David Hammons: Rousing the Rubble

Essays by Steve Cannon, Tom Finkelpearl, and Kellie Jones Photographs by Dawoud Bey and Bruce Talamon

Rousing the Rubble celebrates two decades of work by artist David Hammons, who has risen to prominence while at the same time consciously ducking the attention of critics, galleries, and museums, preferring to "do things in the street." A recipient of both a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award and a Prix de Rome, Hammons places himself as an artist between Arte Povera and Marcel Duchamp. He makes his art from refuse and the detritus of African-American life: chicken wings, Thunderbird and Night Train bottles, clippings from dreadlocks, basketball hoops. Hammons's deeply felt political views on race and cultural stereotypes give his witty and elegant sculptures, installations, and body prints an integrity that promises to keep the focus on his art rather than on his career.

Illustrated with nearly 100 photographs (both black and white and color), Rousing the Rubble covers the full range of Hammons's art and his methods of creating it. Steve Cannon's rap poem takes the reader on a freewheeling bicycle ride from Harlem to the Lower East Side in New York and is joyously infused with the same energies and inspirations as Hammons' work. Tom Finkelpearl discusses the power of the dirty, used objects Hammons prefers and how they relate to the clean" art exhibited in conventional gallery settings. And Kellie Jones examines how Hammons's art evolved from Los Angeles in the 1960s to New York and Rome in the present day.

The title of this book exemplifies an old problem in both the art and publishing worlds: how established institutions can present an artist whose most important claims are founded on a criticism of and independence from such institutions without mitigating those claims. Hammons's work avoids the trap of marginality by using an iconography and methodology springing from and presented within his urban African American context. Though he has made plenty of works imbued with art-historical references--works subsequently installed at the Venice Bieniele and at hip galleries--these are his marginalia instead of his crowning crossover accomplishments. Even more surprising than the artist's ability to control the spin of his work is this book's success in conveying Hammons's art in its original environment--which most readers will find alien. Three contrasting essays--a traditional retrospective, a 'rap-poem' evoking both the physical and psychic New York, and an essay "On the Ideology of Dirt"--encourage readers to focus on "the questions suggested by the work itself." Highly recommended for all contemporary American art collections. --Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.