Fowler Museum reopens with two new exhibits despite prolonged virtual curation
"Matthew Robb is ready to enjoy the Fowler Museum’s reopening after being unable to see artifacts in person for over a year.
“We’ve all been looking at our screens for so long, and it’s really great to be back in a space with things that aren’t screens,” said Robb, the chief curator of the Fowler.
On Thursday, the museum reopened to the public for the first time since its closure in March 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The museum features two new exhibitions: “The Map and the Territory: 100 Years of Collecting at UCLA” and “Photo Cameroon: Studio Portraiture, 1970s-1990s.”
“The Map and the Territory” features historical and contemporary artworks, specimens, manuscripts and other items found in the Hammer Museum and UCLA’s archives and libraries. “Photo Cameroon” highlights over 100 black-and-white portraits, giving visitors a glimpse into the lives and cultures of Cameroonian citizens.
The Fowler’s reopening timeline continually shifted over the past 15 months. Erica Jones, curator of African arts, said she initially expected to return to the museum within a few weeks of its closure. However, as the pandemic continued, Jones realized the museum’s reopening would require a significantly new approach to keep visitors safe and healthy.
“We collectively realized that this reopening is going to be so incredibly complicated, and that’s when we also pivoted as an institution to start to think about, ‘we’re going to be reopening in a brand new world, this is going to be substantially different,’” Jones said." — Megan Tagami, July 5, 2021
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Daily Bruin website.
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