Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture At Midcentury
May 17–August 17, 2008

Julius Shulman, photograph of Case Study House #21 (Pierre Koenig, architect, Los Angeles, 1958), 1958. © J. Paul Getty Trust.

Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture At Midcentury takes a look at the broad cultural zeitgeist of “cool” that influenced the visual, graphic, and decorative arts, furniture, architecture, music, and film produced in California in the 1950s and early 1960s. The exhibition, organized by the Orange County Museum of Art, includes a jazz lounge; a media bar with film, animation, and television programming; a period art gallery of hard-edge abstract paintings; selections of art, architectural, and documentary photography; and an interactive timeline that highlights examples of California, national, and international culture and history in the 1950s. Birth of the Cool examines the dynamic community of artists who overlapped and interacted in Southern California at midcentury-Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Charles and Ray Eames, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, Helen Lundeberg, and others who played a germinal role in the development of this iconic style of high modernism.

Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Mid-Century is organized by the Orange County Museum of Art. This exhibition received significant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Cool Remixed Bay Area Urban Art + Culture Now
May 17–Aug 17, 2008

T.U.R.F. Dancing. Courtesy Youth Uprising. Photo by Yoram Savion.

Presenting a topical spin to the Birth of the Cool exhibition, with graffiti, a scraper bike, DJ station for mixing, lounges, stage, fashion, skate ramp, sculpture, and more. Curated by museum education staff and sponsored by the East Bay Asian Youth Center (EBAYC), Visual Element of East Arts Alliance, Town Park, Youth Radio, Youth Uprising, and Oakland High School’s Visual Arts Academy (VAAMP).

California Now
Oct 4, 2008–Mar 15, 2009

Don Suggs, Two Fridas (Matrimony Series), 2006. Courtesy LA Louver Venice CA.

A survey of work by 10 painters from Southern California—from the abstract through the “low-brow” school of graffiti. Curated by Chief Curator of Art Philip Linhares.

15th Annual Días de los Muertos/Days of the Dead
Oct 8–Dec 2, 2008

Oakland Museum of California

The museum’s popular tribute to the Mexican/Central American tradition of honoring the dead. Altars (ofrendas) and installations by local artists, schools, and community organizations. Hayward artist and educator Fernando Hernandez is guest curator.

Fungus Fair
Sat & Sun, Dec 6–7, 2008

Gymnopilus spectabilis.. Photo: Michael Wood

The return of the multi-tasking mushroom: from delicacy and dye to medicine and environmental ally. A weekend of displays, demonstrations, talks, chefs, vendors, and kids’ activities. Sponsored with the Mycological Society of San Francisco. Included with museum admission.