California

New California law could reverse outcome in dispute over Nazi-looted Pissarro

The new law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom is intended to resolve a decades-long restitution claim in a California family’s favour

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Employment in California’s creative economy took a hit in 2023, but ‘museums were leading the way’ to growth

The latest Otis College of Art and Design report on the state’s arts economy found every sector experienced declines in employment last year—except the fine and performing arts

Robert Irwin, pioneering creator of light and experiential art, has died, aged 95

Irwin explored human perception with his installations as well as the spaces he designed for institutions such as the Getty Museum in Los Angeles

Collection of late California patron Chara Schreyer could net more than $70m at Sotheby’s in New York

In sales spanning this year and next, hundreds of works that once belonged to the SFMoMA trustee will be offered, including a box in a suitcase by Duchamp

California museum returns nearly 1,300 pre-Columbian artefacts to Mexico

The repatriation ceremony at the San Bernardino County Museum was timed to coincide with the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month in the US and Mexican Independence Day

Crime news

San Francisco gallerist filmed hosing down unhoused woman strikes deal to have battery charges dismissed

Collier Gwin, who was facing up to six months in prison if his case had gone to trial, will complete 35 hours of volunteer work

Less than half of California State University campuses are complying with federal Native American restitution regulations, audit finds

The California universities “generally lack the policies, funding and staffing necessary to follow the law and repatriate their collections”, the report found.

Oil giant Chevron removed public art installation without warning, artists allege

The energy giant did not inform the associated artists of their plans to remove a piece of art that advocate for environmental justice, according to organisers

Visual and performing artists have struggled to recover from the pandemic, analysis of California’s creative economy shows

Fine and performing artists contributed $34.9bn to California’s economy in 2021, according to Otis College of Art and Design’s latest annual report, far less than workers in media and even architecture

Van Gogh goes to Hollywood: the celebrities who have owned Vincent's work

Californian collectors had the taste and cash to buy some of his finest paintings, with stars including Elizabeth Taylor, Edward Robinson and Barbra Streisand

a blog by Martin Bailey

With new $94m building, the Orange County Museum of Art gets its own version of the Met museum steps

Fourteen years in the making, the new 53,000 sq. ft building designed by Thom Mayne of architecture firm Morphosis features a wide outdoor staircase intended to serve as a gathering place

Facing mounting financial losses, Santa Barbara’s Museum of Contemporary Art will close permanently

The museum’s longstanding struggles to balance its books were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic

Aztec goddess statue marks opening of ‘the Cheech’ museum of Chicano art

The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California will house the collection of its patron, the actor and long-time champion of Chicano art

Reportnews

Creative workers accounted for nearly one quarter of California’s economy in 2020, report finds

The latest edition of the annual Otis College Report on the Creative Economy makes the point that even as California’s arts sector bounces back, long-term support is needed to ensure it truly thrives

Light and much more Space: first look at the expanded Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

La Jolla museum is set to reopen after a $105m renovation and collection revamp, telling the story of contemporary art from a distinctively West Coast perspective

Artist-led campaign urges climate action across California

The initiative A Cool Million, launched by three artist-led collectives, features climate-themed public artworks and aims to preserve one million acres

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive staff grows with Christina Yang as new chief curator

The museum’s director Julie Rodrigues Widholm has made several senior-level hires in her first year

California man admits to selling over $1m in forged art, purportedly by Richard Hambleton and Barkley Hendricks

Jason Harrington pleaded guilty to selling phony paintings to at least 15 galleries and individuals between 2018 and 2020

Further cuts at SFMoMA end its film programme, art loan gallery and publishing platform

Seven staff will also lose their jobs as tightened budgets and low attendance impact operations

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Return to La La Land: art is back in California

Plus, artists' album covers, and Grace Jones in the Work of the Week

After avoiding layoffs, Oakland Museum of California now plans job cuts of 15%

Staff will shrink from 126 to 106 as institution pursues an organisational makeover

As state restrictions drag on, pressure grows for more California museums to reopen

With lockdown lifted for nail salons and zoos, anger rises over arts institutions’ continued closure, estimated to cost the sector $22m a day

Desert X loses venue for Judy Chicago ‘smoke sculpture’

Following environmental concerns, The Living Desert garden and zoo has pulled out of a planned project with the artist this month

Smoke sculptures, word gardens and a ‘jackrabbit homestead’: Desert X announces artist projects for third edition

Judy Chicago, Oscar Murillo, Nicholas Galanin and others to present works in Southern California's first major art event since the pandemic shutdown last year

Getty hands out more than $5m in grants for 2024 Pacific Standard Time festival

The next iteration of the region-wide exhibition series will focus on art and science

Governors propose ambitious plans to bring the arts back to California and New York

Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo have announced plans to support art institutions and artists hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic

Once greeted as a sensation, 1931 aluminum-clad house gets a boost for relocation at the Palm Springs Art Museum in California

$100,000 grant will advance an effort to reassemble and display Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher’s Modernist Aluminaire House

California needs a plan to restart the arts

There is not a person in the arts who wants to open until it is safe to do so, but we cannot even prepare to start without state guidelines

Hallucinogenic flower inspired Native Californian rock art, archaeologists say

“Doses” of datura plant used in communal ceremonies have been found embedded in the ceiling of Pinwheel Cave