Three Concurrent Hammer Projects Showcase Emerging Talent from Los Angeles, New York, and Japan
Ambitious works by Mark Grotjahn, Adam Cvijanovic, and Hiraki Sawa are on view in the Hammer Museum's Lobby, Vault, and Video Galleries
February 16
Los Angeles, CA—The Hammer Museum presents three concurrent Hammer Projects exhibitions showcasing emerging artists from the U.S. and Asia—Mark Grotjahn from Los Angeles, Adam Cvijanovic from New York, and Hiraki Sawa from Japan. The exhibitions present three distinct explorations of specific media, including Grotjahn’s large-scale color pencil drawings, Cvijanovic’s mural-size acrylic painting spanning the extensive Hammer lobby wall, and Sawa’s black-and-white video of miniaturized airplanes.
Hammer Projects are a series of exhibitions that focus primarily on the work of emerging artists, and reflect the Museum’s commitment to contemporary art by providing international and local artists a laboratory-like environment to create new work, or to present existing work in a new context. Hammer Projects are curated by James Elaine.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS
Mark Grotjahn: Drawings, January 11 – April 17, 2005
Known primarily for his bold geometric paintings, Los Angeles-based artist Mark Grotjahn presents a group of seven new, large-scale drawings. Installed in the Museum’s Vault Gallery, the works are meticulous multi-colored as well as monochromatic colored pencil drawings on paper. The formal compositions employ various one-point perspectives that radiate and converge, mimicking the shapes of butterflies, flowers, and water. The elegance of Grotjahn’s large sheets is subverted by deliberate scuffs and markings that add important elements to the compositions.
Mark Grotjahn was born in 1968 in Pasadena, California, and currently lives in Los Angeles. He received his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Recent solo exhibitions include Mark Grotjahn: El gran burrito at Boom, Chicago, and shows at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the London Institute Gallery and is on view in the Fifty-fourth Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, until March 2005.
Adam Cvijanovic, February 6 – August 7, 2005
Adam Cvijanovic’s large-scale painting Glacier, 2005, covers the entire expanse of the Hammer lobby wall with an arctic landscape evocative of the Hudson River School and 19th-century cycloramas. His room-sized installations—composed of individually painted Tyvek panels mounted side-by-side—portray beautiful yet charged natural scenes that challenge the seemingly sacred divisions between the mass-produced and the unique, the decorative and the profound.
Adam Cvijanovic was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1960 and currently lives in New York. A self-taught artist, Cvijanovic is an adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions include Ideal City at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia; Hurricane Party and Disko Bay, both at Bellwether Gallery, New York; and New City Project at Steven Sclaroff. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Compact Art, Barcelona; Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence; and BAM Brooklyn.
Hiraki Sawa, February 22 – June 19, 2005
In his 2002 video Dwelling, Hiraki Sawa creates a dreamlike universe inside a nondescript apartment. Dwelling follows the dramatic slow and solemn flight patterns of roaring miniaturized Boeings, Airbuses, Concordes, jet planes, and commuter aircrafts as if documenting chaotic airport traffic. Using grainy black and white footage, Sawa’s video is as mysterious and evocative as it is comical. Set entirely in Sawa’s apartment, the work addresses notions of displacement and melancholy, and was completed while he was a graduate student at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.
Hiraki Sawa was born in Ishikawa, Japan, in 1977 and currently lives in London. He received his master’s degree in sculpture in 2003 from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. Recent solo exhibitions include shows at James Cohan Gallery, New York, and Ota Fine Arts Gallery, Tokyo. His work was included in group exhibitions at LIFT Contemporary, Cherokee, North Carolina; Lille2004, Lille, France; Placentia Arte, Piacenza, Italy; Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey; and Evo Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2004, Dwelling was presented as part of 59th Minute, a Creative Time Project and on view in New York City’s Times Square.
FUNDING
Hammer Projects are made possible with support from The Annenberg Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and members of the Hammer Circle.
