David Hammons
David Hammons
David Hammons, one of the world’s most influential living artists, has spent the past five decades combining politics, poetry, and humor to create moving and incisive works of art in a wide variety of media. Born in Illinois in 1943, the artist moved to Los Angeles in 1962, where he studied at numerous schools including the Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) and the Otis Art Institute. During his California years the artist became well known for a series of body prints reminiscent of Yven Klein’s “Anthropometry” paintings from 1960, wherein paint-covered models pressed themselves upon canvasses, often as a live performance. Hammons, instead, used his own figure, and in place of colored pigments, covered his body with grease or oil before rubbing up against large sheets of translucent paper. This began the artist’s ongoing use of and experimentation with abject materials, including chicken bones and elephant dung.
In 1974 the artist moved to New York City, where he began to work more sculpturally and also performatively. Never one to shy away from sensitive subject matters, Hammons’ works have reckoned with issues of race, economics, culture, and power. Examples include Pissed Off, 1981, for which the artist urinated on the notorious Richard Serra sculpture, T.W.U., installed the same year; Bliz-aard Ball Sale (1983), for which the artist sold snowballs to passersby, in a mockery of conspicuous consumption and the desire for ownership of even ephemeral objects; and How Ya Like Me Now?, 1989, originally a billboard mounted on a street corner in Washington, D.C., featuring the Reverend Jesse Jackson rendered as a blonde white man.
In 1991, Hammons was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Award. Since then, his work has been included in many seminal exhibitions worldwide, including Documenta, Kassel, Germany, in 1992, the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, in 2006, and “Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980” at the UCLA Hammer Museum, LA, in 2011. His work is part of the permanent collections at major art institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Tate, London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Selected Works
Exhibitions
META VISCERAL
London
June 1 - July 31, 2021
David HammonsMash Up: Collage from 1930 to the present
Los Angeles
July 10 - August 31, 2012
David HammonsDavid Hammons
New York
January 26 - March 4, 2011
David HammonsBeyond Black, White, and Gray
New York
September 12 - October 10, 2009
David HammonsPaintings & Drawings
New York
July 7 - September 9, 2008
David HammonsThe Complexity of the Simple
New York
December 1, 2007 - February 2, 2008
David HammonsHammons
New York
January 18 - March 31, 2007
Museum Exhibitions
Selected Press
The New Yorker | David Hammons Follows His Own Rules
December 2, 2019
Artforum | Whitney Museum receives $1 million for David Hammons’s Hudson River artwork
November 22, 2019
Dazed Digital | Photographer Dawoud Bey on the Brilliant Art and Mind of David Hammons
May 8, 2019
The New York Times | Whitney Museum Unveils Plans for David Hammons Artwork in the Hudson
October 4, 2017
Vogue | 5 Shows to See in London During Frieze Week (That Aren’t at Frieze)
October 14, 2014
Art on a Postcard | Love from Mayfair
October 14, 2014
Art in America | To Rest Lightly on the Earth
February 1, 2012
Observer | Auld Lang Syne: The Best Exhibitions of 2011 and a Resolution for 2012
December 20, 2011
The New York Times | Substance and Spectacle
December 16, 2011
Artnews | David Hammons
April 30, 2011
ArtForum | David Hammons
March 31, 2011
The Observer | A Strange Anamoly: David Hammon's ʻHomelessʼ Art on the Upper East Side
February 22, 2011
Artforum | David Hammons
February 16, 2011
Bloomberg | Canvas Coverup, Ali in Focus, Green Caribbean; N.Y. Uptown Art
February 15, 2011
New York Magazine | Attention Must be Paid
February 15, 2011
The Village Voice | Fur What Its Worth
February 27, 2007
More Information
Artists
Alexander Calder
Enrico Castellani
Chung Sang-Hwa
Francesco Clemente
Dan Colen
Willem de Kooning
Lucio Fontana
Gego
Yves Klein
Jutta Koether
Seung-taek Lee
Robert Motherwell
Senga Nengudi
Roman Opalka
Adrian Piper
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Carol Rama
Martial Raysse
Peter Regli
Germaine Richier
Karin Schneider
Joel Shapiro
Kazuo Shiraga
Pierre Soulages
Pat Steir
Tu Hongtao
Günther Uecker
Zao Wou-Ki
Specializing in Works By
- Terry Adkins
- Vincenzo Agnetti
- Carl Andre
- Diane Arbus
- Jean Arp
- Francis Bacon
- John Baldessari
- Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Alighiero Boetti
- Lee Bontecou
- Louise Bourgeois
- Mark Bradford
- Constantin Brancusi
- Cecily Brown
- Alberto Burri
- Sérgio Camargo
- Vija Celmins
- John Chamberlain
- Eduardo Chillida
- Lygia Clark
- George Condo
- Joseph Cornell
- Gino de Dominicis
- Nicolas de Staël
- Richard Diebenkorn
- PETER DOIG
- Jean Dubuffet
- Sam Francis
- Helen Frankenthaler
- Lucian Freud
- Alberto Giacometti
- Gilbert & George
- Johannes Girardoni
- Sonia Gomes
- Julio González
- Arshile Gorky
- Adolph Gottlieb
- Mark Grotjahn
- Philip Guston
- David Hammons
- Keith Haring
- Damien Hirst
- David Hockney
- Thomas Houseago
- Jasper Johns
- Donald Judd
- Ellsworth Kelly
- Anselm Kiefer
- Martin Kippenberger
- Franz Kline
- Jeff Koons
- Jannis Kounellis
- Lee Krasner
- Barbara Kruger
- Yayoi Kusama
- Gerald Laing
- Fernand Léger
- Roy Lichtenstein
- Liza Lou
- Tsuyoshi Maekawa
- René Magritte
- Piero Manzoni
- Brice Marden
- Agnes Martin
- Henri Matisse
- Fausto Melotti
- Joel Mesler
- Eleanore Mikus
- Joan Miró
- Joan Mitchell
- Amedeo Modigliani
- Piet Mondrian
- Paulo Monteiro
- Henry Moore
- François Morellet
- Bruce Nauman
- Barnett Newman
- Albert Oehlen
- Claes Oldenburg
- Francis Picabia
- Pablo Picasso
- Lari Pittman
- Sigmar Polke
- Jackson Pollock
- Richard Prince
- Robert Rauschenberg
- Charles Ray
- Ad Reinhardt
- Gerhard Richter
- Jean Paul Riopelle
- Mark Rothko
- Ed Ruscha
- Robert Ryman
- Salvatore Scarpitta
- Thomas Schütte
- Richard Serra
- Cindy Sherman
- Jeff Sonhouse
- Clyfford Still
- Rudolf Stingel
- Mark Tansey
- Mickalene Thomas
- James Turrell
- Cy Twombly
- Andy Warhol
- Tom Wesselmann
- Franz West
- Jonas Wood
- Christopher Wool