Cinema News: A big museum shakeup in Orange County

October 03, 2025 | View in browser

OCMA's undulating forms are seen illuminated from within at dusk on a cloudy day

By Jessica Gelt

Staff Writer

UC Irvine has officially acquired Orange County Museum of Art, bringing the two organizations together under a new name: UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. I first reported on the possibility of the merger in June when the two entities first signed a nonbinding letter of intent that needed approval by the University of California Board of Regents.

With the legal details now set, UC Irvine is absorbing OCMA's 53,000-square-foot, $98-million Morphosis-designed building on the eastern edge of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts campus. According to UC Irvine, no money changed hands in the acquisition, which also finds the university taking over OCMA's assets, employees and debt.

Just how much debt the Costa Mesa-based museum was in has not been disclosed by either organization, and a rep for UC Irvine declined to comment on that number.

OCMA's board has been dissolved, and CEO Heidi Zuckerman, who announced her intention to step down in December, vacated her role. She had been planning to stay until her successor was found, but UC Irvine is now that successor and has launched a search for a new leader to take over the merged museums. A rep for the university said it is hoping to announce a candidate by early next year.

UC Irvine had long planned to build a museum for its California art collection, including its celebrated Gerald Buck Collection, but it now intends to move it to OCMA when the lease on its current off-campus space, on Von Karman Avenue, expires in late 2026. The Buck Collection, bequeathed to UC Irvine by Gerald Buck when he died in 2017, is the museum's crown jewel, consisting of more than 3,200 paintings, sculptures and works on paper by some of the state's most championed artists, including Joan Brown, Jay DeFeo, Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney and Ed Ruscha.

OCMA opened to much fanfare in 2022 and its expansive contemporary art collection drew museum-goers from across the country. More than 10,000 visitors arrived in its first 24 hours, and admission was to remain free for the first decade of operation thanks to a grant from Newport Beach's Lugano Diamonds.

All did not seem well at the new museum, however. Times art critic Christopher Knight and former Times architecture columnist Carolina Miranda wrote that the highly touted building remained oddly unfinished. Murmurs about the museum's financial problems persisted when Zuckerman announced her departure three years later.

According to a rep for OCMA, the museum had a $7.7-million annual budget and had attracted 600,000 visitors since 2022, which is a healthy number by industry standards. Still, questions circulated among museum insiders about what OCMA's long-term financial plan was, and how much it might have been struggling toward the end.

A rep for UC Irvine would say only that the museum had done its due diligence before the acquisition.

The museums at both locations remain open as usual, with OCMA in the midst of its 2025 California Biennial: "Desperate, Scared, But Social."

"UC Irvine is committed to ensuring that the region benefits from a world-class art museum that enriches the cultural fabric of Orange County, advances groundbreaking scholarship, nurtures the next generation of creators and thinkers, and inspires curiosity and connection across diverse audiences," said Chancellor Howard Gillman in a news release.

I'm arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, looking to acquire a healthy breakfast in a few minutes. Here's your arts news for the week.

On our radar

Martha Graham Dance Company Centennial
The Soraya continues its celebration with Graham's 1947 ballet "Night Journey," which is based on the Oedipus myth and has not been widely performed; a 2024 piece titled "We the People," featuring folk music by Rhiannon Giddens; and the world premiere of "En Masse," which builds on the Soraya's exploration of Graham's collaborations with various composers. The last — a new commission choreographed by Hope Boykin — marks the first time Graham's work has been paired with the music of Leonard Bernstein. The posthumous partnership was inspired by a musical excerpt that was found in correspondence between the two arts legends. Christopher Rountree's experimental classical ensemble Wild Up will perform a new arrangement of Bernstein, as well as William Schuman's score for "Night Journey."
— Jessica Gelt
8 p.m. Saturday. The Saroya, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge. thesoraya.org

Dua Lipa
Lipa has found a formidable second life as a public intellectual with her fantastic book club, Service95. (This month's suggestion: David Szalay's novel "Flesh.") But on the heels of last year's (unfairly!) slept-on "Radical Optimism," the singer returns to SoCal for five nights at the Forum, where that record's exquisite catalog of disco-funk effervescence will hopefully get its due on the dance floor.
— August Brown
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday. Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood. thekiaforum.com

Made in L.A. 2025
UCLA Hammer Museum's seventh biennial survey of mostly recent art from the sprawling region will include 28 artists and collectives — including influential elder statesman Pat O'Neill, 86. The artists work in every imaginable medium, from traditional painting and sculpture to theater and choreography. The always much-discussed result will reflect the diverse artistic interests of the changing curatorial team, which this time is composed of independent curator Essence Harden, Art Institute of Chicago (and former Hammer) curator Paulina Pobocha and Hammer curatorial assistant Jennifer Buonocore-Nedrelow.
— Christopher Knight
Sunday through March 1, 2026. Closed Mondays. UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY
🎭 Family Meal
A famous chef serves his last meal, and you're invited to this immersive theatrical experience that seats the audience at the dinner table for a round of foodie "Succession."
7 p.m. Friday-Sunday; Oct. 10-12; Nov. 7-9; 14-16. Rita House, 5971 W. 3rd St. speakeasysociety.com

