65°
Surf and the visual arts are honored in O’side.
Art and surf are two animating forces in the life of O’side. We’re creative free expressionists drawn to the strange beauty of the everyday world and lovers of the ocean in all its mysteries. Not surprisingly, O’side is home to two entirely o’riginal museums that celebrate this perspective. Spend some time exploring their eclectic collections. Leave with a better sense of what makes O’side tick.
Founded in 1995, OMA (as its known around town) is beloved for its boundary-pushing contemporary art exhibits and heralded for its Modernist architecture, grounded in a structure by midcentury icon Irving Gill dating to 1934, with an update by noted architect Frederick Fisher in 2005. Never one to be pigeonholed, exhibitions and artists and OMA include light installations, paintings, sculptures, glass, and more. The museum also maintains a public annex gallery at The Seabird Resort a few blocks west of the Museum overlooking the Pier.
Since its opening in 1986, the California Surf Museum has shared its love of all things surf with visitors from across the globe. The permanent collection chronicles the history of surfboards and waveriding, while revolving exhibitions have explored themes like wave science, body surfing, and boogie boarding, and surf icons like shaper Donald Takayama. The museum’s archives and collections comprise one of the world’s richest troves of surf history.
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