum increased exhibition galleries, dedicated education space, and open public areas with which to enrich the lives of a diverse and changing community through modern and contemporary art. Further advancing its public mission, OCMA will offer free general admission for the next ten years, generously sponsored by Lugano Diamonds.
After holding a ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony on October 7, to be attended by civic and cultural leaders, OCMA’s 24-hour party for the public will begin at 5 PM on October 8. In addition to enjoying performances, film screenings, art making workshops, and much more, the public will be welcome to tour the new museum and explore its inaugural exhibitions. These include the California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold, a Fred Eversley survey, a project on landscape architect Peter Walker, a newly commissioned outdoor sculpture by Sanford Biggers, and an exhibition curated from OCMA’s permanent collection to honor the thirteen women who founded the museum 60 years ago.
Craig Wells, President of OCMA’s Board of Trustees, said, “I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate our 60th anniversary than by inaugurating this magnificent new building with an around-the-clock open house for everyone, including the many new members we welcome into our OCMA family.”
Lucy Sun, incoming Board President, said, “Heidi Zuckerman and OCMA’s curators have put together a brilliant and wide-ranging program to open our new home. These five exhibitions pay tribute to our illustrious past, while offering a glimpse of what people can expect from the new OCMA.”
“We welcome all to our new home,” Heidi Zuckerman said. “We believe access to art is a basic human right, and so our new building beckons the many communities of Orange County and beyond to come and explore and make art a part of their lives.”
Accoding to Thom Mayne and Brandon Welling, “The OCMA design represents a new model for museums based on public, urban, communal spaces with strong connections between interior and exterior. Engaging the urban realm with a public stair and ‘storefront’ galleries, the design invites visitors through sunlit atrium spaces, open galleries and an expansive sculpture terrace. The strong relationship in the building between indoor and outdoor space will encourage visitors to immerse themselves in the celebrated climate of Southern California, where light, air, and space have influenced generations of artists.”
OPENING EVENTS
The opening celebrations for the new OCMA began on September 27, 2022 with the Million Dollar Donor Dinner, chaired by Jennifer and Anton Segerstrom and sponsored by Cartier. This was the first event on the completed site and acknowledged the generosity of lead donors.
OCMA’s Art Sense Opening Gala will take place October 1, 2022 and will honor artist Sanford Biggers. The second annual Art Sense Gala held at the site of the museum’s new home, it is chaired by Jennifer Segerstrom, co-chaired by Lisa Merage, and welcomes back to OCMA Master Sommelier Jay Fletcher and DJ Dylan Regan. OCMA’s Art Sense Opening Gala is presented by lead sponsor South Coast Plaza. Cultured magazine is the media partner. Proceeds will help support the museum’s wide-ranging activities including its innovative exhibitions and educational programs.
An Artist & Artworld Opening Party on October 3, 2022 will welcome artists and guests from the local, national and international art scene to OCMA’s new home.
OCMA members will have exclusive pre-opening access to the museum from October 4 to 7. These special members-only days will allow supporters to see the completed museum and its inaugural exhibitions in advance of the October 8 opening. For information on membership, visit here.
The civic dedication ceremony will take place at 10 AM on October 7, 2022. The program will include remarks by California State Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, Orange County Supervisor for the 2nd District Katrina Foley and Costa Mesa Mayor John Stevens, as well as Craig Wells, Heidi Zuckerman, Thom Mayne, and OCMA Trustee and Partner at South Coast Plaza Anton Segerstrom.
The museum’s 24-hour party, which officially opens the new space, will begin at 5 PM on October 8, 2022, with a celebratory drumline procession down Avenue of the Arts. This non-stop open house will feature activities including exhibition tours, a rooftop dance party with KCRW’s Jason Bentley, fireworks, a late-night silent disco, art making, “Movies for Insomniacs” programed with Frida Cinema, and sunrise yoga. Special art-themed performances will be offered by Pacific Chorale, Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Pacific Symphony, OC Gospel Choir, and students from the Orange County School of the Arts. For more information and a complete schedule of events and activities visit OCMA.art. The media sponsors for this event are KCRW, Orange County Register and Travel Costa Mesa.
