Fowler Museum of Cultural History
UCLA – Westwood
March 16, 2017
Meredith went up to Westwood to attend a lecture, and stopped in at the Fowler Museum for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
The curators have rotated the pieces on display in the permanent collection quite a bit since our last visit, and there is a new video showing at the entrance to that collection. It reminds us that the items on display in the museum are not simply art objects but are also objects used which were used by the people who created them, and they are often of spiritual importance. Several of the museum items are shown in context in the video, which is interesting but a little long.
That gallery has numerous and varied items on display, including: Vietnamese tunics and skirts; decorated gourd bowls from Africa; large display masks from Papua New Guinea (seen in the photo); and Indonesian rod puppets, to name just a few categories. There is a large display of carved wooden posts made by the Yoruba people of Nigeria. They are similar in appearance to totem poles of North American peoples. Meredith was struck by an intricate modern Mexican ceramic piece, a memorial item entitled Tree of Death: Factory Women. The artist used a traditional Mexican tree of life to commemorate the over 400 women killed in Ciudad Juarez since 1993.
There are several special exhibitions running currently. The Fowler in Focus gallery features Joli! A Fancy Masquerade. That gallery displays approximately a dozen masquerade headdresses from Sierra Leone made in the 1970’s and used in street parades at that time. The headdresses incorporate symbols of native divinities, but also more modern symbols, taken from the British monarchy and from Islamic themes. That exhibition runs through July 16, 2017.
Another gallery features the Enduring Splendor exhibition of jewelry, both antique and modern, from the Indian Thar desert region. These pieces were created by jewelers of the Soni caste; some items were commissioned especially for the Fowler. That exhibition runs through June 18, 2017. The display complements the permanent collection of silver pieces from Europe and America, Reflecting Culture, which we like very much. Meredith stopped in it briefly at the end of her visit.
The final special exhibition running now is Pantsula 4 Lyf, a display featuring South African dance videos and photos
Meredith went on to dinner and then a lecture at the law school, given by Gary Saul Morson and sponsored by the Center for Liberal Arts and Free Institutions. Professor Morson spoke on Russian novelists, the intelligentsia, and the revolution of 1917.
Admission to the Fowler is free. Parking is available nearby, in one of the UCLA garages. The museum is all on one level and easily accessible to wheelchair patrons.