New museum curator dedicated to the arts

Young Chang

NEWPORT BEACH -- Irene Hofmann once toyed with the question most

undergraduates ask later, if not sooner: What in the world do you do with

a degree in (fill in the blank)?

In Hofmann’s case, it was art history -- an undergraduate and graduate

education in subjects including art and anti-art, movements such as dada

and surrealism, art theory and art criticism.

“What do you do with it other than perhaps teach?” said Hofmann, who

has been named the new curator for the Orange County Museum of Art’s

contemporary art collection. “It really wasn’t obvious to me.”

Michigan artist Robert Andersen, who has worked with Hofmann, explains

the answer.

“You can have the greatest artists working, but if they don’t have a

curator who’s going to help contextualize the work, provide a venue,

connect to audiences, that work might go for naught,” Andersen said.

Ten years ago, Hofmann dedicated her life to getting art on walls.

The 31-year-old California native, who is a curator at the Cranbrook

Art Museum in Michigan, will start her position at the Newport Beach

museum in early October.

“One of my favorite parts [of being a curator] is the relationships

with artists that I form,” Hofmann said. “Helping realize an exhibition,

the kind of impact an exhibition can have on an artist’s career -- that’s

all incredibly satisfying and exciting.”

She also shares that impact with museum visitors through talks,

lectures and the exhibits themselves. Hofmann has spoken at the Cranbrook

museum, as well as at The Art Institute of Chicago and at the Walker Art

Center in Minneapolis, both venues where she has worked.

Hofmann’s credits include serving as teaching assistant at the School

of the Art Institute in Illinois; an internship at the Museum of

Contemporary Art, also in Illinois; and a stint at the New Museum of

Contemporary Art in New York, where she interned 10 years ago for museum

founder Marcia Tucker.

The job wasn’t glamorous -- she helped Tucker organize the office,

work out budgets and communicate with artists -- but the brief

bottom-of-the-ladder peek into curatorship started Hofmann’s career.

Today, one of her favorite genres to work with is art with video

involved. Her current exhibit at the Cranbrook museum is of video work by

artist Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, which will open in September.

“I’m very interested in artists that, in general, address social

issues, political issues, where there’s really quite a bit of content in

the work once you get beyond the aesthetics of the piece,” Hofmann said.

She curated Andersen’s first exhibit for this reason. His was an

eight-screen projection piece called “MotelMovies24Hours” that showed

events happening in the different rooms of a shady motel all at once.

Andersen compares his relationship with Hofmann and art in general to

a coin, because it has two sides. On one side are the artist and the

work; on the other are the curators, art writers and art critics who

bring art to the public.

“Really, the mission between the artist and the curator are really

very similar,” he said.