Unspeakable: Atlas, Kruger, Walker: Hammer Contemporary Collection
HAMMER | Jan. 20–May 13, Hammer Museum
This selection of video installations from the Hammer Contemporary Collection features major works by American artists Charles Atlas, Barbara Kruger, and Kara Walker created in the last decade.
Using very different strategies of montage, direct address and narrative imagery, respectively, each of these artists have become among our most eloquent social critics. Atlas’s work is comprised of a five-channel video projects in an installation titled The Tyranny of Consciousness, which was featured in the 2017 Venice Biennale. The central montage is comprised of saturated images of forty four sunsets with an overlay featuring the voice of legendary drag queen Lady Bunny. In what seems to be a stream of consciousness rant about life, peace, avarice, greed and the future of our planet, she fills the screen and the space with the urgency of her ruminations on our complex and disturbing times. Known for her enormous blonde wig and larger than life personality, Lady Bunny appears at the end of the video cycle when she sings a disco song filled with longing and love. A huge digital clock appears on an opposing screen counting down from 18 minutes to zero, the approximate time it takes the suns to set.
Kruger’s The Globe Shrinks is a four-channel, 13-minute compilation of video and text narrating the conflicting coexistence of kindness and brutality in a series of scenes or skits. In this work the 'you' Kruger’s texts often accost, momentarily becomes an 'us' as she juxtaposes scenes of several individual’s everyday interactions. She pairs both tense and intimate performances, placing an emphasis on the tangibility of agency rather than the inevitability of exploitation. She invites the viewer to consider the greater impact of their seemingly banal daily activities by highlighting nuances of their personal communications. Taking its title from cultural theorist Homi Bahaba, who theorized that "The globe shrinks for those who own it," Kruger reminds us of our common humanity through brief moments of sincerity.
Walker has become one of the strongest voices in contemporary art dealing with race, humanity, and the deep wound of slavery as it has shaped the west. …calling to me from the angry surface of some grey and threatening sea. I was transported, is a five-channel installation that spans a history including the Civil War, the slave Sally Hemmings, the artist’s studio, and the genocide in Darfur. In this work, Walker’s signature silhouettes become flat hand puppets which depict haunting emotional vignettes. These black figures are set against vividly colored backgrounds, set off by a soundtrack of southern country music. Walker’s animated figures began to populate her video works in 2004 and lend an emotional depth to her investigations of race, sexuality, and the histories of trauma that she represents. At the scale of history painting, Walker keeps the image of bodies in pain and transformation at the forefront of our consciousness.
Unspeakable: Atlas, Kruger, Walker: Hammer Contemporary Collection is organized by Connie Butler, chief curator, and Ann Philbin, director.
More detailed information is available on the Hammer Museum website.
Exhibition Date: Jan. 20–May 13
Venue: Hammer Museum
Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Friday: 11 a.m.–8 p.m., Saturday—Sunday: 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
Price: Free
The Hammer is located at the corner of Westwood and Wilshire boulevards in Westwood Village, three blocks east of the 405 freeway’s Wilshire exit.
Parking is available under the museum.
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