Collecting California Artist Craig Kauffman Passes Away

Artist, Craig Kauffman, who was featured in the recent Collecting California Exhibition, passed away earlier this week, on May 9th. He was 78. The cause was complications from pneumonia, following a recent stroke. Craig Kauffman was well loved by the Museum, and we are happy to have a few of his pieces in our collection in remembrance of his life and talent.

Craig Kauffman studied architecture at the University of Southern California and art at the University of California, Los Angeles, completing his MA in 1956. Initially an abstract painter, he was a regular exhibitor at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles. In 1964, he began experimenting with plastics using vacuum-forming technologies to create objects that were painted to appear ephemeral as they modulated the light around them.

The Museum recently displayed one of Kauffman's bubble pieces in Collecting California. Noted for their sensual colors and shapes, Kauffman’s bubbles in particular evade principles of conventional painting and sculpture. Aside from there being no brushstroke, the surface of the bubble is slick plastic. The bubble itself sits out from the wall in high relief, placing it more in the realm of an object than a painting, and despite its horizontal orientation, its bulging lozenge shape frustrates attempts to identify any traditional figure ground relationship.

Gallery owner and close friend of Craig Kauffman, Frank Lloyd, wrote a touching and heart-felt remembrance of the artist's life and accomplishments. Read the full article.

Craig Kauffman, Untitled, 1968, acrylic and lacquer on vacuum-formed Plexiglas. Laguna Art Museum collection.

Collecting California and Weathering the Storm Closing This Weekend

Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum and Jeremy Fish: Weathering the Storm have been on view for about three months now, but they are coming down this Sunday, January 17.

The two exhibitions have provided patrons with a wide array of California art from the early nineteenth century to the present time. The works of art range from traditional California impressionist paintings to images of cartoon-like figures commenting on today's society. The exhibitions offered something for everyone - no matter one's artistic preferences, there was certainly a piece that each patron could really enjoy.

A Conversation with Jeremy Fish (January 17 at 1:00 p.m.) is the final programmed event that will take place before the exhibitions close. Attendees of this event will be able to hear firsthand from the artist about his first museum exhibition. Jeremy is a fun guy with interesting and creative ideas. This event is sure to be engaging and thought provoking.

I'm a little sad to see the exhibitions close - it seems like opening night was just yesterday - but also excited for the Museum's upcoming events.

Auction 100 is taking place on February 6. This event will feature 100 works of art from 100 California artists, and will offer collectors an opportunity to purchase quality works at competitive prices.

You can preview the exhibition from January 30 to February 5. You may also view the online gallery. All works unsold will be available for purchase on February 7.

Tickets to the event are $125 for Members and $150 for non-members. All proceeds benefit the Museum's education and exhibition programs.

Also coming up is OsCene 2010, which will be on display from February21 - May 16 and will feature 49 artists from Orange County, Long Beach, and San Pedro. Included will be works of art in all media, such as painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, multi-media installations, video, and performance. OsCene 2010 has also collaborated with the OC Music Awards this year. During the exhibition, patrons will be able to visit listening booths in order to hear music from nominated musicians.

This is just a snapshot of exciting events coming up at Laguna Art Museum. For more events, visit our website. It looks like 2010 will be a great year at the Museum!

Laguna Art Museum Opens its Vaults

December 25, 2009 10:07 PM

By RICHARD CHANG

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Story Highlights

The current exhibition, 'Collecting California,' presents gems from the permanent holdings.

• Videos

There's a California that doesn't get discussed much amid talk about the economy, housing, health care, global warming and changes in the population.

California is still the creative capital of the West, if not the entire United States. Disney, the movie business, television, the surf and skate industries, and high-tech companies such as Apple all continue to have firm foundations here in the Golden State.

"Untitled, or In the Garden," c. 1922, by Mabel Alvarez. Oil on canvas. Promised gift of Nancy Dustin Wall Moure. On view at Laguna Art Museum through Jan. 17.

California's creative energy is also reflected in its visual art. Since the 1960s, Los Angeles and Southern California in general have risen to global status in the art world.

Through Jan. 17, the Laguna Art Museum is showcasing works from its permanent collection in "Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum." More than 80 artists are featured in the exhibit, which spans 150 years and takes up all of the museum's ground floor and basement galleries...

>> Click here to read more!

