Currents WASHINGTON, DC—Water is in all of us: To live, we need water. Featuring artworks from the permanent Art, a new exhibition demonstrates how water is one of most potent forces on earth, the currents of which fl ow through myth, metaphor, and ritual. Diverse and wide-ranging in material, time period, style, and intended Art, a new permanent installation at the NMAA, span the continent of Africa to explore the importance of water for practical as well as artistic purposes. Objects weights for measuring gold dust and fi gures and masks associated with water spirits to paintings and textile arts. It is completed by videos by contemporary artists William Kentridge and Georgia Papageorge. 72 BELOW: Cap mask in the form of a crocodile. Dogon, Mali. Wood, plant fiber, pigment, encrustation. L: 39.4 cm. Ex Paul and Ruth Tishman. National Museum for African Art, Smithsonian Institution, inv. 2005- 6-239, gift of Walt Disney World Co., a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. LEFT & BELOW: Weights, abrammuo, in the form of fish. Akan, Ghan or Côte d’Ivoire. 18th or 19th century. Left: Copper alloy. L: 6.1 cm. National Museum for African Art, Smithsonian Institution, inv. 68-36-93, gift of Emil Arnold. Below: Copper alloy. L: 4.1 cm. National Museum for African Art, Smithsonian Institution, inv. 68-36-67, gift of Emil Arnold. ABOVE: EAC board member Mark Johnson leads a discussion for the Tribal Asian Study Group about the ceremonial textiles of the Iban Dayak at the home of members Avrum and Martha Bluming. Photo courtesy of the Ethnic Arts Council, Los Angeles. Photo © EAC 2014. ABOVE: Matthew H. Robb. Photo courtesy of the Fowler Museum at UCLA. collection of the National Museum of African use, the objects in Currents: Water in African in the installation range from Akan fi sh-shaped New Appointment LOS ANGELES—This summer, the Fowler Museum at UCLA announced the appointment of Matthew H. Robb as its new chief curator. Previously, Robb served as curator of the arts of the Americas at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. A specialist in the art and archaeology of ancient Mesoamerica, Robb was previously associate curator in charge of the department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Saint Louis Art Museum, where he curated the fi rst complete reinstallation of the museum’s ancient American collections in almost thirty years. He also coordinated and supervised the reinstallation of that museum’s African, Oceanic, and Native American collections, working with noted specialists in these areas. We wish him well in his new position. Ethnic Arts Council LOS ANGELES—The Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles (EAC) is celebrating its fi ftieth anniversary in 2016 with an innovative series of year-long programs along with a gala dinner on October 23 at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Founded in 1966 by a legendary group of dedicated local collectors that included Jay Last, Helen Kuhn, Saul Stanoff, Ed Silvers, Jerome Joss, Proctor Stafford, and Don Kennedy, the nonprofi t EAC has grown into a dynamic education and grant-giving organization, insuring that ethnic art remains a vital part of Southern California’s cultural understanding. Its current membership is a rich mixture of collectors, academics, museum offi cials, dealers, and enthusiasts. Today the EAC offers lectures, study groups, special curatorial tours, visits to private collections, a generous grants program (several dedicated for African and Pre-Columbian studies), fi eld trips, and foreign travel. More information is available at www.ethnicartscouncil.org. MUSEUM NEWS
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