Hammer Blog

By the year 2020 we will reimagine our existing facility, activate 40,000 square feet of newly acquired space, and add dramatic new visibility along a full block of Wilshire Boulevard.

I met with Alex Bancroft, assistant registrar, and Haley Di Pressi, registrarial assistant, to gain a new understanding of this department. From traveling across the Atlantic on a cargo plane with an artwork, to “tucking in” prints in their storage boxes like babies, Alex and Haley shared what it’s like to work as registrars at the Hammer.

Since September 9, Piano Forte (2004) by Kristen Morgin has been on view in Visions and Revisions: Renwick Invitational 2016 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Included alongside the work of Steven Young Lee, Jennifer Trask, and Norwood Viviano, the exhibition focuses on “four artists who take innovative approaches to their selected mediums and who share a fascination with themes of transformation, ruin, and rebirth.”

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was a multi-talented French draftsman, painter, and printmaker with close ties to Symbolist artists and writers of the late 19th century. He eventually translated the aesthetic effects of his drawings into the practice of lithography.

It was such a delight to install Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957. One of the nice aspects about being a part of an installation process is the intimate relationship we develop with the works. We unpack, examine, hold, and measure each work, and as such get a very tactile understanding of each thing we handle.