David Hammons research
"David Hammons is a critically successful artist whose practice comments on race, politics and society-at-large and spans printmaking, painting and drawing, installation, performance and mixed-media sculpture; Hammons is as well known for his wry, innovative approach to art making as he is for flouting the accepted structure of the fine art world. He has no gallery representation and nearly 30 years ago, in an oft-quoted, rare interview with art historian Kellie Jones, he said:"
“The art audience is the worst audience in the world. It’s overly educated, it’s conservative, it’s out to criticize not to understand, and it never has any fun. Why should I spend my time playing to that audience?”
David Hammons is an important artist who uses his body as his tool to create art. His body prints are far more expressive and abstract than the ones I've been creating to date but his technique of applying grease to his skin to then sprinkle pigment on the grease transfer is eye opening to me. Hammons created his own symbols from everyday life and played with his mediums to best communicate a story to the viewer. There is a unique quality to his work that is derived from the transformation of everyday objects into allegories of the experience of the outsider in the contemporary world. Often referring in his work to the legacy of racism and the damaging stereotypes imposed on African-American culture, Hammons seeks to demystify and reclaim the objects and the language that gave rise to these narratives. In so doing, he imbues these "symbols" with a new and transformative power.
I have never explored raw pigments as a medium but wonder if this could be the way I incorporate my inherent need for movement in a time when I can no longer go out dancing. Screen-printing on top of my body prints could be a direction in which I take my art. Although with the current state of Covid-19 in the UK it doesn't seem like the workshops will open anytime soon.
What symbols are relevant to my work? Climate Change symbols? Internalised homophobia traits? Anxiety? ADHD? Mental Health? Dance? Nudity? Masking? Female nipple censorship?
What makes me who I am? French/English, City/Hippie, Privileged/neglected, sexual assault survivor, ambivert.
Do I have any strong opinions? Embracing body positivity?
What do I want to say with my art? Being your authentic self and loving who you are. For some reason that is an act of rebellion in a society that degrades us in order to make a profit.
I am learning more and more about communicating through art as I keep researching how other artists communicate. I really like Hammons' philosophy and approach to art.
- Hammons has said that "outrageously magical things happen when you mess around with a symbol," and he has consistently engaged with symbols and their complex and varied connotations. Often political in content, like the American flag, his use of spades, empty liquor bottles, bottle caps, hair, chicken bones, and basketball hoops, and other symbols connect directly to racism and longstanding cultural stereotypes about African-American life.
- Hammons is profoundly interested in neighborhoods and communities, and much of his work seeks to address the social, political, and cultural specificity of those sites by taking art out of the studio, museum, or gallery and returning it to the street where it can be experienced in a more democratic way. As he has said, "I like doing stuff better on the street, because the art becomes just one of the objects that's in the path of your everyday existence. It's what you move through, and it doesn't have any seniority over anything else."
- Although Hammons has claimed that he never liked art, his work demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of art history and the mechanisms of the art world. He looks closely at the history of art and its institutions and exposes their inherent prejudices and their preference for white artists and white ideas about beauty. But he is not just concerned with issues of race. His work also engages with class issues, which seeks to elucidate the continued economic disparities laid bare in an elitist art world.
- In a fundamental way, Hammons' art is about visibility. Whether in addressing what or who is seen or not seen (racism, bodies, communities, language), or by hindering our visibility or access to his work by covering it, making it ephemeral, or physically blocking our path to it, Hammons questions whether we can know a thing by simply seeing it. Sources:
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