Hammer Time

Toward the beginning of the quarter, I visited the Hammer Museum just a mile away from UCLA's campus.  I would say that my favorite exhibit was the Armand Hammer Collection which is the permanent collection of art the museum keeps.  The majority of the works in this collection were hand-painted paintings which was so intriguing because, like Walter Benjamin says, original art is becoming harder to come by due to an increase of digital, mass-produced, artwork.   

In juxtaposition to the original pieces, the next room over held a mass of inkjet printed monochromatic blocks of color, and gradients of color.  These images, done by artist Degradés from 1986-2006, were clearly able to be reproduced, and therefore, mass-produced.  Anyone with a great printer could print the images he had printed, which makes the original oil paintings so much more valuable!

My other favorite exhibit held pieces showing the visual diary of Elizabeth and James Dixon (1840-41).  These photos were taken by M. Wellings, showing landscapes in Connecticut and as the curator writes "Welling's images shift back and forth between the past and present, creating a bridge that allows the viewer to move through time."  Like we talked about in our first assignment, the crossing over between two cultures is very interesting when applied to artwork-and Wellings has done a great job of connecting the two!


To follow are more pictures we took at the Hammer Museum:

Looping movie in the down-
staires gallery.

Great retro wood furnature.

Words printed on plexi-glass, top floor.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I look forward to having more time to explore the museum in more detail.