For all the attention they may seek and get on social media, young people can still remain a mystery. To the outside world and to themselves.
The newly opened exhibition at Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa looks at teens and young adults through the insight of 12 artists and art collectives — answering and raising questions about adolescence past and present.
In planning OCMA’s “2025 California Biennial: Desperate, Scared, But Social,” the in-house curators knew right away the show had to include one key element: the involvement of today’s Gen Z teens.
Out of about 150 applicants from around the county, 15 were chosen to be the inaugural group of Orange County Young Curators, a program that OCMA hopes to continue beyond the biennial exhibit.
Their task?
Learn the ins and outs of curation and then do it, culling from OCMA’s collection of 4,600 works of art to present a piece of the show in a gallery space of their own.
The teens had to collaborate to create a presentation that served as a unanimous voice for them all.
What they put together using nine selected works from varying mediums — painting, sculpture, photography, video and a throwback Atari game cartridge — is titled “Piece of Me.”
The group explains their aim to visitors who take the time to read the painstakingly written note on the title wall. It says in part:
“Our exhibition explores the nuance and ambiguities of the many personas that young people struggle to maintain. We hope to peel back these layers of identity that we all possess, bridging the gap between the private and the public, the authentic and the inauthentic, the real you and who you show the world.”
Involving teens in the creation of the exhibit was inspired by a student-driven project at Gardena High between 1919 and 1956 to acquire a collection of early 20th century California art. Fifteen pieces from that collection are also showcased in the biennial at OCMA.
Making that connection between past and present, and creating a platform for more youth involvement in the curation of future exhibits at OCMA, mattered deeply to Courtenay Finn, the museum’s chief curator and director of programs.
“It will continue. So that’s the thing we’re excited about.”
Decision makers
Juniors and seniors from 11 Orange County high schools, the group began meeting for two hours every other week last October, under the guidance of Nate Bench, OCMA’s manager of gallery learning, and Delaina Engberg, lead educator.
Busy with schoolwork, sports, performing arts and part-time jobs, not one of them dropped out of the group over the course of the curation process.
Their work included writing, critiquing and editing the information for the title wall and the extended labels for each piece in their show, along with perusing some 500 pieces of art to make their selections and deciding where to place them in their gallery space.
The color of the three walls where the art would hang was another consideration. If they stuck with one of their choices, a grey called Raccoon Fur, Bench reassured them, “Don’t worry, I think it will look good.”
All the Young Curators are creators in some form or another; a few hope for careers as visual artists, museum curators or art dealers. While most had spent time in art museums with their families or on their own, some had limited exposure and opportunities.
For each, the experience was eye opening in some way.
“I didn’t realize I wanted to be a curator until this opportunity,” said Madeline “Maddie” Horwitz of Woodbridge High, who has traveled the world with her father, visiting art museums along the way.
Edyn “Edy” Rodi of Mater Dei High was surprised by all the behind-the-scenes work: “I never realized how much thought was put into organizing everything in a museum.
“It’s made me appreciate museums and exhibits a lot more.”
For Edgar Trujillo of El Modena High, to whom art was previously more of a “vague” conception, “this is diving into the deep end.”
Their involvement has gotten family members, friends and classmates interested in stopping by OCMA to see the exhibit.
“People have asked about it,” said Jack Barr of Dana Hills High, who is both an artist and a musician in a band called 8th Grade. “They’re all excited.”
‘A lot going on’
The biennial exhibition, now in its 15th iteration, opened June 21 with a daylong public block party that included a performance by the reunited homegrown girl garage-punk band Emily’s Sassy Lime. Their 1995 album “Desperate, Scared, But Social,” released while they were still in high school, is the source of the name for the biennial, which includes a show curated by the band members.
Lead sponsorship of the Orange County Young Curators program was provided by OCMA’s Visionaries support group.
The program paid the students for their time, a monthly stipend of $150 on a Visa card, and provided the means to take turns as “snack curator” to purchase something to munch on at their gatherings in the museum’s Education Pavilion.
But the best reward will be what other people gain from what they’ve assembled.
“To me, art is one way to understand humans,” Trujillo said. “The theme of our show is to be reflective. I want that to get across to our audience.”
A week before the show’s opening, they went through the final steps of placing their chosen art pieces in their gallery. The school year had ended for almost all of them by then, with some fresh from their graduation ceremonies.
Even the placement of a lone bench took a bit of discussion. Should it be parallel to the back wall or perpendicular? Might someone bump into it?
The day before the opening, OCMA held a press preview at which the Young Curators were expected to be on hand to field questions about their curation.
“You guys are the experts,” Engberg had reminded them.
The rest of the experts in the 2024-25 Orange County Young Curators cohort: Angelina Farias, Century High; Helen Han, University High; Jaden (Jade) Huang, Laguna Beach High; Pablo Matías Hernandez Martinez, Woodbridge High; Valeska Morales of Century High; Ethan Ryan, Corona del Mar High; Juhae Ryu, Troy High; Kenzo Scott, Huntington Beach High; Rachel Sung, Orange County School of the Arts; Penelope Vielma, Pacifica High; and Laura Wagner, Corona del Mar High.
Each wrote their own bios for the OCMA website. Learn more about them here.
Two pieces in particular stand out in their gallery: a 2004 painting of Britney Spears by Alison Van Pelt that has never been exhibited and the wall-dominating cornucopia of images in the 2006 acrylic on canvas “Long Before Rock ‘n’ Roll” by German artists Abetz & Drescher.
The 2007 hit “Piece of Me” by Spears inspired the name for the Young Curators show.
“I’m getting a lot of emotions from here,” said Morales of Century High as she paused during a break in one of their last workdays to look around at the images assembled for ‘Piece of Me.’ “There’s just a lot going on. You can’t tell if it’s supposed to be happy or supposed to be sad.”
Much like the life of teens, a visitor might think.
Morales is the one who spotted the piece by Abetz & Drescher out of the corner of her eye during a group visit to the OCMA storage warehouse in Orange.
With so much detail, she said, “You’ve just got to sit there and think about it.”
There’s plenty of time for that. California Biennial runs through Jan. 4.
The Orange County Museum of Art is located on the plaza that houses Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesdays through Sundays, with entrance free to the public.