The OC Art Blog was created in 2004 as a way to build community and promote the marginalized but dynamic Orange County art scene.

  After attending the openings for “Hell Hath No Fury” at Rothick Art Haus in Anaheim and “Heaven’s on Fire” at Artists Republic for Tomorrow in Laguna Beach, both this past Saturday night, I was like, “fuck, YEAH!!” Well, it was late and I was pretty exhausted from so much good art intake, so I didn’t yell it out loud or fist pump or anything, but the emotion was totally there. Aside from being inspired by the caliber of work generated and exhibited in this fair County, I...

21 September, 2012 /

  Nomads have no history, they only have geography. – Gilles Deleuze   French poststructuralist Gilles Deleuze described himself as a philosopher of geography. Deleuze preferred metaphors of territory and with Felix Guattari developed the concept of lines of flight. Lines of flight could be considered shifts in the trajectory of a narrative that escape a force or power. Deleuze & Guattari where interested in diagraming these lines of power and maybe more interested in finding places of mutation where power could bend and lines of flight to...

06 September, 2012 /

Upon entering artist Michael Giancristiano's newly-minted Santa Ana workspace, you are greeted by the renowned collection of cylindrical plywood sculptures rising in various heights and circumference from the concrete floor in a scattered formation, The Pits of Despair: Regret, Uncertainty, Credit Card Dept, and the smaller works in between entitled "Empty People". As pits go, they are incredibly beautiful, hard to miss and it is not until you are peering directly into them that you are struck with "pit-like" foreboding. Even then it is a conversational...

02 September, 2012 /

 As the new art season is set to begin the OC Art Blog will be doing several Gallery Spotlight's introducing our readers to our many exciting local gallery's and their respective programs. First up is an interview with Brett Rubbico who opened Brett Rubbico Gallery in 2009. Brett Rubbico Gallery will be opening an exhibition of work by David Michael Lee on Saturday September 8th. The opening will run from 7 to 10pm. We hope to see you there. Now the interview: OCAB:  Why don’t we...

01 September, 2012 /

Santa Ana, CA  Grand Central Art Center is known by most Orange County residents as an artistic hub for contemporary art and culture. They have been turning out great contemporary exhibitions for years, but recently had a programming shift with new Director, John Spiak. Their once heavily pop-surrealist galleries now take the lead for OC in their new abstract and conceptual art obsessions. If you're not into conceptual art or abstract art, go ahead and click off, because this blogger friggin loves it. Grand Central Art...

31 August, 2012 /

The legendary music of 1930s jazz virtuoso Django Reinhardt is alive and well in Orange County… if you know where to look. Long Beach-based Gypsy jazz band Hedgehog Swing plays every first and third Wednesday at the Gypsy Den in downtown Santa Ana, along with members of the Orange County-based Gypsy jazz band Riff Raff. Riff Raff have hosted this event for many years, leading the song choices on the first Wednesday of every month, with Hedgehog Swing hosting every third Wednesday. Their lively jazz...

28 August, 2012 /

Santa Ana, CA. If you are a regular Santa Ana visitor, then you may have heard of or been to The Road Less Traveled Store when it was on Main Street, just off the 5 freeway. But the once easily ignorable RLT store has been newly revamped in it's new home the Artist's Village in downtown Santa Ana. The RLT store started in 2005 as the brainchild of Delilah Snell, who wanted to see something different in her Orange County community. Snell rented a 500-sq. ft....

13 August, 2012 /

I arrived to shut down streets with blinking police barricades. Somewhat imposing, I hoped for barely managed chaos. I parked and wandered into a relatively un-crowded Museum Plaza. Fullerton’s own, the Adolescents, one of the best punk bands to come out of southern California were playing in their hometown to a few hundred well-outfitted punk rockers. I had anticipated a much larger crowd and had expected to a struggle to get near the front of the stage, always my preferred spot. Having had a rough week, I...

07 August, 2012 /

I began writing this music blog at a time in my own music career- in between albums and right about to turn 30 years old- when I have felt myself changing, growing, and reassessing why I do what I do. My ulterior motive for writing was to get out of my head, my studio, and my everyday life to ask other musicians how they have gotten to where they are and how they have faced whatever struggles they have encountered. I wanted to learn from...

26 July, 2012 /

Laguna Beach, CA  Laguna Art Museum kicks off its new contemporary art program ex·pose with an exhibition of works by Peter Bo Rappmund (b. 1979). This is Bo Rappmund’s first solo exhibition at a museum. Working mainly in film, video, photography, and sound, he is showing several photographs, along with three films: Psychohydrography (2010, HD, color, sound, 60 minutes); Vulgar Fractions (2011, HD, color, sound, 30 minutes); and Tectonics (2012, HD, color, sound, 60 minutes). This exhibition is the world premiere of Tectonics. Bo Rappmund’s working process is a lengthy one, recording...

13 July, 2012 /

[caption id="attachment_4179" align="aligncenter" width="406" caption="Baldessari leaves MOCA board"][/caption] NEWS.  On Thursday, July 13, 2012, renowned artist, John Baldessari resigned from his post on the board of trustees at MOCA. Baldessari's exit is the fifth MOCA board member to leave since February. "His exit after 12 years is another signal that the old guard of L.A.'s contemporary art scene has grown disenchanted with its direction under Deitch," according to LA Times writer, Mike Boehm. Baldessari told LA Times that his reasons include the recent ousting of respected chief curator...

13 July, 2012 /

One year ago almost to the day, we published an interview with Finishing School that was conducted by Joanna Grasso during the opening week of the 2011 Venice Biennale. FS was there in Italy working on their film, 54. Now, here we are talking with them about the same project but different Venice Biennial. I recently caught up with Finishing School members Brian Boyer, Ed Giardina, Jason Plapp, and their newest collaborator Devon Tsuno. They are currently collaborating on a three-panel mural for the Hammer Museum’s Venice Beach Biennial, a project within...

07 July, 2012 /

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." If you have had any contact with the Orange County art scene over the past decade then you know what ISM: a community project is, what they do, why they do it and who they are. Right? Well, partially. In the spirit of the above saying by Abraham Lincoln, ISM is as an organization as elusive and open-ended...

06 July, 2012 /

         NEWS TODAY-- Apparently, long time curator at MOCA (pictured above) was fired last night. According to the Los Angeles Times, “The firing was made by the museum's board of trustees [last night] and is effective immediately.” Schimmel’s sudden departure was first reported by art journalist Mat Gleason. On his personal blog, he wrote: “Paul Schimmel was fired at MOCA - it was the end of the fiscal year and they tightened the belt.” Gleason, who is not favored by Schimmel from an incident years ago by calling...

28 June, 2012 /

[caption id="attachment_4094" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="The Cut-Off Men"][/caption] Santa Ana, CA.  Downtown Santa Ana Artist’s Village gets a kick in the contemporary art butt with newest creative addition, Grand Central Art Center’s (GCAC) new Director and Chief Curator, John Spiak. Spiak is a whirlwind of creative energies, and his expertise in Relational Aesthetics and Social Practice are giving the Artist’s Village a transformative new take on the art scene in Orange County. Spiak is bringing in artists from all over the world, to engage and exchange with the...

28 June, 2012 /