Museum on a New Mission as It Seeks Curator

Capping off a rocky year of resignations that started with the unexpected departure of its chief curator, the Orange County Museum of Art looks firmly to the future with an updated mission and a new curator in mind.

The former Newport Harbor Art Museum has taken aggressive steps--including hiring a recruitment firm--to end by early next year an arduous search for an in-house curator who could produce original shows. The job has been vacant for more than a year. Separately, it also changed the scope of its mission statement, removing the emphasis on California art and “the Orange County community” to reflect a broader vision.

The new mission describes “innovation” and “independent thinking” as the museum’s driving forces.

“We want to produce first-rate, high-quality exhibitions that have substance and are significant to this community,” said OCMA director Naomi Vine, who added that the museum’s exhibition history before and after its controversial 1996 merger with the Laguna Art Museum was anything but provincial. Previous shows featured the art of South Korea, Vietnam and such contemporary artists as Robert Rauschenberg and Peter Alexander.

“Although our mission was never intended to require an exclusive focus on California art, it typically has been interpreted that way,” Vine said. “I think that we live in a global art world in much the same way we live in a global economy.”

It was time to bring the mission statement up to date, Vine said. The museum did not make the changes to prime itself for blockbuster exhibitions, she said.

“We’ve never discussed doing blockbusters,” Vine said. “It’s certainly not the reason we changed our mission statement. There are no plans right now to bring in blockbuster shows.”

Vine also said the museum will not abandon California art, since 90% of the permanent collection is based on it, and a lineup of upcoming exhibitions will feature major California artists.

“We feel a sense of responsibility to the artists who are living and working right here in our own backyard,” Vine said. “I can’t imagine that California art will ever not be a focus of what we’re doing.”

The decision to change the mission statement paves the way to court the nation’s top curator candidates, museum officials say. Efforts to replace Bruce Guenther, who unexpectedly resigned from his chief curator post in September 1999 after eight years, had lagged.

“Many of the top curator candidates we’ve seen have great ideas, themes and strategies for exhibitions they want to do, and limiting it just to California art makes it hard to get a fit,” said Charles Martin, OCMA board chairman emeritus.

Two months ago, the museum hired a headhunting firm to help finish the national search for the chief curator--and possibly two other associate curator posts, Martin said. At least five candidates have been interviewed, and a short list is close at hand.

“We have a number of very exciting candidates that we’re in the advanced stages of talking to,” Martin said. “We’re all anxious to bring this search to closure. This is a big bet on the future of the museum, and these are decisions that will affect the quality of the museum for the next five to 10 years. We need the leadership in the contemporary art arena.”

The search for a curator began soon after Guenther left, with museum officials mailing, faxing and e-mailing hundreds of notices to industry professionals. Ads were posted in art trade magazines, such as Aviso, a publication of the American Assn. of Museums, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Guenther, who is now curator of modern and contemporary art at Portland Art Museum in Oregon, guest-curated the museum’s current retrospective show by Corona del Mar artist Tony DeLap. He is credited as instrumental in the museum’s 1997 creation of the Installation Gallery--designed to feature a single artist’s exhibit.

The museum is also working on filling other key jobs: development director Joan Van Hooten, education director Maxine Gaiber and operations director Brian Gray resigned within the last six months.

So far, facilities manager Randy Everett and installation designer Brian Boyer have been hired to replace the operations director. Also, assistant curator Sarah Vure, whose recent exhibition, “Circles of Influence,” was well-received, was promoted to head the early-California art collection full time.