b. Springfield, Illinois, 1943
Untitled
1989
Glass and silicone adhesive
37 1/4 × 37 1/2 × 7 3/4 in. (94.6 × 95.1 × 19.5 cm)
Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 1990 (90.23)
© David Hammons. Photo: Lee Stalsworth
In the 1960s, David Hammons stated, “I feel it is my moral obligation as a black artist to try to graphically document what I feel socially.” Since the Civil Rights Movement, Hammons has centered his practice on sculpture, assemblage, performance, and installation, focusing on aesthetics and cultural symbols often associated with African Americans. He often pulls from the vernacular, using everyday materials to respond to both history and the present-day context in which he creates his works, and to critique and poke fun at cultural stereotypes. In Untitled, Hammons employs discarded bottles of Night Train Express and Thunderbird flavored fortified wine—commonly and historically stereotyped through television programs, advertising, and other media in its association with unhoused and lower-income (and thus, through these same stereotypes, often Black) populations—culled from New York City streets. In refashioning the bottles into an ambiguous circular sculptural form, Hammons removes them from their original context, bestowing on them a beautiful transformation while also elevating them from refuse to a pointed critique of clichés.