A Piece of Cake

A Piece of Cake by F. Scott Hess is currently on display in Laguna Art Museum's permanent collection exhibition Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum. This large painting is autobiographical, and records the events at a party which the artist attended.

Hess is a Los Angeles-based realist painter whose work explores vaired themes based on popular culture. Hess also bases many of his works on autobiographical material, but, according to the artist, few are as directly autobiographical as Piece of Cake (1986). Hess based the painting on the events at a party he attended in downtown Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. Late in the evening, an African American woman arrived at the party looking for a "friend," but clearly knew no one there. shortly after her arrival, she announced that she had been raped. Some of the few remaining partygoers offered her the last of the leftovers, a piece of cake, while other interrogated her with a variety of questions. Hess recalls, "The night was a racial, sexual whirlwind, and I knew in that moment it would be a painting." Hess went back to the apartment to capture the exact details of the kitchen and use the same party guests as models, but the artist invented the African American woman from his memory of the night's incident.

Hess notes, "My painting style at the time was rough, and the planes consisted of very active blobs of color laid down next to the others, sometimes compliments. The idea was the activate the surface, to make it writhe and seethe, as if heated from underneath. Then I'd set the viewer up in the air, in an impossible place, almost imposing vertigo. The intent was to leave the viewer in an unstable spot, suspended above this bubbling paint. I didn't want to soothe, but to disturb, with the hope of spurring the viewer to think more deepy about what they were looking at."

F. Scott Hess was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1955. In 1977, he received his bachelor of science in art degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1979, Hess moved to Vienna, Austria, where he studied for five years with the Austrian painter Rudolf Hausner, who has been credited as the first psychoanalytical painter. Through his artistic teaching experience in Vienna, Hess gained greater exposure to techniques of old master style painting, which profoundly influenced his work.

Jacqueline Bunge

Collecting California & Jeremy Fish Opening Night Reception Videos

The Collecting California and Jeremy Fish opening night party was so much fun. There was a great DJ, delicious food catered by Las Brisas, and, of course, fabulous art.

Opening night parties are exclusive events open to Museum Members only. Visit our website to learn more about Museum Membership, and how you can take advantage of special perks and deals!

Collecting California Opening Night Reception from LagunaArtMuseum on Vimeo.

Jeremy Fish Opening Night Reception from LagunaArtMuseum on Vimeo.

Kevin Ancell's Media Miracle

Kevin Ancell's Media Miracle is on exhibit in Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum . Read below to learn more about the artist and his work. Feel free to post your thoughts and comments!

Kevin Ancell was born in Santa Monica, California, in 1963. Homeless at the age of nine, Ancell was taken in by Craig Stecyk and other artists in Santa Monica. Recalling some of those early years, Ancell states, “Craig didn’t care so much how good you were, but what you were willing to do. He gave me my first paying job.”1 Finishing only seventh grade, Ancell would paint murals for schools, spray-paint surfboards, and graphic design work. Since the age of seven, surfing and skateboarding became significant outlets for Ancell. In discussing his work now, Ancell doesn’t consider himself a conceptual artist and says that he jumps all over the place. Influences for Ancell include old masters like Rembrandt and Caravaggio; contemporary artists like Barry McGee, Sandow Birk, Russell Crotty, Billy Al Bengston; and of course, Craig Stecyk. Ancell explains, “The old masters are really the big influences and Craig’s guerrilla attitude toward approach.”2

Media Miracle (1999) is loosely based on the notorious Maverick’s surf spot just north of Half Moon Bay, California, and painted in the style of the old masters. The two surfers in the painting are Matt Ambrose (left) and Shawn Rhodes (center), both famous surfers who have been surfing at Maverick’s for years. From the sky, angels descend upon the two surfers. They both appear perplexed, and Ambrose holds a rock in his right hand, skeptical of their presence, as if he views the angels as the oncoming corporate media. Two elder figures on the right, representing “the establishment,” try to offer Ambrose and Rhodes a contract and several pieces of gold, eager to get them signed on for endorsements. Media Miracle depicts a final moment before the commercialization of surfing.

~ Grace Kook-Anderson, Curator of Exhibitions at Laguna Art Museum

1. Kevin Ancell, interviewed by Grace Kook-Anderson, September 22, 2009.

2. Ibid.

Allison Schulnik's Performance (for James Ensor)

Allison Schulnik
Performance (for James Ensor), 2006
Oil on canvas, 96 x 136 inches
Museum purchase with funds from the Mark and Hilarie Moore Family Trust

This week's selection from Laguna Art Museum's permanent collection exhibition, Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum, is a contemporary piece by Allison Schulnik.