Adam Cvijanovic’s residency is made possible by a grant from the Nimoy Foundation.
ABOUT THE HAMMER MUSEUM
Through its permanent collections, exhibitions, and programs, the Hammer Museum endeavors to illuminate the depth and diversity of artistic expression through the centuries up to the present moment. Founded by Dr. Armand Hammer in 1990, the Museum houses several collections of art: The Armand Hammer Collection of Old Master, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist paintings, including important examples of work by Rembrandt van Rijn, John Singer Sargent, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Mary Cassatt; The Armand Hammer Daumier and Contemporaries Collection, featuring the painting, sculpture, and lithography of 19th-century French satirist Honoré Daumier and his contemporaries; and The Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, contains over 45,000 works on paper, including prints, drawings, photographs, and artists’ books dating from the Renaissance to the present.
MUSEUM INFORMATION
For more information about the Hammer Museum:
VOICE: 310-443-7000; TTY: 310-443-7094; WEB: www.hammer.ucla.edu
Museum Hours: Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat, 11am–7pm; Thu, 11am–9pm; Sun, 11am–5pm.
Closed Mondays, July 4, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.
Admission: $5 for adults; $3 for seniors (65+) and UCLA Alumni Association members; free for Museum members, students with identification, UCLA faculty/staff, and visitors 17 and under.
Admission is free for everyone on Thursdays. Access for people with disabilities is provided.
Location/Parking: The Museum is located at 10899 Wilshire Boulevard. Parking is available under the Museum. Rates are $2.75 for the first two hours with Museum validation, $1.50 for each additional 20 minutes. There is a $3 flat rate after 6 p.m. on Thursdays. Parking for people with disabilities is provided on levels P1 and P3.
Museum Tours: For reservations and information, call 310-443-7041
The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center is operated by the University of California, Los Angeles. Occidental Petroleum Corporation has partially endowed the Museum and constructed the Occidental Petroleum Cultural Center Building, which houses the Museum.
-UCLA-
Ambitious works by Mark Grotjahn, Adam Cvijanovic, and Hiraki Sawa are on view in the Hammer Museum's Lobby, Vault, and Video Galleries
February 16
Los Angeles, CA—The Hammer Museum presents three concurrent Hammer Projects exhibitions showcasing emerging artists from the U.S. and Asia—Mark Grotjahn from Los Angeles, Adam Cvijanovic from New York, and Hiraki Sawa from Japan. The exhibitions present three distinct explorations of specific media, including Grotjahn’s large-scale color pencil drawings, Cvijanovic’s mural-size acrylic painting spanning the extensive Hammer lobby wall, and Sawa’s black-and-white video of miniaturized airplanes.
Hammer Projects are a series of exhibitions that focus primarily on the work of emerging artists, and reflect the Museum’s commitment to contemporary art by providing international and local artists a laboratory-like environment to create new work, or to present existing work in a new context. Hammer Projects are curated by James Elaine.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS
Mark Grotjahn: Drawings, January 11 – April 17, 2005
Known primarily for his bold geometric paintings, Los Angeles-based artist Mark Grotjahn presents a group of seven new, large-scale drawings. Installed in the Museum’s Vault Gallery, the works are meticulous multi-colored as well as monochromatic colored pencil drawings on paper. The formal compositions employ various one-point perspectives that radiate and converge, mimicking the shapes of butterflies, flowers, and water. The elegance of Grotjahn’s large sheets is subverted by deliberate scuffs and markings that add important elements to the compositions.
Mark Grotjahn was born in 1968 in Pasadena, California, and currently lives in Los Angeles. He received his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Recent solo exhibitions include Mark Grotjahn: El gran burrito at Boom, Chicago, and shows at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the London Institute Gallery and is on view in the Fifty-fourth Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, until March 2005.
