New Curator for Art Museum

The Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach has a lot to look forward to, from new acquisitions to talk of a move to Costa Mesa and the naming of a new curator of contemporary art.

After a meeting Thursday night, board members commented that the leadership has never been stronger now that Irene E. Hofmann will be part of the team beginning in October.

Handpicked by OCMA’s deputy director of art, Elizabeth Armstrong, Hofmann will leave her post at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Michigan, where she organized and curated the museum’s contemporary art program.

She is wrapping up her final Cranbrook show by Inigo Manglano-Ovalle. The traveling video installation reflects the global upbringing of the Spanish-born artist who grew up in Colombia and Chicago. The show will arrive at OCMA in 2003.

“She thinks outside the box,” said OCMA board chairman emeritus Charles Martin of Hofmann. “She doesn’t go to the biggest known names but works with lesser-known, young, emerging artists to create shows that address social issues.”

Armstrong first met Hofmann, an NEA curatorial intern, at the Walker Art Center in 1993 and worked with the veteran curator on a show titled “Duchamp’s Leg.”

“I think just working with someone, even for a year period, you know if you share aesthetic sensibilities and working styles. I definitely realized that with Liz. We’re looking forward to that working relationship having a new chapter at the Orange County museum,” said Hofmann, 32, who will travel with her husband, Bil Sherrin, and their Bernese mountain dog, Madison, back to Southern California where she was raised.

Hofmann attended Rowland High in Walnut and moved to the Midwest for college, eventually earning her master’s in modern art history, theory and criticism in 1993 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

After her one-year stint at the Walker, Hofmann archived and curated the Mary Reynolds Collection of dada and surrealist works--a collection donated by Marcel Duchamp--at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1994 to 1996. Like Armstrong, Hofmann is an admirer of Duchamp.

By 1997, she had joined the Cranbrook Art Museum as assistant curator and was named its exhibitions curator in July 1999. At Cranbrook, she produced cutting-edge shows, most recently with an emphasis in video and digital media.

In a December 2000 exhibition titled “Fabula: Consumer Media and Contemporary Art,” Hofmann took a critical look at brand name logos and advertisements that consumers closely identify with in their lives. Artists Tom Sachs of New York, Masato Nakamura of Tokyo and H.N. Semjon of Germany were among artists whose works poked fun at how simple, mundane objects become designer goods in a consumer-based society.

Art Critic Joy Hakanson Colby of the Detroit News wrote: “Using outstanding commercial material with artists’ interpretations reveals how the barriers between art, design and advertising are diminishing and how the different fields influence each other .... Fabula is laced with common sense and uncommon fun.”

Hofmann also started a video art festival at Cranbrook. “VideoCulture: Three Decades of Video Art” drew on the collaboration of dozens of galleries, museums and other agencies from the Detroit Metro area.

“I’m glad I didn’t shy away from exhibitions I wanted to show,” Hofmann said. “Audiences, if given the right tools to view the show, are very open to new art and ideas .... Sometimes we’re dealing with issues that involve sexuality or race relations or difficult cultural issues. Those are issues I’m not going to shy away from, but I want to prepare the audience to see the work the way the artist intends.”

OCMA’s Newport Beach location won’t be too dramatic a change for Hofmann. Cranbrook’s exhibition space is almost identical.

“Standing in the two museums, I think very similar shows will fit into the same space.”

But the pace will be different, Hofmann said. At Cranbrook with the help of one intern, she curated 12 shows a year in five galleries.

“It’s fast-paced, and you have to respond very quickly,” Hofmann said, adding that she prefers projects that take at least two years to develop.

“That’s what’s attracting me to this new position. Not only will I have colleagues but there are two other curators that I could alternate or share exhibitions schedules with.”

Plein Air Invitational

Names Its Winners

The Laguna Beach third annual Plein Air Painting Invitational has announced its champions. Peggy Kroll-Roberts took the Gold Prize of $7,500, George Strickland won the $4,000 Silver Prize and Mark Kerckhoff claimed the Bronze Prize and $3,500.

Honorable mention prizes of $1,000 were given to Donald Demers, Jove Wang, John Cosby, Marc Whitney and William Scott Jennings. Mark Kerckhoff was the speediest talent clinching the Quick Draw contest prize of $1,000. John Cosby earned $500 as the Collector’s Choice, and Joe Paquet received $500 as the Artists’ Choice. The Arts and Antiques Award of $2,000 was handed to Jason Situ.

Fifty artists from throughout the nation competed July 8-14 in the outdoor art competition. The event grossed $246,000 in proceeds from the sale of the art, exceeding last year’s total by $7,000.