Ocean View: The Depiction of Southern California Coastal Lifestyle presents in visual form the myths, realities, and artistry of the Southern California coastline. Few other places figure so largely in the public imagination. The mythology that health and happiness can be found at the ocean's edge, a myth that with intention and success drew industry wealth and populations from the East to the West, can be read across one hundred years of images. Drawing from the work of Dr. John "Doc" Ball, Tom Blake, Robert Johnson, Leroy Grannis, and Don James, among others, Ocean View documents the development of surfing as both a healthy activity and a newfound entertainment. Surfing photographers were also its practitioners; over time they saw their work feed into the iconography of surf culture as it became known more widely through the motion picture and advertising industries.
Ocean View tells a story about a golden land, a place of "subtropical twilights and soft westerlies off the Pacific," of Waterman, Dogmen, and a girl named Gidget, of failed dreams and new beginnings, of destruction and ecology. Curator Kevin Jon Boyle assembled this exhibition of fine art, advertising, and documentary photography that charts a natural and social topography from the turn of the century to the present day. Motion picture stills, theatre lobby cards, and television stills from the beach party films of the 1950s and 1960s to Baywatch bring added context to Boyle's survey of this singular cultural landscape. Boyle, curator of exhibitions at the University of California, Riverside-California Museum of Photography from 1987 to 2000, passed away March 22, 2002. The Autry will include a special tribute in the exhibition to honor Boyle for his outstanding contributions as curator, writer, photographer, and surfer.
Ocean View: The Depiction of Southern California Coastal Lifestyle will be on view in the Showcase Gallery from November 23, 2002, through July 27, 2003. The University of California, Riverside-California Museum of Photography and the California Council for the Humanities make the exhibition possible.
For more about this exhibition, go to the University of California, Riverside/California Museum of Photography: www.cmp.ucr.edu/exhibitions/ocean-view/