Kathryn Kanjo wants to tell the story — ok, one story — of Orange County.
That she wants to do that as part of her new job, as director of the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, means she’ll be telling the story mostly via pictures and objects. It also means the story she’ll tell will center on the county’s environmental and physical transformation since the start of the last century.
A lot of other Orange County plot points — surfing, the rise and fall of malls, “Housewives,” citrus packing, Mendez v. Westminster, all things Disney, etc. — figure to be told by others because they’re not central to the newly merged collection at the local museum of art.
Still, Kanjo is stoked.
“One of the things that’s exciting about the museum, at this moment, is that it is bringing together and combining three stories, in the forms of these three major collections with roots in Orange County,” said Kanjo, who will start in February after finishing her current job as the David C. Copley Director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.
“Telling all of that as a single, environmental narrative is something I’m looking forward to doing.”
Kanjo, announced as the museum’s new director this morning (Tuesday, Dec. 9), is the first big hire in the three months since UCI took control of the Orange County Museum of Art. Before she took her current job in San Diego, Kanjo held high-ranking positions at museums in San Antonio, Portland and UC Santa Barbara.
Kanjo arrives after decades in which UCI and the Orange County Museum of Art collected county-themed art independently and, at times, competitively. One result of that is Kanjo gets to oversee three once disparate collections — one brought together by descendants of Irvine Ranch founder James Irvine (Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke, Joan Irvine Smith, and James Irvine Swinden), another from the family of the late Newport Beach developer Eugene Buck (a collection that’s only become public in recent years), and a third created over several decades by by the 63-year-old Orange County Museum of Art.
Those three collections add up to more than 9,000 paintings and photos and sculptures and objects, much of it telling the history of Orange County’s physical transformation, from untamed and rural to paved and urban. That overarching story is told in styles as diverse as plein air and California impressionism to oversized abstracts and assemblage, by artists ranging from early 20th century regional painters, such as William Wendt and Guy Rose, to modern and post-modern figures such as as Richard Diebenkorn, Ruth Asawa and Ed Ruscha.
Going forward, all of it — the art, the artists, the history, the story — could become the museum’s hook. Just as the Broad Museum in Los Angeles is known for post-1950 modern art, and the Getty Museum is known for pre-20th century paintings and sculptures, the newly merged museum in Orange County, in a modern, 52,000-square-foot home in the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, near South Coast Plaza, could be known as the place to take in the visual transformation of a key slice of Southern California over the past 125 years.
If that emerges as the museum’s core, Kanjo suggested her job is to make sure it doesn’t become stale. The merged museum’s combined collection is big enough to be continually fresh, and the museum’s status as a venue is vibrant enough to bring in exhibitions and shows from around the world that will keep art lovers engaged for repeat visits.
“An important thing about a museum is it assumes an audience,” Kanjo said. “And part of my job is to try to find out how to connect all that we have to those people. I think you do that through programs that feel relevant to our time and place, even as those factors change.
“The work changes,” she added, “as the community changes.”
Another key to Kanjo’s new job will be to tie the museum to UC Irvine’s fine art program.
Though the school has gained a reputation for everything from to engineering and health sciences to law, UCI, from its founding, was viewed as a strong arts school. Over the decades the school has produced influential performance artists such as Chris Burden and Barbara T. Smith and modern visual artists such as James Turrell, Robert Irwin and Ed Bereal, among others. Today, about 200 students study fine art at UCI, a number that school officials said might grow because of the school’s connection to the local museum. Mergers of museums and big universities have helped helped boost the fine art scenes in cities such as Chicago and Boston, among others.
“A huge part of the appeal of the job is to be connected to a research university,” Kanjo said. “And I envision programming that draws from the school’s talent.”
In addition to leading the museum, Kanjo will oversee the Jack & Shanaz Langson Institute of Art, which is centered on art research, and the Langson-named, off-campus, school-controlled museum that is slated to remain open through at least next year.
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