For Immediate Release: August 12, 2013 Contact: Morgan Kroll, Manager, Public Relations, 310-443-7016, [email protected]

THE HAMMER MUSEUM PRESENTS MARK LECKEY: ON PLEASURE BENT August 31 – December 8, 2013

Los Angeles— Through a multidisciplinary practice that encompasses sculpture, sound, film, and performance, the British artist Mark Leckey explores the potential of the human imagination to appropriate and to animate a concept, an object, or an environment. Drawing on his experiences as a London-based artist who spent his formative years in the north of England, Leckey returns frequently to ideas of personal history, desire, and transformation in his work. Objects and our relationships with them have become focal points for him in his attempt to—as Douglas Adams writes of one of the characters in his novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)—“grip and grapple with every object he touche[s] in order to render it, and thereby himself, substantial.” Leckey places his work somewhere between magic and morbidity.

On Pleasure Bent presents a new body of work in which Leckey attempts to form a kaleidoscopic memoir constructed from “found memories,” assembling his past from the imagery that he believes conditioned him. Taking its title from an LP by the British comedian Kenneth Williams, the exhibition is an attempt to make sense of Leckey’s own desires and pleasures and their imbrications with technology. On Pleasure Bent is also the title of a film in progress exploring these ideas and issues, and the exhibition features a trailer or teaser for the film, along with Pearl Vision (2012), a video made during his residency at the Hammer. The galleries are each painted one of the primary colors of video—red, green, and blue—reflecting Leckey’s interest in technology and the fundamental colors of picture making and audiovisual technology. In addition to the videos, the exhibition includes LED screens featuring looped animations, “scintillating grids,” liquid crystal displays overlaid with images, and cinema lobby–style “standees.” On Pleasure Bent circles back to the interests that shaped Leckey’s career in its formative years and thus synthesizes a number of concerns that have spanned his entire practice.

Mark Leckey: On Pleasure Bent was organized by Ali Subotnick, curator, with Emily Gonzalez, curatorial assistant. Above: Mark Leckey. Trailer for On Pleasure Bent, 2013. Video, color, sound. Running time not yet determined. Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown's enterprise. © The artist.

ABOUT THE ARTIST Mark Leckey was born in , England, in 1964 and lives and works in London. He received his BA from Newcastle Polytechnic. Leckey has exhibited his videos, multimedia installations, sculptures, and widely and has had solo shows at the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada (2012); the Serpentine Gallery, London (2011); Milton Keynes Gallery, Milton Keynes, England (2010); Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2009); Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2007); Portikus, (2005); and Migros Museum, Zurich (2003). His work has been included in numerous important international exhibitions, including Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace, Venice Biennale (2013); Ghosts in the Machine, New Museum, New York (2012); 10,000 Lives, Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea (2010); Moving Images: Artists & Video/Film, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2010); Playing Homage, Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery; Sympathy for the Devil, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2007); Istanbul Biennial (2005); and Manifesta 5, European Biennial of Contemporary Art, San Sebastián, Spain (2004). Leckey has presented his lecture/performances at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the , New York, and he participated in Performa 11 (2011) in New York. Leckey recently organized the traveling exhibition The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things for the in London, and he will participate in the 2013 Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. In 2008 Leckey received the and the Central Art Award, Kölnischer Kunstverein. He is currently reader in fine art at Goldsmiths, London, and from 2005 to 2009 he was professor of film studies at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, . His work is in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Het Domein Sittard, the Netherlands; Gallery, London; Trussardi Foundation, Milan; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

ABOUT THE HAMMER MUSEUM The Hammer Museum—a public arts unit of the University of California, Los Angeles—is dedicated to exploring the diversity of artistic expression through the ages. Its collections, exhibitions, and programs span the classic to the cutting-edge in art, architecture, and design, recognizing that artists play a crucial role in all aspects of culture and society.

The museum houses the Armand Hammer Collection of old master, impressionist, and postimpressionist paintings and the Armand Hammer Daumier and Contemporaries Collection. The museum also houses the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts—comprising more than 45,000 prints, drawings, photographs, and artists’ books from the Renaissance to the present—and oversees the management of the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden on the UCLA campus. The Hammer’s newest collection, the Hammer Contemporary Collection, is highlighted by works by artists such as Lari Pittman, Kara Walker, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, Mark Bradford, Richard Hawkins, and Llyn Foulkes, among many others. The Hammer presents major single-artist and thematic exhibitions of historical and contemporary art. It also presents approximately ten Hammer Projects exhibitions each year, providing international and local artists with a laboratory-like environment to create new work or to present existing work in a new context.

As a cultural center, the Hammer offers a diverse array of free public programs throughout the year, including lectures, readings, symposia, film screenings, and music performances. These widely acclaimed public programs are presented in the Hammer’s Billy Wilder Theater, which is also the new home of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s renowned cinemathèque.

HAMMER MUSEUM INFORMATION For current program and exhibition information, call 310-443-7000 or visit www.hammer.ucla.edu.

Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–8pm; Saturday & Sunday 11am–5pm; closed Mondays, July 4, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

Admission: $10 for adults; $5 for seniors (65+) and UCLA Alumni Association members; free for museum members, students with identification, UCLA faculty/staff, military personnel, veterans, and visitors 17 and under. The museum is free on Thursdays for all visitors. Public programs are always free.

Location/Parking: The Hammer is located at 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, at Westwood Boulevard. Parking is available under the Museum. Rate is $3 for three hours with museum validation. Bicycles park free.

Hammer Museum Tours: For group tour reservations and information, call 310-443-7041.