SUMMER SIZZLES : ART : A Guide to what’s Hot in Orange County

The heat is on in more ways than one for local arts and entertainment this summer. The new Anaheim Arena will open, but before the Mighty Ducks inaugurate professional hockey in the county, such country and pop stars as Wyonna Judd, Alan Jackson and Barry Manilow will try out the area’s newest concert facility. Shakespeare abounds, indoors and out; Mikhail Baryshnikov dances in Costa Mesa; those classic hot rods and twisted underground comics from the ‘50s and ‘60s will be the subject of a major exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum, and fireworks and violins will mix once again under the stars at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

The Complete Schedule

What’s happing this summer in Orange County, plus our critics pick the most noteworthy events.

You may have to look lively for a place to park in downtown Laguna Beach this summer. In addition to the usual flurry of tourists bent on viewing the Pageant of the Masters or the various craft fairs, it’s a pretty sure bet the graying baby-boomer car buffs, the Gen X underground cartoon addicts and assorted fellow pop-culture fanatics will be zooming into town to see “Kustom Kulture: Von Dutch, Ed (Big Daddy) Roth, Robert Williams and Others” at the Laguna Art Museum, July 16 to Oct. 31.

To see what?

Well, to see examples of the “hot-rod aesthetic,” a postwar Southern California phenomenon made possible by slick new paints originally used by the aircraft industry and rooted in the adolescent culture of drag strips, car shows and weekends dedicated to reinventing the tender parts of boring, mass-produced vehicles--as well as the fungoid growth of “gross-out” humor and the rise of psychedelia.

The show, curated for the Laguna Art Museum by artist Craig Stecyk, contains 85 objects: real painted cars (like Roth’s “Beatnik Bandit”), miniature cars, hand-tooled guns and knives, a souped-up skateboard, bizarro T-shirts, Revelle brand “Roth Monster Kits” and, yes, even paintings and works on paper.

Focusing on the three underground cult figures of custom car culture, the exhibition also surveys work by 35 other artists, including one (Robert Irwin) who gave car culture a transcendental dimension, critically praised younger guys influenced by the “masters” (Jim Shaw, Mike Kelley), Latino “low rider” culture boosters (Frank Romero, Gilbert Lujan) and several women bravely venturing onto alien turf (Georganne Deen, Judy Chicago, Suzanne Williams).

That’s the exotic Big Show of Summer. The other one--”Art of the Himalayas: Treasures From Nepal and Tibet,” at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art (through July 31)--sounds more like the sort of straightforward museum survey visitors expect. The exhibition, assembled by Pratapaditya Pal, senior curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and drawn from a private collection, contains more than 100 works spanning the 7th to the 19th centuries, demonstrating the flow of culture from Hindu and Buddhist traditions of Nepal to the Buddhist cultures of Tibet.

Objects include cast and repousse (relief-patterned) metal sculptures, paintings (known as thankas or paubhas , depending on which culture they are from), textiles, and drawings from artists’ and priests’ sketchbooks. The show was organized by the American Federation of the Arts.

At Newport Harbor Art Museum, the most tantalizing summer offering is “Terry Allen: Youth in Asia.” Although Allen is also a songwriter and performer, he is best known for his cryptic, quasi-autobiographical, story-telling installations. Begun in 1983, when he was 40, “Youth in Asia” deals with the impact of the Vietnam War on U.S. culture.

The show includes more than 60 paintings, drawings, construction and three large-scale mixed media installations incorporating sound, images and texts. Organized by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, N.C., “Terry Allen” will be on view from July 10 through Sept. 12.

Elsewhere, the scene is quieter in summer than during the rest of the year because the college and university galleries go dark when the students go home. Still, a few of the smaller venues are mounting shows that sound worth driving to see.

The Fullerton Museum Center is showing 30 years of political cartoons (on topics including gun control, civil rights, education and the environment) by Paul Conrad, the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning staff cartoonist for The Times (June 12-Aug. 15).

William Anthony, the hilarious New York artist who just doesn’t wanna draw people like you’re supposed to, will have a batch of horrifically literal-minded “Bible Stories” at Stuart Katz’s Loft from June 5 through July 3). Next up at the gallery is work by Los Angeles artists Sheila Klein and Yolanda McKay. “A Wink and a Stink” (July 10 through Aug. 14), billed as “sculpture from both sides of the brain” by “a psycho-sensual bitchin’ brew.”

And for those who prefer their iconoclasts to have weathered adecades of art-world notoriety, there’s “Beatrice Wood: Ceramics, Tiles, Drawings and Paintings,” at the Severin Wunderman Museum, June 20 through Aug. 20. The 100-year-old ceramist’s work includes ribald figurative pieces as well as vessels enhanced with experimental “luster” glazes in ravishing shades.

In the late ‘20s, after hobnobbing with Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and other Dada artists in New York, Wood moved to Los Angeles and signed up for a ceramics class in order to make a teapot to match a set of plates she owned. The rest, as they say, was history.

A star (* ) denotes a show of special interest.

Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive., Laguna Beach. (714) 494-6531. Admission: $3 adults, $1.50 seniors and students, free for children under 12. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

“75th Anniversary Gifts” (shown on a rotating basis through December).

“At the Heart: Impressionism in Laguna Beach Before 1930” (through June 6).

“75 Works, 75 Years: Collecting the Art of California” (through July 11).

