Hammer Projects: Phoebe Washburn

  • This is a past exhibition

Phoebe Washburn's sprawling installation, It Has No Secret Surprise, fills the Hammer Museum's lobby walls with a composition of thousands of pieces of found, scavenged, and purchased pieces of cardboard or plywood cut into varying lengths and widths. Washburn’s site-specific work addresses ideas of environmental sustainability and notions of recycling, trash, and landscape. Materials for each piece are collected over time and built up in a slow, seemingly organic process to resemble topological maps, urban landscapes, or the fine layers of shells.

Biography

Phoebe Washburn was born in 1973 and currently lives in New York. She received her M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York and her B.F.A. from Tulane University in New Orleans. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe, including solo presentations at the Rice University Gallery in Houston and LFL Gallery in New York. Her work was also included in Greater New York at P.S.1. in New York, The Bench at the Kunsthalle St. Gallen in Switzerland, and Make It Now at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, New York. Washburn's work has been reviewed in Art in America, Artforum, Flash Art, The New York Times and The Village Voice.

Essay

Hammer Projects are organized by James Elaine, and are made possible with support from The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Annenberg Foundation, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and members of the Hammer Circle.

Phoebe Washburn's Hammer Project received additional support from Stavros Merjos and Honor Fraser, Sherry and Douglas Oliver, Susan A. and James N. Phillips, and Kay and Marc Richards.

Join Us.

Hammer membership gives you special access to public programs, opening parties, and puts you in the mix of L.A.’s vibrant art scene.

Free for everyone, more for you.

Learn more about Hammer membership