Los Angeles, with its communities from around the world, is a melting pot of traditions and practices. During this period of Safer at Home, the Fowler is pleased to offer digital programs celebrating world arts and cultures. All programs are free. RSVP to receive the link to join.

Festivals in the City of Angels
This series connects museum programs with communities across the city in order to better understand manifestations of lived religions in Los Angeles and honor local expressions of global faiths.

Flames of Devotion | RSVP
Thursday, November 12, 5–6pm

In honor of Diwali, the “festival of lights” that celebrates the beginning of the Hindu New Year, scholar Lakshika Senarath Gamage will explore the origins of this holiday and its manifestations in contemporary faith communities. She will also offer her perspective on the design, construction, and use of the spectacular bronze oil lamps in the Fowler’s collection, acquired by the pre-eminent scholar of Indian art in LA. Such oil lamps would have been used in Diwali celebrations to symbolize the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.

Lakshika Senarath Gamage received her Ph.D. in 2018 from the UCLA Department of Art History. Her research on Early Modern South Asian Art focuses on Hindu and Buddhist temple art and architecture in India and Sri Lanka. While at UCLA, her dissertation fieldwork in the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala was supported by the Ralph C. Altman award bestowed by the Fowler Museum in 2014. She currently teaches Asian Art history at Santa Monica College and conducts research on South Asian Art at the Getty Research Institute.

Presented in partnership with Indian Student Union at UCLA.

This program is generously supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

Program recording: “Festivals in the City of Angels: Flames of Devotion,” November 12, 2020.

Diwali Sweets Cooking Lesson | RSVP
Friday, November 13, 5-6pm

We have invited Mayura Indian Restaurant to help us prepare for Diwali, the Indian festival of lights celebrated, in part, with sweet desserts. Owner Padmini Aniyan and Head Chef Sathi Venu will teach us how to make traditional Keralan sweets, such as unniyappam (Indian dumplings made of flour, banana, and jaggery) and payasam (Indian pudding), dishes served as part of the MICHELIN-recognized restaurant’s annual Diwali feast. Ingredients and preparation instructions sent upon RSVP. Come with everything prepared and ready to cook!

Presented in partnership with Indian Student Union at UCLA.

This program is generously supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

Program recording: “Festivals in the City of Angels: Diwali Sweets Cooking Lesson,” November 13, 2020.

Curator’s Choice
Join curators for lively conversations about their passions and projects that inspire audiences to engage with different world views and find joy in the diversity of human experiences.

Marie Watt and Nancy Marie Mithlo | RSVP
Wednesday, November 18, 4-5pm

Join the Fowler Museum, independent curator Nancy Marie Mithlo, and artist Marie Watt for a conversation about American Indian art, intellectual traditions, social activism, and the foundational practice of gratitude in Native communities. We’ll take a look at some of Watt’s most important, powerfully symbolic sculptural works informed by Indigenous knowledge, Iroquois proto-feminism, and American Indian matriarchal structures. Watt uses textiles, beads, cedar, and other materials conceptually attached to American Indian narratives in her work, which explores what it means to be a true “companion species.”

A Fowler Member-only virtual Happy Hour and Studio Visit with Marie and Nancy will follow the program. Click here to become a Fowler Member.

Presented in partnership with UCLA American Indian Studies Center.

Marie Watt (b. 1967) is an American artist with partial German-Scot heritage and a citizen of the Seneca Nation. She earned her M.F.A. in painting and printmaking from Yale University; has degrees from Willamette University and the Institute of American Indian Arts; and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Willamette University in 2016. Through collaborative actions, she instigates multigenerational and cross-disciplinary conversations affirming Native peoples’ connections to place, one another, and the universe. Watt lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

Nancy Marie Mithlo, Ph.D., is an Indigenous (Chiricahua Apache) scholar of race and representation. She is Professor in the UCLA Department of Gender Studies and affiliated faculty in the UCLA American Indian Studies Interdepartmental Program. Her training as a cultural anthropologist (Stanford University Ph.D., 1993) informs how she examines cultural, institutional, and political systems that often mask the normalization of bias in contested realms of power. Mithlo, whose work engages comparative global Indigeneity movements in the arts, curated nine exhibitions at the Venice Biennale.

Program recording: “Curator’s Choice: Marie Watt and Nancy Marie Mithlo,” November 18, 2020.

Project 1521 and the Florentine Codex | RSVP
Thursday, November 19, 5-6:15pm
Presented by the Fowler Museum at UCLA in partnership with the Getty Research Institute.

