David Hammons, a radical figure of our time
A major artist of our time and a radical figure, African-American artist David Hammons has, because of his critical strategy and avoidance of the art world, hardly ever been presented in Europe in any meaningful way. This corpus brings together nearly thirty pieces, more than half of which have never been shown in previous exhibitions of the Collection, and features works on paper from the late 1960s and early 1970s to more recent installations.
David Hammons plays with a palette, with a subtle colour chart of gestures: appropriations, assemblages, performances, and paintings made from prints of bodies and objects. Born in 1943 in Illinois, since the 1970s, David Hammons has developed a furtive and subversive work, haunted by the nagging wound of ordinary racism. The artist moved to New York in 1975, to Harlem, a district that became the epicentre of a creation crossed by struggle and socio-political activism.
