June 3 - September 16, 2001
The ideas informing Bransford’s mural for the Hammer Museum’s lobby wall stem from the artist’s recent interest in the dialectic of liberation and control underpinning modern architecture, an ambiguous duality that he sees embodied in the monumental forms and mystical overtones of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. In bringing together this and other imagery, Bransford’s wall drawing transforms the Hammer’s stairwell into a mythic passageway. This work can be seen self-reflexively (and more than a little ironically), as a provocative comment on the history of the museum as an image archive and a force of cultural legitimization.
Hammer Projects are made possible by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support is provided by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and Peter Norton Family Foundation.
The ideas informing Bransford’s mural for the Hammer Museum’s lobby wall stem from the artist’s recent interest in the dialectic of liberation and control underpinning modern architecture, an ambiguous duality that he sees embodied in the monumental forms and mystical overtones of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. In bringing together this and other imagery, Bransford’s wall drawing transforms the Hammer’s stairwell into a mythic passageway. This work can be seen self-reflexively (and more than a little ironically), as a provocative comment on the history of the museum as an image archive and a force of cultural legitimization.
Hammer Projects are made possible by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support is provided by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and Peter Norton Family Foundation.
Above: No-Ship, 2000. Acrylic and ink on paper. Photo: Bill Orcutt Courtesy of Feature Inc., New York. Inset: Gestalt No. 12 (The Left and Right Hands), 1998. Ink on paper. Photo: Bill Orcutt. Courtesy of Feature Inc., New York.