Pervasion: The Art of Gary Baseman and Tim Biskup, June 18-September 24, 2006, Laguna Art Museum

Explores how both artists are at the forefront of blurring the lines between fine art, toy culture and other forms of media. Each has created unique characters that originate within densely packed imagery found in their paintings and sculptures.

Em/bedded: A multi-media installation by Alan Sondheim with leslie Thornton, May 27-June 24, 2006, Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

In his first solo exhibition in California, Alan Sondheim, along with filmmaker Leslie Thornton, transformed Track 16 Gallery’s cavernous main gallery into the multi-media installation, em/bedded. Sondheim brings together video projections of cyborgian, mutating, sexual bodies and the artifacts of battlefields soaked in banal horror. Together, they offer a distorted beauty of the disasters of war and the pleasures of love.

Paul Paiement: Hybrids 1.0 - 3.5, March 13-July 10, 2005, Laguna Art Museum

Five-year mini-survey of this Los Angeles-based painter. Acting at once as a painter, scientist, and entomologist, Los Angeles artist Paul Paiement creates a unique wonderland in his egg tempera paintings by combining common everyday consumer objects into an über-species of colorful bugs, butterflies, praying mantises, and more. Accompanied by a catalogue.

Jody Zellen: Other Places, November 7, 2004-February 27, 2005, Laguna Art Museum

Los Angeles-based Zellen site-specific installation of digital photo collages mounted in non-exhibition areas, such as the stairwell and elevator, throughout the Museum to form a dialogue with the architecture. Each photo collage use image fragments of urban settings in various stages of growth and decay. Each panel contains a single word like, “build”, “hurry”, and “alien”, which are meant as a further commentary on urban life. Accompanied by a brochure.

Deborah Aschheim: Neural Architecture (a smart building is a nervous building), March 14—July 5, 2004, Laguna Art Museum

The installation, Neural Architecture, is based on the structure of the cerebral cortex, and the immersive sculptural environment lights up in response to each viewer’s approach. The installation appears to “synapse” with the gallery’s existing motion sensors and security devices, and quietly highlights the building’s surveillance of its occupants. This installation is part of a series of traveling, mutating, adaptive site-specific installations. Accompanied by a catalogue.

Stephen Hendee: Presence Control, January 21 – July 8, 2001, Laguna Art Museum

Hendee’s site-specific constructions are built out of foamboard, wood supports, tape, and fluorescent lights. They are glowing, tunnel-like, room-size installations that exist somewhere between outer, mathematical or electronic space, or even intestinal space, if the body in question were an android.

Sandow Birk’s “In Smog and Thunder: Historical Works from the Great War of the Californias,” April 16 – July 9, 2000, Laguna Art Museum

Drawing inspiration from the ever-present rivalry between the cities and from contemporary political events, Sandow Birk’s “In Smog and Thunder….” Is an obsessively detailed portrayal of a fictional war between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Complete with elaborate “history” paintings, propaganda posters, topographical maps, ship models, portraits of key military figures, and extensive pseudo-historical commentary. Accompanied by a catalogue.

Big Country: Recent Paintings by Elizabeth Olbert, September 25-November 7, 1999, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum

New York-based Elizabeth Olbert’s first solo exhibition on the West Coast. She is known for paintings of fantastic creatures, protagonists in a kind of sci-fi mythology of the artist’s imagination. Sunsets, pets and youthful memories are a few of her subjects, but the results suggest an apocalyptic fairy tale. Accompanied by a catalogue.

Desmothernismo: Ruben Ortiz Torres, September 19-November 8, 1998, Huntington Beach Art Center

In his first survey, Ortiz uses different media—paintings, photographs, altered baseball caps, videos, and installations—to explore and participate in the linguistic, aesthetic, social and cross-cultural influences of Mexico and the U.S. Bilingual catalogue.

