The teen-curated art exhibition inspired by Britney Spears

Adolescence is the main theme of this year’s Desperate, Scared, But Social biennial at the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art's Costa Mesa location.

The exhibition takes its name from the first album of punk rock riot grrrl outfit Emily’s Sassy Lime. Pieces about youth culture and girlhood are on full display at the museum, and part of the exhibition is curated by teenagers.

‘Piece of Me’: An exhibition curated by teenagers

A smaller exhibition within the biennial was curated entirely by 15 Orange County teenagers. Their exhibition, titled Piece of Me, is named after Britney Spears’ 2007 single.

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These teens were a part of the inaugural Orange County Youth Curators cohort through the museum. As part of the program, they worked together to create the exhibition, carefully choosing pieces from the museum’s existing collection, picking the color palette, and writing the title walls.

“ I think curating art is really about storytelling first and foremost,” 17-year-old curator Laura Wagner said. “It's not about what you like personally. It's about what's important to show [to viewers] … to learn about a topic, to think about themselves and the world.”

Britney Spears takes center stage 

Alison Van Pelt's "Britney" was one of the first pieces chosen by the inaugural Orange County Youth Curators program for the "Piece of Me" exhibition.

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James Chow

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 The main centerpiece of the exhibition is a never-before-seen Alison Van Pelt oil and graphite portrait of Spears.

In it, Spears wears a cross around her neck and has cutouts of stars as pupils in her eyes. The picture seems clear, but if you get up close, it’s actually blurry.

Wagner said that in the deliberation process for what to install for the exhibition, Van Pelt’s “Britney” made it in almost immediately.

“I think that attracted me and all of the other teens in general, firstly because of how vibrant it is. It includes a very vibrant color of pink on it. But also just because of Britney Spears and her story and what she represents for media in general,” Wagner said. “As a teenager, [Spears’] entire life was put on blast, and everyone thinks that they know Britney so personally. But on the inside, I don't think anybody really knows the true Britney. And we also think that the blurriness kind of represents how identity functions up close.”

Why the museum chose to center teen voices

 While the pieces in the exhibition span generations, for OCMA chief curator Courtenay Finn, what was exciting about the project was giving teenagers a chance to draw connections and reflect on their own experiences.

“ As part of the planning for the biennial, we really wanted to make sure that there was a space where teens had a voice in the exhibition. And this dovetailed very nicely with a shared interest that we all had in starting a teen program at the museum,” Finn said.

This was the first biennial to take youth as a central theme, and Finn said having teens deliberate their own exhibition gave her a fresh perspective on how she approaches her own work as a curator.

“ We really had this idea to dig deep into the sort of theme of how creative and how important it is to listen to young people and how impactful they are at the age that they are," Finn said. "Not just when you grow up, that you can do something, but the way that they look at the world and what they're imagining for our future.”

Desperate, Scared, But Social is up now until Jan. 4 at the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art's Costa Mesa location.