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David Hammons
Putting on Sunday Manners, 1990

Artwork Info

Artwork title
Putting on Sunday Manners
Artist name
David Hammons
Date created
1990
Classification
sculpture
Medium
Inner tube, chair back, flipper, tennis ball, nails, and wire
Dimensions
32 in. × 24 in. × 16 1/2 in. (81.28 cm × 60.96 cm × 41.91 cm)
Date acquired
1991
Credit
Collection SFMOMA
Accessions Committee Fund purchase: gift of Frances and John Bowes, Collectors' Forum, Byron R. Meyer, and Mary W. Thacher
Copyright
© David Hammons
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/91.66
Artwork status
Not on view at this time.

Audio Stories

Who’s looking at whom in this artwork?

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transcripts

NARRATOR: If you’re feeling a little squirmy, you’re not alone. Artist David Hammons explores some uncomfortable truths about being black in America. No material, or subject, is off limits. In one notorious incident, Hammons painted a larger-than-life portrait of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and installed it in a Washington, D.C. parking lot. But here’s the thing – the painted the revered civil rights leader…as a white man. What happened next says a lot about the artist, and America’s conversation around race.

 

DAVID HAMMONS: It was when he was running for president, so it says, “How you like me, [background noise] now that I’m blonde hair and blue eyed and— Am I worthy of being president of this country?”

 

And it was sledgehammered. It was sledgehammered by some youths who [background noise] protested against it, ’cause they didn’t get the humor in the piece. So after the sledgehammer accident, [background noise] I decided to put the sledgehammers in front of the piece. [laughter] And every time someone asked me what did I think of them hitting it with a sledgehammer, I just explained that they were anointing it. It wasn’t being damaged, it was going through its— a purification of the community. [background noise]

 

SFX: Crowd reaction fades

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Audio Description

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transcripts

NARRATOR:

This is The Girl with Green Eyes, by Henri Matisse from 1908. At the center of this painting, a young woman gazes directly at the viewer through wide, greenish blue eyes the color of tropical water.  Matisse uses black outlines to separate the woman from the explosive colors and patterns all around her. Her heart-shaped face, with its peachy skin tone, serene expression, and luscious red lips, is the calm center of this composition. She wears a hat that is like a layer cake: three disks of blue and purple atop a wide gold brim. Below her chin, a high white collar is like a pedestal for her face. She wears an orange smock that curves over her shoulders, dominating the lower half of the painting. The abstract design on the bodice of her smock is made up of blotches of yellow, with darker squiggles, suggesting a finely embroidered garment. Matisse surrounds this elegantly dressed woman with colorful textured brushstrokes that could be interpreted as wallpaper, tapestries, or objects on shelves. Above the woman’s right shoulder, two tall aqua blue shapes appear to be ceramic flower vases with a hint of a Japanese pattern. 

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Other Works by David Hammons

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