Hammer Blog

I have a wandering ‘eye’ that constantly surveys a local terrain in search of something beautiful or strange, something previously hidden. I am an artist and a collector of after-images and oddities of life. The artists’ studio gives me, as the Chinese say, Double Happiness. It is not just a ‘warehouse’ of finished art but also an archeological site where I can unearth and frame my own images from their leftovers. I can show them a part of themselves they perhaps have not seen before. As a curator I not only look for finished artworks to exhibit but also for the processes, accidents, refuse, and raw materials of art and life. The studio is like a drawing. It is a work in flux, one that is created by an artist without thinking about a grand finished object. It is the

The Hammer Museum is pleased to announce the artists participating in Made in L.A. 2014, the second in an ongoing series of biennial exhibitions focused on work created by artists in the Los Angeles region. Made in L.A. 2014 will be on view June 15–September 7, 2014 at the Hammer Museum and will feature 35 artists with an emphasis on emerging and under-recognized artists.
Made in L.A. 2014 will be installed in every gallery of the museum and debuts nearly all new painting, installation, video, sculpture, photography, and performances created specifically for the exhibition. There are 11 major new commissions for the exhibition and every artist has received an honorarium. The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive hardcover catalogue, as well as a full roster of free public programming. Made in L.A. 2014 is organized by Hammer chief curator Connie Butler and independent curator

Non-profit Gallery Shares Unique Art
By Annie Wei, Beijing Today Staff
"Unlike its neighbors in the red-brick, high-ceiling buildings of Caochangdi, Telescope curates a different kind of collection.
Rather than collecting the art most likely to sell, curator James Elaine uses his non-profit venue to promote the artists least likely to be known. For China’s young creative talents, it’s the opportunity to break out. Elaine began curating in the late 1980s at a small museum in New York, the Drawing Center, focusing on such emerging artists. “Usually they were young – just out of university,” he said.
A decade of hard work helped his New York museum win attention for that program. After that, Elaine moved to Los Angeles to work for The Hammer Museum. The move to China may have been predestined: Elaine’s mother was born in China. Her parents were medical missionaries working in and helping

Welcome to our newest blog series: AMMO Recipes! The chefs at AMMO are excited to share their favorite recipes with you so that you can make them at home (and of course still enjoy them when you visit the Hammer). This Meyer Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake is AMMO Cafe's February Dessert Special.

THE RECIPE
Dough:

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 3/4 sticks butter, cubed
2 whole eggs
1 cup powdered sugar, plus additional for dusting finished tart
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Zest of 1 Meyer lemon

Filling:

2 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
3 egg yolks
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. Meyer lemon zest
1 tsp. Meyer lemon juice
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 scant cup sugar

Equipment:

Deep tart pan with removable bottom

Instructions:

Place the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter, and using a pastry

Although never pictured, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) haunts Tacita Dean’s most recent film JG (2013). Aperture masks mimic its spiral shape within the film (making it appear constructed from multicolored pebbles, sun rays, waves or flies, rather than from black basalt rocks and earth), while the intermittent narration of a disembodied voice quotes the writer J.G. Ballard on its perplexity. Submerged or visible depending upon the levels of the Great Salt Lake, Spiral Jetty remains elusive––merging with the landscape and reemerging from it in a cycle. The symbol of the spiral embodies a contradiction of stability and movement. In a letter to Dean, Ballard advised her to treat Spiral Jetty as a lingering mystery for her film to solve. One particular line quoted from the writer reverberates throughout the film: “Unwind the spiral and it will play back pictures of all the landscapes it has ever seen––it