LAM Commissions Yorgo Alexopoulos for Art & Nature 2019

LAGUNA BEACH, CA (August 26, 2019) — Laguna Art Museum will present the seventh annual Art & Nature, a multidisciplinary exploration of art’s many and various engagements with the natural world, November 7-10, 2019. For the first time in the event’s history, the commissioned work of art will be inside the museum rather than outside, and will be on view beyond Art & Nature weekend until January 5, 2020.

Art & Nature features a work of art specially commissioned for the event – a multimedia installation by Yorgo Alexopoulos; a keynote lecture by Alan Braddock of the College of William & Mary; a film screening; a panel discussion; a program for educators; and a free family festival exploring art and the natural world. In addition to events at the museum, Laguna Art Museum will partner with local galleries and other organizations hosting Art & Nature-related exhibitions, making it a community-wide event.
Art & Nature serves a number of purposes: to provide a festival of art and ideas for the community; to inspire artists; to find and develop connections between art and science; to raise awareness of environmental issues; and to celebrate Laguna Beach as a center for the appreciation of art and nature. The museum’s executive director, Malcolm Warner, explains why Laguna Art Museum is the ideal organization to conceive, develop, and present the popular program: 
“The theme of Art & Nature speaks particularly to the identity of Laguna Beach, which for over a hundred years has been a center for art, the appreciation of nature, and environmental awareness. In 1929, when the Laguna Beach Art Association built an art gallery to show and sell their work, they chose a commanding location on the coastline close to the natural wonders they loved to paint. The present museum occupies the same site. There could be no more appropriate venue in which to explore the art-nature connection.”

Commissioned Artist
 
Yorgo Alexopoulos (born 1971) is the museum’s commissioned artist for Art & Nature 2019. An American-born artist of Greek descent, Alexopoulos graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently lives in Los Angeles. He creates paintings, time-based media artworks, and installations. He often synchronizes multiple monitors or projections in a dynamic ensemble to create an ever-changing, immersive spectacle. Using landscape symbolism as a point of departure, he combines Euclidean geometric shapes with a multiplicity of moving images, whether filmed, photographed, painted, or drawn, that unite representation and abstraction into a common aesthetic. At Laguna Art Museum his large-scale installation will feature a two channel video projection with sound in which landscape symbols become metaphoric “characters” in an animistic meta-narrative where reality and constructs of our collective subconscious seem to co-exist peacefully. The site-specific work will be on view inside the museum from November 7, 2019, through January 5, 2020.

Keynote Lecture
 
On November 8, 2019, Alan Braddock, Ph.D. will give the keynote lecture, From Nature to Ecology: The Emergency of Ecocritical Art History. Braddock is the Ralph H. Wark Associate Professor of Art History and American Studies at the College of William & Mary. He has published, lectured, and taught courses about the history of American art and its ecological significance and has helped to initiate new curriculum in Critical Curatorial Studies and Built Environment Studies. His book Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment, accompanied a major traveling exhibition that was organized by the Princeton University Art Museum and traveled to the Peabody Essex Museum and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  
 
About Laguna Art Museum
 
Laguna Art Museum is the museum of California art. It collects, cares for, and exhibits works of art that were created by California artists or represent the life and history of the state. Through its permanent collection, its special loan exhibitions, its educational programs, and its library and archive, the museum enhances the public’s knowledge and appreciation of California art of all periods and styles, and encourages art-historical scholarship in this field. 
Laguna Art Museum stands just steps from the Pacific Ocean in the beautiful city of Laguna Beach. The museum is proud to continue the tradition of the Laguna Beach Art Association, founded in 1918 by the early California artists who fostered a vibrant arts community. The gallery that the association built in 1929 is part of today’s Laguna Art Museum.
 
Location
Laguna Art Museum is located at 307 Cliff Drive in Laguna Beach, on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Cliff Drive.
 
Hours
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday: 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Thursday: 11:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Closed Wednesdays
Closed Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day
 
Admission
General admission: $7.00
Students (18+) and S eniors (60+): $5.00
Visitors aged 17 and under: FREE
Museum members: FREE
 
Media Contact: Cody Lee, Director of Communications | 949.494.8971 x211 | clee@lagunaartmuseum.org