HAMMER (MUSEUM) TIME

I had the great pleasure of spending some time in the amazing Hammer Museum this week, and left feeling totally inspired. Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957 is the first comprehensive museum exhibition in the United States to examine the history of Black Mountain College (BMC). Founded in 1933 in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, this renowned experimental college placed the arts at the center of a liberal arts education in an effort to better educate citizens for participation in a democratic society. Profoundly interdisciplinary with an emphasis on inquiry, discussion, and experimentation, it gave equal attention to the visual arts—painting, sculpture, drawing—and so-called applied arts or crafts like weaving, pottery, and jewelry-making, as well as architecture, poetry, music, and dance.

“We do not always create ‘works of art,’ but rather experiments; it is not our intention to fill museums: we are gathering experience.” –Josef Albers

Featured above are some of my favorite images from the exhibition, including works by Ruth Asawa and Susan Weil. So wishing institutions like Black Mountain College still existed!