🎶 🎤 Ledisi: For Dinah
The Grammy-winning singer's new album pays tribute to Dinah Washington, "The Queen of the Blues." 
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

🎨 Calvin Marcus
Building on a coat of deep umber, the artist adds layers of lime, Kelly, forest and other shades of green to mimic the growth cycle of his subject in the Grass Paintings. This isn't the type of nature you can touch, but the vivid compositions of the series may offer their own sense of the sublime to the viewer.
10 a.m.–6 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday through Nov. 1. Karma, 7351 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. karmakarma.org

🎹 🎺 🎶Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble
UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance presents an evening with the Grammy-winning octet, featuring pianist and composer O'Farrill, son of the late Cuban jazz pioneer Chico O'Farrill.
8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

🎼 French Fairytales: Ravel and Debussy
San Diego Symphony music director Rafael Payare opens his orchestra's second season in the brilliantly renovated Jacobs Music Center by staging Ravel's one-act opera, "The Child and the Magical Spells" (commonly known by its French title, "L'enfant et les sortileges"). A kind of French "Alice Wonderland," this is the most enchanted work by a composer for whom enchantment was bedazzling second nature. The stellar cast is headed by mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and soprano Liv Redpath. The stage director is by the orchestra's creative consultant, Gerard McBurney, who recently created for Esa-Pekka Salonen a new version of Mussorgsky's "Khovanshchina," which was the hit of this year's Salzburg Easter Festival. Plus Debussy's "The Joyful Isle (L'isle joyeuse)" and "The Box of Toys (La boîte à joujoux)." (Mark Swed)
7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Jacobs Music Center, 1245 Seventh Ave, San Diego. sandiegosymphony.org

SATURDAY
🎼 🎤 Current: Reflections in Song
Countertenor John Holiday, pianist Lara Downes and an 18-piece Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra lineup glide through Chris Walde's arrangements of Gershwin, Ellington, Strayhorn, Korngold, Chaplin and more in a program that unites cinematic romance with the elegance of jazz.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Cicada Restaurant and Lounge
617 S Olive St., downtown L.A. laco.org

🎨 The HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours
For a 24th year, High Desert artists open their studios and share their work for three weekends of free self-guided tours.
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; Oct. 11-12 and 18-19. Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms and surrounding areas. hwy62arttours.org

🎭 Public Assembly's Soirée
"Everything Everywhere All At Once" director Daniel Scheinert, actor Jena Malone and other celebrities gather for this fundraiser for the non-profit theater company featuring staged readings of the group's earlier works.
6 p.m. VIP-only cocktail party; 7:30 p.m. staged readings. Eagle Rock (location to be sent along with ticket purchase). publicassembly.us

📚Rare Books LA Union Station
This year's fair features antiquarian books, maps, fine prints and book arts, while celebrates Guillermo Del Toro's new film adaptation of "Frankenstein," streaming on Netflix this November. (A Frankenstein Fundraiser, hosted by Netflix in association with Rare Books LA and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, is scheduled Friday night in Hollywood).
10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Union Station, 800 N. Alameda Street. rarebooksla.com

🎨 🚘 🎶 Venice Afterburn
This official Burning Man Regional brings art cars, installations, theme camps and music to the beach.
Noon-10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Windward Plaza, Venice Beach. veniceafterburn.com

SUNDAY

🎼 🎸 Jiji: 'Classical Goes Electric'
The Korean guitarist and composer who goes by Jiji Guitar and is a member of the L.A. new music collective Wild Up exchanges her acoustic guitar for electric in a solo recital program that ranges across centuries as part of the endearing Sunday morning series at BroadStage (bagels and cream cheese included). Jiji begins with an arrangement of a vocal piece by the mystical 12th century abbess Hildegard von Bingen, who happens to be the subject of Sarah Kirkland Snider's new opera, "Hildegard," that L.A. Opera presents Nov. 5-9 at the Wallis. Elsewhere on the program, the guitarist electrifies a neglected Baroque composer, Claudia Sessa (all women Baroque composers suffer obscurity), with Max Richter and new music including neglected electronic music pioneer Laurie Spiegel. (Mark Swed)
11 a.m. Sunday. Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St. broadstage.org

🎼 Two Titans: The Music of Beethoven and Verdi
The Los Angeles Master Chorale performs the epic works "Mass in C" and "Four Sacred Pieces" by Ludwig Van Beethoven and Giusseppe Verdi, respectively.
7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org

🎨 The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse
Is there anyone who doesn't like Impressionist paintings and sculptures? As the Dallas Museum of Art renovates and expands its building, a selection of 50 Impressionist and early Modern works from its permanent collection, dating from the 1870s to 1925, has embarked on a three-year, five-city tour. Six paintings by Claude Monet and four by Piet Mondrian are featured. (Christopher Knight)
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday; Oct. 5 through Jan. 25, 2026. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State St. sbma.net

