2020-21 in review
An end-of-year message from dean Brett Steele
As we close the books on the 2020-21 academic year and turn our attention to summer projects and some much-needed rest, I want to take a moment to reflect on what has been a year for the history books. A year in which we’ve struggled and survived through myriad challenges. Challenges that forced each of us to lean more heavily on our families and our communities and that compelled us to find solace and strength in our ability to come together even as a deadly pandemic forced us apart.
Now, our remoteness and distance are slowly giving way to presence and touch. In the past few weeks, I’ve had the enormous pleasure of seeing friends and colleagues in person again. After this long stretch of screen-mediated time, it’s hard to overstate the exhilaration of sharing a conversation in person, a hug between old friends, or a meal eaten at the same table. We have so much for which to be grateful.
COMMENCEMENT 2021
At our virtual commencement ceremony on June 12, our extraordinary keynote speaker, Fulton Leroy Washington, aka Mr. Wash – whose paintings grace the walls of the Hammer and the Huntington's Made in LA 2020 biennial – spoke passionately about a lesson learned while serving a life sentence in prison: the importance of making the most of the time we have. The entire ceremony was incredibly moving, from the addresses by our inspiring student speakers Kara Jenelle Wade and Charley Andrews, to the heartfelt congratulatory messages from our faculty and staff, to the conferring of degrees and seeing our graduating students cheered on by adoring family and friends. It was thrilling, and I hope you will take a moment to get a taste of the whole experience in this brief highlight reel that we’ve put together for you.
A YEAR OF PERSEVERANCE AND DEDICATION
Candice Lin, artist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, instructing ceramics students on how to make and sculpt adobe. Image courtesy Candice Lin.
There are so many people that deserve to be thanked for their contributions this past year, but I want to start with our students, who have persevered through a turbulent and trying time. This year has seen a contentious presidential election, widespread demands for racial justice and police reform, signs of a climate gone haywire, and a pandemic that has killed nearly four million people worldwide so far. All this served as just the daily backdrop for the balancing act of school, work, caring for sick relatives, not seeing friends, spotty Wi-Fi, and so on. I want to especially thank the Dean’s Student Council, who served as a critical connection between the student body and our school’s senior leadership. I encourage you to read these profiles of remarkable Council members, who worked diligently to make sure students’ concerns were understood and addressed throughout the year.
Our amazing faculty and lecturers radically retooled their courses last summer in expectation of more remote learning, and despite many challenges, continued to encourage and inspire our students. They deserve so much credit for the creativity they showed in translating studio culture to the virtual classroom. As we prepare for in-person instruction again, I anticipate, and hope, that many of the pedagogical lessons of the past year will stay with us.
I also want to thank our staff, who kept the school running, our students on the path to graduation, and our engagement with each other and our communities strong. Too often the work of staff goes unrecognized, and amidst this incredibly challenging year, they have gone above and beyond to ensure smooth and consistent operations across all of the administrative, managerial, technological, and support services that make all of what we do possible. The staff of the Hammer, Fowler, and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance pivoted brilliantly in the face of shuttered galleries and performance halls and created streaming channels and live and on-demand programming, as I will detail below.
TRANSITIONS
This has also been a year of many transitions, and as we end the year, it is bittersweet to say farewell to valued colleagues and collaborators. I especially want to send fond wishes to veteran dean’s office staff members Jason Corbett, our director of operations who retired this past week, and Warren Thomson, our former chief financial officer, who retired at the close of the fall quarter. Each extraordinary leaders and collaborators in their own right, Jason and Warren dedicated a combined 67 years of service to UCLA, 42 of which have been in the arts. Departures are, hopefully, always balanced by new arrivals, and earlier this spring, we had the good fortune of welcoming Ellen Hermann in as the school’s new chief financial officer.
I also want to honor the contributions of our retiring and departing faculty:
From the Department of Art, we say farewell to Professor Russell Ferguson and Distinguished Professors Barbara Kruger and Lari Pittman who dedicated a combined 60 years of influential teaching and service in the department.
From the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, we send best wishes to Ben Refuerzo, whose 36 years of service to UCLA included six tremendous years as Associate Dean, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for the school. Last July, Sylvia Lavin retired after 29 years of service as a faculty member, ten of which she served as chair of the department from 1996-2006.
And from the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, our admiration, respect, and thanks to Professors Peter Nabokov and Allen Roberts who retire after a combined 47 years of service as faculty, and to Kyle Abraham whose five-year appointment as Professor-in-Residence has come to an end.
These faculty members have made invaluable contributions to the university– their collective talent, kindness, and generosity have profoundly shaped our school and generations of students.