As we approach the 500 year anniversary of the conquest of Mexico, Project 1521 has emerged as a result of a multi-year collaboration between artist Sandy Rodriguez and writer Adolfo Guzman-Lopez. Inspired by Book 12 of the Florentine Codex, the project gathers artists, writers, and scholars to generate new visual and literary works as acts of resistance.

The General History of the Things of New Spain — aka the Florentine Codex — is a massive 2,000-page guide to Aztec life. Working with a Franciscan missionary, a group of young Nahua scholars and artists recorded the thoughts and memories of their relatives and ancestors, creating a bilingual text accompanied by almost 2,500 illustrations. Created in the shadow of the Spanish invasion, and completed during a devastating epidemic, this encyclopedic effort provides a uniquely Indigenous perspective on the world-shattering events of the 16th century.

Panelists include artist Sandy Rodriguez; writer and KPCC/LAIST reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez; Kevin Terraciano, Professor of History, Director of the Latin American Institute, and co-chair, Latin American Studies Graduate Program at UCLA; Diana Magaloni Kerpel, LACMA’s Deputy Director, Program Director & Dr. Virginia Fields Curator of the Art of the Ancient Americas, and Suzanne D. Booth and David G. Booth Conservation Center Director; Kim Richter, Senior Research Specialist, Director’s Office, Getty Research Institute; Abelardo de la Cruz de la Cruz, PhD candidate, Department of Anthropology at University at Albany, State University of New York, Associate Instructor and Nahuatl Instructor, Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Utah, and Associate Instructor, Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas (IDIEZ AC).

Conversation will be moderated by Matthew H. Robb, Chief Curator, Fowler Museum at UCLA

Program recording: “Project 1521 and the Florentine Codex,” November 19, 2020.

A Global Destination for Art
Artists from all over the world flock to work in Los Angeles, drawn by the energy of ingenuity and the space for experimental expression. Join us on Zoom as we visit with artists creating in our City of Angels.

Mark Steven Greenfield | RSVP
Saturday, November 21, 12-1pm

Mark Steven Greenfield, a native of LA, uses his art to explore the African-American experience, critiquing and offering unique perspectives on a society still grappling with the consequences of slavery and racial injustice. His newest body of work consists of 17 “Black Madonna” paintings that re-imagine Medieval religious icons rendered in the Byzantine style of their art historical predecessors. Greenfield places Black bodies in a place of exaltation, offering an imagined time that is hard to pinpoint, but during which white supremacy suffers the same vicious deaths that have historically been forced upon Black bodies.

Join Mark and Naima J. Keith for an exhibition walk-through at William Turner Gallery, followed by a conversation and Q&A

Mark Steven Greenfield studied with Charles White at Otis Art Institute; received his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach; and an M.F.A. in painting and drawing from California State University, Los Angeles in 1987. Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively in the United States, including in a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles in 2014. From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as Director of the Watts Towers Arts Center; later, he served as Director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects.

Naima J. Keith is Vice President of Education and Public Programs at LACMA. Previously, she was the Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the California African American Museum, where she guided the curatorial and education departments as well as marketing and communications; she was an Associate Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2011–16); and held a curatorial position at the Hammer Museum. Keith has lectured extensively and her essays have appeared in numerous publications. She holds degrees from Spelman College and UCLA, and is a proud native of Los Angeles.

This program is generously supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

Program recording: “A Global Destination for Art: Mark Steven Greenfield,” November 21, 2020.

DISRUPT the Fowler
DISRUPT is a UCLA student design organization that aims to establish inclusive spaces and provide opportunities for students of all backgrounds to engage in creative collaborations. The Fowler is honored to partner with DISRUPT and offer programs that break down barriers in the art world and promote innovative ideation through inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

Estevan Oriol | RSVP
Monday, November 23, 4-5pm

Estevan Oriol is a worldwide DISRUPTOR in photography. The subject and director of the Netflix documentary, “LA Originals,” he captures both the glamour of Hollywood celebrities and the uncut reality of the inner cities. Oriol reveals the true essence of his subjects in an unapologetic approach to photographic truth. Join the Fowler and DISRUPT for a conversation with Oriol and a look back at some of his most famous images, including those of Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Ryan Gosling, Floyd Mayweather, and Snoop Dogg.

Program recording: “DISRUPT the Fowler: Estevan Oriol,” November 23, 2020.