Drawn from acquisitions made during the 1990s, it featured ninety-seven works by forty-one artists organized around broad cultural and artistic themes including American tragedy, social identity, pop body, nomadism, poetics of the everyday and materiality.
Among the artists included were John Baldessari, Uta Barth, John Cage, Judy Fiskin, Robert Frank, Larry Johnson, Mike Kelley, Danny Lyon, Catherine Opie, Rona Pondick, Richard Prince, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Rushca, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Garry Winogrand. Shown for the first time at MOCA were works by Amy Adler, Ford Beckman, Jay DeFeo, Karen Finley, Esko Mannikko, Marilyn Minter, Nancy Rubins, and Thomas Struth.
Spheres of Influence: Selections from the Permanent Collection was organized by Connie Butler, Assistant Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.