“Modernism into Regionalism: Art in Laguna Beach 1920-1950” (June 11-Aug. 22).

* “Kustom Kulture: Von Dutch, Ed (Big Daddy) Roth, Robert Williams and Others” (July 16-Oct. 31). This show is also at the museum’s South Coast Plaza satellite, 3333 Bear St., Suite 1000, Costa Mesa, where admission is free and hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sundays.

Newport Harbor Art Museum, 850 San Clemente Drive., Newport Beach. (714) 759-1122. Admission: $4 adults, $2 seniors and students, free for children under 12, free for everyone on Tuesdays. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

* “Nam June Paik” (through June 27).

“Beyond the Bay: The Figure” (through June 27).

* “Terry Allen: Youth in Asia” (July 10-Sept. 12).

“Jean-Michel Basquiat” (a suite of 11 paintings--alas, not the recent Whitney Museum retrospective of work by the graffiti-influenced, short-lived New York artist; July 10-Sept. 12).

“New California Art: Lilla Locurto and William Outcault” (July 10-Sept. 12).

Bowers Museum of Cultural Art , 2001 Main St., Santa Ana. (714) 567-3600. Admission: $4.50 adults, $3 seniors and students, $1.50 children 5-12, free for children under 5. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, Thursday nights until 9.

* “Art of the Himalayas: Treasures from Nepal and Tibet” (through July 31).

“Asian Ivories in Cultural Perspective” (June 19-Aug. 30).

“Colors of the Dawn/ Invisible People: Arts of the Amazon” (Aug. 22-Jan. 16).

Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton. (714) 738-6545. Admission: $2 adults, $1 seniors and students, free on Thursdays from 6 to 9 p.m. Hours: noon to 4 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays; noon to 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays.

* “Conrad” (political cartoons and bronzes by The Times’ retired cartoonist, June 12-Aug. 15).

Irvine Fine Arts Center, 14321 Yale Ave., Irvine. (714) 552-1018. Admission: free. Hours: noon to 9 p.m. Mondays; 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays; 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays; 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Juried Faculty Art Exhibition (through July 11).

All-Media Juried Exhibition (juried by Noel Korten, program director and curator at Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, July 2-Aug. 17).

Brea Gallery, 1 Civic Center Circle, Brea. (714) 990-7730. Admission: free. Hours: noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays; noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays.

“Sylvia White Selects” (juried show, through June 4).

“California Impressions” (California Impressionist paintings from private collections, June 19-Aug. 6).

Invitational Sculpture Exhibit (Aug. 28-Oct. 22).

Severin Wunderman Museum, 3 Mason, Irvine. (714) 472-1138. $1-$2 donation requested. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

“Dance in Cocteau’s Era” (through June 15).

* “Beatrice Wood: Ceramics, Tiles, Drawings and Paintings” (June 20-Aug. 20).

“Sarah Bernhardt: Artist and Icon” (Aug. 27-Oct. 24--return engagement of exhibition mounted last year).

Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, 3621 MacArthur Blvd., Santa Ana. (714) 549-4989. Admission: free. Hours: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.

Karen Fuson, Suki Berg, Ann Anson (through June 25).

13th Annual Juried Show: Issues of Oppression (juried by artist Miriam Shapiro, July 7-Aug. 6).

Work by Jacqueline Rieder-Hud, A. Adhzerian and a third artist (TBA) (Aug. 11-Sept. 10).

Stuart Katz’s Loft, 2091 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. (714) 497-1098. Admission: free. Hours: 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Fridays; Saturdays and Sundays by appointment.

* “William Anthony: Bible Stories” (June 5-July 3).

“A Wink and a Stink” (work by Los Angeles artists Sheila Klein and Yolanda McKay, July 10-Aug. 14).

BankAmerica Gallery, 555 Anton Blvd., Costa Mesa. (714) 433-6000. Admission: free. Hours: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.

“Five Guys: Peter Alexander, Billy Al Bengston, Laddie John Dill, Ed Moses and Ed Ruscha” (through June 19).

“Contemporary Color” (color photographs by several artists, including Richard Misrach and William Wegman, July 6-Sept. 3).

Gallery 57, 204 N. Harbor Blvd., Fullerton. (714) 870-9194. Admission: free. Hours: noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.

“Intimate Spaces V” (juried show, through June 13).

“Unique Impressions: Cal State Fullerton Graduate Student Prints” (June 16-July 18).

Lau Haaning and Leah Oshann ; and untitled mail art show (July 21-Aug. 22).

“Out of Darkness: Adult Survivors of Child Abuse” (Aug. 25-Sept. 26).

Muckenthaler Cultural Center, 1201 W. Malvern Ave., Fullerton. (714) 738-6595. Admission: free. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

“Wings of the Imagination: Kites from the Collection of Leland Toy” (June 8-Aug. 29).

Art Institute of Southern California, 2222 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. (714) 497-3309. Admission: free. Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

“Multiple Originals 3” (prints by 13 artists, June 3-July 16).

The Works Gallery South, 3333 Bear St. (Crystal Court), Suite 315, Costa Mesa. (714) 979-6757. Admission: free. Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sundays.

Lita Albuquerque (through July 11).

The Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace, 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd, Yorba Linda. (714) 993-5075. Admission: $4.95 adults, $2.95 seniors, $1 children aged 8 to 11; free for children 7 and under. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.

“From George to George, Plus Bill: Presidential Portraits by Morgan Monceaux”(through Sept. 12).