OPENING EXHIBITIONS
OCMA’s new 53,000-square-foot home offers 25,000 square feet of gallery space for an inspiring and distinctive exhibition program. Demonstrating the ambitions of the museum and celebrating its history, OMCA will inaugurate the building with five special exhibitions.
A wellspring of innovation, the California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold (October 8, 2022– February 26, 2023), on view in The Anton and Jennifer Segerstrom Permanent Collection Pavilion and The Avenue of the Arts Gallery, explores the richness of the state’s expansive and diverse creative communities. OCMA’s biennial first began in 1984 and defined the spirit of the institution for decades, exemplifying the museum’s history of presenting new developments in contemporary art while identifying emerging artists on the verge of national and international acclaim. At its inception, the California Biennial was the only regular survey of contemporary art in California, and since then has presented the work of more than 300 artists.
This year’s biennial is organized by former OCMA curator Elizabeth Armstrong—who led the 2002, 2004, and 2006 iterations—with Essence Harden, Visual Arts Curator at the California African American Museum, and Gilbert Vicario, Chief Curator at the Phoenix Art Museum. The exhibition features 19 artists from across the state. From the high desert to the oceanside of Bolinas and Monterey through the dense metropolises of Los Angeles and San Francisco, the collection of artists reflects on California and its unique place in the American imagination. Revisiting mythical stories and reimagining California as a changing land, California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold presents a set of distinctive voices, which question, challenge, and animate the past while looking to the future.
The more than 60 works in the biennial cover a range of disciplines including ceramics, painting, sculpture, textiles, mixed-media, video and large-scale installations. Continuing its long tradition of commissioning new work by artists, the exhibition includes a number of works created especially for the presentation including a site-specific large-scale painting in The Avenue of the Arts Gallery by Oakland-based artist Alicia McCarthy. Exemplifying how the museum’s collection draws from its exhibition program, two of the artists in the Biennial—Lily Stockman and Claire Rojas—have works that intersect with the collection exhibition, 13 Women, underscoring the museum’s long history of acquiring works from previous biennials.
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
In its new home, the museum will be able to present exhibitions drawn from its important and distinctive collection while continuing to offer a schedule of major temporary exhibitions.
The design features flexible gallery spaces that can house temporary and permanent collection exhibitions spanning a variety of scales and media, a spacious upper plaza roof terrace for exhibitions and events, and a performance and education hall filled with natural light.
In a nod to the steps at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a set of grand stairs serves as a gathering place for visitors. The upper plaza, equivalent in size to 70% of the building’s footprint, serves as an extension of the galleries, with open-air spaces that can be used for installations, programs, and events. Hovering over the soaring, light-filled lobby atrium is an inspiring and dynamic architectural space for performance and education illuminated by a dramatic window overlooking the upper plaza and grand stairs. The lower stairs on the outside of the building curve toward the entrance, linking the museum to Segerstrom Center for the Arts, its Julia and George Argyros Plaza and the adjacent performing arts venues while creating an inviting gathering space for pedestrians and visitors.
A façade of light-colored, undulating bands of glazed terracotta paneling creates a distinctive character for the new building, playing off the forms and language of neighboring works of architecture.
OCMA STORE AND VERDANT CAFÉ
OCMA’s café, Verdant, is located on the museum’s second level and includes The Sweet James Bergener Bar. Its menu will offer a fresh, innovative, plant-forward offerings that highlight the bounty of local and seasonal produce available in Southern California. Verdant and a coffee bar located on the museum’s first floor are being developed by Executive Chefs Ross Pangilinan and Nick Weber with General Manager Alyssa McDiarmid. Chef Pangilinan will also oversee catering services for events at the museum’s new site, which includes the Chalmers Pavilion event space.
