The Hammer Museum and Lulu restaurant will be closed to the public on Tuesday, December 24 and Wednesday, December 25.

Special Programs

UCLA Art History Graduate Student Symposium: Distraction: From Shared Condition to Applied Method

  • to This is a past program

We are more distracted than ever by interruptions from social media, texts, email, and breaking news. This deluge of information can produce a perpetual sense of irresolution and anxiety. In what ways does art historical discourse confront this condition? Is visual culture itself a mode of distraction? How do art institutions facilitate or work against distraction? This cross-disciplinary symposium addresses the aesthetic, historical, social, and political aspects of distraction as a creative tool.

Paul M. Sepuya will give the keynote lecture, A Conversation around Pictures. He will present an overview of his practice to date with a focus on ideas about observation, distraction, theatricality, voyeurism, absorption, and exhibitionism.

See the full day's schedule here.

Sponsored by the Hammer Museum, UCLA Department of Art History, and UCLA Art History Graduate Student Association.

All Hammer public programs are free and made possible by a major gift from an anonymous donor.

Generous support is also provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, The Samuel Goldwyn Foundation, an anonymous donor, and all Hammer members.

Public programs advancing social justice are presented by the Ford Foundation.

Digital presentation of Hammer public programs is made possible by the Billy and Audrey L. Wilder Foundation.