"AMOCA :: American Museum of Ceramic Art" :: Upcoming Exhibit :: It is the mission of the American Museum of Ceramic Art to educate by presenting, collecting and preserving significant ceramic achievements of the world's cultures from ancient times to the present and through aesthetic and technical study to develop a deeper understanding of cultural, values and traditions.

Upcoming Exhibits

Peregrinación: Mexican Folk Ceramics
October 9, 2010 - January 8, 2011
Grand Opening Reception, October 9th, from 6-9 pm

Searching for Peace, Post WWII Innovations in Clay
November 2011 - April 2012
This exhibition is a survey of post-World War II, Southern California ceramics.

From The Getty Foundation Press Release: LOS ANGELES - The Getty Foundation today [10/28/08] announced a series of 15 grants totaling nearly $2.8 million that will launch an unprecedented series of concurrent exhibitions at museums throughout Southern California highlighting the post-World War II Los Angeles art scene. Exhibitions will begin in 2011 as part of the initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980. The exhibitions and the events that will accompany them as part of Pacific Standard Time will demonstrate the pivotal role played by Southern California in national and international artistic movements since the middle of the twentieth century. Art institutions from Santa Barbara to San Diego are joining together to create programs that will highlight the region's vibrant artistic scene.

The American Museum of Ceramic Art is among the 15 institutions that received research and planning grants for exhibitions beginning in fall 2011. Others include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), the Hammer Museum, the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the California African American Museum (CAAM), The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA), Pomona College Museum of Art (PCMA), the University Art Museum at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), Scripps College's Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Otis College of Art and Design, the Long Beach Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles Filmforum. Each institution will have a distinctive exhibition, but all will focus on postwar art from 1945 to 1980 as part of the joint initiative.

American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA)

The decades following WWII in particular saw tremendous growth and experimentation in ceramic craft and studio pottery, as well as the establishment of the American Crafts Council, which aimed to identify the philosophical and sociological role of craft in contemporary society. Southern California's contribution to this shift was perhaps best embodied by artist Millard Sheets (1907-1989) and the legacy he inspired as a teacher and leader among the studio potters of Los Angeles. The American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) will examine Sheets and his milieu in Searching for Peace, Post WWII Innovations in Clay, to better understand the changing attitudes towards ceramics and craft in the postwar era and the connection between craft and the social reform instigated by 1960s counter culture.