Verdant will seat 75 guests and be open for lunch service 6 days a week (closed on Mondays). In addition to its menu of California cuisine, Verdant will offer gourmet coffees and teas, including ceremonial-grade matcha, and feature a full bar with a carefully curated wine list and craft cocktails. The café space, designed by Morphosis, will provide visitors with a chic and joyful dining experience in a bright and creative setting.
The MIND, the museum’s store, will be operated by Emmanuel Renoird and Nicolas Libert, creators of the concept store Please Do Not Enter. The store will open within OCMA’s lobby in a retail space named for OCMA donors Bill Witte and Keiko Sakamoto.
The MIND is meant to stimulate visitors’ thoughts and imaginations, providing a unique shopping experience while featuring glimpses into the museum’s first floor galleries and the natural light streaming from the lobby’s atrium. It will feature a distinctive selection of vintage and artist- designed products, some of which will be shown on a sculptural display piece by LA-based artist Sébastien Léon whose design references the museum’s architecture. Made of mirror-polished stainless-steel scales, the piece was conceived in response to the terra-cotta tiles that cover the exterior and parts of the interior of the new building. The sculpture will play a hypnotic soundtrack that Léon composed in collaboration with musician and producer Joshua Carter of Phantogram.
Team:
Architects: Morphosis
Design Director: Thom Mayne
Partner in Charge: Brandon Welling
Project Architects: Aaron Ragan, Crystal Wang
Project Designers: Tom Day, Daniel Pruske
Project Team: Ilaria Campi, Austin Griffis, Salvador Hidalgo, Zach Pauls, Stan Su, Natalia Traverso Caruana, Abagael Warnars
Advanced Technology: Cory Brugger, Joseph D'Oria, Kerenza Harris, Atsushi Sugiuchi
Project Assistants: Lily Bakhshi Sheppard, Lauren Buntemeyer, Stanley Cho, Jerome Deck, Rachael Dippel, Val Fan, Colleen Fellows, Fredy Gomez, Mauricio Gomez, Marie Goodstein, Alessio Grancini, Maria Herrero, Ibrahim Ibrahim, Darlene Ifeorah, Ilko Iliev, Eric Meyer, Nicole Meyer, Elizabeth Miller, Samuel Naylor, Carolyn Ng, Rory Noble-Turner, Liana Nourafshan, Danny Ortega, Max Ostrow, Madelyn Rosen, Colton Stevenson, Patrick Witthaus
General Contractor: Clark Construction Group
Visualization: Jasmine Park
Structural Engineer: John A. Martin & Associates
MEP Engineer & Sustainability: Buro Happold
Civil Engineer:KPFF
Lighting Designer: Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design，TM Light
Fire Life Safety Engineers: Simpons Gumpertz & Heger
Cost Estimator: Dharam Consulting
Landscape Architecture: OJB Landscape Architecture
Signage / Graphics: Follis Design,Weidner CA
Acoustics Engineer: Newson Brown Acoustics
Audiovisual / IT: Waveguide
Security: Exante 360
Façade Consultant: Walter P Moore
Specifications: Construction Specifications Inc.
Commissioning: Integrated Commissioning Solutions
Projection: VT Pro
Geotechnical Engineer: Leighton Consulting
Text: written by Polskin with some input by morphosis.
Photographers: ofstudio, Jasmine Park, Mike Kelley
Materials used:
Structural Concrete: Coan Construction Company
Electrical / Telecom / Fire Alarm: AJ Kirkwood & Associates Inc.
Mechanical and Plumbing: Pan Pacific Mechanical
Framing / Drywall / Plaster: Infinity Drywall Contracting
Ceilings: Martin Integrated
Fabric Ceiling: Fabric Wallcraft
Steel Fabricator: Southwest Steel & Beck Steel
Steel Erector: Pro Steel Erectors, Inc.
Polished Concrete: Shaw & Sons
Glazing: Roschmann Group
Terracotta / Metal Panels / Roofing & Waterproofing: Best Contracting Services, Inc
Ornamental Metals & Railings & Misc. Metals: Washington Ironworks
Landscape & Irrigation: American Landscape
