Los Angeles, CA - This monumental, multi-panel artwork was created by 130 women from South Africa’s Eastern Cape province — an area of the world hard hit by AIDS — to commemorate the lives and memory of individuals there who have died of the disease and to celebrate the community’s determination to prevail in the face of AIDS.  Based on the famed Isenheim altarpiece created by Matthias Grünewald in 16th-century Germany to celebrate the region’s deliverance from a plague, the colossal ‘Keiskamma Altarpiece’ uses embroidery, beadwork, wire sculpture, and photographs to offer a message of hope.  Measuring 13 feet high by 22 feet long, the vibrant and colorful altarpiece is composed of a series of hinged panels that utilize the imagery of the Xhosa people of the Eastern Cape to depict life in the region before — and after — AIDS engulfed South Africa.  Fully opened, the altarpiece reveals dramatic, life-size photographs of three local grandmothers and their grandchildren, some orphaned by AIDS, and their hope for the future.

The collaborating institutions listed below have been touring this elaborate altarpiece across North America, beginning at Toronto’s Cathedral Church of St. James in July during the World AIDS Conference.  It then was on display at St. James Episcopal Cathedral in Chicago through Sept. 20, and will tour churches in Los Angeles and Pasadena throughout the fall and winter under the auspices of Artists for a New South Africa before its exhibition at UCLA.

This Fowler presentation is part of Make Art/Stop AIDS, an arts and AIDS awareness and prevention initiative developed by the UCLA Art | Global Health Center in partnership with the Fowler, UCLA’s AIDS Institute and Department of World Arts and Cultures, the Durban Art Gallery, Artists for a New South Africa, and the Magic Johnson Foundation.  Made possible in part by UCLA’s Center for Community Partnerships and Office of Instructional Development, UCIRA, and the Liberty Hill Foundation. Additional support provided by the Brazilian Consulate of Los Angeles, Hotel Angeleno, and South African Airways.

The UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History — originally established as the Museum and Laboratories of Ethnic Arts and Technology in 1963 — explores art and culture primarily from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the Americas, both past and present. The museum, which has more than 150,000 ethnographic and 600,000 archaeological objects, serves students, teachers and the public through educational programming, curriculum resources, in-service opportunities, interactive galleries, family workshops and festivals.  Visit The Fowler Museum at : www.fowler.ucla.edu