Q&A; -- The art of putting it together

Elizabeth Armstrong could not have predicted the path her life has

taken since she joined the Orange County Museum of Art last April as

chief curator and deputy director. Armstrong, who served as senior

curator at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in San Diego before coming to

Newport Beach, took over as acting director last year when executive

director Naomi Vine took a medical leave of absence. Since Vine’s death

from cancer in December, Armstrong has been the museum’s leader, a

position she will continue to hold until the museum’s board is finished

with its director search.

In the past 11 months, Armstrong has reinstalled the permanent

collection, mixing the works by theme rather than time frame. The first

major temporary exhibition under her leadership -- the California

Biennial, put together with fellow curator Irene Hoffman -- will go up in

June.

Armstrong took a moment out of her busy schedule to speak with

Features Editor Jennifer K Mahal about her background, the museum and her

wishes for its future.

How did you get involved in the arts?

I’ve always been interested in art. For a long time, I thought I was

artist. I made a lot of art and it was probably only in college where I

started making the transition from thinking of myself as a visual artist

to being more interested in history and culture and the way in which you

could, through art, understand and contribute to those fields.

By the time I got out of college, I knew I wanted to be a curator. I

loved museums and I loved art and it seemed like a place where you could

bring your interest in history and culture to bear on contemporary art. I

decided that was my career goal and after a few years, and going back to

graduate school, I started working in museums.

What was your first curatorial position?

I think my first real curating internships were when I was at

Berkeley, at the university, I worked at San Francisco MOMA (Museum of

Modern Art) and I also did a show at the University Art Museum in

Berkeley. So I had a couple of good jobs, part time, while I was in

graduate school. And then my first full time museum job was at the Walker

Arts Center in Minneapolis.

What collection or show have you curated that you are the most

proud of?

You know, I feel that way about my most recent shows always, but if I

had to step back, probably the show most people still associate me with

is a show called “In the Spirit of Fluxus.” It was the first museum

exhibition to document this great international movement of Fluxus from

the 1960s to the present. And it was important because it was really a

huge contribution to the scholarship on this subject. But also because

the Fluxus artist philosophy is so integral to my interest in art that I

will forever be connected with Fluxus, not just in people’s minds, but in

my heart.

What is Fluxus?

Fluxus is an attitude. Fluxus is such a product of the 1960s in terms

of it being a really creative, outside-the-box period where, I think,

most or many creative people were trying to rethink fundamental notions

about culture, about art, about the world we live in -- politics, social

values. And it is one of the few art movements I can think of, that’s a

non-movement, that brings together people from all fields and

internationally.

So, it really started as a series of festivals taking place all over

the world -- Germany, Japan, the United States, Eastern Europe -- in the

early- to mid-’60s, and it brought together musicians, writers,

scientists. I mean it was just absolutely phenomenal. The names, most the

names are not particularly well known, but the best known names are Nam

June Paik, who of course went on to become the father of video art; Yoko

Ono, who has just had a major retrospective and her connection with

Fluxus is well documented in that book. It really inspired her social

stance throughout her life. It was just an incredible catalyst for free

thinkers and new thinkers.

What originally attracted you to the job of chief curator and

deputy director at the Orange County Museum of Art?

The interest here is multiple. This is a museum that is in transition.

It’s looking forward to a growth period and at the same time, I think,

rethinking its image. It’s also in a community that is such fertile

ground for a major cultural institution.

I’ve had the luxury of working at one of the best endowed museums in

the country and I’ve worked at smaller museums... and this was an

opportunity to really be integral to shaping a new museum and helping it

grow. So it’s really that interest in being involved in a really

fundamental way in a museum that is looking at change. And, as it

happens, almost all of us in the museum field want to rethink the role of

a museum in a community and the fact that this museum is already

rethinking, the timing is good too.

Since you started here, many things have changed, leaving you in

the acting director position. How has that change been for you?

Well, I came in as chief curator and deputy director of art. And the

deputy director of art title signified an involvement on the

administrative side of the museum and really in the institutional core.

I think for anybody it’s a stretch to take on when you already have a

full, full, full time job, to take on another job. but I felt that it was

important for the institution at this moment to have an acting director

who was here at the museum already.

And it’s been fascinating. I mean I wanted to get really involved in

institutional issues, but it’s just happened a lot faster. The education

has happened a lot faster than it might have otherwise, because I’ve

really had to be involved in every single aspect of the museum and every

corner of its facility. It’s been tremendously stretching, but really

really fascinating.

Do you foresee yourself becoming executive director?

No, no. Look, I am really a curator. It’s really what I love to do.

We’re actively involved in a director search. A search takes a long time.

The average is eight to 12 months these days for a director search.

What excites you most about where the museum is going?

Well it’s always fun to think about a new building, which is still off

in our future. A new building allows the staff and board to really

rethink the mission of the museum.

More practical and in immediate terms, I really love that this

(permanent) collection has the breadth that it has. It has the history

from Newport Harbor as this contemporary, cutting edge art center, it has

the legacy of the Laguna tradition of, especially historical California

collection and shows. And I love that we can put it all together under

one roof. So I am really excited about the programs we’re developing,

which will always have on view historical work and very contemporary

work. And when I reinstalled the permanent collection, I really tried to

suggest those connections in that history between works from different

periods and different media and the way in which they inform each other.

I love that. I think it makes the work from all periods more interesting.

It’s just great to be at a museum that has a collection with that kind of

breadth.

What is the best part of your job?

Probably the access I have to art and artists. Even though a large

part of my job takes place in my office and on the phone and there’s a

lot of paperwork, the best part is the access to the works of art and the

incredible people who make them.

What part of the job do you least like?

I don’t know. I went into curating knowing that it was sort of this

multiheaded beast. I knew going into it that it’s this incredible

balancing act between creative work, between administrative part of the

job, the research, the writing, the working with artists and a social

part of the job, cultivation of donors, fund-raising.

There’s a thin line, and sometimes a nonexistent line, between

professional and personal. I think a lot of people in the work world

don’t understand that there are certain fields where the professional and

the personal are intermixed. That you can’t really separate one from the

other to be really successful.

What would you wish for the museum’s future?

Well, I’d love to see the museum achieve its ambition of being a

museum for the county. Which I think we are now, but I’d like to see us

reach broader audiences.

BIO

Name: Elizabeth Armstrong

Age: 40-something

Occupation: Acting director and chief curator of the Orange County

Museum of Art

Residence: Santa Ana

Family: Two children -- Olivia, 11 and Phoebe, 8 Education: Master’s in art history from UC Berkeley, bachelor’s in

American studies from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass.

Hobbies: Skiing, snorkeling