The soundtrack of The Curse, TV's cult gentrification cringe-com, incorporates the transcendent music of Alice Coltrane (1937-2007), wife of jazz icon John Coltrane. That's one index of Alice's resurgent popular and critical esteem. Another is a new exhibition at the Hammer Museum, "Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal." It explores Coltrane's music and life via works of artists she inspired.
Inevitably "Alice Coltrane" invites comparison to a 2022-23 Hammer show, "Joan Didion: What She Means." Both are visual art exhibitions centered on a cultural figure who wasn't a visual artist. It's an worthy idea, and it's not exactly new. A generation ago MOCA was building shows around musician John Cage (1993) and poet Frank O'Hara (1999). Now it seems to be the Hammer's thing.
Of the two Hammer exhibitions, Coltrane's is nominally smaller, with 19 artists v. about 50 for Didion. The latter, organized by Hilton Als, was a sprawling group show loosely linked to Didion's milieu. The current exhibition keeps Coltrane's legacy front and center; many of the works are explicit homages.
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| Hozumi Nakadaira, Alice and John Coltrane at the Newport Jazz Festival, 1966. Yasuhira Fujioka collection |
As curated by Erin Christovale with Nyah Ginwright, "Alice Coltrane" is user-friendly for newbies as well as fans. If you don't know who Alice Coltrane is, you'll get a walk-through biography with photos, ephemera, and album art. Most important, there are comfy seats where you can put on headphones and listen to Coltrane's music.
"Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal" runs through May 4, 2025. It's part of "The Year of Alice" being organized by the John & Alice Coltrane Home, Dix Hills, NY.
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| Gozié Ojini, 44.6 lbs, 2024. Collection of Kelsey Coxe and Gabe Schuylman |
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| Installation view with Jamal Cyrus' Horn Beam Effigy, 2022. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth |
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| Detail of Cyrus' Horn Beam Effigy |
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| Leslie Hewitt and Jamal Cyrus, In collaboration with Jamal Cyrus, for Solo Piano, Alto Saxophone, or Tambourine (This Score May Be Realized in Any Imaginative Way…), 2022 |
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| Nicole Miller, For Turiya (laser animation), 2024 |
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| Rashid Johnson, Gotta Match, 2014. Collection of Hedy Fischer and Randy Shull |
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| Installation view, "Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal" |
Comments
Also, instead of an exhibit on, for example, African pre-1900s or pre-1800s art (or what the Fowler tends to do), LACMA comes off like a "de facto museum of contemporary art, but frankly...not a very good one."
When the Zumthor building opens, LACMA (if it even cares) is going to have a lot work to do in catching up. Or less excuse in focusing on contemporary - as the Hammer, Broad, MOCA, Hauser & Wirth, etc, do - because its Resnick and Broad wings are too physically small or thematically limited.
As for the Joe Price Japanese gallery next to Zumthor/Govan/Geffen, I have a vague recollection of LACMA awhile ago inserting some contemporary art into it. But I'm not sure. Even if they'd didn't, I wouldn't put it past them doing that in the future---"Contemporary artists from Japan must be displayed based on race/gender/nationality, not style or period!"