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Michael C. McMillen: Train of Thought

April 16-August 14, 2011

Spanning the 40-year career of the internationally renowned Southern California-based mixed-media artist, the exhibition features large-scale multisensory installations, assemblages, sculptures, paintings, drawings, and films that invite viewers into a made-up world, a skill for which McMillen is best known. Part sculptor, installation artist, printmaker, and cultural anthropologist, McMillen has been creating environmental installations with architectural references that deal with themes of time, change, and illusion since the 1970s. Opening in stages, with large-scale installations Lighthouse and Pavilion of Rain (a constructed habitat featuring rain pouring down on a shack of corrugated metal surrounded by a 30-foot pool of water) currently on view, the exhibition features work from OMCA’s holdings as well as select loans from private collections. A 190-page catalog accompanies the exhibition and will be for sale in the OMCA Store. The Oakland Museum of California presentation is made possible in part by generous support from the Oakland Museum Women’s Board, the OMCA Art Guild, Dr. and Mrs. Philip D. Schild, Agnes Bourne and Jim Luebbers, Sally and Michael Ruddy, and the Clarence B. Coleman and Joan F. Coleman Charitable Foundation. The exhibition is curated by Chief Curator of Art Philip Linhares.

Michael C. McMillen. Lighthouse (Hotel New Empire), 2010. Mixed media installation with artist made digital motion picture. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer. ©Michael C. McMillen