ASPEN: David Hammons

David Hammons, Untitled (Kool-Aid Drawing), 2003. Image via aspenartmuseum.org.

David Hammons Yves Klein / Yves Klein David Hammons

August 9 – November 30, 2014

ASPEN ART MUSEUM

637 East Hyman Avenue

Aspen, CO

From aspenartmuseum.org:

An unprecedented coupling of two of the most significant artists of our time, David Hammons Yves Klein / Yves Klein David Hammons explores points of aesthetic harmony within two seemingly different practices. Weaving a larger narrative through Hammons’s Basketball and Kool-Aid Drawings, Klein’s Fire Paintings and Monochromes, to both artist’s exploration of performance and public intervention, the exhibition looks at Hammons and Klein as artists who perform a kind of aesthetic alchemy – investing the humblest of everyday materials with deep aesthetic significance.

From aspentimes.com:

The joint exhibition of French post-war master Yves Klein and postmodern American artist David Hammons fills two gallery spaces on the ground floor [of the Aspen Art Museum.] A walk around the Klein/Hammonds show is a tour of a curated conversation between the two on topics like race, religion and art itself. The wide-ranging show includes Klein’s signature works in blue and Hammons’ signature use of American flags and human hair. Klein’s “Untitled Shroud Anthropometry” is positioned beside Hammons’ “Pray for America,” featuring a man literally shrouded in an American flag with hands in prayer.

Aspen Art Museum director and CEO Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson said she has been working on Hammons and on the Klein estate for 15 years to put the joint show together.

“I’ve wanted to do this show my entire career,” Zuckerman Jacobson said. “It’s basically an undoable show. … I think this show only could have happened right here, right now.”

Exhibit Link