#Hwoodtimes,Art |
September 29, 2021
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (September 23, 2021) — Laguna Art Museum will present the ninth annual Art & Nature festival, a multidisciplinary exploration of art’s various engagements with the natural world, November 4-7, 2021. The museum will also hold the annual Art & Nature Gala on November 6, an immersive evening of Art & Nature supporting Laguna Art Museum’s far-reaching art education and exhibition programs.
This year’s Art & Nature featured artist, Rebeca Méndez, will present Any-Instant-Whatever, a multimedia experience depicting a contemplation of a day in Los Angeles that captures a cloud-rich sky above the lively city and its inhabitants. According to Méndez, the sky and the sun in Los Angeles are both great unifying forces, infusing a certain relaxed Southern Californian style in its people, as well as equalizers, whose light and warmth caress everyone. People in Los Angeles from all walks of life experience the same sky—something we all have in common.

Additional Art & Nature festival programming includes the First Thursdays Art Walk on November 4, a keynote lecture on November 5 from Dr. Daniel Lewis, the Dibner Senior Curator for the History of Science & Technology at the Huntington Library, Art Museum & Botanical Gardens, the new Jessie Arms Botke art exhibition opening on November 5, the Art & Nature Gala on November 6, the annual Family Festival on November 14, plus additional events throughout the fall season.

Continuing Laguna Beach’s legacy as a center for the arts, Art & Nature provides a unique opportunity for the Southern California community to come together for a festival of art and ideas, to inspire artists, and enhance the appreciation of nature as a place that inspires awareness about the environment we share.

About the Artist

Rebeca Méndez is an artist, designer, and chair of the Design Media Arts department at UCLA, where she is also director of the CounterForce Lab. Her research and practice investigate design and media art in public spaces, critical approaches to public identities and landscape, and artistic projects based on field investigation methods. In addition to her many great permanent public commissions, including two for the Metro Art Crenshaw/LAX project and three for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Méndez’s work is represented in numerous public and private collections. Among them are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Nevada Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Oaxaca in Mexico, the El Paso Museum of Art, and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. From 2017 through 2019 she served as selecting committee member for the “Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award.”

Keynote Lecture

On November 5, Dr. Daniel Lewis will give the keynote lecture, John James Audubon: Art, Nature, and Science in the Nineteenth Century. Curator and historian Dan Lewis will discuss the role of Audubon in art and science, tracing the history of American ornithological illustration from its earliest days up to Audubon’s work, including material about his predecessors and successors in the bird illustration world, and including a discussion of the tensions inherent in our current understandings of the racially troubling corners of Audubon’s legacy.

Lewis is the Dibner Senior Curator for the History of Science & Technology at the Huntington Library, Art Museum & Botanical Gardens in Southern California. His permanent history of ascience exhibit, Beautiful Science: Ideas that Changed the World, was named by the American Alliance of Museums as the best exhibit in America the year after it opened. Prior to coming to the Huntington, Dr. Lewis was the Company Historian for the Los Angeles Times. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of California and has held post-doctoral appointments at Oxford University, the Smithsonian, and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. His extensive teaching background includes stints at USC, Claremont Graduate University, Art Center College of Design, and Caltech. He is the author of three books and is under contract for a fourth, to be published by Simon & Schuster.

For more information about Art & Nature and Laguna Art Museum, visit lagunaartmuseum.org. To stay connected and learn about upcoming events, follow the museum on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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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.

For more information, please visit www.lagunaartmuseum.org

Location
Laguna Art Museum is located at 307 Cliff Drive in Laguna Beach, on the corner of Coast Highway and Cliff Drive.

Hours

Monday – Tuesday, Thursday – Sunday: 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Closed Wednesdays
Closed Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day