Left to right: Professor Emerita Angelia Leung, Lynda and Stewart Resnick Endowed Chair Catherine Opie, Professor Mariana Ibañez, Professor Lionel Popkin
With a change in the academic calendar comes some big changes in our senior leadership.
- Choreographer and World Arts and Cultures/Dance professor Lionel Popkin has been appointed associate dean of academic affairs, after four years of service by professor Victoria Marks, who returns full-time to her teaching, research, and service in WACD.
- Associate professor Lauren Lee McCarthy stepped down as interim associate dean of equity, diversity and inclusion, to return full-time to her teaching, research, and service in the Department of Design Media Arts. I look forward to sharing news regarding the next associate dean in the near future.
- On September 1, Catherine Opie, UCLA’s Lynda and Stewart Resnick Endowed Chair in Art, will step into the role of chair of the Department of Art, after three years of service by artist and professor Andrea Fraser, who will return to her teaching, research, and service in the art department full-time.
- I am so pleased to welcome associate professor emerita Angelia Leung back to UCLA to serve as interim chair of the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, after three years of service by professor Dan Froot, who returns full-time to his teaching, research, and service in the department.
- I also want to take a moment to again thank professor Heather Roberge for her three and a half years of service as chair of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design and, once again, warmly welcome Mariana Ibañez, who joined us this past January as associate professor and incoming chair for AUD.
I am grateful to this extraordinary group of colleagues with whom I have had the honor of working alongside these past many years and look forward to working closely with our new associate dean and departmental chairs in the days, months and year ahead.
A YEAR OF GROWTH AND CHANGE FOR OUR PUBLIC ARTS INSTITUTIONS
A collage of images from the Fowler exhibition "The Map and the Territory: 100 Years of Collecting at UCLA"
An enduring lagacy at the Fowler
We send our best wishes to the inimitable Marla Berns, who has retired after two decades directing the Fowler Museum, but whose time at UCLA as a triple Bruin began as a student more than five decades ago. She leaves behind an enormous legacy, including overseeing more than 170 exhibitions, 44 publications and thousands of public programs. As a farewell gift to Marla, the Fowler staff have established the Marla C. Berns Exhibition Endowment to further her legacy by creating many exciting exhibitions to come. I look forward to sharing an update in the near future on our search for a new director.
This past year, in response to the pandemic and their resulting closure to the public, the Fowler staff conducted virtual programs, including cooking classes, dance parties, curator talks, and an innovative series called “DISRUPT the Fowler” that was co-curated with UCLA design media arts students.
On July 1, the Fowler reopened with two new outstanding exhibitions: The Map and the Territory: 100 Years of Collecting at UCLA (on view through Oct. 24) and Photo Cameroon: Studio Portraiture, 1970s-1990s (on view through Dec. 5). I highly recommend you take a trip to campus to visit both shows.
Larry Johnson, Untitled (L+R) (left), 2020. Mario Ayala, Aqueduct Angel (right), 2020. Installation view, Made in L.A. 2020: a version, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White / JWPictures.com.
The Hammer's reopening
The Hammer Museum also reopened its doors to the public with the postponed Made in LA 2020 after more than a year of closure. The biennial, featuring 30 Los Angeles artists, is presented at both the Hammer and The Huntington, and on view through August 1.
The Hammer also launched a new video platform called Hammer Channel, which is organized much like a streaming service like Netflix. Viewers can watch 1000+ videos organized by categories including Art, Social Justice, Film, Books, Politics, and the Environment. New content is added weekly as part of the Hammer’s ongoing commitment to presenting public programs with artists, writers, filmmakers, scholars, scientists, activists, and more.
This fall, the Hammer plans to open a new restaurant, helmed by legendary chef, restaurateur, and food educator Alice Waters. It’ll be her first restaurant in Los Angeles, and will emphasize local, sustainable food sources. There’s even a forager on staff.
The façade of the new UCLA Nimoy Theater
Bringing live performances to audiences at home
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance made a remarkable transition to digital-only programming, filming artists for online performances and festivals and launching the streaming channel CAP UCLA Online, with the Tune In Festival in October 2020, which included 35 projects that reached 53,000 viewers in 121 countries—all for free.
They also created The Choreographers’ Scores: 2020, commissioning 26 choreographers to create handmade scores in visual time from wherever they were sheltering throughout the summer of 2020 just as all opportunities to present work evaporated. These box set editions are now in a growing list of dance archives and permanent and special collections including The Getty, the Hammer Museum, MoMA NY, while sales of individual prints directly support the artists who made them as well as future dance programming at CAP UCLA.
