David Hammons

Carmen Argote, James Benning, Scott Benzel, John Birtle, Paul Branca, Ajani Brannum, Ariel Dill, Ali Eyal, Lukas Geronimas, Mamie Green, Sebastian Hernandez, Asuka Hisa, Iris Yirei Hu, Cole James, David Kasprzak, Kang Seung Lee, Karen Lofgren, Nancy Lupo, Shana Lutker, Joseph Mosconi, Sarah Rara, Christian Sampson, Aram Saroyan, TJ Shin, Sam Shoemaker, Susan Silton, Julie Tolentino, Jeff Weiss, The Window, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, Sichong Xie

Organized by Joan and David Horvitz

There is a brick building across from the garden with a wooden bird feeder attached to a chain link fence. I would see mourning doves on the fence eating the seeds. A man who lived and painted in the building filled the feeder. I would see him sometimes, a silhouette behind the fence feeding his birds. Recently this man came into the garden. He had been here a few times before, but today was different. It was as if the weight of the air was heavier. He told me it was his last day in the building across the street. He had lived and painted there for three decades. The building owner had recently died, the building was put on the market, it was bought, an animal hospital was coming next after some remodeling. And he and the other artists who worked there had been evicted. We stood in the garden in the afternoon light and walked around. I asked him about his days in Los Angeles and how much the neighborhood has changed. He shared many stories that afternoon. But there is one I want to retell you here. It has to do with David Hammons. The man told me about Hammons’ time in Los Angeles before moving to New York in the 1970s. He told me Hammons would sell different found objects on Crenshaw to make money. One of the things he remembered that was being sold was styrofoam balls. These white balls would have predated Hammons’ 1983 Bliz-aard Ball Sale, where he sold snowballs on the streets of Manhattan. I had not heard of this reference before but I liked imagining an LA version of the iconic work. Maybe this precursor to the snowballs only exists in the space between fact and fiction, in the fragile form of a memory. Whether it was true or not is beyond my interest. If you asked Hammons he might not even remember. It is that maybe it happened. Try imagining the iconic photos of Hammons on the sidewalk in New York in winter clothes. Now, through someone else’s memory, change it ever so slightly: a warm blue sky instead of a winter day, a tee-shirt instead of a black coat and brown pants, white styrofoam balls on the sidewalk instead of snowballs. For a small community of artists, the building across the garden was a shelter for this memory and many others for over three decades. Some remembered and some forgotten. It was here in the garden where this memory was remembered and given to me. And here, like a handful of sand slowly slipping through our fingers, is where I give it to you. Crenshaw is only a few blocks away from the garden. If you look across the garden, to the left you can see Claude’s old building.