Photos by PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Carrie Mae Weems‘ gelatin silver print is one of
the works on display at the Hammer Museum’s exhibit, "I’m Thinking
of a Place."
By Kelsey McConnell
Daily Bruin Contributor
Moving from the eerie to the sensual to the beautiful to the
horrible, the photographs and chalk drawings in “I’m
Thinking of a Place” invite viewers to journey to new
landscapes.
“I’m Thinking of a Place,” is one of the new
exhibits at the UCLA Hammer Museum, showing through April 15. The
collection is a provocative look at the relationships between
people and places as interpreted by different artists.
Lisa Henry, an M.A. candidate in the Critical and Curator
Studies program in the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture,
curates the exhibition. She chose to display such accomplished
artists as Gary Simmons, Carrie Mae Weems and Lorna Simpson in the
exhibit, making “I’m Thinking of a Place” a
carnival of haunting imagery.
Simmons’ displayed works were originally made for his 1998
exhibition. His partially erased pastel and chalk drawings give his
images an air of transiency and forgetfulness. In “Boarded
Up,” the upsweep of the chalk makes the image of the boarded
up windows seem to be floating up and away. According to the
museum’s brochure on the exhibit, Simmons uses this image to
allude to the idea that America attempts to selectively erase
painful cultural memories.
 The pieces featured in "I’m Thinking of a Place" are
various artists’ mixed interpretations of the involvement between
people and their places.
Preliminary dark and firm lines are submerged by the shadowy
erasure, raising questions about how best to view the drawing. His
chalk drawings exude a feeling of impermanence and the ghostly gray
coloring turns the landscapes of Simmons’ drawings into
something almost unsettling.
Though visually more clear than Simmons’ work, the
photographs of Carrie Mae Weems appear conflicted. In her Sea
Island series, Weems juxtaposes crisp landscape photos with
elegantly printed texts.
In an untitled piece, the clear black-and-white photos of an old
stone house sweep viewers into the picture to the point where it
feels as if they could touch the crumbling rocks, look through the
shutterless windows and feel the heat of the sun poking through the
wild foliage.
The photographs by themselves, however, only tell half the
story. The accompanying text is a series of instructions for
ridding a new house of evil spirits and enticing good ones to take
up residence. The visual allure of the serene photograph and the
cultural intrigue of the old folk curses make the piece unique.
With a single piece covering an entire wall, Lorna Simpson
completes the trilogy of landscape artists. “Still” is
an immense screenprint on 36 felt panels, measuring over 121 inches
on one side and 217 inches on the other.
Simpson does not seem to be as personally driven as the other
two artists, however. Instead, she creates pieces that are
difficult for viewers to fully grasp but are immensely telling
about specific landscapes. The panels of “Still” form a
serene look at sweeping trees and their reflections in a still
lake, but the picture is also full of brief innocent and erotic
statements made by lovers the audience cannot see. The hidden
couples brings a whole new meaning to idyllic landscape.
A plaque accompanying the artwork mentions that underneath the
calm water and green brush there is a whole range of sexual
emotions hidden from the reality of overt life.
“I’m Thinking of a Place” is an interesting
exhibit that urges viewers to explore seemingly simple landscapes
and discover deeper meanings. After viewing the exhibit viewers are
left to decide if the clarity and originality of the pieces make
them beautiful or if the subversive intentions behind the images
make them something much darker.
ART: “I’m Thinking of a
Place” is currently on display at the UCLA Hammer Museum
through April 15. For more information, contact the UCLA Hammer
Museum at (310) 443-7000.