(Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG) To Zuckerman, “Access to art is a basic human right – it’s not a privilege.” Heidi Zuckerman is the CEO and Director of the Orange County Museum of Art. The museum will offer free admission for the next 10 years, paid for by a $2.5 million gift from Newport Beach business Lugano Diamonds. In case there was still any doubt about who the new OCMA is for, Zuckerman hopes to lay that to rest. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG) Art for all The 53,000 square foot facility is opening at its new home on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. “They’e moving from what has been a largely invisible location for most of their history,” he said, “to a highly visible, prominent location that is already visited by hundreds of thousands of people annually.” Visitors look at exhibits during a media preview at the Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa, CA on Wednesday, September 28, 2022. The old museum had half the exhibit space of the new 53,000-square-foot building it didn’t have much parking even the entrance was hard to find, said Richard Stein, CEO of the independent nonprofit arts council Arts Orange County. ![]() That openness and accessibility are everything OCMA’s home at Fashion Island was not. “It’s something that’s about the community and it’s about engagement and it’s trying to be very overt about that.” The museum is “not something that’s this isolated, kind of ‘elitist’ thing,” Mayne said. Mayne said that over the 14 years it took to get to this point, he never worried the project wouldn’t get done and now he hopes people will think of OCMA as a gathering place, like a modern town square. A visitor walks on a suspended walkway at the Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa. Wandering through the building gives opportunities for discovery at every turn: on the lower level, one open, high-ceiling gallery flows into another an upper level catwalk offers views of the art displayed below unexpected windows show the undulations and angles of the building’s white terra cotta facade, complicating the perception of being indoors versus outdoors. The current display is by Oakland artist Alicia McCarthy, who painted wide, overlapping vertical and horizontal stripes in vibrant shades directly onto the wall. What to expect: A drumline procession mocktail hour choral and string ensemble performances curator tours dance party and silent disco late-night fireworks and movies sound bath and sunrise yoga Japanese tea ceremony short films for kids dance performance art-making activities gospel choir closing fireworks.Ī sweeping, open-air staircase falls away from the piazza and a larger-than-life sculpture by Los Angeles-born artist Sanford Biggers, offering a place to sit and relax that’s akin to Rome’s Spanish Steps.įrom the street level, the “window gallery” that faces Avenue of the Arts gives passersby a taste of what’s inside Zuckerman said she loved it when the other evening a couple of people walking their dogs waved to a group of donors getting an early look inside. Where: 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa The Orange County Museum of Art will celebrate the opening of its new, larger home at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts with a 24 hour event that’s free to attend. A rooftop piazza is lined with Palo Brea and Cathedral Live Oak trees that Mayne said will grow significantly taller, creating a sort of secret garden in the sky. Low walls that serve as seating can be found outside the museum. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG) Morphosis are the architects of the OCMA building. Thom Mayne, principal of Morphosis, at the new Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa, CA, on Wednesday, September 28, 2022. ![]() RELATED: Check out this visual of the museum’s layout. Mayne – who along with his Los Angeles-based architectural firm, Morphosis, designed the new building – said the intention was to create an open, transparent, inviting space that offers possibilities or helps people look at things in a new way. OCMA officials wanted to create a museum that puts out a welcome mat for everyone. While Orange County is home to art collectors and connoisseurs – a group of them founded the museum that became OCMA and are honored in one of its opening exhibits – they’re only a fraction of the people who live here. ![]() She is standing in the Avenue of the Arts Gallery that is visible from the street. Courtenay Finn is the chief curator at the Orange County Museum of Art. ![]() “You don’t need to know anything about art to come,” she says.
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