Two exhibitions, film, music…
- please distribute -
The Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative:
Art—Migrations—Development
[Conference: October 22-24, 2010]
[Festival: September 25, 2010 – March 19, 2011]
www.WattsTowersCommonGround.org <http://www.wattstowerscommonground.org/>
Monday, October 18
Istituto Italiano di Cultura*
1023 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles (Westwood), 90024
6:00 p.m.
© Photographs of “Mama Watts” and Watts Towers courtesy of the Friends of the Watts Towers Arts Center
Fertile Ground: Stories From The Watts Towers Arts Center (Film) 2005; 60 min.
The first visual documentation of the Watts Towers Arts Center, adjacent to Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers, a creative hub in Los Angeles’ Watts community which has nurtured young and established artists in all mediums. A former owner of The Rodia Towers (William Cartwright), five former Directors of the Arts Center, including Noah Purifoy and John Outterbridge, Curator Emeritus Cecil Fergerson, and other visual and literary artists and community members reveal the dynamic history of the Arts Center’s first 40-plus years. Hosted by Congress woman, Maxine Waters. Executive Producer: Rosie Lee Hooks. Writer and Director: S. Pearl Sharp. Produced for the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles’ Channel 35. Includes Question & Answer with Rosie Lee Hooks and S. Pearl Sharp.
Followed by Trio Paganini in concert, reception, and exhibition opening:
Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts. Exhibition opening. Curated by Rosie Lee Hooks, Dir., Watts Towers Arts Center, Jo Farb Hernandez, Dir., S.P.A.C.E.S.
©Portrait by Debbie Marr, www.lazydogstudio.net <http://www.lazydogstudio.net/> ; ©Photograph of Towers by Luisa Del Giudice
Illustrating the history of the “Watts Towers,” built by Rodia from 1921-54, from construction, through abandonment, “discovery,” and conservation, up to the present. Soon after being purchased by William Cartwright and Nicholas King organized the Committee for Simon Rodia’s Towers in Watts as official guardians of the Towers and mobilized an international campaign to save the Towers from a demolition order. On October 10, 1959, a “load test,” devised by Aerospace engineer, Bud Goldstone, proved to municipal administrators, incontrovertibly, that they would stand. As it tells this story, the exhibition also shows how the Watts Towers continue to inspire as well as to present challenges of guardianship and conservation, while the Watts Towers Arts Center (the “heart of Watts”) perseveres as the focus of community arts and development efforts.
October 18 – December 10, 2010
Powell Library Building Rotunda, 2nd Floor, UCLA
Triumphant supporters of “load test,” Oct. 10, 1959. Photograph by Seymour Rosen
© S.P.A.C.E.S. - Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments
“Committee for Simon Rodia’s Towers in Watts” – UCLA Special Collection №. 1388. Exhibition curated by Luisa Del Giudice and Susan Anderson, UCLA Special Collections, Young Research Library. Highlights from UCLA Special Collection №.1388 traces the history of the legal guardians of the Towers from 1956-1965, including the purchase of the Towers, the formation of the CSRTW, the battle to save the Towers from city-ordered demolition, through an international letter-writing campaign, the dramatic “load test” of Oct. 10, 1959, which proved that the Towers were structurally-sound, the genesis and evolution of the Watts Towers Arts Center. http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/
*Events at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura are part of the annual Italian government-sponsored "Settimana Italiana della Lingua” - Italian Language Week. All events are on a first come, first serve basis. Space is limited.
Day in Watts Tour (Sunday, October 24)
(Includes return transportation from Westwood, guided tours, and lunch.)
Reservation by pre-payment only. Payment must be received by October 18.
Further information at: http://www.wattstowerscommonground.org/festival_tour.html
about the…
Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative: Art—Migrations—Development
The extraordinary Watts Towers were created over the course of 3 decades by a single-minded artist-artisan, Sabato (Simon, Sam) Rodia, an Italian immigrant who wanted to do “something big.” Now a National Historic Landmark and internationally-renowned icon, they are both a personal artistic expression and a collective symbol of Nuestro Pueblo—Our Town/Our People. The Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative: Art—Migrations—Development seeks to celebrate the common ground of the Towers, a locus of creativity, of sustained resolve in adversity and of positive public transformation. With an eye to renewing civic commitment to art in community contexts, this Initiative will encompass a range of public events throughout the city, including an international conference at the University of California at Los Angeles and Watts , and a festival of art, film, theater, music, communal food tables and city tours. Our goal is to address modes of sustaining art and community development within a civic environment of meager resources. We also aim to promote hospitality and partnership across geographic, social and other boundaries.
Both festival and conference carry forward the conversation begun at the international conference, Art and Migration: Sabato Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles, jointly sponsored by the University of Genova and the UCLA International Institute (Italy, April 2009), which examined the monument’s multiple resonances within the milieux of local and global migrations, of contested social and urban spaces, and of the rapport between art and economic development. How are these divergent discourses and goals best bridged? How is “common ground” fostered around the Watts Towers ? The continued well-being of the Towers and their adjacent Art Center , as well as the divergent communities which sustain and are sustained by them depend on upon how well we answer these questions.
Sponsors: Department of Italian at the University of California at Los Angeles; UCLA International Institute; City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles (IIC); Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles; Armand Hammer Museum; Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments (S.P.A.C.E.S.); Watts Towers Arts Center (WTAC); Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC); Museo Etnomusicale, I Gigli di Nola (Gigli of Nola Ethnomusicological Museum); St. Alban’s Episcopal Church; Dept. of Special Collections, Young Research Library, UCLA
Project Coordinator: Luisa Del Giudice
With the Assistance of: Thomas Harrison, Edward Landler, Jo Farb Hernandez, Rosie Lee Hooks, Edward Tuttle, Rudy Barbee, Janine Watkins
UCLA Conference Committee: Thomas Harrison, Luisa Del Giudice, Jo Farb Hernandez, Paul Harris, Alessandro Dal Lago
