Hammer Biennial Carries On

Alexandra Noel, Can you bring everything with you?, 2019
There's no good news in recent L.A. COVID numbers. But a Deborah Vankin piece in the Los Angeles Times reports that the Hammer biennial "Made in L.A. 2020: a version" is adapting and is still looking at a September opening date. Artists are making changes to the pieces in the show, in some cases moving performances online or reconfiguring them for social distancing. 

It's clear that the virus is going to be with us well into next year. That makes a case for museums accepting the new normal and moving forward as best they can. But it also seems unwise to open a museum in the midst of a outbreak. Is is better to to open a show now, when few people would see it, or six months from now, when a more normal experience might be possible? Will a "normal" experience ever be possible in the next few years? Like everyone else, museum directors, curators, and artists are having to play epidemiologists. And the true experts don't have answers to questions like that.

Larry Johnson, Untitled (Cinema Moralia), 2010

Comments

Anonymous said…
Covid-19 - both health-wise and financial-wise - doesn't seem to be slowing down the MFers responsible for the ongoing trashing of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Anonymous said…
Building Project: July 10 Update
July 10, 2020
Editors
The following work will be conducted next week:

Additional abatement in the Ahmanson Building continues.
Structural demolition of the Art of Americas and Hammer Buildings continue.
Work on temporary utilities is complete.
Installation of the western construction fence and access gate at the Spaulding Lot will be completed.
Removal of asphalt on the Spaulding Lot will begin.

https://unframed.lacma.org/2020/07/10/building-project-july-10-update
Anonymous said…
https://hyperallergic.com/576883/metropolitan-museum-confirms-late-august-reopening-with-limited-hours/