The Endless Summer Show

THIS KIND OF CURATORIAL FOCUS COMES and goes throughout "Surf Culture." A group of paintings and photographs in a corner of the main gallery detailing a letter from Ed Ruscha to the editor of a surf magazine (concerning a painting by Rick Griffin and finally summarized as a sort of pathetic Rothko/ UFO simulator ride by painter Chris Wilder) would be a wonderful surprise in a Bergamot Station gallery, but is utterly lost among the flotsam here. The Finish Fetish précis is more effectively isolated, but a survey of contemporary surf-related art is broken up, missing big chunks and diluted with second-rate work.

A 240-page catalog -- due any minute -- promises to alleviate the incoherence. Armed with the half-dozen thoughtful and enlightening essays and timelines by curators Tyler Stallings and Craig Stecyk, anthropologist Ben Finney, Gidget stalker Deanne Stillman and others, an astute viewer will be able to pick out the multiple strains from the dissonant mix. In addition, an extensive program of films, lectures, performances and workshops helps to flesh out the core curriculum. In spite of this, the exhibit succumbs to the too-common museological version of Bad Simulator Syndrome. "Surf Culture" unintentionally displays the same claustrophobic evocation of the gap between real experience and its depiction -- almost the exact opposite of the light touch this subject deserves. Transcendently bad simulator rides are surprising anomalies. Rambling, overworked museum shows, unfortunately, are not. Curator dudes need to chill out and learn not to try so hard.

SURF CULTURE: The Art History of Surfing | At the LAGUNA ART MUSEUM, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach | www.lagunaart museum.org | Through October 6