The Hammer's Perfect Trifecta

For the art aficionado, to discover even one truly good museum exhibition is a pleasure; but to stumble upon three intriguing and challenging exhibitions, all in the same place, is really something to celebrate. Right now, such a perfect trifecta of art exhibitions has taken over the main entrance, galleries, and seemingly all the nooks and crannies of UCLA's Hammer Museum.

Last week I talked about the Hammer's retrospective of tough-as-nails Los Angeles artist Llyn Foulkes, whose maddeningly complex multi-media paintings I described as "obsessive, nostalgic, tragic and very melancholic."

Dara Friedman, "Dancer," 2011

Super 16mm film transferred to HD video, black and white, sound, 25 min

The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Courtesy of the artist

Dara Friedman shows her black and white, 16mm film, Dancer. It's short – only 25 minutes – but it includes more than forty segments of sixty different Miami dancers: running, jumping, heads spinning and, on occasion, even dancing en pointe.

And all that with the gritty streets of downtown Miami as their backdrop. I've seen it twice. The first time alone, the second with a bunch of friends who seemingly enjoyed it as much as I did. And you know what? I'm planning to be there again, to enjoy the syncopated rhythm of the segments as they cut from flamenco to modern, from ballroom to break-dance, from ballet to belly dancing.

Dara Friedman, Stills from "Dancer," 2011

Super 16mm film transferred to HD video, black and white, sound, 25 min

Courtesy of the artist

Hammer's artist-in-residence, working on a follow-up film set against our City of Angels.

Latifa Echakhch, "À chaque stencil une révolution," 2007

Tate Modern, Bankside, London

Courtesy of the artist, Kamel Mennour, Paris and Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan

© Latifa Echakhch

Latifa Echakhch's installation feels like the aftermath of a huge storm that's left behind waterlogged debris – blue ink dripping from the copy paper down the walls and pooling on and staining the floor. What we're actually witnessing is the aftermath of Echakhch's performance – during which the artist splashed the carbon paper with paint thinner. As a result, the vast expanse of the lobby's walls turns into one gigantic color field or, if you prefer, abstract expressionist painting.

But beyond her Yves Klein blue, Echakhch's work makes specific political and cultural references. Her usage of once ubiquitous but now antiquated carbon copy paper is a reminder of how this particular material was used by both French bureaucrats in colonial North Africa as well as by protestors in the wake of the student riots of 1968, aiming to spread their revolutionary messages as cheaply and quickly as possible. To be completely honest, I have to admit that I enjoyed this blue storm on its own operatic terms; only later did I discover its embedded political meaning. And now I feel a little bit guilty for being seduced so easily and so completely by its bleeding beauty.

Katharina Grosse, "Untitled," 2011

Acrylic on wall

The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Courtesy of the artist

Carlos Bunga, Installation view, "November 25, 2011-April 22, 2012"

The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Photo by Brian Forrest

Carlos Bunga, "Future Anterior," 2013

Cardboard, tape, glue and paint

Courtesy Christopher Grimes Gallery

currently exhibiting his new, equally theatrical work at Christopher Grimes Gallery in Santa Monica. This time, you can literally enter his temporary structure, imposing yet still obviously flimsy. And probably like myself, you will ask why his phantasmagorical, imperfect, and impermanent artwork lingers in your mind.

Banner image: Latifa Echakhch, À chaque stencil une révolution, 2007; Tate Modern, Bankside, London. Courtesy of the artist, Kamel Mennour, Paris and Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan. © Latifa Echakhch