LAGUNA ART MUSEUM’S FALL LINE-UP OF EXHIBITIONS FEATURING LOS ANGELES ARTISTS ADAM SILVERMAN, RICHARD KRAFT, AND TANYA AGUÍÑIGA COMPLEMENTS MUSEUM’S NEW ART & NATURE EVENT
LAGUNA BEACH, CA (July 29, 2013)—Laguna Art Museum recently announced plans for its first annual Art & Nature event, which will take place November 7-11, 2013. Both a conference and a festival, Art & Nature will bring California artists of all kinds together with art historians, cultural historians, scientists, environmentalists, geographers, and other thinkers to share ideas and information about art in its engagement with nature. To complement this event, the museum’s fall exhibitions will be nature-themed and feature three Los Angeles-based artists: Adam Silverman, Richard Kraft, and Tanya Aguíñiga.
Opening on October 27, 2013 is Adam Silverman: Clay and Space (on display on the museum’s main level), and ex·pose: richard kraft (on display in the museum’s lower level galleries). Both exhibitions will be on display through January 19, 2014. Sea Change: Tanya Aguíñiga’s Bluebelt Forest, which is currently on display in the museum’s upper level gallery, will remain open through May 18, 2014. In addition, the museum will feature nature-themed works from its permanent collection, including historic California impressionist landscape paintings by Frank Cuprien, Edgar Payne, and William Wendt, among others.
ADAM SILVERMAN: CLAY AND SPACE
October 27, 2013-January 19, 2014
In his first museum exhibition, renowned potter Adam Silverman creates a series of installations ranging from displays of his pots in various settings to video pieces. The theme that runs through Adam Silverman: Clay and Space is the relation of art to nature. Silverman brings to his pottery both an architectural sensibility and a keen response to natural forms and materials—the spiral growth of sea shells, the textures of coral and barnacles, the rhythms of the tide, waves and seaweed, clay and wood.
The exhibition coincides with the publication by Skira Rizzoli of the first book on Silverman’s work, Adam Silverman Ceramics. “Adam Silverman’s pottery thrives on duality,” writes artist Shepard Fairey in the book’s foreword. “ Beautiful and ugly, refined and unpredictable, resolved and organic . . . His pots and sculptures are a harmony of contrasts in the search for perfect imperfection.”
Silverman’s passion for clay began 25 years ago at the University of Colorado. He continued his education at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he studied architecture, art, and design. He moved to Los Angeles in 1988 and practiced architecture before co-founding X-Large and X-Girl clothing. He has worked full-time as a potter since 2002, exhibiting widely in the U.S. and Japan. Since 2008 he has been studio director of Heath Ceramics.
EX·POSE: RICHARD KRAFT
October 27, 2013-January 19, 2014
In the fifth exhibition in Laguna Art Museum’s ex•pose series, Los Angeles-based artist Richard Kraft presents a new body of work. Combining a succession of films he has made since summer 2012, he will create an installation fully surrounding the viewer. Although there are several locations—Los Angeles, New York, and India—the collective experience is less about particular geographic locations than about a state of being and the multifaceted wonder of seeing. Anchored by a set of images from the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, the films contrast and complement each other, constantly shifting while creating a visual thread of interconnected life forms. Because of the varying length of the films and the multiple locations of the projections, no single viewer will be able to take in the entirety. The complete experience is an accumulation of viewings over time. A new departure for Kraft, the exhibition continues his exploration of the possibilities of film, photography, collage, and performance.
Richard Kraft grew up in London and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. His work has been featured at Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles; LA Louver in Venice Beach; Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Santa Monica; Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska; and the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon. Kraft frequently uses public spaces for his installations and performances and has a public project in the works with the City of West Hollywood tentatively scheduled for fall 2014. Also in 2014, Siglio Press will publish an artist’s book by Kraft, a collage work based on the Cold War-era Polish comic Kapitan Kloss.
ex·pose is a contemporary art program curated by Grace Kook-Anderson, curator of contemporary art at Laguna Art Museum. Focusing on one emerging or mid-career artist at a time, the program encourages the development of new projects and an immersive involvement with the museum’s Young Artists Society Gallery program. ex·pose aims to present a diverse range of artists working in all mediums.
In conjunction with ex·pose: richard kraft, Laguna Art Museum has partnered with Thurston Middle School in Laguna Beach to present The World is a Knot in the Young Artists Society Gallery. Curator of Education Marinta Skupin and art teacher Linda Erickson collaborated on a series of lessons in which students learned about the history of collage and studied the work of Richard Kraft. Students then spent a number of weeks creating their own collages inspired by Kraft’s use of play and imagination to fuse connections between unexpected things.
