Surely You Jest: Humor in Art

A fantastic group exhibition "Surely You Jest: Humor in Art" at OCCCA

Juror: Julie Perlin Lee

Gallery hours: Fridays, Saturdays,

Sundays from noon to 5:00 p.m.

For an appointment email to [email protected]

OCCCA Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, 117 N Sycamore St., Santa Ana, CA 92701, USA

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Surely You Jest: Humor in Art

A juried exhibition at OCCCA

Ever since Picabia pasted a stuffed monkey to a canvas and called it “Cezanne,” the jokes have been coming fast and furious. Whether raucous or sly, blatant or subtle --- there are so many jokesters in contemporary art, we sometimes forget to be serious. You smile when you think of Ed Ruscha, John Baldesarri, or Bruce Nauman. Everyone loves a good laugh. Some unexpected detail in a photograph might do it, the “punctum” as Roland Barthes puts it. Or maybe it is something grotesque, monstrous, that sets off nervous giggles. Magritte painted more than one epistemological scandal. From Surrealism’s dark “humour noir,” to Ryan Trecartin’s hilariously manic, gender-bending videos, humor is an indisputable force in contemporary art.

The juror

Julie Perlin Lee is the executive director of Laguna Art Museum.

As the executive director of the Catalina Island Museum from 2016 to 2021, Lee led a period of growth including high-profile exhibitions and educational programs, and the completion of a capital project for the museum’s new permanent facility which opened in 2016. She was curator of the exhibitions "Elizabeth Turk: Tipping Point" in 2019 (Turk was LAM’s commissioned artist for Art & Nature in 2018) and Peter Shire, Sculptures in 2018.

The artists in the exhibition

Glenn Arnett, Nick Bosworth, Liza Botkin, Mark Collis, Skeith DeWine, Fletcher Dice, Charles Doss, Stan Evenson, Dwora Fried, Jeffrey Frisch, Charlie Groh, Terry Hastings, Daniel Hustwit, Kevin Jacobs, Tommy Kovac, Karen LeCocq, Lynda A Levy, Terri Lloyd, Lynn Mackenzie, Dorothy Magallon, Don Manderson, Stuart McCall, Lauren Mendelsohn-Bass, Jared Millar, Robert Nelson, John Oleinik, David Pennington, Franklin Perkins, James Perry, Dali Polivka, Annabella Pritchard, Steve Reinhart, Robert Rossoff, Ryan Schude, Gareth Seigel, Laura Shapiro, Michael Thorstensen, Rhiannon Valenti, Winnie Van der Rijn, David Vasquez, Patrick Warren, Doug Webb, Robert Wicklund, R. Lee Willmore, Nan Wollman, Ron Yeo, Mark Zanni, Jim Zver.