Big things are happening. We’ve officially consolidated from two locations into one permanent home in Costa Mesa at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts campus.
In the coming weeks, we look forward to sharing more about Museum Director Kathryn Kanjo’s vision and the future direction of the museum. In the meantime, here are a few answers to some of your most frequently asked questions.
We hope to welcome you soon.
A new chapter, together.
As we close our interim Irvine location and fully come together in our Costa Mesa home, you may notice something new—this account is now @langson_museum
This change reflects who we are becoming: a museum bringing our collections, exhibitions, and community into one unified space—rooted in creativity, conversation, and connection.
To those who have been with us as the Orange County Museum of Art—thank you. And to those just joining us here—welcome. We’re glad you’re part of this next chapter.
Follow along as we share new exhibitions, ideas, and perspectives from our home on the Segerstrom Center for the Arts campus.
We’re just getting started.
L A T T E /// of exploring this week in OC ✨
🐟 New location alert - @pacificcatch is now open at @shopbreamall , committed to 100% sustainably sourced seafood.
💿 Wandered the cd tunnel at @thelabantimall
🍜 Modern Vietnamese at @nep.cafe by @kei.concepts - elevated, comforting, and worth the trip.
🖼️ Explored modern and contemporary art at @ucirvine@langson_museum .
🍦 Chili oil ice cream at @clawsandcream made with @laoganmausa chili oil.
🍵 Matcha latte moment at @nookcoffeebar - the cozy, neighborhood kind.
📸 $5 analog photo strips at @boothbybryant (because some memories deserve film).
🎥: @_withdiane
Today we’re sharing Jon Serl’s insight from his current exhibition “Jon Serl: As One, As Many” here at the museum!
Serl lived a life as vivid and unconventional as his artistic practice. A former vaudeville performer, Hollywood voice actor, and gardener who reinvented himself as a painter after World War II, Serl spent decades in California, particularly in San Juan Capistrano and Lake Elsinore, creating expressive works on scavenged materials. His paintings—filled with free-form figures, vibrant color, and eccentric theatricality—reflect a deeply personal world and an unyielding search for truth beyond convention.
See the exhibition on view now and watch the full video of Serl giving insights from his studio. Plan your visit through the link in our bio.
Weekend Studio is back this Sunday from 3-5 PM!
Join us as we listen to live music performed by UCI students Lisa Yoshida and Dylan Williams and create layered watercolor paintings representing the sounds that we hear. The project is inspired by exhibiting artist Steve Roden who combined both sound and visual elements in his work “For Now in yellow bloom (2013–14),” which exists as a score where shapes and colors represent different types of sound.
Weekend Studio workshops invite artists of all experience levels to engage with current exhibitions through creative, hands-on activities. Tickets are $10 or free for residents of Costa Mesa. Advance registration is required, and space is limited.
Learn more through the link in our bio!
This weekend, we’re happy to celebrate all the nurturing figures in our lives! We thank all the families that make up our community and bring so much joy to the museum.
The museum is open this weekend from 11 AM–6 PM with art making activities in our Engagement Gallery, a place to rest and recharge at our downstairs café: The Fueling Station, and of course a host of exhibitions of art and ideas, free for all visitors.
Plan your visit today at OCMA.art
This is the final month to see Sophie Calle: Overshare, which is open through May 24.
The first North American exhibition to explore the full range of Calle’s five-decade career, Overshare reveals how her early work anticipated the rise of social media as a space for constructing and sharing the self. Recently reviewed in Artforum, writer Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer notes: “In mining her personal life, Calle dances around disclosure and secrecy… turning banality into something meaningful, memorable, and inevitable.”
Find something meaningful—and memorable—of your own this week at the museum.
We’re excited to announce our next public talk with independent curator, writer, and cultural historian TK Smith Saturday, May 16 at 2 PM!
The talk will be focused on the enduring issues surrounding self-taught artists in dialogue with the current exhibition Jon Serl: As One, As Many, which repositions the work of self-taught painter Jon Serl.
Beyond the categories of “outsider art” and “folk art,” Smith will discuss the broader “folk art fever” phenomenon, the problems and potentials of the “self-taught” label, and the effects of that label on how such art moves through the world.
Like all of our talks, this event is free and open to the public with no prior registration required.
Photos:
“Jon Serl: As One, As Many, (installation view), 2026. Photo by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
On Sunday, May 17, join us for Weekend Studio: Sound, Shape, and Color!
Listen to live musicians Lisa Yoshida and Dylan Williams, and create layered watercolor paintings representing the sounds that they hear with us from 3–5 PM.
The workshop is inspired by Multi-media artist Steve Roden who combined both sound and visual elements in his work. For “Now in yellow bloom (2013–14),” he created a visual score in which shapes and colors represented different types of sound. Inspired by Roden’s work,
Tickets are $10 or free for residents of Costa Mesa. Advance registration is required, and space is limited. Overflow seating may be available with modified materials. Registrants that arrive more than 15 minutes past the start time cannot be guaranteed entry.
Learn more about the musicians and the workshop at ocma.art/calendar
Behind the scenes this winter our Orange County Young Curators have been working hard learning about collections, museums, curation, and prepping for their own exhibition this summer! From our collections, to the ICA LA, USC Roski, and more, we can’t wait for you to see the fruits of their research and the exhibition!
The Orange County Young Curators (OCYC) program brings together high school juniors and seniors from across the county to learn about museums, contemporary art, and curatorial practice. Together with artists, peers, and museum staff, students develop an exhibition from start to finish that opens to the public at the museum.
#OCYC #Teens
Join us in Costa Mesa this Sunday from 3-5 PM for another fantastic opportunity to make art with us!
Inspired by Steve Roden’s artwork when the body becomes a city and the city becomes a body (2013) and Jon Serl’s theatrical and distorted representations of the figure, artists will use collage techniques to create surreal and abstract figurative artworks. Supplies are provided!
Tickets are $10 or free for residents of Costa Mesa. Advance registration is required, and space is limited.
Made possible by The City of Costa Mesa, Weekend Studio workshops invite artists of all experience levels to engage with current exhibitions through creative, hands-on activities.
Learn more and purchase tickets at ocma.art
