The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture will present more than 150 public events this fall featuring exhibitions at campus museums and galleries; lectures by artists, alumni and faculty; and music, theater and dance performances by students and acclaimed professionals. Many of the events are free — thanks to the support of donors — and all are open to the public.
For more details and a complete listing of events, see the UCLA Arts calendar.
Lectures, panels and symposia
Sept. 18: In conjunction with its Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibition, “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985,” the Hammer Museum at UCLA presents “The Political Body in Latin American Art,” a symposium featuring scholars, artists, and curators from around the world who will convene to consider ideas of radicality, feminism and the emancipated body. This symposium is free and will be presented in in Spanish and English.
Sept. 23: As part of the opening celebration for its Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibition, “Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis,” the Fowler Museum at UCLA presents a conversation between exhibition co-curator Roberto Conduru, associate professor of art history and theory at the Art Institute, Rio de Janeiro State University, and contemporary artist Ayrson Heráclito.
Oct. 16: The department of architecture and urban design presents a lecture by well-known Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, whose inventive residential structures and institutional projects reflect his fresh approach to the relationship between architectural space and the human body. Fujimoto will lecture as part of the department’s “This, Not That” lecture series, which invites thought-provoking speakers to present arguments for their respective positions, or ideological stances, toward the design of the built environment.
Oct. 19: Artist and newly appointed assistant professor in the UCLA Department of Art Rodrigo Valenzuela constructs narratives, scenes and stories that point to the tensions between individuals and communities. He has had solo exhibitions at Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer in Vienna, Austria, Klowdenmann Gallery in Los Angeles, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. In addition to a Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, his recent residencies include the MacDowell Colony and Light Work.
Oct. 23: The department of architecture and urban design presents the Chicago Architecture Biennale Roundtable with biennale artistic directors Mark Lee and Sharon Johnston of Los Angeles-based architecture firm, Johnston Marklee. UCLA A.UD-affiliated architects and scholars participating in the biennale include Erin Besler, Andrew Kovacs, Jimenez Lai and Sylvia Lavin.
Oct. 24: Yung Jake, a Los Angeles-based visual artist and rapper, is best known for generating music videos that reflect on how digital art, social media and shifting perceptions of reality inform modern culture. The New York Times describes Yung Jake as “one among a crop of compelling millennial artists whose digital works are developed almost entirely for or on the internet.”
Dec. 1: Student artists and activists will share performance work to commemorate World AIDS Day. Students from the UCLA Sex Squad will share new pieces about sexual health, and via live feed, students from Duke University and North Carolina Central University will share new works created in collaboration with the UCLA Art and Global Health Center.
Exhibitions
Sept. 16–Dec. 31: Part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985,” at the Hammer Museum at UCLA will reappraise the contribution of Latin American women artists and those of Latino and Chicano heritage in the United States to contemporary art.
Sept. 24–April 15: “Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis,” presented by the Fowler Museum at UCLA as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA explores the distinctive cultural role of the city of Salvador, the coastal capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia. Since the 1940s, Salvador has been an internationally renowned center of Afro-Brazilian culture, and it remains an important hub of African-inspired artistic practices in Latin America. This exhibition is the most comprehensive presentation of Bahian arts to date in the United States.
Oct. 19–25: Graduating M.F.A. candidates in design media arts present a group exhibition of their latest work in a variety of media.
Nov. 2–16: The UCLA Department of Art presents its annual group exhibition featuring work by M.F.A. candidates graduating at the end of the academic year, including work in ceramics, interdisciplinary studio, new genres, painting/drawing, photography and sculpture.
Nov. 14: With games ranging from the bombastic and performative to the intimate and personal, the UCLA Game Art Festival presents ambitious and participatory projects use a variety of media and modes of expression.
Performances
Sept. 22, Oct. 7, Nov. 2, Nov. 29: Alongside its Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibition, “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985,” the Hammer Museum at UCLA presents an exciting series of concerts and performances including Lido Pimienta, Sister Mantos, Sotomayor, Sin Color, Chulita Vinyl Club, Astrid Hadad and a tribute to Yma Sumac.
Oct. 13 and 14: The perfect marriage of theater and cinema, “Helen Lawrence” by the Canadian Stage — a film noir landscape of tough guys and femme fatales who wear finely-tuned personas to protect themselves — has to be seen to be believed. Co-presented by the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with technical support provided by the Art + Technology Lab at LACMA.
Oct. 26 and 27: CAP UCLA presents Théâtre de la Ville performance of “L’État de siege (The State of Siege),” a modern myth created by Albert Camus that was originally staged in 1948 by Jean-Louis Barrault. Both prescient and poetic, this rare piece — restaged by the internationally renowned French company Théâtre de la Ville — is a distorted reflection of a nightmarish future in which a city is reduced to silence and submission under the leadership of a character called La Peste (“The Plague”).
Nov. 17 and 18: This November, CAP UCLA presents William Kentridge’s “Refuse the Hour,” a chamber opera companion to South African artist William Kentridge’s five-channel video installation, “The Refusal of Time.” Composed by Kentridge’s longtime collaborator, Phillip Miller, it recounts a tale that begins with the myth of Perseus and ends with Einstein’s visionary findings.
Dec. 8: An end-of-quarter showcase, “Culture Crossing” features student and faculty projects that arise from coursework reflecting the diversity and exemplary talents of the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance.