David Hammons was born in Springfield and moved to Los Angeles in 1963 to study art. In the early 1970s, Hammons relocated to New York City, where he lives and works. Hammons creates artwork in an impressive range of media including printmaking, drawing, performance video, found-object sculpture, installation, and painting. Early works include explorations of abstraction created with enamel paint on Masonite; from this beginning, Hammons went on to transform everyday objects—hair gathered from barbershops, chicken bones, empty bottles of liquor, shovels, and paper bags—into allegories of lived black experience. The artist continues to explore the possibilities for painting. Hammons has been instrumental in bringing attention to the historical role of black artists, the limits of social possibility in the art world, and the ways we make meaning.
“I like playing with any material and testing it out. . . . Why should I stay safe? . . . An artist should always be searching and searching for things. Never liking anything he finds, in a total rage with everything, never settling or sacrificing for anything.”