Extra Credit Event 1: The Hammer Museum

On Thursday December 5th I visited the Hammer Museum! 

The Hammer Museum, also known as The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center at UCLA is free to the public and operated by UCLA's School of Arts and Architecture. 

Before entering the museum, I assumed that I would be seeing many examples of how the worlds of art and mathematics are related by just observing the outside structure of the museum. The building appears to be almost an exact cube structure containing perfectly aligned grey and white stripes.

Outside view of the building

Upon entering the museum I was surrounded by even more images of geometric art! This display by artist Maya Hayuk was simply mesmerizing. The vivid colors and shapes are intricately weaved together to create a large than life masterpiece.

In the above painting by Maya Hayuk the two black triangles are seen as the center of the piece. The painting appears to be symmetrical at a first glance. However, when one looks closer, only some parts of the painting are symmetrical. Notice that the middle portion of the painting (where the rainbows are) contains the same image on both sides; however the large pink horizontal line is not seen on both sides of the painting. 

One of the pieces from Geometric Abstractions

There was also an exhibit containing Geometric Abstractions (from 2008-2012). These photographs were created by laying strips of paper on black and white photographic film. The white areas were then painted with bright colors. Geometric Abstractions is a continuation of the work first produced in 1998 by Welling called New Abstractions. 

The geometric theme was further displayed throughout many other parts of the museum.

Geometric shapes on the couches

Geometric centerpiece in the outside courtyard

 I also had the opportunity to see many paintings that portrayed realistic portraits of people. This allowed me to witness the relationship between art and science. The amount of detail that these artists' devoted towards the intricate details of the human body created extremely realistic images.

This painting entitled Salome Dancing before Herod by artist Gustave Moreau displays images of a dancing woman and depicts the rhythmic lifelike movements of the human body.

This painting (Rembrant harmensz. van Rijn) depicts Juno, the Roman goddess and wife of Jupiter. Her body physique and lifelike facial expression display a very empowering woman. 

Overall, I had a really great time at the Hammer Museum and would definitely it to other students!