Event 3: The Hammer Museum

It was awhile ago that I attended the Hammer Museum, the last day of the Charles Gaines' exhibit on Gridwork. But it was an experience that I throughly enjoyed. It was my first time exploring The Hammer. One time, my volleyball team went on a scavenger hunt around Westwood, and one of our clues was in the front Lobby of the Museum, but this time I actually got to explore!

The first thing that I came across was the outdoor patio that had the spinning chairs. They reminded me of dreidels for some reason, I had never seen anything like it. I sat in one to try it out, I was so caught off guard that I almost fell out of the thing. Was a little scary, but once I went around a few times it wasn’t so bad. The architecture of these chairs combines both science and art that is designed to keep spinning without every stopping. I felt like I couldn’t be stopped. Was an interesting concept and design of moving.

The next exhibit that I visited was Charles Gaines’ Gridwork. What I saw were drawings, photographs, and works on paper that explored how rules-based procedures construct order and meaning. Each grid had a different design that embodied a different illustration of art. The trees were really cool to see because they were made up of boxes that had numbers in them, with a variety of different colors. From afar, you couldn’t see the numbers or the boxes. But up close, you could see the arrangement of boxes put together. It looked like coding, but was in the shape of tree. Interesting. But I thought it was so cool! I kept going up close to far away to see the difference in appearance. Got some pretty weird stares but I was so intrigued by Gaines’ artwork. 

Overall, my experience at the Hammer was awesome and I got to see some pretty interesting pieces of works. Similar to the Getty with the paintings, only a little more modern, I was really intrigued by looking at these paintings. I stood in front of the Garden Bridge painting and just stared at it for awhile. I sort of zoned out, but I just envisioned myself walking across the bridge and being there. For a second I thought I saw people walking across it, but then I snapped out of it. I would most definitely recommend visiting the Hammer, and if you want to get your ping pong on, they have a table!!