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Jun 22, 2009

Free at the Fowler

While the shaky economy has many thinking twice about spending hard-earned cash on entertainment, the Fowler Museum at UCLA presents a most affordable option: free concerts, performances and films running in conjunction this summer with two current exhibitions showcasing Australia’s “Art of the Desert” —“Icons of the Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings from Papunya” and “Innovations in Western Desert Painting, 1972-1999.”

Image from the film
Image from the film "Ten Canoes," screening on July 31.
Events kick off on Sunday, June 28, at 4 p.m., with Summer Sunset Concert "Mamifero," a performance by local musicians the Gallegos Clan along with Elliot Traves, who present a conglomeration of unique musical styles featuring the didgeridoo, an Aboriginal wind instrument. No reservations are required for this or other events described here.

On Sunday, July 26 at 4 p.m., Dave’s Aussie Bush Band will perform Australian folk and pop song. You’ll want to bring the kids to this one: There will be a children’s activity — making a kangaroo mask and then competing in a leaping contest — from 1-4 p.m. before the concert.

On Friday, July 10 at 12 p.m., the award-winning documentary, “My Survival as an Aboriginal” provides a close-up view into the lives and hardships of native Australian Aboriginal people. The following Friday, July 17 at noon, the film “Benny and the Dreamers” details an Aboriginal group’s first encounters with the “whitefellas” and the difficulties and changes that ensue.

On Wednesday, July 22 at noon, Kerry Smallwood, vice president and curator of Aboriginal art for The Kelton Foundation, discusses artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s “Yuutjutiyungu” (Ancestral Tales of Mount Allen Sites), a striking work considered by many to be an Australian national treasure.

On Friday, July 24 at noon, the film “Bran Nue Dae” describes the life of accomplished Aboriginal playwright Jimmy Chi and how his work parallels the complexities of his own life. 

Culminating the film screenings will be “Ten Canoes” on Friday, July 31 at noon. The full-length feature provides a glimpse into Aboriginal life before European settlement. Australian icon David Gulpilil (of “Crocodile Dundee” and “Rabbit-Proof Fence” fame) narrates.

On Sunday, August 2 at 2 p.m., closing day for the Aboriginal art exhibitions, two lectures will be presented: Collector Richard Kelton discusses his first encounter with Australian Aboriginal art in 1979, and what he has learned over the past 30 years through studying and collecting the material. And Kelton Foundation curator Kerry Smallwood traces the stylistic and iconographic development of Aboriginal art since the introduction of acrylic painting at Papunya in 1971.

For more information on these and other Fowler offerings, visit the Fowler Museum website.