Event 1: Hammer Museum

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit our local museum in Westwood, the Hammer. Unfortunately, security was a little strict and I did not get the chance to take a picture with the exhibits, or of the pieces themselves, so I hope that the images that I post will do justice. The two exhibits that I was able to see were Forrest Bess' Seeing Things Invisible, and James Welling's Monogram. I chose to visit these two exhibits because they were on loan, and if I were to come back another time, there would be the chance that I wouldn't be able to see these pieces again.

I started with the Seeing Things Invisible exhibit. The most captivating thing about this exhibit that I found was Bess' abstract vision of self surgery. He pushed idea of becoming a pseudo-hermaphrodite, and thought that he would achieve immortality as a result. To support his theory of eternal life as a hermaphrodite, Bess circulated a notebook to doctors. Looking more closely at his pieces, the relationship between medical advances and technology to express his vision. This concept is well visualized by his piece "The Greek" 1953. However, despite not being recognized for this ideal up front, he created symbolism that was both personal and universal.

After that, I explored James Welling's Monogram, which is an exhibit based on photography. I was immediately intrigued by the exhibit's description and the gradient design. The exhibit had a series of architectural pieces that pushed viewers to experience architectural photography in a new color scheme. The colors popped out very well because the images were shot were black and white. When I first glanced at the images, I couldn't help but to feel a bit confused about what to look at. The colors were beautiful, and made the image just seem to disappear in the background.. His pieces push the very concept of culture and personal memory in his pieces, making us question the paradigms of contemporary art. 

People should definitely take advantage of what UCLA has to offer, and thus I highly recommend going to the Hammer Museum. The exhibit combine art and science magically, and you can't help but to question your very understanding of art, and the role that science and technology play in this concept.