>> Let us know your thoughts on Schulnik's piece! Leave us a comment and you could win a Laguna Art Museum permanent collection postcard set!

Schulnik says, "I paint rejects, misfits and their landscapes. My fixation on these characters is not intended to exploit deficiencies, but to find valor in adversity. There is something honest and true about imperfection. Something real about the shunned outcast ... someone who chooses to stay outside the realm of normal society, or is forced there against his will."

In regards to her piece Performance (for James Ensor) Schulnik adds, "They are seemingly alternate/bizarro world creatures existing between the animal-like and otherworldly. Presented in the midst of an extravagant and sadistic dance, almost like a choreography composed by Pina Bausch, Jan Svankmajer, and George A. Romero (if they ever would've had the chance of working together), it is unclear if the dance is a theatrical composition or a violent reality ... one thing seems detectable: the rapture they feel in their performance."

>> Visit Schulnik's piece in the California Gallery to read more about Performance (for James Ensor) and to discover the story behind the name of the piece.

>> Click here to view one of Allison Schulnik's recent clamation videos.

>> Click here to read more about the exhibition and to view images from the opening night reception.

>> Make an Annual Fund gift today to support this and other works in the Museum's permanent collection!

Jim Isermann's Shag Painting from Collecting California

This work of art is featured in Laguna Art Museum's current permanent collection exhibition Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum, on view until January 17, 2010.

Jim Isermann was born in 1955 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He received a BFA at the University of Wisconsin in 1977 and his MFA at California Institute of the Arts in 1980. In the 1980s, Isermann created entire environments with rooms filled with furniture and decorative objects, all handcrafted. The contrast of moving from Wisconsin to California, and the experience of the modern architecture of the suburban, southern Californian landscape, influenced the environments he created. Isermann blends work done in the traditional sphere with the Bauhaus artists, influences from op art, and artists like Frank Stella and Larry Bell. In a succinct description of Isermann’s work, writer Dave Hickey states, “He may traffic in supergraphics and hot pink motel furniture, but Jim Isermann is, first and foremost, a California artist with Bauhaus tendencies, Minimalist agendas, and formalist precedents in the Abstract Classicism of John McLaughlin and Frederick Hammersley.”1

Untitled (Shag Painting) (1988), in the collection of the Laguna Art Museum, is the first painting in which Isermann used yarn that he hand-hooked. In this diptych, the left panel is a smooth enamel surface, with bold purple and orange swirls that encompass the entire panel. The background is divided by two colors, yellow and green. On the right panel, Isermann mirrors the form of the left with acrylic yarn, recalling the shag-carpet aesthetic that dominated domestic environments in the 1970s. Untitled (Shag Painting) creates a physical experience of movement that carries the tenuous balance of domestic and monumental scale.

~ Grace Kook-Anderson, Curator of Exhibitions at Laguna Art Museum

1. Dave Hickey, Jim Isermann: Utopia Now, ex. brochure (Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, 2002).

In the Garden, a featured work from Collecting California

In the Garden is a featured work in Laguna Art Museum's current exhibition Collecting California, which will be on view until January 17, 2010. Come see the work in person!

Mabel Alvarez was a modernist painter who was influenced by her study of Impressionism, Theosophy, and color theory. Her art may also be viewed as feminist and symbolist.

In the Garden depicts a modern woman: a 1920s flapper. The woman, whose face bears no emotion, is disconnected from the viewer and her surroundings, which burst with color, rhythm, and life.

OC Register article about Saturday's opening night party

via www.ocregister.com/laguna

November 09, 2009 11:19 AM

Laguna museum opens new exhibits

By CLAUDIA KOERNER

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

• Videos

LAGUNA BEACH – Art lovers, artists and donors celebrated the Laguna Art Museum's two new collections Saturday night.

"Collecting California: Selections from the Laguna Art Museum" and "Jeremy Fish: Weathering the Storm" opened to the public Sunday and will run through Jan. 17.

Chloe Martin and Alex Vekich are interns at the museum.

The main and lower levels of the museum feature historic and contemporary work from the museum's permanent collection by California artists. The museum is also publishing a book in conjunction with the exhibit. Upstairs, San Francisco-based Jeremy Fish's paintings, sculptures and a mural take center stage.

