Event 1: Hammer Museum

Though its close proximity to UCLA, it was pleasure visiting the Hammer Museum for the first time. Immediately upon entrance, I was greeted by large, vibrant murals of Maya Hayuk that spanned across the walls of the lobby room. In stunning colors and intricate patterns, Hayuk makes references to outer space, traditional Ukrainian crafts, airbrushed manicures, and mandalas. She weaves together pop culture and painting practices to a psychadelic art experience. Thus already, you can say my attention was captured.

Me pictured above.

Maya Hayuk's murals

Walking past the lobby and up the stairs, I made my way towards the first exhibition, Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible. His paintings and works were.. very abstract. In a sense, I didn't really understand them until I conducted further research on his background. Accordingly, he was a man who lived in a very small community that had no museum and no tradition of art. He was also a homosexual that believed if he made an incision at the base of his penis, it would lead to the unification of the conscious and subconscious mind, and therefore to immortality. There are a display of the pages of his actual thesis and Polaroids of his self-surgery that was disturbing yet fascinating. In all his paintings, he used symbols that came from his visions, the unconsciousness he hoped his surgery would help him better access. These symbols are recorded and decoded in his writing "Primer of Basic Primordial Symbolism" which is included in the exhibition. 

Forrest Bess - Untitled (The Spider), 1970

Forrest Bess - The Penetrator, 1967

After Forrest Bess's exhibition, I visited James Welling: Monograph. Undoubtedly, I enjoyed James Welling's exhibition more. He created ridiculously beautiful photos to address an array of ideas: personal and cultural memory, realism and transparency, abstraction and representation, optics and description, and the material and chemical nature of photography. He redefines our definition of a photograph and offers a new paradigm for contemporary art. Out of all his projects, the two that captured my eyes were "Light Sources" and "Flowers". "Light Sources" marked his first use of digital technology. They were a series of images that would be united by their dissimilarity from one another. In "Flowers", Welling exposes blooms onto film and exposed them to light. He uses color gels behind the negative and then prints it onto chromogenic paper, creating these beautiful, dream like image.

James Welling - Light Sources

James Welling - Flowers

Overall, I really enjoyed my time spent at Hammer. It's a perfect museum for those who aren't particularly interested in art, but still has some appreciation for it. It is pretty small for a museum, but it was still impressive with the quality of presented works of arts. Each gallery was different, which offers something for everyone. Additionally, it has a lovely outdoor seating area to relax with couches and ping pong table. I definitely recommend Hammer Museum as I will be back too!

Works Cited

Boyd, Robert. "Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible." Glasstire. Glasstire, 23 Apr 2013. Web. 12 Dec 2013 <http://glasstire.com/2013/04/23/forrest-bess-seeing-things-invisible/>

"Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible." Hammer. Hammer, n.d. Web. 12 Dec 2013. <http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/242>

"Hammer Projects: Maya Hayuk." Hammer. Hammer, n.d. Web. 12 Dec 2013. <http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/238>

"James Welling: Monograph." Hammer. Hammer, n.d. Web. 12 Dec 2013. <http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/241>

Knight, Christoper. "Review: The Hammer's Forrest Bess retrospective a commanding vision." Arts&Culture. Los Angeles Times, 16 Oct 2013. Web. 12 Dec 2013. 

Mizota, Sharon. "Review: James Welling searches for beauty." Arts&Culture. Los Angeles Times, 18 Oct 2013. Web. 12 Dec 2013. <http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-review-james-welling-at-the-hammer-20131001,0,7280691.story#axzz2nFHdgEQZ>