OCMA's Demise is UCI’s Gain Through a Major Merger

by Liz Goldner

Richard Jackson, ''The Laundry Room (Death of Marat)'' (detail), 2009, acrylic, metal, wood, linoleum, aqua resin, plastic, fabric, computer, washing machine, 47 1/4 x 224 3/8 x 224 3/8''. Photo: Stephan Altenberger Photography, Zurich.

Two remarkable collections of 20th century California art are now joined together, thanks to the merger in September of the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) and UC Irvine’s Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art.

OCMA, a venerable 63-year-old institution, has consistently collected and shown first-class modern and contemporary art by regional luminaries such as John Altoon, Joan Brown, Chris Burden, Mary Corse, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Irwin, Catherine Opie, Charles Ray, Betye Saar, Ed Ruscha and James Turrell. 

The exterior of the Orange County Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of UCI/Yubo Dong.

After many years of thwarted plans to construct a large, free-standing museum building, OCMA finally opened its $93 million, 53,000-square-foot museum on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa three years ago. Its future appeared to be bright. Instead, since that opening, OCMA’s path has been fraught with difficulties. Among these problems, 14 museum trustees resigned from its Board in 2024, and were quietly replaced. But there have been no official statements about how this disruption came about.

Perhaps as a consequence, OCMA’s board of directors, including prominent businesspeople and philanthropists, has been dismissed, and OCMA director Heidi Zuckerman will leave the museum in December. Its permanent collection is now owned by UC Irvine, and its entire staff are UCI employees. In addition, UCI is assuming all operating costs of the newly merged institution. OCMA, with its long illustrious history, no longer exists.

On the other hand, the former Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art is finally gaining a world class museum facility in which to display its extensive and important collection.

Monica Sandoval, “Culture All,” photograph. Featured in the OCMA exhibition “Forms of Identity: Women Artists in the 1990s and 2000s,” 2017.

Langson IMCA’s story began in 2017 when the extraordinary Gerald E. Buck Collection of 3,300-plus 20th century paintings, sculptures and works on paper was donated to UC Irvine. Soon after, the former Irvine Museum's 1,000-piece collection of prized California Impressionist Paintings was also gifted to UCI. 

At that time, Dr. Stephen Barker, formerly dean of UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts, became the steward of the approximately 4,500-piece collection. As UCI did not have its own museum — which had been included in architect William Pereira’s original 1962 UC Irvine campus design — Barker determined that the combined collection would become the genesis of a UCI museum to be called the Institute and Museum of California Art. He also announced that an architect would quickly be chosen to design IMCA's projected 100,000-square-foot structure.

The Langson family soon donated a significant amount of money for that proposed building (thus the name change). Later that year, UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman approved the formation of IMCA and its future building. Barker also decided that, along with the new collection, UCI would offer PhDs and master’s degrees in museum studies and art conservation.

Barker soon proclaimed that the Buck Collection, with art by Larry Bell, Tony DeLap, Lorser Feitelson, Gilbert Lujan, Helen Lundeberg, Agnes Pelton, Peter Voulkos and many others is, “The greatest collection of California art that nobody has seen.”

Chris Burden, "A Tale of Two Cities," 1981, mixed media installation.

In the succeeding eight years, in spite of various proposals to fund the construction of the Langson IMCA building, including placing it on the grounds of UCI’s new medical center on Jamboree Road, those plans never materialized.

All the while, Langson IMCA had been, and still is, showing work from its now extraordinary collection, along with borrowed work, in its 6,000 square foot facility in the Irvine Museum’s original Von Karman Avenue location. It will continue to show already planned exhibitions through next year.

When the proposed merger of OCMA and Langson IMCA was first announced last June, people in Orange County’s art world reacted with surprise, along with hope. UCI will finally have its museum building, albeit a ten-minute drive from the university campus. OCMA, though essentially dissolved, could solve its personnel issues, while it will continue to show its previously planned exhibitions through next year. And during this transition period, a national search for a new director of the combined museums would be conducted, while Rich Aste, currently interim director of Langson IMCA, will lead the new entity.

As the OCMA building — which will soon get new signage announcing that it is the “UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art” — is situated more than five miles from UCI, the university is planning to have direct, free bus lines between the two institutions for students and faculty. The new entity, which now owns more than 9,000 works of art, will also continue to offer free admission, a policy implemented following OCMA’s 2022 grand opening.

Stephen Barker, formerly Executive Director, IMCA, at Gerald Buck Laguna Beach gallery, on-site storage, November 2017. Photo: Mark Chamberlain.

Kevin Appel, Professor and Chair of the Department of Art as well as the Associate Director of the merged venue, has been working with Langson IMCA since its 2017 founding. His role, along with that of colleague Bridget Cooks, has centered on building bridges between the museum and the UCI Department of Art, connecting students, faculty and exhibition programs. “We have helped shape the museum’s overall direction and long-term vision,” he explains.

Appel adds, “The merger feels like a long-awaited convergence — the moment when the collections, a new location, and the university’s creative energy came into alignment. The Gerald Buck Collection, which has lived mostly in storage for years, will have a visible public life. This is something we’ve all wanted: for these works to circulate, to breathe, and to be seen."

The merger will also enable the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art to function as a laboratory for students and faculty, and as a place to engage directly with the art objects, the curatorial process, and the deeper meanings of the collections.

“The merger,” says Appel, “represents a kind of collective renewal, of two institutions with long histories, joining to create something that’s both intellectually rigorous and publicly accessible. It’s an opportunity to think expansively about what a museum in Orange County can be: rooted in research, but open to the world.”

Liz Goldner is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009. 

Liz Goldner’s Website.