Laguna Art Museum

Where: 307 Cliff Drive

Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day

Tickets: $12 for adults and $10 for seniors, students or active military. Children under 12 are free.

More information: lagunaartmuseum.org or 949-494-8971

Preview The Pisser, a Featured Work in Collecting California

The Pisser, by Robert Arneson, is a work that will be featured in Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum, which opens this Sunday. Come to the exhibition to see this work of art in person! Want a chance to attend the exclusive opening night party on Saturday? Become a Member of the Museum. Become our Facebook fan and you could win two tickets to Saturday's event.

Robert Arneson was born in 1930 and began his artistic career as a newspaper cartoonist, yet he is best known for his contributions to the funk art movement of the 1960s and his work in ceramics. Arneson first began to work with clay during his tenure as a high school art teacher. He rejected the traditional use of the medium, choosing instead to mold the clay in a way that was more expressionist.

The Pisser, which was part of Arneson's Toilet series, is an example of his ceramic works of art. In response to critics' claims that he was influenced by Duchamp's Fountain, Arneson stated that "Duchamp did not make a toilet, he made an untoilet. It's about transformation...I wasn't transforming anything."

Arneson began teaching ceramics at the university level in 1962, and remained teaching and creating art until his death by cancer in 1992.

Featured Work of Art from Collecting California

View of Mountains in Ecuador was created by Norton Bush in 1868, and is one of the works of art featured in Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum, which opens this Sunday.

Norton Bush was an artist best known for his tropical landscape scenes of Central and South America. Bush was influenced by the Hudson River School painters and by luminists. Hudson River School paintings are characterized by a vast nature which makes man seem tiny and insignificant. Luminist paintings have no visible brushstrokes, play with the effects of light, and depict landscapes as paradises.

In 1853, Bush moved to San Francisco, where he received commissions from businessmen for tropical paintings. In 1868, he became sponsored by an art patron and traveled to Central America.

View of Mountains in Ecuador is an example of a tropical luminist painting. It depicts a small village surrounded by a tremendous landscape.

You still have a chance to win 2 invitations to this Saturday's opening party!

We've decided to extend our raffle drawing to this Thursday. Once we reach 700 Facebook fans, we'll randomly select one lucky fan, who will receive two invitations to this Saturday's opening night party. The party celebrates the upcoming exhibitions Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum and Jeremy Fish: Weathering the Storm, which open to the public on Sunday.
Become our Facebook fan and spread the word to your friends! By becoming our fan, you'll be sure to stay up to date with Museum news and events.

We have a winner!

We decided to launch a social media promotion where, once the Museum got 400 Facebook fans, one of those fans would be selected to receive 4 free admission passes to our next exhibitions, Jeremy Fish: Weathering the Storm and Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum.

Yesterday we reached our goal of 400 fans, and Andrea Damusis Memenas was randomly selected as our winner! She is "so excited" about her prize. I bet all of her friends and family will be extra nice to her in the coming weeks so that she'll invite them to go to the Museum with her!

We've now set our eyes on a higher goal: once we get 700 fans, one of them will receive invitations for him/her and a guest to attend the opening night party for Jeremy Fish and Collecting California. Opening night parties are normally exclusive events reserved for Museum Members, but one lucky winner will be able to enjoy the music, food, and drinks for free. They will also have the opportunity to meet with the curators and artists featured in the exhibitions.

Become our fan on Facebook to have the chance to win this cool prize, and to keep yourself updated on Museum events and exhibitions!

Become a Member of the Museum to receive invitations for all of our upcoming opening night parties, as well as other special perks.

Good news for some CA arts organizations

This is great news for some lucky arts organizations, as well as for those people who are looking for employment in the arts. via California Arts Council

Have an interest in California art and culture? Be sure to catch the Museum's permanent collection exhibition, Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum.

The California Arts Council announces agency's American Recovery & Reinvestment Act grants
Twenty-eight arts organizations statewide slated to receive funding for jobs

Published: 10-15-2009

The California Arts Council announces that twenty-eight organizations throughout the state are approved to receive funding for jobs through the agency's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. The Council approved the spending of $487,900 in job stimulus funds earlier this month. Other California arts organizations are approved to receive funding directly from the National Endowment for the Arts, regional, or local arts re-granting organizations.

The following organizations have been approved to receive ARRA funding from the California Arts Council -- given that the organization does not receive another ARRA-NEA grant from another source, and is able to fulfill the requirements of the grant agreement.

Community Works West, Inc. (Berkeley), $19,600
Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles), $20,000
Kulintang Arts, Inc. (San Francisco), $20,000
California Musical Theatre (Sacramento), $20,000
Center for LGBT Art and Culture (San Francisco), $18,000
Los Angeles Chamber Singers, Inc. (Los Angeles), $14,000
P.S. ARTS (Los Angeles), $16,640
Sierra Repertory Theatre (Sonora), $20,000
Venice Arts: In Neighborhoods (Venice), $20,000
About Productions, Inc. (Pasadena), $20,000
AXIS Dance Company (Oakland), $14,880
Eveoke Dance Theatre (San Diego), $20,000
Kearny Street Workshop (San Francisco), $18,720
LA Commons (Los Angeles), $15,000
Madera County Arts (Madera), $20,000
Oakland East Bay Symphony (Oakland), $10,000
Teatro Vision de San Jose (San Jose), $19,078
Arts Council for Monterey County (Carmel), $15,000
Media Arts Center San Diego (San Diego), $20,000
Mateel Community Center (Redway), $16,000
Merced County Arts Council, Inc. (Merced), $20,000
Plumas County Arts Commission (Quincy), $9,500
The Woodland Opera House (Woodland), $10,000
San Jose Multicultural Artists Guild (San Jose), $20,000
Robert Moses' Kin (San Francisco), $15,000
First Night Monterey, Inc (Monterey), $20,000
Galeria Studio 24 (San Francisco), $20,000
Kitka, Inc. (Oakland), $16,482

Curatorial Walk-Through on November 8

Join us for a personalized tour of Laguna Art Museum's permanent collection exhibition Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum on November 8 at 1:00 p.m. Members of the curatorial team, as well as participating artists, will be in attendance. This is a great opportunity to hear, from the experts, about the historical and contemporary art that will be featured in the exhibition.
Curatorial members include Susan Anderson, Janet Blake, Jacqueline Bunge, Bolton Colburn, Doug Harvey, Grace Kook-Anderson, and Tyler Stallings.

This event is free for Museum members. Not yet a member? Become one today!

For more information, contact Jackie Bunge at 949.494.8971 x 207.

Special Discount on Friend Level Membership!

In honor of its permanent collection exhibition, Collecting California, Laguna Art Museum is offering a discounted price on its Friend Level Membership. Take advantage of this limited-time offer today! Originally $125, now only $100!

Friend Level Membership includes:

>> Unlimited admission to the Museum for two adults and immediate family members under eighteen

>> An invitation for two to pre-exhibition opening receptions

>> A 10% discount in the Museum store (excludes special exhibition merchandise)

>> Free admission to exhibition-related lectures

>> The opportunity to join Museum councils

>> A subscription to the Museum's e-newsletter

>> Annual Members' Magazine

>> Museum library privileges

>> Membership at this level provides you access to the North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) Program.

When a member presents their membership card validated with a gold North American Reciprocal sticker at one of the participating museums, they are entitled to the following privileges at those museums:

- Free Member admission during regular museum hours
- Discounts on concert/lecture tickets
- Member discounts at museum shops

More than 300 museums across the U.S. and Canada currently participate in the program including 25 in Southern California alone! Click here to view a list of participating museums!

Purchase your Museum Membership online or contact Dawn Minegar, Membership Manager, at 949.494.8971 x203.

It's installation time at the Museum!

The Museum's next exhibitions, Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum and Jeremy Fish: Weathering the Storm, open on November 8. Now that the Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational is over, the preparators are busy with installing the new exhibitions in the galleries.
Some of the works of art have already been delivered, and it's neat to finally see them in person! I had only seen images of the art that will be displayed, and it's definitely different to view them up close and personal. Photographs surely do not do these works justice, especially in the cases of my two favorite pieces, Jim Isermann's Untitled (Shag Painting) and Frank Cuprien's The Golden Hour, Laguna Beach. Before viewing the work in person, I had no idea that Isermann's work is nearly 8 feet tall! Cuprien's work doesn't photograph very well; in person, the painting actually seems to glow and shimmer.
I haven't seen any of Jeremy Fish's works of art yet, but I'm sure they will also be wonderful.
Become a member of the Museum and you will be invited to the exclusive opening night party for these exhibitions!