A Timely Comeback by Bowers Museum : * Its Mission to Increase Cultural Understanding Is in Tune With Diversity in O.C.

Santa Ana’s Bowers Museum was a sleepy, small-town institution that was perhaps more suited to another era when it closed nearly four years ago for a $12-million face lift. Today, as it officially reopens to the public with a flourish of flying doves and banging gongs, the Bowers is an art museum whose time has come. Its return to a much-changed Orange County is well-timed.

Bowers has the mission for its collections and planned exhibitions of increasing cultural understanding. But, by focusing on the evolution of man in indigenous cultures, Bowers also will be throwing a spotlight on the increasing diversity of Southern California in the 1990s. That’s especially important in Orange County, where more Latinos and Asians have made this area their home and added diversity to the Anglo culture.

Those involved in developing the museum’s programs and exhibitions seem to have a good focus on putting the area’s changing demographics into context. Bowers’ curator of native American and folk art, Paul Apodaca, said that the museum was “interested in bringing people of all cultures together.” Armand Labbe, director of research and collections, added that the museum wants to challenge preconceived notions of what culture is.

The Bowers, of course, now is much more than one city’s museum. Six times larger than it was, it is emerging from its cocoon of renovation as a regional art resource that is expected to attract visitors from a wide area. Pre-Columbian, Chinese, African and Oceanic artworks will be among the first to go on display. That’s a rich cross-section of the world’s civilizations.

An appreciation for what has come before us is important--perhaps even necessary--before differing cultures can come together on equal footing. Bowers is designed to honor and learn from the art and history of the many cultures that provide the foundation for our current society.

Welcome back, Bowers.