UCLA offers a wealth of Westside arts activities for Frieze Los Angeles attendees

From exhibitions and artist talks to performances and public spaces

Visitors to Frieze Los Angeles international art fair at the Santa Monica Airport from Feb 29-March 3 are invited to nearby UCLA for a variety of exhibitions, events, performances and to explore noteworthy public art on campus.

EXHIBITIONS

UCLA’s two public visual arts institutions currently offer a variety of exhibitions that span themes of faith, identity, intimacy and radical change. They cross boundaries of time and culture.

On view at the Hammer Museum

Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s

The first North American exhibition to explore the groundbreaking work of a generation of artists who emerged in the decades following the Korean War. This is the only West Coast presentation.

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stanley brouwn

Organized by the Art Institute of Chicago.

Hammer Projects: Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi

A striking large-scale work in the Hammer’s recently redesigned main lobby, highlighting the Johannesburg-based artist’s practice that reflects on Afro-diasporic themes.

Hammer Projects: Vamba Bility

An intimate reflection on material histories from the artist who weaves together mediums and materials such as painting, textiles, found objects, and sound.

Groove: Artists and Intaglio Prints, 1500 to Now

More than 80 prints from the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts collection surveying more than 500 years of artists employing the intaglio medium, which comprises engravings, etchings, drypoint, aquatint, and mezzotint.

Rita McBride: Particulates

McBride’s meditative whirl of green lasers infiltrating the unfinished space of a former bank closes March 3.

Sanford Biggers: Oracle

This 25-foot cast bronze figure continues the artist’s “Chimera” series, which brings canonical figures and gestures of Greco-Roman sculpture together with an assortment of iconic African objects from the 14th–20th centuries.

On view at the Fowler Museum

I Will Meet You Yet Again: Contemporary Sikh Art

A fresh look at the history and vitality of Sikh culture through paintings, posters, tapestries, and multimedia installations.

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Janyak: Armenian Art of Knots and Loops

Intricate examples of needle lace, an art form that has been a precious link for Armenians across the world.

Creating in Community: Fowler at 60

A celebration of the most joyful and interesting projects from the museum’s history–those created in collaboration with others.

Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives

Works from the permanent collection explore how arts from cultures in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas conceptually intersect with each other.

EVENTS

Over the course of Frieze, campus visitors can further explore exhibitions currently on view, hear from artists and filmmakers, or enjoy music performances and screenings that entertain and uplift.

EXHIBITION TOURS & ARTIST TALKS

Dive deeper into Hammer and Fowler exhibitions with special attention from campus arts curators.

Hammer: Saturday March 2 at 2 p.m

Voices of the Diaspora, presented in collaboration with Asian American Pacific Islander Arts Network, ARTNOIR, and The Here And There Collective. An afternoon of thought-provoking discussions with local arts curators, community groups and artists Charles Gaines, Tala Madani, Gala Porras-Kim, Harry Gamboa, Jr., and Vincent Valdez, who will explore how diasporic experiences inform their artistic, pedagogic, and social practices.

FILM SCREENINGS

Three programs curated by the UCLA Film & Television Archive will be held over the weekend at the Billy Wilder Theater inside the Hammer Museum.

Image: A scene from "The Pink Cloud"

A spotlight on The Brazilian Filmmakers Collective brings multiple artists to the program Friday March 1 at 7:30 p.m for screenings and Q&As with the filmmakers of “Grandma Has a Video Camera” (2007), an intimate look at what it means to belong and be from multiple places, and ”Sócrates” (2018), about a teenage boy navigating grief and homelessness in the wake of personal loss. On Saturday March 2 at 7:30 p.m., the program includes six shorts from Brazilian filmmakers across Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Brazil, followed by a viewing of an eerily prescient sci-fi film made prior to the COVID pandemic called “The Pink Cloud,” about a mysterious contaminant that keeps people locked inside their homes.

The Archive’s ANIMALIA series continues Sunday March 3rd at 7 p.m. with the presentation of “Kes” (1969), about troubled 15-year-old Billy Casper from England who befriends a fledgling kestrel and “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” (2003), which follows a musician who cares for feral parrots in a San Francisco neighborhood.

MUSIC

Hammer Members are invited to a special evening coinciding with the opening of Frieze Los Angeles on Thursday Feb 29 at 7:30 p.m. After-hours access to galleries, craft cocktails, and a live performance by critically acclaimed L.A.-based musician Sudan Archives, whose music blends R&B, hip-hop, and experimental electronica with the fiddling style of West Africa. Presented by Frieze Music & Hammer Museum in collaboration with BMW.

Two programs at our new Westwood venue The UCLA Nimoy Theater provide an intimate experience of contemporary music ensembles and composers presented by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance with Nico Muhly and Alice Goodman’s The Street on Thursday Feb 29 at 8 pm and Eighth Blackbird - Into the Night on Sunday March 3 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $32.

Image: Eighth Blackbird courtesy CAP UCLA

The Herb Alpert School of Music celebrates its ongoing collaboration with the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television with an evening of Opera Scenes on Saturday March 2 at 8 p.m. at Schoenberg Hall. The program, featuring students in the highly regarded Opera UCLA, presents moments from operas new and old. The following night, Sunday March 3 at 7 p.m., the Herbie Hancock Institute jazz ensemble, fresh off a tour of India with the famed bandleader, will perform as part of a Jazz Combos and Ensembles concert in Schoenberg Hall. Both School of Music programs are free and open to the public.

PERFORMANCES

Frieze audiences can enjoy a sneak peek at the latest dance/exhibition work titled "Reorient the Orient" from Lionel Popkin, recently named interim dean of UCLA's School of the Arts and Architecture.

Presented by REDCAT in downtown L.A., galleries will be open 12-6 March 1 -3, with a performance piece on Saturday, March 2 at 4 pm.

Ticketed performances for "Reorient the Orient" run March 9-10.

EXPLORATIONS

UCLA is home to myriad murals and works from members of our community alongside famed artists. Some of the most striking and accessible include the following:

Image: A section of "La Memoria de la Tierra" by Reed Johnson

Judith Baca: “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA”

Wescom Student Terrace-Ackerman Union (map)

Commissioned in honor of UCLA’s 2019 centennial and officially installed and unveiled in April 2022, this near 80-foot mural by one of today’s most accomplished muralists and Chicana artists brings together evocative scenes from past, present and future.

Art Collection at the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center

Throughout public spaces inside the Luskin Center (map)

UCLA’s conference center and hotel is home to around 400 unique pieces on permanent display. Among the most well-known artists whose work can be found here include Lita Albuquerque, John Baldessari, Barbara Vija Celmins, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha and others.

Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden

South of the Broad Art Center (map)

One of the most distinguished outdoor sculpture installations in the country, the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden spans more than five acres of UCLA’s campus with over 70 sculptures by artists such as Hans Arp, Deborah Butterfield, Alexander Calder, Barbara Hepworth, Jacques Lipchitz, Henry Moore, Auguste Rodin, and David Smith.

Robert Graham Sculptures

Rolfe Courtyard (map) and outside Schoenberg Hall (map)

UCLA is home to multiple sculptures from Mexican-American artist Robert Graham, including two in the larger sculpture garden. Graham’s work is also found in a meditative series of statues outside Rolfe Hall. A three-quarter scale version of Graham’s Duke Ellington Memorial in New York’s Central Park is located outside Schoenberg.

By Jessica Wolf
Posted Feb 20
Header image: Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden courtesy Hammer Museum