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Made in California:
Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000
by Valerie Summers
 Made
in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000, a landmark exhibition,
addresses the relationship between the arts in California and the state’s
evolving image over the past century. Organized by LACMA - The
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the exhibition goes beyond a standard
presentation of California art to offer a revisionist view of the state and its
cultural legacy. It considers both “booster” images of California,
such as those from Chambers of Commerce, and other coexisting and at times,
competing images, reflecting the wide range of interests and experiences of the
state’s diverse constituencies. It is the largest exhibition
ever organized or hosted by LACMA and includes 800 works of art, more than 400
cultural documents, 16 specially commissioned film and multimedia stations,
three mural reconstructions, and three period rooms. The exhibit is
divided into five sections occupying 45,000 square feet of gallery space.
Cultural documents including tourist brochures, rock posters, labor pamphlets,
and documentary photographs from important public and private collections from
across the nation convey California’s fascinating history and changing popular
image.
Section One examines the years 1900 to 1920 and establishes
the conceptual foundation for the exhibition. The myths by which
California is most often identified formed at that time, as the state’s
boosters in industry, regional government and the press promoted California to a
largely white middle class constituency. Three media stations
present period footage of California, early depictions of California’s Latino
and Asian communities and a commissioned documentary of Hollywood glamour serves
as a prelude to Section 2.
 A
golden vision of California as an unspoiled paradise dominated the popular
consciousness during this period. The arts played a pivotal role in
shaping and popularizing this Eden-like image. Although California was
large promoted in the early part of the century as a haven for whites, the
state’s official boosters and many of its artists cultivated myths about the
region’s cultural character such as its Spanish mission history. Also
frequently portrayed by boosters and artists at this time were California’s
Asian communities, present in the region since the Gold Rush.
Section Two considers the period from 1920 through the
Great Depression when conceptions of California expanded considerably.
These were years when industries grew and demographics changed in all parts of
the state. The proliferation of new modern images complicated earlier,
utopian visions of the state, and the first negative imagery appeared. This
section features two mural stations which are scale model recreations of murals
in situ. The first features Diego Rivera’s Allegory of California
painted in the San Francisco Stock Exchange Building, while the second
highlights selected murals at San Francisco’s Coit Tower. Urban
conceptions of California appeared in the ‘20s. This section explores a
variety of perspectives on this theme, including genre scenes of everyday life,
images championing new industry and technology, depictions of poverty in the
Depression era and views of labor unrest.
The new industry most identified with Southern California
was the movie factory, which blossomed seemingly overnight in Hollywood.
Made in California focuses on the glamour aspect of the industry, with celebrity
photographs by George Hurrell and others, costumes from well-known films and a
documentary. Latino and Asian cultures remained intrinsic to
California’s image in the 1920s and 1930s. Scenic images of the
California landscape continued to proliferate, even during the Depression years.
Booster industries and organizations encouraged automobile travel and promoted
new tourist destinations like the desert in publications such as the Automobile
Club of Southern California’s magazine which featured works by major artists
of the region. Promoters also continued to disseminate visions of the
pristine natural expanses even though urbanization and migration considerably
changed the California landscape.
 Section
Three explores California’s image during and after World War II, years of
continued massive migration to the state when California emerged as a center for
the defense and aerospace industries and was viewed as a place of tremendous
employment opportunity. One of the first subjects addressed in this
section is the internment of the state’s sizable Japanese population during
World War II. Two of the internment camps, Manzanar and Tule Lake, were
located in California. The cultural documents in this part of the
exhibition indicate the wide spectrum of wartime attitudes in California towards
the Japanese.
Blacklisting during the McCarthy era is addressed in this
section. On a more positive note, this section features listening stations
with Beat poetry, California jazz and a variety of musical selections from 1920
to the present.
Section Four, focuses on the period between 1960 and 1980.
During these years, California, and particularly the San Francisco Bay area,
became widely associated with non-conformists and anti-authoritarianism while it
also evoked the political conservatism of Governor Ronald Reagan. The
state’s image came to be defined by a more diverse constituency with the
emergence of political voices from the Latino, African-American, feminist, gay
and other communities. Many California artists of this period,
particularly in the Southland, were immersed in car and beach cultures and
integrated them into their art while also experimenting with new materials
developed in the aerospace and defense industries. This section considers
how the automobile influenced and inspired California artists.
Unquestionably, the single most commanding aspect of the California image in the
1960’s was that of counterculture. Events such as the founding of the
Free Speech Movement on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in
1964; the coalescing of hippie culture in the Haight-Ashbury district of
San Francisco in the mid-60s; and the formation of the revolutionary Black
Panther Party in Oakland in 1966 revealed an epicenter of potent new social
forces that ultimately catalyzed profound changes in the nation and the world.
The revolutionary new spirit, although not unique to California, found its most
lively artistic expression here.
Section Five addresses the multiplicity of California
images that have proliferated in the past 20 years, in conjunction with an
increasingly diverse and at times polarized population. This
section also considers the impact of globalization which has made the state more
accessible to the rest of the world and brought distant locations to
California’s doorstep. With the rise of multiculturalism, issues of
identity have figured prominently in the art of this period. Perceptions
of California itself have also become more complex during these years. As
the mass media have cultivated anti-utopian visions of the state as rife with
natural disasters and social unrest, artists have often taken ironic or critical
approaches to longstanding California icons such as Barbie, the beach, the
suburban ranch house and Disney. The California landscape and particularly
the built environment continues to be a powerful subject for artists in the
1980s and 1990s.
Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity
1900-2000 is a landmark exhibition that addresses the relationship between the
arts in California and the state’s evolving image over the past century.
On view from October 22, 2000 through February 25, 2001 at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art.
For information
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Bl.
Los Angeles, Ca 90036
323/857-6000
http://www.lacma.org
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