SEA CHANGE: TANYA AGUÍÑIGA’S BLUEBELT FOREST
June 2, 2013-May 18, 2014
In June, the museum opened a site-specific ocean-themed installation by Los Angeles artist Tanya Aguíñiga in its upper level gallery. Aguíñiga has transformed the space into a forest of kelp, corals, barnacles, and other fantastic creatures that one would typically find under the sea just off the coast of Laguna Beach. Every object in the exhibition was hand-made by the artist and her assistants, using a variety of materials and textiles. By recreating these organic elements using unexpected, manmade materials, Aguíñiga enables the viewer to experience them anew. In addition to looking, visitors are able to explore the exhibition through touching, allowing for a truly immersive encounter.
Aguíñiga works at the intersection of furniture design, craft making, and fine art. The ability to successfully navigate between different worlds is something that she attributes to having grown up in the border area of Tijuana and San Diego, where she had to cross the border and move between cultures on a daily basis throughout her childhood. Just as Aguíñiga has been doing in her personal life, she inhabits more than one world through her work.
Aguíñiga (b.1978) received her BA in Furniture Design from San Diego State University and her MFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. Among the awards she has received are United States Artists Fellow and USA Target Fellow in Crafts and Traditional Arts. She has also been involved in a numerous community empowerment projects, including the Border Art Workshop (BAW/TAF), a collaborative of artists from Mexico and the U.S.
ART & NATURE
November 7-10, 2013
The museum’s fall exhibitions Adam Silverman: Clay and Space, ex·pose: richard kraft, and Sea Change: Tanya Aguiñiga’s Bluebelt Forest complement the museum’s new Art & Nature initiative, which takes placeNovember 7-10, 2013. Both a conference and a festival, Art & Nature will bring California artists of all kinds together with art historians, cultural historians, scientists, environmentalists, geographers, and other thinkers to share ideas and information about art in its engagement with nature.
In addition to the special exhibitions and related selections from the museum’s collection, the weekend-long event will include a commissioned Land Art work by Jim Denevan on Laguna Beach’s main beach; a keynote address by Kevin Starr, the renowned historian of California; panel discussions; artists’ talks and performances; and children’s programs.
Slated to be an annual event, Art & Nature will serve a number of purposes: to provide a festival of art and ideas for the community; to inspire artists; to offer scientists a sense of what their work means in the wider culture; to find and develop connections between art and science; to raise awareness of environmental issues; and to celebrate Laguna Beach as a center for the appreciation of art and nature.
The theme of Art & Nature speaks particularly to the identity of Laguna Beach, which for over a hundred years has been a center for art, the appreciation of nature, and environmental awareness. In 1929, when the Laguna Beach Art Association built an art gallery to show and sell their work, they chose a commanding location on the coastline close to the natural wonders they loved to paint. The present museum occupies the same site. There could be no more appropriate venue in which to explore the art-nature connection.
Art & Nature is made possible by the generous support of the Draper Family Foundation Fund and an anonymous donor.
ABOUT LAGUNA ART MUSEUM
Laguna Art Museum is a museum of California art. Its mission is to collect, care for, and exhibit works of art that were created by California artists or represent the life and history of the state. Through its permanent collection, its special loan exhibitions, its educational programs, and its library and archive, the museum enhances the public’s knowledge and appreciation of California art of all periods and styles, and encourages art-historical scholarship in this field.
Laguna Art Museum stands just steps from the Pacific Ocean in the beautiful city of Laguna Beach. The museum is proud to continue the tradition of the Laguna Beach Art Association, founded in 1918 by the early California artists who had discovered the town and transformed it into a vibrant arts community. The gallery that the association built in 1929 is part of today’s Laguna Art Museum.
LOCATION
Laguna Art Museum is located at 307 Cliff Drive in Laguna Beach, on the corner of PCH and Cliff Drive, next door to Las Brisas restaurant.
HOURS
Monday-Tuesday, Friday-Sunday: 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Thursday: 11:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Closed Wednesday
Closed New Year’s Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day
PRICES
$7.00 general admission
$5.00 students, seniors, active military
FREE for children under 12 and museum members
FREE the first Thursday of every month from 5:00-9:00 p.m. during the Laguna Beach First Thursday Art Walk
TOURS
The museum offers complimentary docent-led tours every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 11:00 a.m. one week after an exhibition opens. No reservations are necessary. Audio tours can be accessed on any smartphone at www.LagunaArtMuseum.org. Patrons without smartphones can rent an iPod Touch for free at the museum’s front desk.
MEDIA CONTACT
If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact Marni Farmer, Director of Communications at Laguna Art Museum, at 949.494.8971 x208 or at mfarmer@lagunaartmuseum.org.
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