Download the arts walking tour and map (2.7MB)



 


“This is a wonderful time to be working or living in South Coast Metro as the Segerstrom Center for the Arts has ushered in a new era for arts and culture with the magnificent Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and Samueli Theater,” said Paul Folino, Chairman of Emulex Corporation, and former chairman of The Center. “These remarkable new venues join the present Segerstrom Center for the Arts facility, Tony® Award-winning South Coast Repertory, an outdoor plaza, and, hopefully, a future visual arts facility to create a Segerstrom Center for the Arts, one of the West Coast’s largest performing arts complexes.”

 

Visual arts abound in South Coast Metro. Take a leisurely walking tour to experience the spectacular works of Jean Dubuffet, Henry Moore, Joan Miro, Charles O. Perry and Isamu Noguchi, among other world-class figures whose artistry is on display locally.

The centerpiece is Isamu Noguchi’s 1.6-acre collection of sculptures and plantings called California Scenario. This sculpture and horticultural landscape present an abstract, condensed vision of the Golden State itself. The garden is located behind Pacific Arts Plaza situated at the corner of Park Center Drive and Anton Boulevard

 

The Ram by Charles O. Perry
The Ram, Charles O. Perry’s bright yellow, steel abstraction, was the first sculpture to find a home in the area and remains a colorful center of attention. The sculpture’s title and form suggest that Perry was inspired by animal horns, but he has taken the idea so dramatically into the realm of abstraction that it literally rises above any reference to nature.

Charles O. Perry, first recognized as an architect, is internationally known as a sculptor; he’s equally renowned for his jewelry collection, and for his design of an 18-story steel tower in Saudi Arabia. Perry’s works are featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

www.charlesperry.com
Located between Park Tower and The Westin South Coast Plaza.

 

Night Shift by Jim Huntington
While most of the artwork around the Costa Mesa Theater and Arts District were clearly brought from the outside and installed here, Jim Huntington’s Night Shift, fixed on a grassy mound in the peaceful Town Center Park, looks as if it might have always been here. Cut from a massive chunk of Sierra white granite, the piece is abruptly sliced through the top by a plate of polished, stainless steel.

Jim Huntington’s sculptures are pure abstracts – determined by this artist’s search through quarries for pieces of stone developed over the millennia that have “spoken” to him. Huntington’s work has been exhibited in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles.

www.huntingtonsculpture.com
Located in Town Center Park behind Park Tower and
The Westin South Coast Plaza.

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Tour Aux Jambes by Jean Dubuffet
Jean Dubuffet’s Tour Aux Jambes can be translated as “Encirclement of Limbs” or “Tower of Legs”. Dubuffet’s treatment of the “limbs” or “legs” is so abstract that it is impossible to see human components, yet it is easy to follow the sculpture’s form and content. This artwork, made of epoxy and polyurethane, is rather like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, though its lines are only on the surface.

Jean Dubuffet took a winding course through a variety of careers from designing central heating to theatrical design and experimental music before achieving worldwide recognition for his unique sculptures in red, white, blue and black. The works of this artist may be seen in New York City’s Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/dubuffet_jean.html
Located in Park Tower on Town Center Drive and Bristol Street.

 

Neptune Water Spouts by Betty Davenport Ford
As the Olympian god of the sea, Neptune is an apt choice for artist Betty Davenport Ford’s Neptune Water Spouts. Integral elements to an elaborate waterworks outside of the lobby of The Westin South Coast Plaza, are seven identical ceramic Neptune heads spouting water into the pools below.

As one of Southern California’s most respected homegrown artists, many of Betty Davenport Ford’s compelling ceramic sculptures, including many animal-inspired pieces, are on display in public spaces in California, Arizona, Michigan and New York.

www.bettydavenportford.com
Located behind the lobby of The Westin South Coast Plaza.

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Fire Bird by Richard Lippold
Soaring through the facade of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts’s Segerstrom Hall is Fire Bird, a major architectural sculpture of enormous scale created by renowned sculptor Richard Lippold. Made of red, gold and silver aluminum and steel, Fire Bird’s vibrant colors relate to the warm tonalities of The Center’s Napoleon red granite exterior, while its polished metal surfaces contrast with the granite’s rugged texture. The great glass wall that encloses the lobby areas permits a visual continuity between the inside and outside of the building, while the balconies on each level allow patrons to experience the sculpture at close proximity.

