August 2012

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, presents The Panza Collection and Selections from Major Gifts of Beatrice and Philip Gersh, Rita and Taft Schreiber, and Marcia Simon Weisman, now on view through January 14, 2013 at MOCA Grand Avenue. The exhibition celebrates the core of the museum's internationally renowned collection, which evolved as a result of the acquisition of The Panza Collection in 1984, considered at the time as one of the world's most important acquisitions of contemporary art and a turning point in the museum's early history. This exhibition also marks the first time since 2000 that almost the entire Panza Collection has been presented at MOCA. Installed by MOCA Senior Curator Alma Ruiz, The Panza Collection and Selections from Major Gifts of Beatrice and Philip Gersh, Rita and Taft Schreiber, and Marcia Simon Weisman features 92 works, comprising paintings, sculptures, and works on paper that serve both as evidence of the intellectual and emotional challenge that is involved in collecting and as a testament to exemplary civic patronage and its enduring legacy in the cultural growth of Los Angeles.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Sky Ladder is the first West Coast solo museum exhibition of the work of artist Cai Guo-Qiang. Known for his explosion projects and gunpowder drawings. Cai’s work integrates manual technique and new, highly sophisticated developments in pyrotechnic technology. The exhibition will be composed of an outdoor explosion event, a suspended sculptural installation, three gunpowder drawings, and video compilations, which together press Cai’s exploration of natural forces and extraterrestrial life.

Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974 is the first large-scale, historical-thematic exhibition to deal broadly with Land art, capturing the simultaneous impulse emergent in the 1960s to use the earth as an artistic medium and to locate works in remote sites far from familiar art contexts. Organized by MOCA Senior Curator Philipp Kaiser and co-curator Miwon Kwon, Professor of Art History at UCLA, the exhibition will highlight the early years of untested artistic experimentations and conclude in the mid-1970s before Land art becomes a fully institutionalized category.

This new installation by Amanda Ross-Ho encompasses architectural elements, large-scale paintings, fabricated objects, textiles, and photographs created specifically for the MOCA Pacific Design Center. AMANDA ROSS-HO: TEENY TINY WOMAN evolves her continued interest in translation, scale, and the authored collapse of authentic gesture and performance. Her work interrogates intimate territories of experience, toggling between the context of production and the context of reception, to create an infinite loop of meaning.