Faculty Spotlight: November 2020

UPDATES FROM THE UCLA SCHOOL OF THE ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE FACULTY

November 5, 2020

The creative and scholarly contributions of the UCLA Arts community continue to mine the complexities of the human condition, ask essential questions of our time, and expand the potential of creativity—in traditional and new modalities, accessible from home. 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, shared these recent accomplishments and accolades:

Kyle Abraham’s critically acclaimed, The Runaway, was featured during New York City Ballet’s digital spring season.
A.I.M by Kyle Abraham’s work, Meditation: A Silent Prayer, was shown as part of The Joyce’s 2020 summer digital programming on JoyceStream.
A.I.M was featured during the Fire Island Dance Festival with an excerpt of Abraham’s newest evening-length, performed by American Ballet Theatre soloist Calvin Royal III and A.I.M dancer Tamisha Guy.
Kyle Abraham and Wendy Whelan (former New York City Ballet principal and current Associate Artistic Director of NYCB) co-hosted Dance We Must, a virtual event in support of Jacob’s Pillow. As a part of the program, A.I.M performed an excerpt of An Untitled Love, Kyle’s newest evening-length work for A.I.M.
Kyle Abraham was featured in USA Today talking openly about love, race, and queer identity.
Kyle Abraham collaborated with New York City Ballet dancer, Taylor Stanley, to create Ces noms que nous portons. The work was filmed outside a rainbow-lit Lincoln Center, in honor of Pride month.
Kyle Abraham choreographed Sufjan Stevens’ new music video for his song “Sugar.” The video directed by Ezra Hurwitz features Samantha Figgins, Raymond Pinto, Walter Russell III, and Celeste Mason.
From October 12th-October 17th, A.I.M held A.I.M Homecoming Week, a week-long virtual celebration of A.I.M’s resilience, perseverance, and creative tenacity, honoring Misty Copeland.

Kyle Abraham's upcoming projects and events include:

From October 20th-30th, A.I.M participated in a “pod residency” at Jacob’s Pillow as part of The Pillow Lab. Additionally, A.I.M will be featured in “Inside the Pillow Lab," a free event streamed on YouTube offering an intimate look into their process and including a live chat with artists and company members on November 12th.
Kyle Abraham was commissioned by New York City Center’s Fall for Dance to choreograph a new work for American Ballet Theatre principal dancer and frequent A.I.M collaborator, Calvin Royal III. The work premiered on October 26th.

Cristobal Amunategui, an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, presented the exhibition "Compendium" from his architecture office Amunátegui Valdés at LIGA DF, an architecture gallery in Mexico City. The exhibition opened Oct. 8 and shows a myriad of objects, prints and scale models, creating a Wunderkammer of architectural ideas.

Johanna Drucker, the Breslauer Professor of Bibliographical Studies in the Department of Information Studies with a joint appointment in the Department of Design Media Arts, will publish "Visualization and Interpretation: Humanistic Approaches to Display" with MIT Press this month. The book is described as "an analysis of visual epistemology in the digital humanities, with attention to the need for interpretive digital tools within humanities contexts."

Dan Froot, department chair and professor in the Department of World Arts and Culture/Dance, made headway this summer on the last four episodes of his podcast, "Pang!," a series of contemporary audio dramas based on the oral histories of families around the country who are hungering for change.

He has begun work on his new project, "Arms Around America," a community-based performance project. It culminates in an evening of three short plays based on the oral histories of families around the country whose lives have been shaped by guns. The goal is to foster dialogue among community members on all sides of the gun debate.

From October 17-18, Froot was featured as a special guest with Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks’ 24-hour performance: Love Story, the Secret Journey.

Candice Lin, assistant professor in the Department of Art, has a solo exhibition Roger & Friends at Friends, Indeed (San Francisco) opening November 12 and running until January 6, 2021. Her solo exhibitions Pigs and Poison at Govett Brewster Art Gallery (New Plymouth, New Zealand) will be on view until November 15 (traveling to Times Museum, opening March 2021) and her two-person exhibition with Patrick Staff at the ICA, NYU Shanghai, STRESSED HERMS, SWEAT, & PERIOD GAS is open until December 18th.

Her work is also included in the following group exhibitions: Yesn’t (Galerie Sultana, Paris, September 10-November 4, 2020), Material Intimacies (NXTHVN, New Haven, October 18, 2020-January 18, 2021), The Body Electric (Miami Dada College Galleries of Art + Design, November 5, 2020-May 30, 2021), To Thomas (Ygrec, Aubervilliers, France, October 24-November 21, 2020), Visionary New England, (de Cordova Museum, October 8, 2020-March 14, 2021), as well as upcoming exhibitions New Time: Art & Feminisms in the 21st Century (Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, opening February 24, 2021), Stories of Resistance (Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, Opening March 12, 2021), the 13th Gwangju Biennale, Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning (opening February 26, 2021).

CircumSolar, Migration 1 (Single-channel video installation. 26:20 minutes) Rebeca Méndez.

Rebeca Méndez, department chair and professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, has a single-channel video installation titled "CircumSolar, Migration 1" on view from Nov. 4-30. Projected onto the Museum façade, this video follows the migration of the arctic tern, a small sea bird that has the longest migration of all living beings on earth, flying from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again each year. As such, it experiences two polar summers of 24-hour daylight each year, which makes it the one creature in the world that lives the most daylight. With the tern as its protagonist, CircumSolar, Migration 1 looks to explore larger themes critical to our time, such as the unstoppable force of migration; the ecological concern of climate change and other man-made detritus; the geopolitics of the changing landscapes of coastal lands and the Arctic and Antarctic regions; and at the limit of what is known, the role of the archetypal explorer, who goes beyond to bring back the boon to benefit all.

You can watch a design conversation here that Méndez participated in on Oct. 19 with Matthew Jull, in which the two examine ideas of landscape, environmental justice, shelter and refuge. Jull studies Arctic settlement and examines the potential role of architecture and landscape architecture in human lifeways, beyond engineering.

Elena Phipps, lecturer in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, participated in two major textile symposia. She participated in the Textile Society of America's Biennial Symposium October 15-17, and organized a panel called "Extraordinary Fibers, Extraordinary Stories from the Andes and Beyond." She also gave a joint paper, with Dr. Caroline Solazzo, research scientist, Smithsonian Conservation Science Lab, titled “Viscacha: Luxury, Fate, and Identification in Pre-Columbian Textiles." The program was recorded and will be available on the society's website by the end of the year.

Phipps also participated in the Cotsen Traces Collection Global Roundtable October 21-22, on a panel titled "Weaving and Dyeing in South America and Mesoamerica" with her presentation on "Four Selvaged Cloth: Past and Present."

Casey Reas, a professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, received the Lumen Prize's Moving Image Award with collaborator Jan St. Werner for their project Compressed Cinema. The series of five new audiovisual works includes video images created by Reas and a stereo audio track composed by Werner.

TOP IMAGE: Compressed Cinema, Untitled 3 (I withdraw.), 2020. Photo courtesy Casey Reas and Jan St. Werner.

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