EVENT TWO: Hammer Museum // May 24, 2015

The second event that I attended was the Hammer Museum here in our hometown of Westwood. I have walked by this museum so many times and continued to walk because I have never thought of myself as enjoying an art museum just for fun, and now that I’ve visited, I’m disappointed that I hadn’t visited sooner. As soon as you walk in the museum there’s this automatic serene feel with the courtyard in the middle where I played in the chairs for a while.

There’s a large selection of artists to see and in wandering around the exhibits Charles Gaines exhibit really intrigued me. I generally see myself as more of a math person than an artistic person and his use of math and numbers in his artwork is really what interested me and I was able to connect with his artwork a lot easier than normal paintings.

His thought process to his art is unlike many artists. He calls his work Gridwork and it’s truly incredible to see in person. He integrates math and numbers into his artwork to create what was once a black and white image underneath to a very colorful tree scape. The thought process was something else in reading about how he created these images; “Each vertical axis depicts them in numeric order beginning with zero at the center axis to form the trunk of the tree. As the numbers branch outward, each horizontal line depicts them in numeric order, allowing the artist to explore the links between color, representation, and meaning.”

Another part of the exhibit I found very interesting and found a connection in the class was the exhibit that had a variety of different artists but they were structures that helped solve architectural questions. The one I focused on was the structure that answered, “Can a building help change the way we learn?” The structure itself was created to make learning easier in an environment that was more learning friendly with round rooms that stack in a tower with a common area in the middle for student activities and a “spirit of openness”.

After visiting this museum I will definitely be going back. It opened a new appreciation for the arts for me.

Me in front of the Charles Gaines exhibit