"On Display in Orange County: Modern and Contemporary Sculpture," an exhibition of 20th and 21st century works commissioned over a half-century by Henry T. Segerstrom and then placed on public sites to enhance the cultural equation of Orange County at large, opened last week with considerable fanfare in Costa Mesa.
Dignitaries from the world of visual art descended upon this community to pay homage to Segerstrom for what is considered a most unique collaboration between art and community, orchestrated by one patron for one region of the American landscape.
Among the celebrated was Bonnie Rychiak, independent curator and museum consultant based in New York, who was hired to create what is referred to as a "pop-up" gallery on The Penthouse level of South Coast Plaza that showcases the legacy of sculpture associated with the Segerstrom vision.
Rychiak joined such distinguished fellows as Louise Bryson, chair emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Board of Trustees; James Cuno, president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust; Charmaine Jefferson, executive director of the California African American Museum; Deborah Marrow, director of the Getty Foundation; and noted artist and guest of honor, Bill Viola, and his wife, Kira Perov.
