Images(5)

David Hammons, Pissed Off

Datenegative 1981, printed 2019

Maker Dawoud Bey American, born 1953

Label TextDawoud Bey’s series of photographs record two actions by artist David Hammons made in response to the installation of Richard Serra’s monumental public sculpture in Tribeca, New York. In the first, Hammons is urinating on the sculpture, an irreverent and confrontational gesture responding to the social and art world politics of Serra. Serra’s monumental statement in solid steel is met by the most ordinary and ephemeral of human activities. Bey documents the action itself, as well as Hammons subsequently in conversation with a police officer, providing his identification. Visiting the sculpture a second time, Hammons threw twenty-five pairs of shoes over its edge, calling up the Black urban vernacular of sneakers dangling from power lines.

Object number2019.13

ProvenanceThe artist; [Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California]; purchased from gallery by Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2019

Photo CreditPhoto: Scott Leen

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Reverberations: Contemporary Art and Modern Classics, Dec. 22, 2022 - ongoing [on view Dec. 22, 2022 - June 11, 2023].Published ReferencesLakin, Max. “A Meeting Of Two Creative Minds.” The New York Times, May 2, 2019: p. 13, reproduced. [A version of this article appears online on May 1, 2019 with the headline: “When Dawoud Bey Met David Hammons,” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/arts/design/dawoud-bey-david-hammons-jam-frieze.html.] Naeem, Asma. The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art and Saint Louis Art Museum, in association with Gregory Miller & Co., 2023: pp.25-26, reproduced pp. 25.

Credit LineGeneral Acquisition Fund and Modern Art Acquisition Fund; by exchange, Robert B. and Honey Dootson Collection; David Hoberman; Seattle Artfair and the Estate of Mary Arrington Small

Dimensions44 x 30 1/2 in. (111.8 x 77.5 cm) 23 1/2 x 33 in. (59.7 x 83.8 cm) 23 x 33 in. (58.4 x 83.8 cm) 23 x 33 in. (58.4 x 83.8 cm)

MediumFour archival pigment prints