03/10/2026
Join us for our next Burke Lecture Guest, Dr. Sampada Aranke presenting "The Hammons Effect" on Friday March 27th at 4pm in Martin Commons at the Eskenazi Museum of Art. Dr. Aranke is an Associate Professor of History of Art and Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University.
This talk will consider the ways that famed Black American conceptual artist David Hammons cites, leverages, and operationalizes white, western canons to probe the generative limits
of art historical discourse and canonization. The artist’s intentional engagement with the practices and legacies of artists whose oeuvres have formed an avant-garde western canon like Duchamp, Klein, Matta-Clark, is not about mere adoration, but in fact a strategic assessment, if not deformation, of art historical discourses. Operating like a trojan horse, Hammons has seamlessly created opportunities for alignment and association, making it so that named collectors of Duchamp and museums that collect Matta-Clark have incomplete collections if they do not own a work by Hammons. This project will work alongside two key Hammons works, The Holy Bible: Old Testament (2002) and Days End (2021) to consider how the artist reeks disciplinary canons in order to make radically renewed associations.
Sponsored by the Robert E. & Avis Tarrant Burke Lecture
Fund in the Department of Art History
Events are free and open to the public.
Images: David Hammons, Day’s End, 2014. Graphite on Paper, sheet: 8.5 x 11in. (21.6 x 27.9 cm). Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York; gift of the artist 2021.11
Bottom: David Hammons, Day’s End, 2014–21. Stainless steel I=and precast concrete, overall: 52 x 65 x
325 feet. © David Hammons. Photo: Timothy Schenck