Rounding out the 2020-21 season, and on view in person through July 11, CAP’s currently presenting the astoundingly brilliant and impactful interdisciplinary public art installation and immersive film experience, Plastic Bag Store, in a re-purposed warehouse in DTLA’s Arts District. If you’re in town, I definitely recommend you see it.
For her herculean efforts keeping things going this year, the Los Angeles Times named CAP UCLA’s executive and artistic director Kristy Edmunds as one of ten “heroes of a horrible year” in classical music for her commitment to establishing and maintaining a lifeline for artists and audiences.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has not slowed work on the UCLA Nimoy Theater project, which will transform the old Crest Theater in Westwood into a performance venue for CAP UCLA. Designs have been completed and are going out to bid. To date, nearly $18 million in funding has been secured for the project, which anticipates opening to the public in late 2022.
Artwork created as part of VAPAE’s partner program with the Social And Gender Equity (SAGE) Magnet at Millikan Middle School earlier this spring
EXPANDING OUR OUTREACH TO THE COMMUNITY THROUGH ARTS EDUCATION
Our trailblazing Visual and Performing Arts Education (VAPAE) program taught 11 undergraduate courses virtually, serving 140 students from 48 majors across campus. Nineteen students graduated this year with a VAPAE minor.
VAPAE students taught art classes in 23 local schools, working closely with classroom teachers and reaching approximately 670 students in grades K-12 in the greater Los Angeles area. VAPAE’s professional development efforts included a three-part workshop for teachers and a family-oriented interactive art-making project.
VAPAE also conducted virtual community arts pilot programs: “Creative Aging” with Pasadena Senior Center, Studio Sessions @ SAGE for young adults, and the program distributed “grab and go art kits” to make art at home.
This past fall, for the school’s hallmark annual discussion series and course "10 Questions" VAPAE worked closely with Dean’s Office staff, five local public-school teachers, and 130 middle and high school students to develop five art pieces (encompassing dance, visual arts, theatre, design, and music) that responded to themes of the series. Short videos of their work were shown as part of the “10 Questions” events and were viewed by hundreds of participants. If you want to be inspired by a group of middle school students, I highly suggest you watch their beautiful response to the question: What is Hope?
PARTNERING ACROSS CAMPUS
I am proud to serve on the Chancellor's Council on the Arts, a collaboration between leaders from across UCLA’s three professional arts schools (UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture), three public-facing arts organizations (Center for the Art of Performance, Hammer Museum, Fowler Museum), UCLA Film & Television Archive (a division of UCLA Library), UCLA College Humanities, UCLA College Social Science, the International Institute, and the Institute of American Cultures. The role of the Council is to further advance the reach and influence of the arts at UCLA. This year, we launched GO ARTS UCLA, a new web-based platform that, for the first time, brings together the full array of UCLA arts events and content in one central online location. With the UCLA Office for Research and Creative Activities, we also announced the 2021 Chancellor's Arts Initiative and issued a dozen grants to support UCLA faculty members’ arts-based research.
SHAPING A MORE INCLUSIVE FUTURE
Last summer, the school established an Anti-racism, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Commission, which worked to develop a set of recommendations and a framework to put anti-racism, equity, diversity, and inclusion at the center of the school’s vision for the future. This work touched on many areas including school-wide AEDI training, recruitment and admissions processes, teaching evaluations, curriculum, fundraising for scholarships, supporting faculty research toward AEDI, ensuring a diverse range of voices, viewpoints, and highlights in our communications, and discussions about police on campus. You can find a summary of AEDI initiatives undertaken over the past year here and learn how they helped to shape the UCLA Arts Strategic Plan here.
We have also launched the UCLA Arts Racial Equity Fund to raise money that will provide resources to strengthen the recruitment and retention of future UCLA Arts students who identify as Black/African American.
Jacaranda trees in bloom in the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden.
LOOKING AHEAD
I know many of us are eagerly awaiting the fall return to campus. Among the many reasons to be excited, we will launch the fourth season of “10 Questions” the interdisciplinary conversation series that will be sure to raise many of the questions that are preoccupying us in the current moment.
I want to leave you with some photographs taken this spring by alumnus Louis Heilbronn, M.F.A. ‘18, in response to our prompt to document the emptiness of our spaces in the wake of the pandemic. View them here. We look forward to these spaces being once again filled with the sounds and sights of learning, questioning, challenging, and creating. Until then, let these images remind us of the year that we’ve experienced together.
May these summer months provide us all with a moment to pause, rest, reflect, and reconnect with loved ones as we prepare to return with hope and optimism in the fall.
Best wishes, 
Brett Steele
Dean, School of the Arts and Architecture
Stay engaged. Use #UCLAarts to stay connected.
