Hammer Blog

DEPART FOUNDATION AND PROVINCIA DI ROMA PRESENT
WHEN IN ROME: THIRTY WORKS OF ART BETWEEN NOW AND THEN
APRIL 20-MAY 21, 2011

The exhibition will take place at The Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles with support from the Hammer Museum, LAXART and ForYourArt.

LOS ANGELES, CA, March 15, 2011 – DEPART Foundation and Provincia di Roma present When in Rome, a group show in Los Angeles that will exhibit some of the most interesting artists associated with the city of Rome and its environs. Through painting, installation, conceptual art, pop culture, performance, cinema and music, the project aims to read the works in their own individuality and in a strongly suggestive display. The works will, in fact, be exhibited within a stage, a real-life environment. Created and supported by DEPART Foundation and Provincia di Roma, When in Rome follows the highly anticipated and successful original concept of bringing

CALL FOR THE RELEASE OF AI WEIWEI
On April 3, internationally-acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained at the Beijing airport while enroute to Hong Kong and his papers and computers were seized from his studio compound.

We members of the international arts community express our concern for Ai’s freedom and disappointment in China’s reluctance to live up to its promise to nurture creativity and independent thought, the keys to “soft power” and cultural influence.

Our institutions have among the largest online museum communities in the world. We have launched this online petition (http://bit.ly/ikhTtH) to our collective millions of Facebook fans and Twitter followers. By using Ai Weiwei’s favored medium of “social sculpture”, we hope to hasten the release of our visionary friend and artist.

We ask members to use their own social media outlets to give additional voice to the petition.

With Many thanks,
Richard Armstrong, Director

SIGN THIS PETITION TO CALL FOR THE RELEASE OF AI WEIWEI
http://www.change.org/petitions/call-for-the-release-of-ai-weiwei

On April 3, internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained at the Beijing airport while en route to Hong Kong, and his papers and computers were seized from his studio compound.

We members of the international arts community express our concern for Ai’s freedom and disappointment in China’s reluctance to live up to its promise to nurture creativity and independent thought, the keys to “soft power” and cultural influence.

Our institutions have some of the largest online museum communities in the world and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation launched this online petition to our collective millions of Facebook fans and Twitter followers. By using Ai Weiwei’s favored medium of “social sculpture,” we hope to hasten the release of our visionary friend.

Please sign and spread the word: http://www.change.org/petitions/call-for-the-release-of-ai-weiwei
buy case study

SLATKO IN THE MAKING!
By Ana Prvacki

My mother made a few jars of "slatko" for the Greeting Committee! Slatko (sweet) is a Slavic welcome greeting. When guests arrive, they are presented with a tray holding a jar of slatko (a kind of fruit
reserve/jam) and invited to take a spoonful (followed by water). The idea is to sweeten the visit!



------
ABOUT GREETING COMMITTEE
Einstein thought the most important question facing humanity should be, “Is the universe a friendly place?” and Kurt Vonnegut asked that we practice “A little less love, and a little more common decency.” Greeting Committee, by Ana Prvacki, considers these ideas by magnifying and zooming in on the protocols and customs of basic hospitality routines, such as greetings, salutations and welcoming. For her project at the Hammer, visitors are invited to observe or participate in interventions encouraging gestures of welcoming in the

A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS TO ETIQUETTE INSTRUCTORS
By Ana Prvacki

Over the last months I have been reading etiquette books and philosophy dealing with the issue of hospitality and welcoming. Besides the “web to web handshake” I was most moved by this paragraph from Derrida’s “Of Hospitality”:

"Let us say yes to who or what turns up, before any determination, before any anticipation, before any identification, whether or not it has to do with a foreigner, an immigrant, an invited guest, or an unexpected visitor, whether or not the new arrival is the citizen of another country, a human, animal or divine creature, a living or dead thing, male or female."

QUESTION 1
I asked our etiquette instructors how etiquette enables this "yes", this welcoming of the other and what is the most important gesture which facilitates this opening?

VARTOUHI (VIKI) KESHISHYAN
“There is no particular etiquette rule