"SPACE IS THE PLACE" at the Hammer

April 20, 2026

"SPACE IS THE PLACE" at the Hammer

Fred Eversley, untitled (cylindrical lens), 2024. Hammer Museum, gift of Sean and Alexandra Parker

The Hammer Museum's latest installation of its contemporary collection is "SPACE IS THE PLACE." The all-caps title references the 1973 Sun Ra album, and most of the works might be called Afrofuturism-adjacent. A parabolic lens by rocket scientist-turned-sculptor Fred Eversley is one of the artist's last works, and the only one of its kind in an L.A. institution. It coanchors a pink moment with an untitled Lauren Halsey in faux-hair extensions.

Lauren Halsey, untitled, 2020. Collection of Jarl and Pamela Mohn, promised gift to the Mohn Art Collective (Hammer, LACMA, MOCA)

Koshin Finley, Hummingbird, 2024. Hammer Museum, purchased through Board of Advisors Acquisition Fund

"SPACE IS THE PLACE" skews towards the work of Black artists working in Los Angeles, famous and emerging, with most of the pieces on view for the first time. Primarily a painter, Koshin Finley took a ceramics class during the pandemic. Hummingbird is his first work to combine painting and ceramics. It's a self-portrait titled after the resilient bird.

Betye Saar, Memory of Fire (top step), 1992. Hammer Museum, purchase

Just acquired this year, Memory of Fire is Betye Saar's first assemblage in the Hammer collection. It's the table with framed heart and hand. The Hammer is showing it on a red stepped altar with a 1988 painted silk also called Memory of Fire and a 2011 assemblage of a mantel clock and fake fireplace logs, Hot Time.

Coleman Collins, Specular Fiction (video still), 2024. Hammer Museum, purchased with funds provided by Karen Hillenberg

Coleman Collins' video imagines a future in which original artworks are replaced with digital scans. The deadpan narration is trenchant and funny. (Donor Karen Hillenberg is the widow of the creator of "SpongeBob Squarepants.")