PST LA/LA presents Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis.

By Julia P. Herzberg

With this eleventh posting, I continue to inform our online readers of the unprecedented exhibition Pacific Standard Time: LALA that offers thematically linked exhibitions and programs in a four-month-long, region-wide exploration of Latin American and Latino Art in dialogue with Los Angeles. The below is the press release from the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis. 

PST LA/LA presents Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis.

Fowler Museum at UCLA

Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis

September 24, 2017–April 15, 2018

Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis introduces audiences to the African-inspired arts and culture of Salvador, the coastal capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia. This comprehensive exhibition includes more than 100 works from the mid-20th century to the present, including a stunning array of sculpture, painting, photography, video, and installation works. While adding to popular understandings of core expressions of African heritage, such as the religion Candomblé, the exhibition also facilitates an exploration of Bahia’s international artistic significance, the complexities of race and cultural affiliation in Brazil, and the provocative ways in which artists have experienced and responded creatively to prevailing realities of Afro-Brazilian identity in Bahia. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color publication including essays by the curators and other leading scholars. 

Axé Bahia is organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA and curated by Patrick A. Polk, Roberto Conduru, Sabrina Gledhill, and Randal Johnson. The artists selected are: Gil Abelha, Jorge Amado, Emanoel Araújo, Rosa Bunchaft, Carybé, Dorival  Caymmi, Lita Cerqueira, Leo Costa, Christian Cravo, Mário Cravo Júnior, Mário Cravo Neto, J. Cunha, Zé Diabo, Caetano Dias, Aurelino dos Santos, Oscar Dourado, Roberto Faria, Alexandre Robatto Filho, Voltaire Fraga, Adenor Gondim, Ayrson  Heráclito, Àlex Ìgbó, Willyams Martins, Mestre Didi, Carmen Miranda, Júnior Pakapym, Bauer Sá, Tiago Santana, Arthur Scovino, Arlete Soares, Nilton Souza, Nádia Taquary, Rubem Valentim, Marisa Viana. Alvaro Villela,  Jacques Arago, Pierre Verger, Hansen Bahia, Johann Moritz Rugendas.

The exhibition is part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, taking place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty.

Major support has been provided by the Getty Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

In our next posting, we will look at Home: So Different, So Appealing now on view through October 15 when it will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.