Faculty Spotlight: March 2021
The creative and scholarly contributions of the UCLA Arts community mine the complexities of the human condition, ask essential questions of our time, and expand the potential of creativity. Read more for a list of recent accolades and current and upcoming virtual and in-person exhibitions, performances, and lectures.
Kyle Abraham, professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, and his dance company A.I.M recently completed a 4-week “pod residency” at the Kaatsbaan Cultural Park and the Lumberyard Center for Film and Performing Arts. The residency was made possible by the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Abraham and A.I.M are collaborating with fashion brand Lingua Franca to co-design three cashmere sweaters. He selected three phrases to be hand-stitched on the sweaters: “Be Grateful,” “An Untitled Love,” and “Original Recipe.” For every sweater sold, $100 will be donated to A.I.M.
Abraham was selected as one of Crain’s Notable Black Leaders and Executives. He was honored for his many professional, civic and philanthropic achievements, his leadership, commitment to diversity, and his unparalleled artistry. He is the only artist recognized on this esteemed list.
He has been asked to serve on a council of artistic advisors who will curate content and engage artists for NY PopsUp Festival, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s effort to revive New York’s post-pandemic arts and culture scene.
Abraham appeared in luxury jeweler David Yurman’s “My New York” social media initiative. The campaign is an homage to NYC that featured iconic individuals who shared their unique and personal stories about the city.
And he was selected by New York City Ballet to create a new work filmed at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the upcoming digital season. Kyle’s piece will be released online on April 8, 2021. It will be the third he has created for NYCB.
Roger Herman, installation shot of Keramik, on view at Galerie Lefebvre & fils in Paris. Photo: Rebecca Fanuele. Courtesy Galerie Lefebvre & Fils and Roger Herman
Roger Herman, emeritus professor of painting in the Department of Art, presented a solo exhibition at Praz-Delavallade. My French Paintings featured Versailles-like landscape paintings, partially inspired by films like Alain Resnais’ L'Année dernière à Marienbad. Garden landscapes, trees and balconies could be seen dotting various canvases throughout the gallery juxtaposed by large paintings of flowers, fruit bowls and skulls.
Another exhibition, Keramik, on view at Galerie Lefebvre & fils in Paris through March 27, 2021, includes ceramics that Herman produced during his two residencies in Versailles in 2016 and 2017.
Gelare Khoshgozaran, lecturer in the Department of Design Media Arts, was featured in the latest issue of ArtReview, which can be viewed here. Two of the Los Angeles-based Iranian artist and writer’s recent films, Medina Wasl: Connecting Town (2018) and Men of My Dreams (2020), are also featured on their website and are streaming online during the month of March.
"Through its levelling of fact and its attendant fictions, of dream and protest," Khoshgozaran’s films open up a brave new world of contemporary story-telling, Chris Fite-Wassilak writes of her work.
Julia Koerner, assistant adjunct professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, will be the speaker for the fifth Alberini Family Speaker Series in Design at UC Davis. Presented by the College of Letters and Science’s Department of Design, the free lecture, “Models & Models,” will be held April 22, 2021, at 4 pm in an online format. Register for the lecture here.
Koerner’s presentation focuses on recent innovations in 3D printing, which have revolutionized the cross-disciplinary design work of architects and fashion designers. Such novel collaborations within the fashion industry are disrupting traditional craftsmanship and empowering innovation by utilizing emergent technologies. These new methods re-form fashion production and potentially reduce shipping, carbon footprint and textile waste, while opening opportunities for implementing sustainable processes in production, alongside innovative new aesthetics.
Catherine Opie, professor of photography in the Department of Art, will have her first survey monograph published by Phaidon on May 27, 2021. The book includes essays by Hilton Als, Douglas Fogle, Helen Molesworth and Elizabeth A. T. Smith as well as an interview by Charlotte Cotton.
From Phaidon's description: “For almost 40 years, Catherine Opie has been documenting with psychological acuity the cultural and geographic identity of contemporary America. This unique artist monograph presents a compelling visual narrative of Opie's work since the early 1980s, pairing images across bodies of work to form a full picture of her artistic vision. With more than 300 beautiful illustrations and made in close collaboration with Opie, the book marks a turning point in the consideration of this artist's work to date.”
Opie also delivered the annual Keynote Lecture at the Medium Festival Of Photography in San Diego on March 6.
A still from the Peter Sellars-directed multi-disciplinary performance film “this body is so impermanent...” featuring South Indian devotional singer Ganavya and improvisatory dancer Michael Schumacher.
Peter Sellars, distinguished professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, will premiere the film this body is so impermanent… online on March 17, 2021 at 4 pm PST. The film is presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the UCLA Boethius Initiative, and Fisher Center at Bard. The multi-disciplinary performance film is a creative response to COVID-19, made in isolation by artists on three continents as a call to learn and heal together, embracing reflections on the fragility of physical being and the liberation of conscious awareness.
The presentation will begin with a guided mindfulness meditation session led by Alisa Dennis Ph.D. (30 min.), followed by the world premiere screening (75 min.) and a post-screening conversation with the audience and artists (30-40 min.).
“The year of 2020 is forever marked in human history by COVID-19. The role of the arts is to create a series of markers next to that marker, which can memorialize and commemorate this moment in time, and also offer a window of acknowledgement, understanding, and empathy. Our project is offered in the hopes of developing, deepening, and extending the connective tissues that link the practice of the arts and medical practice,” Sellars said.
David Shorter, professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, is part of a research team with the Armory Center for the Arts that won a $100,000 research grant from the Getty Foundation for “From the Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments.” The forward-looking ethnobotanical study will be undertaken as the basis of a forthcoming exhibition and an accompanying publication that will be part of the region-wide, Getty arts initiative Pacific Standard Time, scheduled to open in 2024.
As a project researcher, Shorter will facilitate the organization and convening of rituals, performances, storytelling, and direct-action movements alongside guest speakers and archive and collection visits. Over the next two years, Shorter will work with his Armory collaborators to imagine, theorize, and put into practice incarnations of "speculative futures” that will build upon contemporary arts, esoteric knowledge, as well as botanical and medicinal approaches to community solidarity.
In addition, Shorter is the director of the Archive of Healing, a database of medicinal folklore from around the world. The database is drawn from six university archives, over 3,200 books, and over thirty years of first hand and secondhand anthropological data, spanning seven continents. The digital archive is set to be opened to the public later this month.
Jennifer Steinkamp, professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, is one of five artists featured in a new exhibition at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Limitless! Five Women Reshape Contemporary Art features the artwork of individuals who create without boundaries. The exhibition offers trailblazing installations in different mediums by artists Martine Gutierrez, Letitia Huckaby, Yayoi Kusama, Sandy Skoglund, and Steinkamp.
HEADER IMAGE: Gelare Khoshgozaran, Medina Wasl: Connecting Town, 2018 (installation view, Made in L. A., 2018, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles). Photo: Brian Forrest
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