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拍品专文
“Those pieces were all about making sure the black viewer had a reflection of himself in the work” (K. Jones, "Interview: David Hammons," Art Papers, July/August 1988.)
One of the most groundbreaking and singular artists of his generation, David Hammons has consistently challenged the hegemonic reading of art and its affinity for white cube galleries and singular narratives. Untitled (Flight Fantasy) is a pivotal work within his radical oeuvre that marries the artist’s historic and ethnocentric references with found objects and materials taken directly from the street.
Actively rebelling against the establishment in an effort to begin new narratives, Hammons’ work hinges on his ability to parse and re-interpret the history of art in service of a deeper understanding and awareness. “Hammons isn’t making art centered around a mystical narrative of the singular artist,” noted curator Elena Filipovic. “Instead of an individual myth, Hammons deliberately references something larger than himself: a history of blackness, a history of race relations; which is nothing less than a history of America itself, as told through the forms, symbols, materials and products of the African diaspora in the US” (E. Filipovic, David Hammons: Bliz-aard Ball Sale, London, 2017, p. 92). Beginning his career at a time when Black artists were struggling to find new ways to highlight their own experiences and ideas without playing into tropes or expectations, Hammons’ multifaceted practice established a radical voice that broke from the norm.
Part of a small grouping of works from the Flight Fantasy series which were completed circa 1978, Untitled (Flight Fantasy) employs elements of Hammons’ visual and material vocabulary to comment upon perceived ideas of Blackness and issues surrounding African American culture. As in the other examples in this series, the artist uses fragments of 45rpm records to create a central spine around which the rest of the totemic structure revolves. Splinters of vinyl encase Georgia clay within an ovoid compartment topped with shattered records that resemble the plumage of some exotic bird. Pierced by a multitude of bamboo rods, this central form acts as the anchor for the horizontal elements that spread outwards like spindly wings. Tufts of hair and slivers of more records cling to these wooden appendages at various intervals, creating a series of lines and dots that resemble both willowy flora and musical notation.
In the 1970s, Hammons began making sculptures from a variety of inexpensive and cast-off objects to rebel against what he perceived as the clean, gallery-ready art of the era. Taking note of precedents from several previous artistic movements like Arte Povera and Dada, Hammons transformed these found items into biting commentaries on the social landscape. Purposefully at odds with the formalist sculptures and artistic trends of the day, Hammons’ found-object works are nonetheless his most successful and theoretically lauded within his entire oeuvre. Finding connections to earlier instances within the avant-garde, critics like Calvin Tompkins noted, “Hammons’ uncanny ability to put found objects together in ways that evoked meaning and emotion was reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg’s early work. He believed there was spiritual energy in everyday elements of black street culture” (C. Tomkins, “David Hammons Follows his own Rules,” New Yorker, December 9, 2019, p. 55). Still, the artist was reticent to connect himself fully with the overarching timeline of art history and purposefully strayed from immediate visual and critical connections.
Human hair, specifically African American hair, became an especially charged material in Hammons’ work as his practice shifted from the revolutionary Body Prints of the early 1970s. When Linda Goode Bryant asked the artist to mount an exhibition at Just Above Midtown Gallery in 1975, it was on the precedent of his prints which were becoming increasingly more sculptural. The resulting show, Greasy Bags and Barbecue Bones, employed brown paper shopping bags, bones, found objects, and human hair. In the following years, whether in the stone sculptures covered with barbershop clippings or works like Untitled (Flight Fantasy), Hammons’ manipulation of this hair gave rise to a new discourse about the importance of African American coiffures within a shared experience. Writing about this revelation, Philippe Vergne notes, “Hammons’ use of human hair is recurrent, serving to critique the status of the black body in American culture as well as the fetishism of its representation. Cut and collected hair, from Samson to voodoo magic, can convey a sense of empowerment or enfeeblement, and its appearance in Hammons’ works urges the viewer to decipher the presence, or absence, of ‘the souls of black folks’” (P. Vergne, “David Hammons,” in P. Johnson and K. McLean (eds.), Bits & Pieces Put Together To Present A Semblance of A Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005, p. 256). Using hair as a physical manifestation of something larger than the individual artist, Hammons created a new vocabulary for discussing both personal identity and communities at large outside of the Eurocentric cultural structure.
