For Immediate Release: January 20, 2015 Contact: Nancy Lee, Manager, Public Relations, 310-443-7016, [email protected]
The Hammer Museum Presents Hammer Projects: Maria Hassabi January 31 – March 1, 2015
Los Angeles— On January 31, 2015, the Hammer Museum will debut a new work entitled PLASTIC by artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi. This live installation, performed continuously throughout the museum’s hours of operation, reflects Hassabi’s interest in the strategies of staging and the relationship between stillness and the physical body. For over a decade, Hassabi’s long-format choreographic works for theaters, galleries, and public spaces have been rooted in the discourses of sculpture, dance, and theater. As much as they negotiate the specific parameters of exhibition, display, and presentation in the area that sits between museum and theater contexts, Hassabi’s works attempt to reconcile the stillness of sculpture with the forms of movement that are inherent to live performance.
Hammer Projects: Maria Hassabi will be on view from January 31 to March 1, 2015.
In PLASTIC, Hassabi’s dancers relate specifically to the spatial conditions of the Hammer Museum. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Hassabi and a group of dancers continuously perform in the gallery and the museum’s outdoor spaces, alongside a new sound composition conceived by artist Morten Norbye Halvorsen. This work bridges the conceptual and physical divide between performer and object, bystander and viewer, while addressing the ways in which dance and the spectacle of performance are presented in theatrical and exhibition contexts. PLASTIC is an extension of Hassabi’s recent works, PREMIERE (2013) and INTERMISSION (2013), presented as part of Performa 13 in New York and the Cypriot and Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, respectively.
Hammer Projects: Maria Hassabi is organized by Aram Moshayedi, curator, with MacKenzie Stevens, curatorial assistant.
ABOUT MARIA HASSABI The New York–based director, choreographer, and artist Maria Hassabi (b. 1973, Nicosia, Cyprus) received a BFA in performance and choreography in 1994 from the California Institute of the Arts. Hassabi’s works have been presented internationally in theaters, festivals, museums, galleries, and public spaces, including Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels (2014); Steirischer Herbst, Graz, Austria (2014);
Image Credits: (Left) Maria Hassabi. INTERMISSION, 2013. Performance at Cypriot and Lithuanian Pavilion, 55th International Venice Biennale, May 28 – June 4, 2013. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Robertas Narkus. (Center) Maria Hassabi. INTERMISSION, 2013. Performance at Cypriot and Lithuanian Pavilion, 55th International Venice Biennale, May 28—June 4, 2013. Phanos Kyriacou’s mixed-media work Eleven hosts, twenty- one guests, nine ghosts (2013) is installed on the bleachers. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Robertas Narkus. (Right) Maria Hassabi. PREMIERE, 2013. Performance at The Kitchen, New York as part of Performa 13, November 6 -9, 2013. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Paula Court. Le Mouvement: Performing the City, CentrePasquArt, Biel, Switzerland (2014); Kunsthall Oslo (2014); Performa, New York (2013, 2009); the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); ImPulsTanz, Vienna (2013, 2011, 2006); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2012); Springdance Festival, Utrecht, Netherlands (2012); The Kitchen, New York (2013, 2011, 2006); Kaaitheater, Brussels (2014, 2013, 2010); Middelheim Museum, Antwerp, Belgium (2012); deSingel, Antwerp, Belgium (2011, 2010); Tanz im August, Berlin (2011); Museo Soumaya, Mexico City (2011); Panorama Festival, Rio de Janeiro (2012); Festival Contemporâneo de Dança, São Paulo (2012); and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art TBA Festival, Portland, Oregon (2010). Hassabi is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of the 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists Award.
CREDIT Hammer Projects: Maria Hassabi is organized by Aram Moshayedi, curator, with MacKenzie Stevens, curatorial assistant.
Maria Hassabi: PLASTIC is co-commissioned by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Hammer Projects is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, Hope Warschaw and John Law, and Maurice Marciano.
Additional support is provided by Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, the Decade Fund, and the David Teiger Curatorial Travel Fund.
Special thanks to 4Wall Entertainment, Acne Studios, the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, and the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance.
The artists would like to thank Steven Kahn for his kind support and generosity, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Dance Development 2013–2014 program, French Institute / Alliance Française, and the Office for Contemporary Art Norway.
ABOUT THE HAMMER MUSEUM The Hammer Museum at UCLA believes in the promise of art and ideas to illuminate lives and build a just world. Free to the public, the museum’s collections, exhibitions, and programs span the classic to the contemporary in art, architecture, and design. As a cultural center, the Hammer Museum offers nearly 300 free public programs a year, including lectures, readings, symposia, film screenings, and music performances at the Billy Wilder Theater which also houses the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The Hammer’s international exhibition program focuses on wide-ranging thematic and monographic exhibitions, highlighting contemporary art since the 1960s and the work of emerging artists through Hammer Projects and the Hammer’s biennial, Made in L.A. The Hammer is home of the Armand Hammer Collection of American and European paintings, as well as the Armand Hammer Daumier and Contemporaries Collection and the Hammer Contemporary Collection. The Hammer Contemporary Collection focuses on art of all media since 1960 with an emphasis on works of the last ten years, works on paper, and art made in Los Angeles. 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 Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden at UCLA.
HAMMER MUSEUM INFORMATION Admission to all exhibitions and programs at the Hammer Museum is free and open to the public. Visit www.hammer.ucla.edu for current exhibition and program information and call 310-443-7041 for tours. Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–8pm, Saturday & Sunday 11am–5pm. Closed Mondays and national holidays. The Hammer is located at 10899 Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, Los Angeles. Parking is available onsite for $3 (maximum 3 hours) or for a $3 flat rate after 6pm. 2