David
Hammons
David
Hammons
Hammons
American, born in 1943
David Hammons' works relate to his activist ethics focused around the Black Power movement. They address, through sculpture, installation and video, the issues of poverty, the struggle of the African-American community for civil rights and against racism.
Hammons’ œuvre has been following, since its beginning, an independent path, guided by personal approaches and free of collective constraints. His choice of the margins, discretion and stealth appeared in his street performances in the 1980s. For example, in one of those he sells snowballs to passers-by in the streets of New York, thus transforming them into many minimalist and ephemeral multiples. Hammons makes the racial issue and his own African-American identity the essential subjects of his work. He accumulates abandoned materials, often found in the street: scrap metal and wood, hair, cigarettes, basketball baskets, stones, fabrics, and raises them to the level of art.
The works of David Hammons within the Pinault Collection were shown for the the first time in the 2006 « Where Are We Going? » exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi, Venice.
Hammons’ œuvre has been following, since its beginning, an independent path, guided by personal approaches and free of collective constraints. His choice of the margins, discretion and stealth appeared in his street performances in the 1980s. For example, in one of those he sells snowballs to passers-by in the streets of New York, thus transforming them into many minimalist and ephemeral multiples. Hammons makes the racial issue and his own African-American identity the essential subjects of his work. He accumulates abandoned materials, often found in the street: scrap metal and wood, hair, cigarettes, basketball baskets, stones, fabrics, and raises them to the level of art.
The works of David Hammons within the Pinault Collection were shown for the the first time in the 2006 « Where Are We Going? » exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi, Venice.