Richard Lippold’s Fire Bird is really about the colors and rhythms of music and how they relate to the asymmetric architecture of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. It just happens to look like a bird.

Richard Lippold achieves startling effects in intricately arranged, precisely engineered constructions of suspended wire and sheet metal. Often large and always lyrical, his work explores abstract spatial relationships including the play of light as an essential component of the sculptures. Among the museums displaying this artist’s works are the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Located in the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

 

Reclining Figure by Henry Moore
Reclining Figure by Henry Moore is located at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. A gift from “The Angels of the Arts” to The Center, it is a splendid example of the renowned sculptor’s mature work. By designing a void in the mass of his Reclining Figure, Moore encourages us to see that space around the figure is as important as solid material. Through his mastery of open and closed form, Moore has captured the dignity and living force of a woman.

It is easy to see the pre-Columbian influence in Moore’s work; simple, massive, deeply human figures are clearly represented in his Reclining Figure. The works of this artist may be seen in New York City’s Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk
Located at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

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Sun Glitter and Jonah and the Whale by Carl Milles
The Costa Mesa Theater and Arts District is blessed with two bronzes by Sweden’s most celebrated sculptor, Carl Milles. Both are located in ponds that merge the force of water with buoyant figures and animals.

In Sun Glitter, a mermaid, hair flying, rides a dolphin through the spray while smaller fish circle around them. Jonah and the Whale re-enacts the popular Biblical story.

Born in 1875 in Stockholm, Milles studied in Paris and worked with sculptor Auguste Rodin who deeply influenced his work. In his homeland, he is to Swedish sculpture what Frank Lloyd Wright is to American architecture. Seven works by Carl Milles are exhibited at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/milles_carl.html
Located outside of the Center Club in the lower level of Center Tower on Town Center Drive.

 

Oiseau by Joan Miro
Joan Miro’s cast bronze Oiseau is a “bird” of a monumental and highly unorthodox order. Its bulbous volumes and spiky projections lend it a whimsical character, thoroughly in keeping with the great Spanish surrealist’s sense of humor.

As one of the 20th century’s most well-known and appreciated artists, Miro is renowned for such fanciful abstractions as Oiseau, blending invention with the spirit of nature. The works of Miro have been exhibited in major galleries throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/miro_joan.html
Located in the lobby of the Center Tower on Town Center Drive.

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Fermi by Tony Smith
Tony Smith’s white marble sculpture, Fermi, is an homage to Enrico Fermi, the Nobel Prize-winning Italian physicist who brilliantly investigated quantum theory and atomic structure. Smith asks us to consider the complex structure of things while giving us a handsome form that also can be appreciated for its uncomplicated elegance.

Tony Smith is another architect who turned to sculptural projects using his knowledge of mathematics and geometry, design and natural sciences to produce wonderful works in Carrara marble. This artist’s works are widely displayed in major collections including the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/smith_tony.html
Located in the Center Club lobby of Center Tower.

 

Four Lines Oblique Gyratory-Square IV by George Rickey
George Rickey harnesses the wind as his partner and uses real movement in his perfectly balanced kinetic creation, Four Lines Oblique Gyratory-Square IV. This work of steel is so elegantly understated that people in a hurry may overlook it. Those who stop to observe it, however, are likely to become enchanted by its constantly changing arrangement.

George Rickey is noted around the world for his gravity and wind-driven sculptures. His works are on display in galleries worldwide.

www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/rickey_george.html
Located at the Center Tower on Park Center Drive.

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Utsurohi 91 - Costa Mesa by Aiko Miyawaki
Utsurohi 91 - Costa Mesa, a sculpture by internationally renowned Japanese artist Aiko Miyawaki, consists of a dozen 10-foot columns set in an elliptical configuration with chromium-plated steel “threads” intertwining in graceful patterns at the top of each column. Aiko has chosen the 12 Chinese Zodiac signs to decorate her graceful columns.

