‘THE DARK MADONNA’: WOMAN-TO-WOMAN TALK

“The Dark Madonna,” a group performance conceived by artist Suzanne Lacy as an “exploration of women’s cooperation across racial boundaries” will be staged May 31 at dusk in UCLA’s Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden.

The event, a year in planning with participation from diverse community groups such as the Hispanic Women’s Council, Women of Watts and the Asian Pacific Women’s Network, was produced by UCLA’s Wight Art Gallery.

On the evening of the performance, amplified whispers and intimate thoughts will fill the air to engage the audience in joining the performers’ thoughts and recollections.

Subjects explored will revolve around life crises and their resolution, sources of strength, racial and ethnic factors in relations among women.

A scholarly symposium on “The Dark Madonna” at UCLA in November raised questions and offered historical perspectives on issues of race, religion and culture affecting women.

Community dialogues among about 200 participants followed last spring at various Los Angeles locations. Representatives of groups who engaged in these discussions subsequently recorded memorable remarks of previous sessions. Their tapes are the foundation for the performance, which uses recorded and live narratives.

“The Dark Madonna” is dedicated to the late Margo Albert, founder/artistic director of Plaza de la Raza and an important leader in the recognition of ethnic/cultural contributions. Sponsors include the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, Watts Community Housing Corp., UCLA Extension’s Office of Institutional Affairs and the Craft and Folk Art Museum.

Grants in support of the project came from the National Endowment for The Arts, the California Council for the Humanities, Arco Foundation, Artsreach, UCLA Extension and the City of Los Angeles.

Information: 206-1974.

The National Gallery of Scotland, which last year lost its bid to keep the J. Paul Getty Museum from buying Andrea Mantegna’s “Adoration of the Magi,” has bought a marble bust of Cardinal del Pozzo by 17th-Century Baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

The gallery purchased the Bernini for about $4.38 million--believed to be the largest sum ever paid for a sculpture and the largest sum of money raised successfully to retain a work of art in Britain.

Valued at nearly $11 million, the sculpture was offered to the gallery at the reduced price to keep it in the country.

The bust, which will be the subject of a special display during this year’s Edinburgh festival, was formerly in Castle Howard in Yorkshire (setting of the “Brideshead Revisited” television series).

The heirs of the late Lord Howard of Henderskelfe were forced to sell the sculpture to assure the castle’s future.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London originally had hoped to buy the bust but was unable to raise sufficient funds. This enabled the National Galleries of Scotland to acquire the sculpture with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the National Art-Collections Fund, the Pilgrim Trust and the J. Paul Getty Jr. Charitable Trust.

A gift from J. Paul Getty Jr., son of the late oil billionaire, also helped to retain a Duccio painting in Britain. The J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu had bought the 14th-Century Sienese painting in 1984 for about $2.4 million, but export licenses for works of art are withheld for six months to give the British a chance to keep their dwindling cache of art treasures in the country.

The younger Getty, who lives in London, gave $536,000 when Timothy Clifford, then director of the Manchester Art Gallery and now head of the National Gallery of Scotland, launched a drive to retain the Duccio. After he went to Scotland, Clifford also tried to prevent the export of the Mantegna, but he was unable to match the Getty’s price of about $10.5 million.

Billed as “the first exhibition of Chiapas Maya textiles ever organized in the United States,” “Flowers, Saints and Toads” opens at the Craft and Folk Art Museum on Wednesday and remains on view through Aug. 10.

The exhibition presents works by master weavers from 10 communities in the central highlands of Chiapas in southeastern Mexico.

Louis Casagrande, head of the department of anthropology at the Science Museum of Minnesota, acted as curator after nine years of research was completed by museum staff.

More than 60 textiles include everyday garments of Mayan and Aztec origin, ceremonial robes and weavers’ samples--a repertoire of designs drawn from the Chiapas Maya cosmology documenting nearly 100 years of evolution in regional and tribal styles. A selection of photographs of the Chiapas Maya, titled “Three Visions of the Maya,” by Gertrude Duby Blom, Antonio Turok and Jeffrey Jay Foxx complement the textile exhibition. For information on the exhibitions and related educational offerings, call (213) 937-5544.

Christie’s will hold an unusual five-day sale at West Dean in Chichester, West Sussex, England, on June 2-6. The sale, decreed by the trustes of the Edward James Foundation, follows the 1984 death of Edward James, collector and patron of the arts whose primary interest was in Surrealist paintings of the 1930s.

In addition to works by Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini and Pavel Tchelichev, most of the items to go on the auction block reflect the tastes of the collector’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. William James, heirs to a great American fortune and stars of Edwardian society who frequently entertained European royalty.

Among items to be sold are fine 18th-Century French and English antique furniture, Regency, Empire and Biedermeyer pieces, tapestries, carpets, cabinets inlaid with ivory relief panels, rare porcelains and other sumptuous furnishings appropriate to a grand Edwardian way of life.

Edward James was born in 1908, the youngest of five children and only son. His godfather was King Edward VII. James’ lifelong interest in Surrealist art led him to the study of mysticism and Buddhism which brought him to California. Here he became friendly with movie stars Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis and Orson Welles. Widespread travel led him to Mexico to establish his “Garden of Eden” in the village of Xititla where for the next 25 years he devoted his time, energy and much of his fortune to building a fantastic collection of structures on 400 acres of dense and hilly jungle. This realized fantasy of temples, bridges and avenues is crumbling back into the jungle.

Edward James provided important support for the arts, however. His vast fortune--swelled by a $1.46-million legacy from an uncle killed by a charging elephant--was channelled into commissions and other forms of assistance to the arts. His friendship with arts patrons the Princesse de Polignac and the Vicomtesse de Noailles brought James in contact with composers Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Nicolas Nabokov and conductor Igor Markevitch. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht came to London from Nazi Germany under James’ protection and the world of ballet benefited from his funding of productions by George Balanchine in Paris and London.

James also sponsored and was an adviser to one of Europe’s most noted art magazines, Minotaure, published in Paris between 1933 and 1939.