David Hammons

text by JULIANA BALESTIN

 

David Hammons attained cult status in the art world with a series of ready-made assemblages, as provocative today as they were in the 1970s, when he began exhibiting his art. For his most recent exhibition, at the uptown gallery, L&M Arts, Hammons turned to painting, producing a show whose references, such as those to Robert Rauschenberg and Steven Parrino, felt groundbreaking rather than derivative. In the age of explanation, Hammons issued neither press release nor artist’s statement, and his seemingly anti-painting paintings were left untitled. The paintings were also obscured from view by the plastic trash bags Hammons draped over them. The humor of having trash bags in an uptown gallery offset the striking scale of the works and made for an austere rather than brash installation.