{"id":2599,"date":"2012-05-01T18:44:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T18:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lalouver.com\/journal\/index.php\/2012\/05\/01\/artforum-gives-hammersley-its-critics-pick\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T15:39:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T15:39:58","slug":"artforum-gives-hammersley-its-critics-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lalouver.com\/journal\/artforum-gives-hammersley-its-critics-pick","title":{"rendered":"Artforum gives Hammersley its Critics’ Pick!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kurt Mueller reviews our Frederick Hammersley<\/a><\/em> exhibition for Artforum in its \u201cCritics\u2019 Pick\u201d section online<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Biographies and obituaries of Frederick Hammersley<\/a>(1919\u20132009) invariably cite the artist\u2019s inclusion in LACMA\u2019s 1959 traveling exhibition \u201cFour Abstract Classicists\u201d as cementing his art-historical legacy as a West Coast modernist, a \u201chard-edge\u201d painter of collagelike arrangements of cool, crisp forms. Less often noted is the fact that Hammersley also participated in the MoMA\u2019s 1965 optical art spectacular, \u201cThe Responsive Eye.\u201d His penchant for delightful retinal perplexity comes to the fore in this stunning survey, curated by L. A. Louver, which comprises thirty-six works made between 1949 and 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One dozen of the works on view, part of a set that Hammersley termed \u201cgeometrics,\u201d are square oil-on-linen objects that play like rudimentary perceptual effects. Each taut, strikingly simple composition of solid rectangles, trapezoids, and\/or triangles is structurally balanced, if not fastidiously symmetrical. Hammersley, however, upends the spatial equanimity with chromatic inversions; he often paints mirroring, usually adjacent shapes each in black or white, the contrast creating the illusion of pictorial depth and expanses that optically recede and push forward simultaneously. Interlocking shapes also appear as overlapping forms, while entire compositions visually flip and slide. Titles like Black and forth, #3<\/em>, 1971, and Here here, #3<\/em>, 1975, add to the winking fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A selection of early works shown here set precedents for Hammersley\u2019s quirky optical gamesmanship. Eleven lithographs from 1949\u201350 of three-inch-square grids are each divided into sixteen square units, which the artist further checkered or striped, suggesting coexistent, competing shifts in scale. In the canvas Legacy, #41<\/em>, 1964, he offers a visual conundrum via a meeting of seeming equals, pairing a blue circle within a black square with a similarly sized black circle containing a blue square. Comparative coupling also pervades ten \u201corganics\u201d from the 1960s and \u201980s in which figurative nub and blob shapes nestle and abut, puzzlelike, in artist-carved frames. Again, Hammersley uses demarcated color\u2014here refreshing, creamy pigments\u2014to define space indeterminately, conjuring biomorphs as patch, protrusion, cavity, transparent gel, or perhaps even, in another act of doubling, a gaping mouth or an unblinking eye.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

See more on Frederick Hammerley<\/a>, <\/em>and pick up a copy of the catalogue on our webshop<\/a>! Exhibition closes on 12 May 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(above photo: Legacy, <\/em>#41 1964, oil on canvas, panel: 50 x 31 in. (127 x 78.7 cm), framed: 51 x 31 7\/8 in. (129.5 x 81 cm))<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kurt Mueller reviews our Frederick Hammersley exhibition for Artforum in its \u201cCritics\u2019 Pick\u201d section online: Biographies and obituaries of Frederick Hammersley(1919\u20132009) invariably cite the artist\u2019s inclusion in LACMA\u2019s 1959 traveling exhibition \u201cFour Abstract Classicists\u201d as cementing his art-historical legacy as a West Coast modernist, a \u201chard-edge\u201d painter of collagelike arrangements of cool, crisp forms. Less often noted is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[172,980,194,1411],"class_list":["post-2599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-artforum","tag-critics-pick","tag-frederick-hammersley","tag-hammersley"],"yoast_head":"\r\nArtforum gives Hammersley its Critics' Pick! - L.A. 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