Big Names on Museums’ Pre-Merger Schedules

The Newport Harbor and Laguna Art museums have announced what appear to be their final seasons as independent entities, and already both slates include some big names--Warhol, O’Keeffe, the Smithsonian, even Picasso--of the sort that the museums’ pending merger is intended to attract.

A Laguna museum official says that’s just a coincidence, and spokesmen for both museums noted that all exhibits on both 1996-97 advance schedules were planned months before serious merger talks resumed last fall.

But a prime architect of the merger says the Newport Harbor schedule, at least, represents exactly what visitors should expect from a consolidated Orange County Museum of Art.

“In the past 10 years,” said Newport Harbor trustee Charles D. Martin, who is slated to head the Orange County Museum of Art board, “our museum hasn’t done anything as broadly accessible as exhibits [featuring] Picasso or O’Keeffe. Everyone will love those.”

For eighteen months, independently of the merger discussions, Newport Harbor trustees have discussed casting a wider net and working harder to attract visitors from throughout the county, said Martin, who spearheaded the merger efforts with Laguna board president Gilbert LeVasseur.

“We even talked about changing Newport Harbor’s name [to the Orange County Museum of Art] before the merger talks got into gear,” Martin said.

“We’re not talking about eliminating more cutting-edge programming,” he added. A painting exhibit organized by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art shows up on Newport Harbor’s list, but so do a multimedia video installation with video footage by Beryl Korot and electronic music by Steve Reich, and a video work by Bill Viola. Neither project can be called mainstream, by any means, and Martin said the Orange County Museum of Art would continue to present risky contemporary art.

The Laguna museum’s chief curator, Bolton Colburn, said upcoming shows there do not signal a departure in programming or reflect merger planners’ designs to give the Orange County Museum of Art a broad focus. The Laguna schedule does include shows organized by such well-known entities as the Smithsonian Institution and National Gallery of Art, both in Washington, but similar exhibits have been presented at the Laguna museum in the past.

The controversial campaign to merge Orange County’s two leading art museums into a higher-profile, financially stable Orange County Museum of Art took a giant step forward this week when a Laguna official declared victory in a crucial membership vote. Martin now says he expects all details to be ironed out within 60 days.

Although the Laguna museum’s 1,383 rank-and-file members have until today to ratify or reject the merger, David Emmes II, the museum’s point man in the merger talks, said Thursday that votes are running 60% in favor of consolidation--enough to guarantee approval.

Martin said Newport Harbor’s acceptance of the merger is still subject to resolution of issues, but he described them as technical and unlikely to have any effect on the merger. The issues have to do with members voting by proxy, changing the mechanics of a trust to protect museum officials from litigation, and the filing of certain details with the state attorney general.

The Orange County Museum of Art would have its headquarters at the current Newport Harbor site in Newport Beach, with a satellite gallery at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. The landmark Laguna museum building in Laguna Beach would remain open as a semiautonomous branch of the new institution.

The Newport Harbor schedule (all shows will be organized by the museum unless noted, and are subject to change):

* Nov. 16-Jan. 19: “Joe Goode.” Works on canvas and paper from the past 30 years.

* Nov. 16-Feb. 16: “Bill Viola: The Theatre of Memory.” An installation, owned by the museum, by a contemporary artist from Long Beach.

* Nov. 16-March 16: “Photography at Newport Harbor Art Museum: Gifts from the Smith/Walker Foundation.” Images by artists from California and elsewhere.

* Feb. 1-April 6: “The Fifth Newport Biennial of California Art.” Work by 15 emerging artists.

* March 8-June 1: “The Cave.” A video installation by Beryl Korot with electronic music by Steve Reich. Presented in co-operation with the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, which will perform Reich’s related multimedia orchestral work, “The Cave,” in May.

* March 22-June 1: “The Graphic Art of Pablo Picasso.” Prints by the Spanish master, from UCLA’s Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts. Organized by UCLA.

* June 7-Sept. 7: “Fleurs Du Mal: Georgia O’Keeffe and Robert Mapplethorpe.” Paintings and photographs of flowers.

* June 20-Aug. 15: “American Still Life, 1915-1995: Selections From the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Paintings by Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe, Franz Kline, James Rosenquist and others. Organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

* June 20-Aug. 15: “California Still Life in the Collection.” Works by artists from California, from the museum’s permanent collection.

* March 7, 1998-May 3: “Recycling Reality: Surrealist Sculpture.” Organized by independent curator Miranda McClintic.

The Laguna schedule (all shows will be organized by the museum unless noted, and are subject to change):

The Laguna schedule (all shows will be organized by the museum unless noted, and are subject to change):

* May 12-July 14: “American Naive Paintings from the National Gallery of Art.” 19th century works.

* June 21-Aug. 25: “One Hundred Years on the Edge: The Frame in America 1820-1920.” Fifty Early American frames tracing social and political change. Organized by the Tatistcheff/Rogers Gallery, Santa Monica.

* July 12-Oct. 6: “Zen Rock Garden.” Re-creation of a serene Japanese rock garden.

* July 20-Oct. 6: “John McLaughlin: Western Modernism/Eastern Thought.” Paintings by a leading Southern California artist who lived in Dana Point.

* Sept. 7-June 15: “First Impressions.” California plein air paintings hung in a re-creation of the museum’s original exhibit site, the Laguna Beach Art Assn.’s galleries, circa 1900.

* Oct. 26-Jan. 12: “Spiritual Tourist: An Installation by Pam Goldblum Jeff Kaisershot.” An exploration of religion through juxtaposition of sacred imagery and everyday relics. Organized by the Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica.

* Oct. 26-Jan. 12: “California Progressives, 1900-1930.” Paintings by early California modernists.

* Jan. 18-March 30: “An Ocean Apart: Contemporary Vietnamese Art from the United States and Vietnam.” Includes work by three Orange County artists. Organized by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

* April 5-June 15: “Muybridge’s Central America and the Isthmus of Panama Photographs.” Images shot around 1875.

* April 13-June 9: “California at the Edge of the Millennium and Beyond.” A juried show of work by artists from California.

* June 21-Sept. 7: “Surf Culture.” Another in the museum’s series of looks at how facets of popular culture influenced art.

* June 28-Sept. 7: “Mark Rothko: The Spirit of Myth: Early Paintings from the 1930s and 1940s.” Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.