Simon Leung: Surf Vietnam, June 27-August 16, 1998, Huntington Beach Art Center

“Surf Vietnam” is the third part of a trilogy about the residual space of the Vietnam War. It takes as its main theme the ethical proposition of reconciliation between Vietnam and the U.S., mediated by the figure of surfing. Using an AP article on the return of surfers to China Beach this work uses the article to choreograph several meditations on contemporary “returns” to Vietnam. The venue for the project, the Huntington Beach Art Center, is located in Orange County, where there is a substantial population of surfers, war veterans and Vietnamese immigrants. Accompanied by a catalogue.

Robert Williams: New Work, February 28-April 12, 1998, Huntington Beach Art Center

Williams began his art career working for Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, a customizer of hot rods. During the 1960s he worked primarily in the medium of comic books, and with seven other cartoonists, created Zap Comix in 1968. His work has been featured in Helter Skelter (1991) at MOCA-L.A. This will be Williams’ first major southern California exhibition since 1993. Brochure

Kara Walker: African’t, October 4-November 16, 1997, Huntington Beach Art Center

Walker presents her first solo exhibition in Southern California. She employs the old-fashioned craft of black-paper-cutout silhouettes. Gluing her mural-size figures to the wall, she creates bawdy, pre-Civil War scenarios that depict interracial encounters among a cast of characters ranging from Confederate soldiers to young slaves, transforming the innocuous 19^th-century technique into a biting social commentary. Accompanied by a brochure.

100% Other: Artists and Psycho-Demographic Transitions

for The Future of Nations- Part Two “Demographics,” April 5-June 13, 2008, 18^th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, http://www.18thstreet.org/futureofnations/Demographics/index.html

In the context of The Future of Nations exhibition series that seeks to create a critical forum for artists to bring forward ideas and new visual strategies that address election year issues, this group exhibition will look a the subject of demographics. Artists included are Matthew Bryant, Cheryl Gilge, Perry Vasquez, Reggie Woolery, and Yasuko. The title was inspired by a comment from Gregory Rodriguez during a recent radio interview discussing his new book, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America (Pantheon, 2007). With bravado and the wink of an eye, Rodriguez prompted everyone to check off “Other” in the 2010 census. In other words, if it became the ascending category, hoping for 100%, then there would be a forced re-evaluation of how resources are distributed from federal, state, and local governments. Guest curator.

Whiteness, A Wayward Construction, March 23—July 6, 2003, Laguna Art Museum

A group exhibition exploring the identity politics of white culture in the United States. This exhibition approaches whiteness as being less about the color of skin and more about an ideology of power. This is the first museum exhibition to explore the cultural study of whiteness. All of the nearly 80 artworks selected were created between 1990 to the present. This limitation was set to be in accord with a particular development that occurs in the contemporary art world and academia in regard to theories of post-structuralism, post-colonial thought, and multiculturalism, from which the cultural study of whiteness arose in the 1990s. Catalogue. Traveled.

Surf Culture—The Art History of Surfing, July 28—October 6, 2002, Laguna Art Museum

This exhibition examines the history of modern surfboard design from 1900 to the present, linking that history to the development of the Pacific Rim culture and technology. The myths of surfing, put forth through such adjunct activities and products as skateboarding, surf photography, film, clothing, and music are explored for their socio/economic impact. In addition, past, present, and future links between surfing and art are explored through works of art by surfers and artists influenced by surfing, such as Craig Kauffman, Billy Al Bengston, and Robert Irwin, who have achieved prominence and recognition either in the art world or in popular culture. Accompanied by a catalogue. Traveled.

Cyborg Manifesto, or The Joy of Artifice, April 15 – July 8, 2001, Laguna Art Museum

This is a group exhibition that will explore the interrelationship of technology, nature, and culture. The artists in the exhibit explore a territory that falls somewhere between a fear of technology as a product of our own making, and a view towards technology as a path towards progress—one, that for many, leads to a kind of spiritual transcendence. In this light, the cyborg, a hybrid of machine and organism, is used as a metaphor for navigating the boundaries between what is science fiction and what is real, in an effort to reexamine body politics, gender, technology and society. Accompanied by a catalogue.