As one of Japan’s leading artists, her sweeping modern wire sculptures are spread throughout the world.

Located on a grassy rectangle adjacent to Plaza Tower on Anton Boulevard and the Avenue of the Arts.

 

Sun Ribbon
by Claire Falkenstein

Sun Ribbon by Claire Falkenstein has artfully orchestrated stripes of gold, orange, red, violet and clear-textured glass to form a translucent windscreen. Like our Sun, this colorful stained-glass wall radiates warmth, light and cheer. Sun Ribbon is a masterfully designed piece of functional art that creates a bright, vigorous counterpoint to the solemn vertical rise of surrounding buildings.

Claire Falkenstein had designed stained glass windows, fountains, gates and murals in Europe and the United States before creating her wonderful, twisted Sun Ribbon. She also did the window screens and entrance for St. Basil’s church on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Her works have been seen in museums in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle and Portland.

www.artincontext.org/artist/f/claire_falkenstein
Located in Pacific Arts Plaza near the intersection of Anton Boulevard and Park Center Drive.

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South Coast Repertory’s Spatio Virtuo Teatro (The Story Teller, Upstage/Downstage and Herald)

The three pieces, designed by Jason Meadows is well know for intelligent, often humorous, balancing of abstraction and figuration in his sculpture.

The Meadows trio affords multiple reading and experiences, making his work the perfect alternative to the more typical singular placement of outdoor sculpture. The pieces invites the audience to continue their theatrical experience and partake in his “Three-act, outdoor performance” during intermission.

In the Storyteller, a schematically rendered, human scale playwright leans forward as if in conversation with the public who can sit on the adjoining benches to relax and engage in the art assemblage.

Upstage/Downstage can be read as a witty reference to the stage itself, complete with overhead light fixtures and theatrical crew, mediated by another bench for theatergoers.

Finally, Herald, is a very abstract figure signposting South Coast Repertory and providing physical and visual inaugu8rate for the guests.

Located at South Coast Repertory

 

Connector (Located in the pedestrian plaza between the Segerstrom Center for the Arts and the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.)

The Connector consists of five twisted, sinuous steel plates that stand together, forming a hollow structure that visitors can walk into and through. The steel plates are fused at the top, leaving a pentagonal opening to the sky. Up close, the surface of the steel is painted beautifully by natural oxidation and weather, leaving a complex pattern. At 64 feet tall and 360 tons, the structure is an impressive focal point.

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California Scenario designed by Isamu Noguchi
South Coast Metro is home to California Scenario, a distinctive sculpture garden created by renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi. The garden occupies more than one-and-a-half acres, creating a captivating retreat in the midst of the Pacific Arts Plaza’s reflective glass, high-rise office towers. This artistic landscape scenario is a product of Noguchi’s view of a garden as the “sculpture of space” and a means to make sculpture useful in everyday life. His garden sculptures offer an experience that surpasses that of individual sculpture appreciation, as the viewer may actually enter the art space and become part of the environment.

Noguchi combined stone, sculpture, granite rocks, water, metal, earth and native California plant materials into an unique outdoor sculpture environment that depicts his interpretation of the Southern California landscape. The complexity of the garden’s design and its scope have garnered praise as one of the most artistically noteworthy outdoor sculpture gardens in Southern California.

Throughout the garden, Noguchi has incorporated essential elements that portray the range of California’s different ecosystems. These elements include an “Energy Fountain”, “The Spirit of the Lima Bean” sculpture, sandstone paving, granite benches and areas aptly named the “Forest Walk” and the “Desert Land”. A visit to the garden can elicit an awe-inspiring appreciation for the vast breadth of nature that is found throughout California.

Another aspect of the beauty of California Scenario is the way its appearance reflects the changing natural light conditions and the maturation of its plants. These various garden elements bring a unity and humanity to the surroundings by replicating nature’s cycles. Noguchi’s sculptures, unique fountains and often monumental landscape projects may be seen in cities around the globe.

www.noguchi.org
Located in Pacific Arts Plaza at the intersection of Anton Boulevard and
Avenue of the Arts.

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