Telling American stories through art

Young Chang

Consider it a picture-book exhibit about perfect strangers who might

also be your ancestors.

A Japanese man in kimono-like garb flails frantically in a canoe while

trying to net a bottle from beneath the Santa Monica pier. His long black

hair streaks the sky on a windy night.

A girl dreams of her fears with a snake coiling toward her. A hangnail

moon floats overhead and an incomprehensible yellow zigzag cracks a

navy-blue sky.

An artist paints above ground while there are caskets underground.

Just what is the story being told and who are the characters?

Aptly titled “American Stories,” the collection of 22 prints curated

by Sarah Vure features the works of artists including Dolores

Guerrero-Cruz, Lari Pittman, Joe Bastida Rodriguez and Andy Warhol.

Subjects like gender and identity, violence in America, the American

dream, cross-cultural ism and the African-American story make up the

chapters of this picture anthology being exhibited at the Orange County

Museum of Art through July 1. The posters cover the 1960s through ‘90s.

“I was interested in art that could be provocative, that could

communicate, that could draw from significant social issues,” Vure said.

“It’s about art’s ability to communicate and the different ways that

artists can tell a narrative.”

The mediums include serigraphs, lithographs, photographs and

watercolors. The pieces hark back to the print revival of the ‘60s, when

artists responded to political movements and protests through art.

Masani Teraoka’s “Santa Monica Pier,” a watercolor piece on paper of

the man lunging for litter, falls under the umbrella of cross-cultural

ism but makes a statement about environmentalism and pollution, Vure

said. The style combines the popular Western theme of pop-art and the

Japanese technique of woodblock print.

An untitled work by Guerrero-Cruz shows a young flower girl in a white

ruffled dress and an older bride who has a skeleton face and lots of bare

teeth. She wears a wedding dress and both females are holding flower

bouquets. This piece is about young women who get married in hopes of

finding their identity, the artist said. The skull represents the state a

woman enters when she depends on marriage to help herself get happy.

“It’s like a slow death,” Guerrero-Cruz said. “You realize you need to

be happy with who you are before you can do anything.”

Another work, titled “This Landscape, Beloved & Despised, Continues

Regardless,” shows six caskets with silhouetted figures lying in them and

an artist dressed in 19th century attire painting at an easel on top.

This piece by Lari Pittman says something about identity.

“It’s about how although all humans are destined to die, art will

transcend human existence,” Vure said. “It’s a painting about painting,

the idealism that the artist feels.”

Warhol’s “Electric Chair,” a pink serigraph with yellow blurs and a

speckled outline of a chair, is open to interpretation.

“Warhol was one of the least political artists in this exhibition,”

Vure said. “He abhorred violence yet he did a series of works based on

crashes, electric chairs . . . and yet he claimed he was apolitical and

indifferent to the issues.”

The pastels of the serigraph mix well and exude a calm, almost

pleasant feeling. Vure said the colors create a distance from the

violence of the image.

“And sort of warns us almost of how we can be indifferent to violence

when we’re over bombarded with images, as we are,” she said.

Joe Bastida Rodriguez’ “Night Fall As I Lay Dreaming” offers a

different kind of warning -- that of losing one’s cultural heritage. The

girl dreaming about snakes and other worries symbolizes this fear.

“All of the work is really quite powerful and each one conveys its

message in a very strong way,” Vure said.

FYI

WHAT: American Stories: From the Personal to the Political

WHEN: Through July 1. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday

WHERE: Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport

Beach

COST: $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students, free for children

under 16 and museum members

CALL: (949) 759-1122