Event #3 The Hammer Museum

The Hammer Museum is found near UCLA in Westwood and is easy to find. In fact driving by it for four years has made me wonder what exactly is in it. On the outside it has cool and colorful paintings that has caught my eye for the past couple years. The paintings that I have been driving by continued on inside the museum. The artist behind the work was Maya Hayuk whose work represents what we have been going over in class, the idea of art and space. She uses different patterns and symmetrical compositions with a variety of colors that give different perceptions to the viewers.

Continuing on up the stairs I had to get my free pass which was located in the book store. All you have to show is a student I.D. and you will get a sticker (pass). Right next to the book store is James Welling Monograph which is where I went. It was cool to look at his work knowing that he is a professor at UCLA. I noticed that he used abstraction and representation, as well as using different kind of personal and cultural photographs as well. My favorite part inside his Monograph was the photographs that showed the different usage of light. Something that I didn't quite get but was very appealing to my senses was a broken piece of rock that had black ink on it, and it had many different pictures of the same thing but the broken pieces were in different order. The lighting was different for every picture and it made the picture look interesting and appealing.

Going east out of James Welling Monograph you will run into Forrest Bess "Seeing things Invisible". This is where I saw my first Leonardo de Vinci's painting. Even though it wasn't the Mona Lisa it still was exciting to see one of our greatest artist work of all time. Inside this part of the museum was not as abstract and work with oil on canvas or oil on wood. Before this class this is what I pictured actual art to be. My favorite piece was the picture of King David (of the old testament) and the angel. It was magnificent to see such a old painting and it looked very realistic as well. Something that had nothing to do with the artwork was the frames that were used. It gave the art a sense of uniqueness and made it seem to be more rare and valuable.








I was not able to attend every part of the museum but I do recommend to go and check it out. Especially if you are a student at UCLA. It is really easy to attend and the admission is free if you are a UCLA student. Go in there with an open mind and prepare to use all of your senses. Just a fair warning as well, do not try to take pictures because the people that work there do not like it.