This companion volume to the exhibition Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity,1900-2000 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art offers in-depth, illustrated essays on the making of California culture in the twentieth century. Written by a stellar cast of art historians and scholars in the humanities, the essays look closely at the forces that shaped fine art and material culture in California. The contributors weave their subjects around themes that are central to the milestone exhibition: the California landscape—both the natural and built environments—and the state's cultural and political relationships with Latin America and Asia.
These provocative essays cover topics such as counterculture architecture, Watts Towers, border culture, identity and gender issues, the role of schools in California art, auto tourism, Hollywood, music, Beat culture, politics, literature, photography, and much more. Accessibly written and intellectually engaging, these essays sharpen our understanding of California in the twentieth century and bring together many diverse, yet interrelated, aspects of its art and culture.
Preface and Acknowledgments 7(15) Stephanie Barron THE WORLD MET ITSELF IN CALIFORNIA Carey McWilliamss California: The Light and the Dark 15(16) Kevin Starr Altered State(s): California Art and the Inner World 31(20) Ilene Susan Fort Landscapes of Consumption: Auto Tourism and Visual Culture in California, 1920--1940 51(18) John Ott California Welcomes the World: International Expositions, 1894--1940, and the Selling of a State 69(16) Carolyn Peter Art School Sketches: Notes on the Central Role of Schools in California Art and Culture 85(28) Paul J. Karlstrom WE HAD COME, WITHOUT KNOWING IT, TO OUR INEVITABLE PLACE All about Eden 113(16) Blake Allmendinger California through the Lens of Hollywood 129(24) Dana Polan Music, Migration, and Myth: The California Connection 153(18) George Lipsitz On Location: The Placement (and Replacement) of California in 1930s Photography 171(28) Sally Stein Crooning Kings and Dancing Queens: San Franciscos Chinatown and the Forbidden City Theater 199(22) Anthony W. Lee ``Shocking `Beat Art Displayed: California Artists and the Beat Image 221(28) John P. Bowles Alternative Shelter: Counterculture Architecture in Northern California 249(24) Margaret Crawford Dreamworks: A Concept of Concept Art in California 273(20) Howard N. Fox A Place in the Sun: The Los Angeles Art World and the New Global Context 293(22) Lynn Zelevansky HERE...WHERE WE RUN OUT OF CONTINENT Manzanar Inside and Out: Photo Documentation of the Japanese Wartime Incarceration 315(24) Karin Higa Tim B. Wride The Art of Political Engagement 339(14) Peter Selz From Beats to Borders: An Alternative History of Chicano Art in California 353(20) Chon A. Noriega Picturing the Watts Towers: The Art and Politics of an Urban Landmark 373(16) Sarah Schrank Gold Fevers: Global L.A. and the Noir Imaginary 389(21) Norman M. Klein Index 410
Stephanie Barron is Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Vice President of Education and Public Programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Sheri Bernstein is Exhibition Associate. Ilene Susan Fort is Curator of American Art. Howard N. Fox is Curator of Contemporary Art. Michael Dear is Director of the University of Southern California's Southern California Studies Center and author most recently of The Postmodern Urban Condition (2000). Richard Rodriguez is author of Days of Obligation (1992) and Hunger of Memory (1982), and is a frequent contributor to Harper's, The New York Times,and The News Hour on PBS.