Adam Cvijanovic, February 6 – August 7, 2005
Adam Cvijanovic’s large-scale painting Glacier, 2005, covers the entire expanse of the Hammer lobby wall with an arctic landscape evocative of the Hudson River School and 19th-century cycloramas. His room-sized installations—composed of individually painted Tyvek panels mounted side-by-side—portray beautiful yet charged natural scenes that challenge the seemingly sacred divisions between the mass-produced and the unique, the decorative and the profound.
Adam Cvijanovic was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1960 and currently lives in New York. A self-taught artist, Cvijanovic is an adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions include Ideal City at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia; Hurricane Party and Disko Bay, both at Bellwether Gallery, New York; and New City Project at Steven Sclaroff. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Compact Art, Barcelona; Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence; and BAM Brooklyn.
Hiraki Sawa, February 22 – June 19, 2005
In his 2002 video Dwelling, Hiraki Sawa creates a dreamlike universe inside a nondescript apartment. Dwelling follows the dramatic slow and solemn flight patterns of roaring miniaturized Boeings, Airbuses, Concordes, jet planes, and commuter aircrafts as if documenting chaotic airport traffic. Using grainy black and white footage, Sawa’s video is as mysterious and evocative as it is comical. Set entirely in Sawa’s apartment, the work addresses notions of displacement and melancholy, and was completed while he was a graduate student at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.
Hiraki Sawa was born in Ishikawa, Japan, in 1977 and currently lives in London. He received his master’s degree in sculpture in 2003 from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. Recent solo exhibitions include shows at James Cohan Gallery, New York, and Ota Fine Arts Gallery, Tokyo. His work was included in group exhibitions at LIFT Contemporary, Cherokee, North Carolina; Lille2004, Lille, France; Placentia Arte, Piacenza, Italy; Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey; and Evo Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2004, Dwelling was presented as part of 59th Minute, a Creative Time Project and on view in New York City’s Times Square.
FUNDING
Hammer Projects are made possible with support from The Annenberg Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and members of the Hammer Circle.
Adam Cvijanovic’s residency is made possible by a grant from the Nimoy Foundation.
ABOUT THE HAMMER MUSEUM
Through its permanent collections, exhibitions, and programs, the Hammer Museum endeavors to illuminate the depth and diversity of artistic expression through the centuries up to the present moment. Founded by Dr. Armand Hammer in 1990, the Museum houses several collections of art: The Armand Hammer Collection of Old Master, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist paintings, including important examples of work by Rembrandt van Rijn, John Singer Sargent, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Mary Cassatt; The Armand Hammer Daumier and Contemporaries Collection, featuring the painting, sculpture, and lithography of 19th-century French satirist Honoré Daumier and his contemporaries; and The Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, contains over 45,000 works on paper, including prints, drawings, photographs, and artists’ books dating from the Renaissance to the present.
MUSEUM INFORMATION
For more information about the Hammer Museum:
VOICE: 310-443-7000; TTY: 310-443-7094; WEB: www.hammer.ucla.edu
Museum Hours: Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat, 11am–7pm; Thu, 11am–9pm; Sun, 11am–5pm.
Closed Mondays, July 4, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.
Admission: $5 for adults; $3 for seniors (65+) and UCLA Alumni Association members; free for Museum members, students with identification, UCLA faculty/staff, and visitors 17 and under.
Admission is free for everyone on Thursdays. Access for people with disabilities is provided.
Location/Parking: The Museum is located at 10899 Wilshire Boulevard. Parking is available under the Museum. Rates are $2.75 for the first two hours with Museum validation, $1.50 for each additional 20 minutes. There is a $3 flat rate after 6 p.m. on Thursdays. Parking for people with disabilities is provided on levels P1 and P3.
Museum Tours: For reservations and information, call 310-443-7041
The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center is operated by the University of California, Los Angeles. Occidental Petroleum Corporation has partially endowed the Museum and constructed the Occidental Petroleum Cultural Center Building, which houses the Museum.
-UCLA-