Faire Foyer: Sarah Crowner in Dialogue with Etel Adnan

The Bass presents an installation pairing Sarah Crowner’s new work with a monumental ceramic mural by Etel Adnan, the only example of its kind in the United States. Crowner frames the mural with a semicircular carpeted alcove—faire foyer, or “to make a hearth”—and arranges reflective bronze sculptures cast from enlarged beach stones alongside rarely seen photographs Adnan took of the California coastline in the 1960s.

On view August 20, 2025–July 26, 2026, Faire Foyer: Sarah Crowner in Dialogue with Etel Adnan situates Crowner’s geometric abstraction, spanning painting, sculpture and design, within a modernist lineage that engages craft and architecture. Adnan (1925–2021), a Lebanese-American painter and poet, is celebrated for radiant landscapes and bold geometric compositions, often translated into tapestries and murals. Organized by The Bass Curator at Large James Voorhies, the exhibition invites a tactile, spatial encounter with the artists’ shared exploration of abstraction, materiality and movement.