One of the most groundbreaking and singular artists of his generation, David Hammons has consistently challenged the hegemonic reading of art and its affinity for white cube galleries and singular narratives. Untitled (Flight Fantasy) is a pivotal work within his radical oeuvre that marries the artist’s historic and ethnocentric references with found objects and materials taken directly from the street.
Actively rebelling against the establishment in an effort to begin new narratives, Hammons’ work hinges on his ability to parse and re-interpret the history of art in service of a deeper understanding and awareness. “Hammons isn’t making art centered around a mystical narrative of the singular artist,” noted curator Elena Filipovic. “Instead of an individual myth, Hammons deliberately references something larger than himself: a history of blackness, a history of race relations; which is nothing less than a history of America itself, as told through the forms, symbols, materials and products of the African diaspora in the US” (E. Filipovic, David Hammons: Bliz-aard Ball Sale, London, 2017, p. 92). Beginning his career at a time when Black artists were struggling to find new ways to highlight their own experiences and ideas without playing into tropes or expectations, Hammons’ multifaceted practice established a radical voice that broke from the norm.
Part of a small grouping of works from the Flight Fantasy series which were completed circa 1978, Untitled (Flight Fantasy) employs elements of Hammons’ visual and material vocabulary to comment upon perceived ideas of Blackness and issues surrounding African American culture. As in the other examples in this series, the artist uses fragments of 45rpm records to create a central spine around which the rest of the totemic structure revolves. Splinters of vinyl encase Georgia clay within an ovoid compartment topped with shattered records that resemble the plumage of some exotic bird. Pierced by a multitude of bamboo rods, this central form acts as the anchor for the horizontal elements that spread outwards like spindly wings. Tufts of hair and slivers of more records cling to these wooden appendages at various intervals, creating a series of lines and dots that resemble both willowy flora and musical notation.
In the 1970s, Hammons began making sculptures from a variety of inexpensive and cast-off objects to rebel against what he perceived as the clean, gallery-ready art of the era. Taking note of precedents from several previous artistic movements like Arte Povera and Dada, Hammons transformed these found items into biting commentaries on the social landscape. Purposefully at odds with the formalist sculptures and artistic trends of the day, Hammons’ found-object works are nonetheless his most successful and theoretically lauded within his entire oeuvre. Finding connections to earlier instances within the avant-garde, critics like Calvin Tompkins noted, “Hammons’ uncanny ability to put found objects together in ways that evoked meaning and emotion was reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg’s early work. He believed there was spiritual energy in everyday elements of black street culture” (C. Tomkins, “David Hammons Follows his own Rules,” New Yorker, December 9, 2019, p. 55). Still, the artist was reticent to connect himself fully with the overarching timeline of art history and purposefully strayed from immediate visual and critical connections.
Human hair, specifically African American hair, became an especially charged material in Hammons’ work as his practice shifted from the revolutionary Body Prints of the early 1970s. When Linda Goode Bryant asked the artist to mount an exhibition at Just Above Midtown Gallery in 1975, it was on the precedent of his prints which were becoming increasingly more sculptural. The resulting show, Greasy Bags and Barbecue Bones, employed brown paper shopping bags, bones, found objects, and human hair. In the following years, whether in the stone sculptures covered with barbershop clippings or works like Untitled (Flight Fantasy), Hammons’ manipulation of this hair gave rise to a new discourse about the importance of African American coiffures within a shared experience. Writing about this revelation, Philippe Vergne notes, “Hammons’ use of human hair is recurrent, serving to critique the status of the black body in American culture as well as the fetishism of its representation. Cut and collected hair, from Samson to voodoo magic, can convey a sense of empowerment or enfeeblement, and its appearance in Hammons’ works urges the viewer to decipher the presence, or absence, of ‘the souls of black folks’” (P. Vergne, “David Hammons,” in P. Johnson and K. McLean (eds.), Bits & Pieces Put Together To Present A Semblance of A Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005, p. 256). Using hair as a physical manifestation of something larger than the individual artist, Hammons created a new vocabulary for discussing both personal identity and communities at large outside of the Eurocentric cultural structure.