State of Mind:

State of Mind, the lavishly illustrated companion book to the exhibition of the same name, investigates California's vital contributions to Conceptual art--in particular, work that emerged in the late 1960s among scattered groups of young artists. The essays reveal connections between the northern and southern California Conceptual art scenes and argue that Conceptualism's experimental practices and an array of then-new media--performance, site-specific installations, film and video, mail art and artists' publications--continue to exert an enormous influence on the artists working today. Since many of the new genres were ill suited to or disregarded by traditional art venues, artists are shown colonizing alternative sites, such as the city streets or non-art spaces, to find ways of fundamentally altering the conventional artist/viewer relationship. State of Mindfeatures work not widely exhibited, as well as lesser-known pieces by well-established artists. It also recognizes highly influential practitioners who received relatively little critical attention at the time, including women and minorities. The result is an inclusive volume that provides a complex and lucid reading of this pivotal period in California art. Exhibition dates: Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA), October 9, 2011 -- Jan. 22, 2012 UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA), February 29 -- June 17, 2012.