For two days artist Markus Linnenbrink has been painting, and in that marathon of expression he has coated nearly all of the 21-foot-high walls of the marble-floored lobby of the UCLA Hammer Museum with alternating broad and thin horizontal bands in every imaginable hue. Allowing gravity to take over, the 41-year-old German has let the paint drip and dribble playfully, serendipitously, down the walls in color-changing rivulets.
Working through the night, when the Hammer’s blazing lights turn the lobby into a giant illuminated aquarium, the artist manically dips his brushes into buckets to extend his grid in long, continuous strokes. By daylight he balances on a ladder to paint within a large display window facing Westwood Boulevard. A passerby stops, gawks, smiles and gives him a cheery thumbs-up, and Linnenbrink pauses just long enough to savor the moment. “I love painting here in such a public place,” he says. “The idea of having such a huge artwork exposed to so many people is wonderful.”
There’s definitely a buzz among people on the street as Linnenbrink works. It’s a buzz that resonates throughout the arts community both in the United States and abroad, one that starts whenever James Elaine, the curator of Hammer Projects, invites a rising star with a huge talent but little name recognition in the West to unleash their creativity on the wall for no commission and only a small budget for materials and travel.
Hammer Projects was launched by Director Ann Philbin, when she came to the Hammer in 1999, to infuse vitality into a museum that had gone slightly stale. It is a showcase for the work of emerging artists who have never shown in a museum or on the West Coast — and perhaps have never even had a gallery showing. Unlike other artists who have years to prepare for a full-blown exhibition, Hammer Projects artists may have as little as two months’ notice to do one piece for a program that’s nimble, adventurous and flexible.
So successful has Hammer Projects become under the leadership of Philbin and Elaine, who worked with Philbin at The Drawing Center in New York, that it has energized the entire museum and given it a new profile as a welcoming place that’s willing to take risks on artists with little or no track record.
The Los Angeles Times has dubbed the program “one of the most adventuresome in Southern California.” And writer M.G. Lord wrote in a recent New York Times article: “The series has transformed the Hammer from a sleepy university museum to a red-hot center of the local art scene. Crowded openings attract international collectors, eminent older artists and younger artists scrambling for recognition.”
This ability to offer visitors a range of cutting-edge contemporary and historic art “is a fundamental part of what we do,” Philbin says. But it’s the Hammer’s yearning to explore the newer terrain that has excited artists in this country and in Europe. In its own backyard, the Hammer is being credited with giving local artists a prestigious West Coast launch pad for their careers.
As an extension of a major research university, the museum created in Hammer Projects a lab where artists can explore new ideas and techniques. “We like to consider ourselves a research-and-development arm for the arts at UCLA,” Philbin says. “We want that aspect in our programs, as well as the historical perspectives that are inherent in our collections.”
Sometimes it’s a risk. “With some artists, we really don’t know what we will end up with,” Philbin says. “But we have to trust our instincts.” And Elaine, she notes, “has some great instincts.”
Elaine, a Texas-born artist, has his antennae up wherever he roams. From his experience at The Drawing Center, he learned that half the battle was simply letting artists know he and Philbin were eagerly seeking new talent. “In New York, the climate for artists can be pretty harsh. So we took the opposite tack. We were accessible. We welcomed people,” he says.
He has taken a similar approach in Los Angeles, plugging into the grapevine, visiting galleries, snagging invites to artists’ studios and attending showings in storefronts, lofts and temporary art spaces.
“We felt these were the most vital places to start to build a program that shoots out through all the arteries of the art community,” Elaine says. “In the early days, people in the art community were scratching their heads, wondering, ‘What’s the Hammer doing?’ This was a whole new role for us. They reacted by graciously welcoming us with open arms.”
In his three years as curator of Hammer Projects, 28 artists have shown their work, and Elaine has made some major scores. He found, for example, Francesca Gabbiani M.F.A. ’97, who creates huge, room-size paper collages, at the Karyn Lovegrove Gallery in West Hollywood.
“I was so excited — this was the first time that someone like him had shown any interest in my work,” Gabbiani says. “No one had ever asked me to make a piece for a museum.” Four months later, her gigantic paper collage turned the museum’s vault gallery into a forest, complete with giant insects. Today, she is reaping the fruit of her triumph with gallery shows in L.A., New York and Switzerland.
Another artist, a Los Angeles muralist whose comic-book superhero-inspired piece reigned on the Hammer lobby wall last year, calls his showing “a spectacular jump in my career.” Encouraged by what he heard of the Hammer’s interest in emerging artists, Aaron Noble sent Elaine images of the large-scale wall paintings he’s done on buildings in San Francisco. The pictures piqued Elaine’s interest, and he and Noble went off to Inglewood for a look at the artist’s only L.A.-area wall.
“Talk about adventurous curating,” Noble recalls. “We couldn’t see the wall that well from the street, so we climbed up the side of an auto garage next door to get to the roof. Here was James, dressed elegantly as usual, and he had to pull himself up this building in pursuit of art.”
Months after Noble’s large-scale fantasy, drawn with violent lines and sharp angles with metallic textures, was removed from the lobby wall, the artist is still basking in the thrill of the moment, having captured a review in a British art magazine, a show at a posh Santa Monica gallery and other important leads.
The new visibility that these pieces by artists like Linnenbrink, Gabbiani and Noble are bringing to the museum is critical as the Hammer continues to aggressively fundraise to make concrete a $25-million renovation by architect Michael Maltzan. The museum is trying to raise the last $9 million that will, among other things, complete the theater auditorium.
From a personal standpoint, however, Elaine is more focused on simply giving emerging artists a chance to be seen in a distinguished venue.
“I’m just trying to show work that I believe in, that I love,” he says. “I’m not trying to make anyone’s career. The thrill of this job for me is to mentor when I can, to encourage, to exhibit and hopefully to see something happen for them. So far, I’m very encouraged.”
