Event 1, Hammer Museum

On October 23, 2013 I attended the Hammer museum located in Westwood, CA.  Immediately after entering the museum there is a huge mural on the wall.  Looking at the mural all I could think about were the different geometric shapes on the mural.  The mural has different geometric shapes including triangles, parallelograms, circles, and many more.  This is exactly what we talked about in Unit 2, how mathematics influence art. 

The first exhibit I attended was the Welling exhibit, no photographs were allowed here.  I found it interesting on how Welling used technology to make his art.  He used negatives and enlargers to create some of his photographs. This fits in with unit 3 and how different advances in technologies influence art.  

Next I went to the exhibit where I was most interested.  The most interesting thing to me about the museum was the biography on Forest Bess.  No photographs were allowed but I included one of his drawings that incorporated symbols.  Symbols fascinated him, one of those being alchemy (haskell). He was so interested in the idea of “alchemy” which is that becoming a hermaphrodite, it was thought that this is the key to immortality.  He actually tried this theory out on himself, performing an operation on himself that made him a hermaphrodite. Ironically this led to his death. 

Leaving the exhibit a space like feature caught my eye.  Pentti Monkkonen, as part of the Baldwin Hills Space Association, made this exhibit.  This exhibit related to unit 3, where we discussed robots and art.  This car looks like a futuristic car.  

Overall I had a good experience at the Hammer museum and would recommend it to people.  I tend to find art as a very boring topic but this museum really interested me.  The stories of all the artists were amazing.  The different pieces of art were also very stunning.  I am stunned by life size sculptures, the fact someone hand crafts an entire sculptures amazes me. It is awesome how talented some people in the world are.  I wish I had even the smallest artistic abilities.  It was also really cool to see how stuff we were learning about in class showed up in all this artwork.  










Bibliography

1. Haskell, Barbara. "Forrest Bess | Articles about Bess." Forrest Bess | Articles about Bess. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2013.

2.  DAVENPORT, BILL. "My Painting Is Tomorrow’s Painting. Watch and See: Bess in The Limelight as 40 Works Go on Sale to Benefit Anderson Cancer Center." Glasstire Texas. N.p., 5 Mar. 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2013.