Featured Works

Body Count Brand

Ben Sakoguchi, Body Count Brand, 1978 – 1979, Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 11 in. The Buck Collection at UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art

Body Count Brand

Ben Sakoguchi

Musings | Monthly Muse June 2022

Two generations back, some of my family immigrated to the United States from Ukraine, and I find myself watching media images of the Russian invasion closely from my home in California. Ben Sakoguchi’s Body Count Brand—centered on a carefully painted rendition of a journalist’s gruesome photograph—exposes the tendrils that another far-off war sank deeply into California life. In this small work made nearly half a century ago, Sakoguchi injects imagery of the atrocities of the war in Vietnam into the format of an orange crate label. Oranges of Southern California meet Agent Orange. Death Valley, the great national park, frames the landscape of death along the Mekong. Who is painting California scenarios of today’s suffering in Ukraine?

Bert Winther-Tamaki
Professor of Art History and Visual Studies, UC Irvine

Santa Ana Arrows

painting of a freeway sign with symbols for Interstate 5 and Highway 101, and the words South and Santa Ana and three white arrows pointing down on a black background

Roger Kuntz, Santa Ana Arrows, From the series Sign , circa 1962, Oil on canvas, 60. 72 in. The Buck Collection at UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art

Santa Ana Arrows

Roger Kuntz

Musings | Monthly Muse May 2022

When I moved to California in 2016, I was shocked by the car culture. The speed, intensity, and congestion were like nothing I had experienced. Santa Ana Arrows by Roger Kuntz captures a glimpse of the vast automotive infrastructure that suffuses and shapes our everyday lives in the Orange County-Los Angeles megalopolis. The seemingly flat surface on which Kuntz marks linguistic symbols and icons (the stuff of so much Pop art) is all about space, depth, and tactility. What I notice here is the way a streak of daylight cuts across the center of the composition, leaving the corners in shadow. As opposed to the signage that I normally pass which is bathed in bright white light, Kuntz’s selective focus suggests surrounding architecture—nearby structures block out part of the daylight, exposing only a portion of the sign to its rays. How will this streak of light change as the sun moves through the sky? Where will I be when that happens? Long gone. Or maybe stuck in traffic.

Scott Volz, ’22, PhD (Visual Studies)
Graduate Curatorial and Research Assistant, Langson IMCA

Crazy Drawing

colorful figures and animals, drawn in cartoon style, playing instruments and marching playfully alongside a train

Roger Armstrong, Crazy Drawing, 2007, Watercolor, crayon, and soft-tip pen on wove-screen paper, 29 x 37 x 2 in. The Buck Collection at UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art

Crazy Drawing

Roger Armstrong

Musings | Monthly Muse April 2022

When was the last time you experienced a full, deep-bellied laugh? I’ve been thinking a lot about comedy and joy lately. It’s so much harder to make someone laugh than it is to make them cry. So much simpler to keep moving than to pass on a word of kindness or elicit a smile. The world has felt so heavy these last two years. We all could use some laughter.

Many reading this may be familiar with the artist Roger Armstrong, an Orange County darling who launched his career in animation working for the likes of Disney and Warner Bros. Known for creating funny animal comic books, he was also recognized for his talent as a Southern California oil and watercolor painter of the everyday. Crazy Drawing (2007), painted by Armstrong in the last few months of his life, made me stop, look, and giggle. What is this brightly colored, unusual cast of characters up to? The capacity for this small work to spark joy is, frankly, delightful. I invite you to pause and experience just that. And maybe share a joke with the next person you see.

Kate Heusner
Executive Director of Development, Langson IMCA

In between Sets, Waiting for the Band

colored pencil drawing of three female figures wearing concert t-shirts and jeans, sitting on the ground together

Shizu Saldamando, In between Sets, Waiting for the Band, 2010, Colored pencil on paper, 23 x 31 in. The Buck Collection at UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art

In between Sets, Waiting for the Band

Shizu Saldamando

Musings | Monthly Muse March 2022

Shizu Saldamando’s In between Sets, Waiting for the Band (2010) reminds me of hybrid moments when a sort of nothingness seems to be going on and, in actuality, any number of things are happening all at once. I wonder if the colored pencil drawing could be a punk rendition of The Three Graces, reimagining attributes of gender, sexuality, strength, power, and wit. What is the figure on the left thinking? “Never Sell Out?” The middle figure has pink tipped, long dark hair and a joyful, stealthy smile. The figure on the left wears emblems of life and death: a red rose pinned to her hair and a skull-emblazoned t-shirt. Saldamando’s work inverts classical Western mythology and art by subverting tropes of feminine bodies, roles, and symbols. In a celestial mosh pit somewhere out there, perhaps Zeus’ three daughters Aglaea, Euphrosyne, and Thalia are pogoing.

Suggested Playlist
“Feels Blind,” Bikini Kill
“Hybrid Moments,” Misfits
“Saturday Night,” Misfits
“Never Sell Out,” The Exploited
“Growing Up,” The Linda Lindas
“No One’s Little Girl,” The Raincoats
“Sheena is a Punk Rocker,” The Ramones

Julianne Gavino
Assistant Curator, Langson IMCA

Minnie-Skirt

A ceramic sculpture of two people on a bench

Beatrice Wood, Minnie-Skirt, 1967, Ceramic, 23 x 17x 20 in. The Buck Collection at UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art © Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts/Happy Valley Foundation

Minnie-Skirt

Beatrice Wood

Musings | Monthly Muse February 2022

Eccentric objects always seem to grab my attention, especially those that are perplexing. I collect dolls and other types of puppets with whimsical or odd qualities, so I was immediately drawn to Beatrice Wood’s Minnie-Skirt (1967). I am captivated by the yellow eyes with their dazed expression staring off into the distance. The longer I look at the work, the more I notice differences between these seemingly twin figures, and I become even more curious about them. They are seated side by side, hands on their laps, and wearing similar outfits and facial expressions, but their hairstyles and the flower imprint on their shirts distinguish them from one another. Wood’s unusual choice of colors is also fascinating and feels contradictory to the childlike sensibility of the work, which adds to its peculiarity and makes it even more interesting to look at.

Kimberly Lara, ’22, BA (History with focus in Education, Archaeology minor)
UCI Student Gallery Guide, Langson IMCA

Red and Green

A painting of a woman in a rose garden with a red jacket on.

Joseph Kleitsch, Red and Green,1923, Oil on canvas, 36 x 40 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of The Irvine Museum

Red and Green

Joseph Kleitsch

Staff Pick | Monthly Muse December 2021

I felt a sense of nostalgia and comfort the first time I saw Joseph Kleitsch’s Red and Green (1923)—a name that is fitting due to the colors that are prominent in the painting. The work evokes memories of visiting flower fields with my aunt and helping my mother tend our small garden during springtime. I’ve always had, as my grandmother often said, “green fingers”—nurturing flowers into bloom in summer and caring for them as they go dormant in winter. The building in the background of Kleitsch’s painting reminds me of the architecture I explored during family trips to Mexico and parts of Southern California. The warm colors of the shadowed arches convey the time of day and hint at California’s subtle seasonal changes in temperature. For me, Red and Green embodies the duality of light and shadow that makes me appreciate the way that color can both conjure and leave an impression on our memories.

Tanya Guadalupe Garcia, ’21, BA (Art)
Intern and UCI Student Museum Educator, IMCA