The Hammer Museum Presents "Now Dig This!" ~ African American Artists

Written by Colman Hawking Friday, 11 November 2011 00:02

Los Angeles, CA.- The Hammer Museum is proud to present "Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980", a comprehensive exhibition that examines the vital legacy of the city’s African American visual artists. "Now Dig This!" comprises 140 works from 35 artists that have rarely been shown in a museum setting and includes early pieces by now well-established artists as well as works once considered “lost.” The exhibition expands the art historical record by presenting an array of artists, some not widely recognized by a broad public, and connecting their work to the movements, trends, and ideas that fueled the arts in Los Angeles during this period. The work of these African American practitioners was animated to an extent by the civil rights and Black Power movements reflecting the changing sense of what constituted African American identity and American culture.

Artists featured in the exhibition include Melvin Edwards, Fred Eversley, David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, John Outterbridge, Alonzo Davis, Dale Brockman Davis, Noah Purifoy, Betye Saar, and Charles White. "Now Dig This!" is presented as part of Pacific Standard Time, a collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together for six months beginning in October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the Los Angeles art scene and how it became a new force in the art world. Organized by the Hammer and curated by Columbia University professor Kellie Jones, "Now Dig This!" will chronicle and celebrate this nuanced and multicultural history of Los Angeles. "Now Dig This!" is on view at the museum through January 8th 2012.

“Pacific Standard Time is a very significant event for the city of Los Angeles. The deep and remarkable history it explores serves as a foundation for the thriving creative community of artists living and working here today,” remarks Hammer director Ann Philbin. “Now Dig This! reveals a specific moment when a group of African American artists, gallerists, writers, and collectors generated a nexus of creativity and influence that is largely unknown to the general public.”  While much has been written about artists like Ed Ruscha, Judy Chicago, Edward Kienholz, and Bruce Nauman, artists like Fred Eversley, John Otterbridge, and Noah Purifoy have not enjoyed the same recognition. Additionally, there has been significant attention paid to Los Angeles’s Ferus Gallery and the development of Artforum magazine, however far less is known about their African American counterparts such as Alonzo and Dale Davis, owners of the Brockman Gallery; and Samella Lewis, who began Black Art: An International Quarterly (now the International Review of African American Art) and wrote the two-volume Black Artists on Art. “The artists that have been included in "Now Dig This!" represent a vibrant group whose work is critical to a more complete and dynamic understanding of twentieth century American art.

Their influence goes beyond their immediate creative circles and their legacy is something we are only now beginning to fully understand,” says exhibition curator Kellie Jones. By illuminating the richness and complexity of this creative community, "Now Dig This!" demonstrates how these African American artists and friends were not working in isolation but were quite integral to the developing U.S. art scene during the latter part of the twentieth century. The exhibition will offer a fuller view of the changing art landscape during this important era of artistic and cultural ferment, as artists shifted from more traditional formats such as painting and works on paper to modes such as assemblage, finish fetish (a West Coast style of minimalism), postminimalism, conceptualism, and performance.


The Hammer Museum explores the capacity of art to impact and illuminate our lives. Through its collections, exhibitions and programs, the Hammer examines the depth and diversity of artistic expression through the centuries with a special emphasis on art of our time. At the core of the Hammer's mission is the recognition that artists play a crucial role in all aspects of human experience. The Hammer advances UCLA’s mission by contributing to the intellectual life of the University and the world beyond. The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center (AHMACC) opened to the public in November 1990. Founded by Dr. Armand Hammer, former Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, the Museum was designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. Financed by Occidental, the Museum was built adjacent to the Corporation’s international headquarters in Westwood. At that time, the Museum featured galleries for Dr. Hammer’s collections — old master paintings and drawings, and a collection of works on paper by Honore Daumier and his contemporaries — as well as galleries for traveling exhibitions. Dr. Hammer died in December 1990, three weeks after the opening of the Museum. Upon his death, all construction was halted and the building was never completed, leaving many spaces unfinished — most importantly, the 300-seat theater on the courtyard level. In 1992, the Museum began negotiations with its neighbor, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to assume the management and operations of the institution. In April 1994, the partnership with UCLA was finalized and the following year the University relocated to the Hammer its collections and the staff of the Wight Art Gallery and the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts. The Hammer also assumed responsibility for the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, located at the north end of the UCLA campus. Today, the Museum’s exhibitions present contemporary and historical work in all media of the visual arts. Through its exhibitions, the Museum is committed to promoting cultural understanding, to introducing the work of underrepresented artists, and to interpreting art of the past and present. In addition to selections from its permanent collections, the Museum has a series of temporary exhibitions, including Hammer Projects. All of the Museum’s exhibitions are accompanied by extensive public programs. In its role as a cultural center, the Museum endeavors to be a vibrant intellectual forum for the exploration of cultural, political, and social issues. To this end, the Museum offers a rich variety of public programs such as lectures, symposia, film series, readings, and musical performances. The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center is operated by the University of California, Los Angeles. Occidental Petroleum Corporation has partially endowed the Museum and constructed the Occidental Petroleum Cultural Center Building, which houses the Museum. Visit the museum's website at ... http://hammer.ucla.edu

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