Scattershot Approach Hits, Misses

Oh say can you see the complex tapestry of dreams and nightmares that is America? At the Orange County Museum of Art, a small but passionate exhibition drawn from the museum’s permanent collection tries to do just that--with limited success.

Called “American Stories: From the Personal to the Political,” this uneven, emotionally charged show includes 23 works--lithographs, etchings and other prints, plus one photograph and one watercolor--made from 1969-1991 by Andy Warhol, Peter Max, Robert Rauschenberg, Romare Bearden, Barbara Kruger and other lesser-knowns. It runs through July 1.

These images take a scattershot approach to modern American history and mind-set, from the tragedy of Vietnam to issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, our country’s on-going propensity for violence and more.

There is much to reward the eye in the mix.

A series of three richly textured etchings by Juan Genovese is especially powerful. Called “El Lugar Y El Tiempo,” this 1970 piece plays like a fast-moving, black-and-white documentary, depicting a growing crowd of rebellious protesters in silhouette, raging down a roadway.

Warhol’s 1970 silk-screen “Electric Chair” is still timely, given the ceaseless debate on the death penalty. “Chair’s” sizzling pinks and yellows are the fantasy hues of Hollywood, which so often serves up death, fictional or not, as diversion. But as sharp as its statement is, Warhol’s image is now so mass-culture familiar that it’s almost a cliche.

Given its hodgepodge of concerns and sensibilities, “American Stories” feels cobbled together, as exhibits culled from museums’ permanent collections and forced to fit an overarching concept usually do.

Only two prints by black artists are included in a section on “The African American Story,” Charles White’s uninspired lithograph of Thomas Bradley, former mayor of Los Angeles, and Bearden’s evocative “Mother and Child.”

Also featured are works by six Chicano artists--Dolores Guerrero-Cruz, Jean LaMarr, Daniel J. Martinez, Delilah Montoya, Michael Ponce and Joe Bastida Rodriguez--who produced prints at Self-Help Graphics, the famed East Los Angeles artists’ collective.

Their strong vision tells yearning tales of Chicano life.

Nods are also given to the local scene with Masami Teraoka’s wonderfully wistful watercolor “Santa Monica Pier” and Raymond Pettibon’s ironic take on tarnished dreams, “I Thought California Would Be Different.”

Intriguingly, however, the images of death and violence in “American Stories” are its strongest suit.

The most arresting print on view is Vito Acconci’s 1977 photo etching “Bite the Bullet: Slow Guns for Quick Sale (to Be Etched on Your American Minds).” It is an up-close look at six firearms in stark black and white. Pointed and simple, it brings home the lethal reality of handguns. Its aim is true.

* “American Stories: From the Personal to the Political.” At the Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. Tuesdays-Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. $4 to $5; children 15 and younger admitted free. Through July 1. (949) 759-1122.