Inspired by an Egun masquerade ensemble in the Fowler’s collection, Los Angeles-based artist Fran Siegel began a multi-year artistic research project that led her to multiple sites in Brazil. In this conversation, Siegel and Fowler Museum Director Marla Berns discuss Siegel’s experiences in Brazil—most specifically on the island of Itaparica—and the resulting drawing project featured in the exhibition Lineage through Landscape: Tracing Egun in Brazil by Fran Siegel. Come early to meet the artist and enjoy light refreshments in the Davis Courtyard.
Parking available in UCLA Lot 4, 221 Westwood Plaza, directly off Sunset Blvd | $12/day
Event link: https://www.fowler.ucla.edu/events/artist-fran-siegel-in-conversation-with-fowler-director-marla-c-berns/
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About the Exhibition:
Lineage through Landscape: Tracing Egun in Brazil (July 23–December 10, 2017) is a multifaceted drawing project developed during the Los Angeles-based artist’s research residency in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and the island of Itaparica, a vibrant center of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé. A vast, forty-foot-long, irregular “weaving” made of strips of sun-exposed and patterned fabric crossed by lengths of delicate drawings of sacred plants on translucent drafting film and cyanotypes, the work will wrap around three walls of the Museum’s “Fowler in Focus” Gallery. Finding inspiration in the worship of ancestral spirits, or Egun, in the natural environment associated with Candomblé practices on Itaparica and in the vexed history of colonialism and slavery in Brazil, Siegel’s project can be read as a highly charged landscape of black Brazil, built from fragments that embrace its African roots.
Pacific Standard Time at the Fowler Museum:
In Fall 2017, the Fowler Museum at UCLA presents a three-part exhibition program exploring Brazil’s African history and cultural heritage. Two exhibitions presented as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA include Lineage through Landscape: Tracing Egun in Brazil and Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis (Sept. 24–April 15), exploring complexities of race and cultural affiliation in Brazil, with more than 100 works from mid-20th century to the present. A third and complementary exhibition, Africa/Americas: Photographic Portraits by Pierre Verger (Sept. 10–Jan. 21), highlights 32 photographs by the renowned French artist, whose humanistic images explored enduring continuities linking people and cultures of West Africa and the African diaspora in the Americas. Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles. Supported by grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA takes place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California, from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, and from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.
