The University of California, Irvine (UCI) has officially acquired the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA). As part of the acquisition, UCI will merge OCMA with the UC Irvine Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art (Langson IMCA); the new institution will now be named the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art.
UC Irvine will oversee the OCMA’s 53,000-square-foot, $98 million facility, which opened in 2022, within the Segerstrom Center for the Arts campus in the neighboring city of Costa Mesa, California. At the time of the merger, the modern and contemporary art museum had 4,500 objects in its collection; these will be integrated alongside some 9,000 works from the Irvine Museum Collection and the Gerald Buck Collection, which was bequeathed to the university in 2017.
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The Langson IMCA will continue to support research, student training, and integration across academic programs from an on-campus location, in addition to its regular exhibition programming at its Von Karman Avenue location in Irvine.
Previously planned programming at both institutions is expected to continue through 2026. A transitional online landing page leading to both institutions’ websites will include information on exhibitions and resources.
OCMA staff are now UC Irvine employees. Following the departure of CEO and director Heidi Zuckerman earlier this year, the university is conducting a national search for an executive director to helm the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. Richard Aste, who was the director of McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, from 2016 to 2023, has been the Langson IMCA’s interim director since 2024.
Discussions of a merger between the two institutions first came to light in June, not long after Zuckerman announced her plans to leave, despite no signs of financial or other issues.
“UC Irvine is committed to ensuring that the region benefits from a world-class art museum that enriches the cultural fabric of Orange County, advances groundbreaking scholarship, nurtures the next generation of creators and thinkers, and inspires curiosity and connection across diverse audiences,” UCI chancellor Howard Gillman said in a statement.