TUESDAY
🎨 Glass Sukkah: This Home Is Not a House
Sukkot, an ancient Jewish harvest festival, and its messages of the temporary nature of shelter, the value of welcome and belonging, the importance of honoring ancestors and the preciousness of the natural world are themes of artist Therman Statom's work, including glass face jugs and paintings.
Noon-5 p.m. Tuesday–Friday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, ongoing.
Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. skirball.org

🎵 🎭 Les Misérables
Cameron Mackintosh's evergreen production of Boublil and Schönberg's Tony Award- winning musical – billed as "the world's most popular" – arrives for a two-week run.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, through Oct 19. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. broadwayinhollywood.com

🎼 Strauss, Pärt & Glass
Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform 20th century chamber music.
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

THURSDAY
🎼 Mahler's 'Resurrection'
The conductor's "Second Symphony" is performed by Soprano Chen Reiss, mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the L.A. Phil, under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel, for only the second time in the maestro's tenure.
8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m. Oct. 10; 8 p.m. Oct. 11; 2 p.m. Oct. 12. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

🎭 Paranormal Inside
Playwright Prince Gomolvilas' latest is a sequel to "The Brothers Paranormal," which had its Los Angeles premiere at East West Players in 2022. In returning to the ghost-hunting business launched by two Thai American brothers, the author continues his examination of intergenerational trauma through the lens of the occult. Jeff Liu directs what sounds like a wild ride into the Freudian uncanny, where the repressed makes a startling return. (Charles McNulty)
8 p.m. Thursday, through Nov. 2; check days and times. David Henry Hwang Theater, 120 N Judge John Aiso Street, Little Tokyo. eastwestplayers.org

Culture news and the SoCal scene

The legendary Broadway musical "West Side Story" is getting the L.A. Opera treatment as it opens the company's 40th anniversary season at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Times classical music critic Mark Swed caught a show and gives a bit of history in his review — namely that when choreographer Jerome Robbins talked with Leonard Bernstein in 1949 about the idea of updating 'Romeo and Juliet' into a contemporary musical, "Robbins didn't know what it would be, but he knew what it wouldn't be: An opera!" Nonetheless, the show is operatic, Swed notes, and redoing it as an opera means one important thing: more attention is given to the music.

Gustavo Dudamel is currently straddling two worlds as he kicks off his final season at the Los Angeles Philharmonic while at the same time assuming the role of music director designate at the New York Philharmonic, prior to becoming the orchestra's artistic director in 2026. The opening concerts for both orchestras were a mere two weeks apart, with New York coming first. Swed invokes Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" to explore the new state of affairs that finds one city losing a beloved figurehead to another. In both cities, however, Dudamel is making superb music.

I spoke with a member of the anonymous "satirical activist" group the Secret Handshake, which recently installed a 12-foot-tall statue of President Trump holding hands with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The statue was removed less than 24 hours later by the National Park Service despite having a permit. The NPS claimed the statue had violated height restrictions, but the Secret Handshake rep said that it should have been given 24 hours to fix the problem before the statue was removed. The following day the group again tried to get a permit to reinstall the statue, and was denied without explanation. On Thursday afternoon, however, the statue was reinstalled for a limited time. Stay tuned.

A brand new mural of ballet star Misty Copeland by the artist El Mac is being unveiled on Oct. 5 in San Pedro. The colorful painting takes up an entire outside wall of San Pedro City Ballet at 13th Street and Pacific Avenue, and was made possible by Arts United San Pedro. The unveiling also includes the renaming of the building in homage to donor Dr. Joseph A. Adan. "I'm incredibly honored to be featured in this stunning mural by El Mac at San Pedro City Ballet, my very first ballet studio and a place that will always feel like home," Copeland said in a news release. "What he's captured through my image is so much bigger than me, it represents every young person from this community and beyond who deserves access to the arts. This is such a beautiful tribute to where it all began for me."

Long Beach Opera has named former L.A. Opera Production Director Michelle Magaldi its new chief executive officer. While at L.A. Opera, Magaldi oversaw the company's popular Santa Monica Pier simulcasts; helped guide operations for L.A. Opera Off Grand; was responsible for hiring and training various producers and technical staff and also helped spearhead the world-premiere production of Ellen Reid's "Prism," which later won a Pulitzer Prize. Magaldi has a long working history with LBO's Chief Creative Officer and Artistic Director James Darrah. Magaldi succeeds Marjorie Beale, who served as interim managing director since 2024.

Doja Cat will be the musical guest for Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Art+Film Gala, the museum announced earlier this week. The always glitzy soiree is set to take place on Saturday, Nov. 1, and will honor artist Mary Corse and filmmaker Ryan Coogler. It's co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Christine Vendredi has been apponted Palm Springs Art Museum's new executive director, the board of trustees announced Monday. It's a role Vendredi has occupied on an interim basis since April 2025. Prior to that she served as chief curator — a role she took on after serving as global director of art, culture and heritage at Louis Vuitton.

— Jessica Gelt

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And last but not least

Join me in a moment of silence for Jane Goodall. She communicated across species, showing the world that we have more in common with all living creatures than we think. It's a lesson we would do well to remember in these trying times.