Tuesday, April 30, 2013

5/7: "From X to Why: A Museum Takes Shape"

 Please join us at our next Chew on This

From X to Why: A Museum Takes Shape
Tuesday, 5/7 from 12-1pm
Kaufman Room 208
Presenters: Professor Mary (Polly) Nooter Robert
Graduate Students: Peter Haffner, Elyan Hill, Dana Marterella, Elaine Sullivan, Rita Valente, and Tommy Tran

From X to Why: A Museum Takes Shape is the graduate student-curated section of the Fowler Museum’s 50th anniversary exhibition, opening in Fall 2013. This mini-exhibition focuses on the Fowler Museum’s earliest acquisitions. These objects demonstrate the strength and breadth of the collection and foreshadow the Fowler’s role as one of the premiere museums for preserving and displaying works of art from cultures around the world. In this presentation, the graduate students (Dana Marterella, Elaine Sullivan, Elyan Hill, Peter Haffner, Rita Valente, and Tommy Tran) and the project’s mentor (Professor Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts) will talk about the conceptualization and research process underlying the exhibition. They will also explain the core concept of the project, and how it materializes in the title. Finally, the group will guide us through the exhibition and introduce us to some of the objects that will be displayed.

Dana Marterella, Elaine Sullivan, Elyan Hill, Peter Haffner, and Rita Valente are doctoral students in the Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance at UCLA. Tommy Tran is a doctoral student at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. Martarella is developing a comparative study of Victoria Ocampo and Eva PerĂ³n, in which she examines how celebrity, commodity, class, and gender intersect as two women curate a global image for self and nation. Sullivan’s research interests include museum studies and the visual arts of the Luba peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Hill examines the significance of dance practices in honor of the West African water deity Mami Wata in understanding African perspectives on the black Atlantic. Haffner’s research focuses on the connections between tourism and the production of art in Haiti. Valente studies how theater festivals in Portuguese-speaking countries use the concept of Lusophony to negotiate the colonial past shared by those nations. Tran studies the contemporary use of folklore and heritage in Jeju Island, South Korea.

Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts is Professor in UCLA's Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance and Consulting Curator for African Art at the LACMA. She holds an MA and PhD in Art History from Columbia University, and served as Senior Curator at the Museum for African Art until 1994 and as Deputy Director and Chief Curator of UCLA’s Fowler Museum until 2008. Roberts is the author and curator of thematic books and exhibitions that explore the philosophical underpinnings of African visual arts and expressive culture, such as secrecy, memory, writing and inscription, as well as topics of the body and female representation, arts of divination and healing, and theories of exhibiting. Together with Allen F. Roberts, she produced the award-winning works Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History (1996) and A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal (2003). In 2007, she was decorated by the Republic of France as a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters for her promotion of francophone African artists.


NEXT CHEW on THIS: May 14 with Doran George

Monday, April 22, 2013

4/30: Peter Haffner

Please join us at our next Chew on This
Tuesday, 4/30 at 12pm
Kaufman conference room 160

Aesthetic Beneficence: Tourism and Art Production in Haiti

Art objects from are sold to tourists and collectors throughout the Caribbean and the Americas as souvenirs and decorative objects that signify notions of exoticism, tropicality, and primitivism. How have writers, art dealers, curators, and collectors helped to shape and advance such problematic narratives? How did “Haitian art” come to be classified as such and by whom? What discourses are advanced as a result of such classifications? How can theories of tourism help us analyze the history of contemporary art in Haiti and understand the responses by artists in Haiti and abroad?

Peter Haffner is a second year PhD student in the Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on the connections between tourism and the production of art in Haiti through an interdisciplinary approach that includes visual studies, museum studies, cultural studies, tourism studies, and art history. After receiving his BA in Art History from Bard College, he worked in several New York City art galleries in a variety of positions. In addition to his academic work, Peter is a co-leader of the upcoming student-curated section of the Fowler Museum at UCLA’s 50th anniversary exhibitions.