Are We Touched? Identities from Outer Space, July 27-September 21, 1997, Huntington Beach Art Center

A group exhibition that explores transformative experiences based on concepts of outer space. Works have been drawn from popular culture, self-taught visionaries, inventors, and academically trained artists. Accompanied by a catalogue.

Dead on the Wall: Grateful Dead and Deadhead Iconography, June 29-September 1, 1996, Huntington Beach Art Center

An inside look at the sociological phenomena surrounding of rock band, The Grateful Dead and their loyal fans, the Deadheads. The exhibition, the first to highlight the home-grown art styles and iconography of the nomadic lifestyle of the Deadheads, will feature the art, memorabilia, and music. Accompanied by a catalogue. Co-curated with veteran Deadhead, Chris Cole.

Grind: The Graphics and Culture of Skateboarding, September 16-December 31, 1995, Huntington Beach Art Center

The exhibition presents a historical perspective on skateboard graphics from the 1960s to the present. It looks at how they have changed from simple logos for skateboard companies into a vast array of highly personal graphics. In an anaylsis of skateboard culture, the exhibition includes skateboard art, skate-zines, photo and video documentation of skaters’ daily lives. Accompanied by a catalogue. Co-curated with world class skateboarder, Ed Templeton.

Fuzzy: Construction of Identity within the Law, July 1-September 4, 1995, Huntington Beach Art Center

This exhibition examines the fine line between fiction and reality within the legal system, that is, their fuzziness. This is exemplified by a recent turn of events such as O.J. Simpson’s trial that was made into a media spectacle or the rise in the number of real-crime TV shows. The exhibition approaches this topic through a web of cultural connections: artists, computer animated crime scene reconstructions, forensic artists, television, and inmate artwork.

Conceptual Photography from the Collection, November 6, 2005-February 26, 2006, Laguna Art Museum

Works from the museum's permanent collection demonstrate that photography is not just a documentary, or singularly fine art medium. Between 1960 and 1980, artists such as John Baldessari, Wallace Berman, Ed Ruscha, Robert Heineken, and Alexis Smith were experimenting with photographs as a raw medium that could be altered, sliced, diced, and assembled with other images.

Some Fuzzy Logic: The Joan Simon Menkes Gift, July 20—October 5, 2003, Laguna Art Museum

A group exhibition that highlights twenty works by six artists from a recent gift of fifty works by twenty-five artists from the collection of Joan Simon Menkes. The exhibition focuses on six artists who came to prominence in the 1980s which includes Jonathan Borofsky, Tim Ebner, Larry Johnson, Barbara Kruger, Allan McCollum, and Matt Mullican. These artists shared a common interest in examining a life heavily influenced by media saturation and consumerism. Many of these artists and their peers, attended in the late 1970s and the early 1980s the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California.

One Minute of Your Time: A Brief Survey of Southern California Art From the Collection, 1835 to 2001, January 21-July 8, 2001, Laguna Art Museum

Several art historical periods are explored: Early California, Impressionism, Early Modernism, Regionalism/American Scene, LA Modernism, Figurative Abstraction, Assemblage, Pop, Finish Fetish, Feminism, Conceptual, Pattern and Decoration, Installation, Neoconceptualism, Identity Politics, Painting Resurgence, and Popular Culture.

L.A. Art in the Early 90s ¬ ReCharge: The Gift of Eileen and Peter Norton, February 19-March 26, 2000, Laguna Art Museum

Curated from a gift by L.A.-based collectors, Peter and Eileen Norton that focuses on the years 1990 to 1993, a time which represents a transition point for Los Angeles artists. Artists had to respond to the collapse of the energetic 80s and the recession of the early 90s. The young artists coming out of school at the time decided to take things into their own hands instead of abandoning L.A. The result was a scene in which there was a blurring of artists, dealers, artist-run spaces, commercial galleries, and critics, many people wearing all of these hats, in an effort to recharge the L.A. art scene.