Hammer Museum

Hammer Museum
Hammer museum · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Name	Hammer Museum
Established	1990
Location	Westwood, Los Angeles, California, United States
Type	Art museum, Contemporary art
Director	Ann Philbin
Publictransit	Los Angeles Metro, UCLA/Westwood

Hammer Museum

The Hammer Museum is an art museum and cultural center in Westwood, Los Angeles, associated with University of California, Los Angeles and founded by philanthropist Armand Hammer. It presents collections and rotating exhibitions focused on modern and contemporary art, hosting programs that intersect with politics, film, literature, and performance. The institution collaborates with artists, scholars, and civic organizations, engaging audiences from Greater Los Angeles and international visitors.

History

The museum was established by industrialist and art collector Armand Hammer in 1990 and opened in a converted Greek Revival-inspired building in the Westwood neighborhood near UCLA. Early milestones included acquisitions of works by artists connected to postwar movements such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, and exhibitions that foregrounded West Coast practices linked to Light and Space, Minimalism, and Abstract Expressionism. During the 1990s and 2000s the museum expanded programming under directors who forged ties with institutions including the Getty Research Institute, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Leadership transitions and strategic initiatives in the 2010s aligned the museum with interdisciplinary dialogues involving figures from the worlds of film (e.g., collaborations with filmmakers like John Waters), literature (e.g., readings by writers such as Toni Morrison), and politics (e.g., public conversations featuring speakers affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union and the California State Assembly). Gift campaigns have expanded the museum's endowment and acquisitions, with donors including collectors from the Getty and Guggenheim networks.

Collections and Exhibitions

The museum's permanent collection emphasizes postwar and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, and media art by artists such as Ed Ruscha, Kara Walker, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Betye Saar, Chris Burden, Bruce Nauman, John Baldessari, and Claes Oldenburg. Special collections highlight drawings and prints by figures like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, alongside photography by practitioners such as Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. The exhibition program rotates between focused monographic shows (for artists like Paul McCarthy and Jenny Holzer), thematic group exhibitions exploring movements such as Surrealism-influenced practices, and survey exhibitions addressing regional histories including Los Angeles scenes involving Ed Moses and David Hockney's California period. The museum hosts long-running series of contemporary commissions and site-specific projects that have featured performers and visual artists associated with Fluxus, Conceptual Art, and performance traditions linked to venues like The Kitchen and Tate Modern.

Architecture and Facilities

The original facility occupies a building near UCLA and has undergone expansions and renovations to add galleries, conservation labs, and education spaces. Architectural interventions have been guided by architects and firms connected to projects at Smithsonian Institution-level museums and university cultural centers. Galleries are configured to accommodate large-scale installations by artists such as Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor, as well as media installations requiring technical infrastructure for video and sound work by practitioners like Nam June Paik. The site includes a lecture hall for public programs, a conservation laboratory for works by modern masters including Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse (in temporary surveys), a research library with monographs and periodicals referencing publishers such as Tate Publishing and Rizzoli, and a museum shop stocked with titles from independent presses linked to institutions such as MIT Press.

Programs and Public Engagement

Public programs form a core mission: the museum convenes artist talks, symposia, film screenings, and reading series featuring participants from institutions like Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University, and local campuses such as UCLA. The Hammer's film program has screened retrospectives of directors including Agnes Varda and David Lynch and partnered with festivals like Sundance Film Festival and AFI Fest. Educational outreach serves K–12 and university audiences through partnerships with school districts in Los Angeles Unified School District and community arts organizations such as Inner-City Arts and Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Residency programs invite emerging artists affiliated with centers like CalArts and Otis College of Art and Design to develop work; artist-in-residence projects have led to commissions displayed alongside works by Helena Almeida and Gordon Matta-Clark. The institution also hosts civic conversations featuring policymakers from City of Los Angeles government, scholars from the Brookings Institution, and activists from organizations including ACLU-affiliated networks.

Governance and Funding

Governance rests with a board of trustees composed of patrons, collectors, academics, and civic leaders with ties to cultural entities such as the Getty, Walt Disney Company, and major university arts departments. Executive leadership has included directors who previously served at institutions like the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Funding derives from a combination of endowed gifts, membership revenue, ticketing for special exhibitions, grants from foundations including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and corporate sponsorships from companies affiliated with the Los Angeles cultural economy. The museum maintains acquisition funds bolstered by donor pledges and has cultivated relationships with private collectors, galleries in the Chelsea, Manhattan and Gallery Row (Los Angeles), and auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's for deaccessioning and provenance research.

Category:Museums in Los Angeles County, California