It was in Harlem, about two decades ago, at a time before visits to gospel services became integrated into tourist itineraries. One bright Sunday morning in autumn, a friend and I, who were spending some time in New York, made our way uptown on the subway, and with some difficulty found the inconspicuous church where the service was to be held. We were greeted politely, and after being told that a modest financial contribution would be welcome and expected, we were shown to seats towards the back of a large room. My friend, Kazuo Katase, was more at ease than me; as the only white person in the church, I found myself feeling unexpectedly self-conscious and something of a voyeur. The hall was only partially filled, its atmosphere informal and relaxed; people came and went, chatted amongst themselves, and the choir soon began to go through the motions, singing enthusiastically but without a great deal of passion. Musicians, carrying instruments, would occasionally walk up to the front and join in, and from time to time the pastor would encourage the congregation to praise the Lord. It made for a pleasant and memorable morning, but the service had little of the transcendence of ‘Amazing Grace’.
We were told about the church by the African American artist David Hammons, an acquaintance of Kazuo’s, with whom I especially wanted to work at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin. We had met on Friday evening at a downtown African institute, where he had been watching a film about revolutionaries in Tanzania. As we walked in the dusk towards the restaurant in the East Village where we were going to eat, Hammons bent down to pick up two pairs of expensive high-heeled shoes and several potted plants that had been left on the pavement outside a nearby house, something that New Yorkers often do when they want to dispose of unwanted possessions. I had no idea why he would want such things, but a short while later it became clear. He took us to the spot where, in 1983, he had made one of his most celebrated artworks, ‘Bliz-aard Sale’, a performance piece that involved the sale of carefully crafted snowballs on the side of the street. There were already several people standing at the corner, all with apparently valueless items positioned in front of them. Without comment, Hammons placed the shoes and plants in a careful straight line. We waited for a few minutes, and then walked on, leaving the objects behind. Later, in the restaurant, after discussion of a book about African coffins, fantastic creations modelled on cars, animals, fish, fruit, and vegetables, the conversation flowed easily but took some unexpected turns. I could see that Hammons was taking a certain pleasure in catching us off-guard. This was characteristic; reputed to have several homes in the city where he could spend the night, and refusing to tie himself to a particular commercial gallery, Hammons enjoyed playing the part of a trickster. He did it very well, and as a consequence I never quite succeeded in asking him if he would be interested in showing in Dublin.
The mercurial Hammons seems not to have changed much since then, and although he remains uncommitted to any of them, he has since been taken up and courted by several important galleries. One is Hauser & Wirth, with which he recently held the largest survey of his work to date and his first in Los Angeles for forty-five years. Dedicated to the memory of the jazz musician Ornette Coleman and called ‘Harmolodic Thinker’, the show had no press release, no checklist of works, and no labels other than the occasional pencilled scrawl on a wall. Alongside clearly finished artworks, such as his beautiful drawings made with basketballs, found-object sculptures, and some grubby abstract paintings, there were dozens of informal oddments from the artist’s archive, and some Ornette Coleman memorabilia, which may have included the pair of suits that were on display.
In the gallery’s central courtyard there was a colourful cluster of camping tents, on some of which Hammons had stencilled the words ‘this could be u’. The tents probably referred to the problem of homelessness in LA, perhaps especially in areas adjacent to the gentrified Art District. Hammons being what he is, though, the piece may not have been what it seemed. A review of the exhibition in Frieze magazine, entitled ‘Is David Hammons Trolling His Gallery?’, went on to suggest that that ‘the installation is a trap: a parody of pious, politically activist art’, and quoted Hammons’ statement that ‘I can’t stand art, actually. I’ve never liked art, ever’. This well-known remark, typical of the artist, sheds a mystifying light on his exhibitions at blue-chip galleries and the extraordinary sale of a glass basketball hoop adorned with backboard, lights, and chandeliers, which was knocked down at auction in 2013 for $8 million. It is said that the piece was consigned by the artist himself.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/13/amazing-grace-review-aretha-franklin-documentary
https://www.hauserwirth.com/hauser-wirth-exhibitions/24162-david-hammons-los-angeles