Phillips' Deputy Chairwoman, Europe, Marianne Hoet reflects on her father's deep friendship with American artist David Hammons and her visit to the artist’s studio in Harlem in the 1980s:
‘At the studio, we were able to touch objects and works, without being sure if it was an object or already an artwork. At that time, David always gathered objects and found inspiration in the streets. As an outsider in the contemporary scene, he was able to transform material into experience, which also alludes to an African-American tradition of creating art from found objects … Most important was to understand and feel the deep friendship between David and my father. It was a friendship as we remember from our childhood, soulmates as outsiders.’
Born in 1943 in Springfield, Illinois, Hammons moved to Los Angeles in 1963 to study art. In 1974 he relocated to New York, where he lives and works today, and began his lifelong practice of making sculptures from the highly charged detritus of urban African American life. Hammons’ work is collected by major public and private institutions internationally, including Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge; Glenstone, Potomac; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; SMAK, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent; Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; Francois Pinault Foundation, Venice; and Tate Britain, London.