GETS A GRIP.MICHAEL DUNCAN ON THE HAMMER'S NEW CURATOR The secret strength of the LA art world is its instability, which spells blessed unpredictability. Each season witnesses a wholesale reinvention, with new galleries, styles, and power bases quaking the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. . The exception is a relatively stolid stol·id adj. stol·id·er, stol·id·est Having or revealing little emotion or sensibility; impassive: "the incredibly massive and stolid bureaucracy of the Soviet system" institutional scene, into which the UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX Hammer Museum For The Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska, see The Hammer Museum The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, operated by UCLA. , long a venue for sprawling, mostly so-so group shows, has unexpectedly thrown a monkey wrench. Change came two years back in the person of Ann Philbin, the institution's intrepid new director, formerly of New York's Drawing Center. Not only has Philbin initiated meaty and off-kilter programming such as last year's Robert Overby survey and independent curator Amy Capellazzo's "Making Time: Considering Time as a Material in Contemporary Video & Film" (currently on view), she has also jump-started a major renovation that breaks ground in January 2002, coordinated by architect-of-the-hour Michael Maltzan. The latest rumble: With the new year came the appointment of Russell Ferguson to the freshly created double position of deputy director of exhibitions and programs and chief curator. Serious headhunting headhunting Practice of removing, displaying, and in some cases preserving human heads. Headhunting arises in some cultures from a belief in the existence of a more or less material soul that resides in the head. happily turned up not a high-profile outsider but a familiar face. The former MoCA associate curator combines international art smarts with quirky individualist taste. His credits range from editing two anthologies of writings on postmodern art Postmodern art is a term used to describe art which is thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general movements such as Intermedia, Installation art, Conceptual Art and Multimedia, particularly involving and culture to curating MoCA's decidedly non-party-line 1999 exhibition "In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O'Hara and American Art." With a full year of construction approaching, the future impact of the Hammer is up in the air. The downtime will give the Philbin/Ferguson duo a chance to develop a solid game plan. For his part, Ferguson says, "I hope to keep programming as flexible as possible, turning the institution's past eclecticism eclecticism, in art eclecticism (ĭklĕk`tĭsĭz'əm), art style in which features are borrowed from various styles. into an advantage." He aims to both highlight the museum's collection and serve the LA art community, which he avidly maintains constitutes "one of the most exciting art scenes in the world." The museum's summer exhibition, "Snapshot: New Art in Los Angeles," should be a good test of the new team's grasp on the local scene. Ferguson says the twenty-five or so artists in the survey remain largely unknown--no mean feat in LA's currently overhyped "emerging" category. Michael Duncan is an arts writer based in Los Angeles. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion