Three years after its renovation, the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) was acquired by the University of California in Irvine (UCI). The institution will thus join the cultural fabric of the campus by merging with the Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art (IMCA), a decision acted by the University Council on September 17, 2025. The discussions had started in June, shortly after the announcement of director Heidi Zuckerman.
The current OCMA building in Costa Mesa should not be closed: it will be integrated into the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, neighboring the campus. The IMCA, for its part, will transfer its collections to Costa Mesa, adding to the 4,500 works of the OCMA its own 9,000 pieces, including the Gerald Buck collection, bequeathed in 2017. The programming is maintained until 2026 on the two sites. The IMCA will only present temporary exhibitions in Irvine by then.
Chancellor Howard Gilman said: “The UCI undertakes to guarantee that the region benefits from a museum of world class art which enriches the cultural fabric of the County of Orange, advances studies, feeds the next generation of creators and thinkers, and inspires curiosity and the connection between various audiences. »»
The museum’s board of directors was dissolved, but the employees were integrated into university while retaining wages and advantages. However, the UCI is looking for a new director: Heidi Zuckerman will leave his duties at the end of the year and Richard Aste, at the head of the IMCA, provides the interim. The new management will have to supervise the merger, move and preparation of the future programming.
If the university has not communicated any amount relating to this merger, it said that no financial transaction had occurred, while taking over the budget management of the institution. The funding of the museum will be based on the operating budget of the UCI.
