Roamings of a Leo: Hammer Roaming on Thursday

I roamed through the Hammer Museum in the Westwood neighborhood of L.A. last Thursday to revisit the permanent collection and to enjoy the current exhibitions. The first gallery off the lobby featured creations by Francis Upritchard. Francis was born in 1976 in New Plymouth, New Zealand. She has exhibited around the world. She currently lives and works in London. The museum booklet describing her work states that her cast of characters are from different moments in time and are strange and idiosyncratically alluring figures. It goes on to state "whatever patina of otherworldliness her figures have acquired, they are distinctly grounded in our daily experiences." Upritchard makes her sculptures using wire frames covered with a polymer modeling material that is then baked and painted. Here are my photos of what I saw:

"Whizz," 2014 with a dinosaur sculpture in the background

"Half Half," 2014

"Nincompoop"

"Nincompoop" close up

The next exhibit I viewed was the creative photography of Robert Heinecken called "Object Matter."
Robert Heinecken (1931-2006) was a pioneer in the postwar Los Angeles art scene according to the exhibit brochure. He described himself as a "para-photographer." Here are my photos of a couple of his works:

"On Photography," 1978, Black-and-white instant prints attached to composite board with staples. The work is a photo of Susan Sontag on the dust cover of her book "On Photography." It consists of photos of Sontag's text and pictures taken around Heinecken's studio and UCLA by his assistant Hali Rederer.

This is a close up of the same piece.

"Shiva Manifesting as a Single Mother," 1989, Magazine paper, paint and varnish. This is composed of cut and crumpled magazine pages - Americanized icons of the eponymous Hindu deity.

A side photo of the piece showing the three dimensional nature.

The next exhibit I visited is entitled "Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take." This exhibit features 75 pieces produced from 1987 to the present. He brings together photography, drawings, works on paper, and sculptures created with mirrors, lightbulbs, silk flowers and glass. Jim Hodges was born in 1957 in Spokane, Washington and now is based in New York.