Hammer Museum Presents Summer Exhibitions
Refashioning: CFGNY & Wataru Tominaga and
David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos

Opening Jun 9, 2024

(Los Angeles, CA) —The Hammer Museum at UCLA is pleased to announce its summer exhibition season, led by Refashioning: CFGNY & Wataru Tominaga and David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos. Also opening this summer are a new Hammer Project by New York-based artist Jordan Strafer, an exhibition curated by artist EJ Hill highlighting the museum’s permanent collection, and more.
 
Originally presented at the Japan Society, New York, in 2022–23, Refashioning is the Hammer’s first fashion-forward exhibition, featuring transdisciplinary artists and fashion designers Concept Foreign Garments New York (CFGNY) and Wataru Tominaga. Highlighting garments, accessories, and textile works, the exhibition examines the ways in which these two practices—one based in New York, the other in Tokyo—challenge preconceived notions of gender and identity, and in particular what the artists describe as “vaguely Asian” aesthetics. The exhibition will be on view June 9–August 4.
 
Organized by the Hammer Museum, David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos is the first comprehensive survey in the United States dedicated to the late Filipino artist David Medalla (1938–2020), an influential figure in twentieth-century art. The exhibition, which is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue, contextualizes the elusive and experimental practice of an artist whose pioneering work spanned kinetic, performance, and participatory art movements. The exhibition will be on view at the Hammer June 9–September 15.

Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin said, “Refashioning and David Medalla are two incredibly distinct exhibitions, yet both navigate around slippery notions of identity and queerness. I am excited to share the provocative fashions of CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga with Los Angeles, as their work blurs the line between garments and artmaking. I am equally thrilled to present this important retrospective of David Medalla, which is the result of many years of research and study by the Hammer’s interim chief curator, Aram Moshayedi.”
 
REFASHIONING: CFGNY AND WATARU TOMINAGA
Wide-ranging in their output, the work of CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga is united by an open-ended, pluralistic approach that views fashion as a vessel for new dialogues. Drawing on broad sources for inspiration—from the quotidian attire of New York’s Chinatown residents to the Japanese cute
or “kawaii” aesthetic—CFGNY’s work stems from the idea that fashion is relational, and clothes can be used to cultivate new forms of kinship. This idea of bringing together disparate elements to create a new whole is also evident in the creation of emerging fashion designer, Wataru Tominaga. Based in Tokyo, Japan but with a global perspective informed by his international education and work experience with fashion houses like John Galliano and collaborations with brands like Marimekko, Tominaga’s work layers unexpected cultural references, vibrant colors, patterns, and maximalist volumes to create gender-fluid designs.
 
The exhibition will be presented as two large project spaces for each artist. Featuring garments, textile-based works, sculptures, and video, the exhibition examines the ways in which these two practices experiment with artistic mediums beyond conventional forms of dress to challenge preconceived notions of gender and identity. Alongside a selection of archival garments since the label’s founding in 2016, CFGNY’s installation will also feature a body of ceramic pieces created by casting the space between disparate objects sourced from the designers’ daily lives: a found pair of jeans, dollar store “Made in China” vases, and other imported items. Tominaga’s installation will also feature an archival selection of garments as well as three sculptures inspired by designs of clothing racks and fences in London, where the artist was a student at Chelsea College of Art.   

Refashioning: CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga was organized by Japan Society, New York and curated by Tiffany Lambert, curator. The presentation at the Hammer is organized by Erin Christovale, curator, with Nika Chilewich, former curatorial assistant, and Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi, curatorial associate.

Generous support for Refashioning: CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga is provided by Sonya Yu. Additional support provided by Thomas Lavin.

Media Sponsorship is provided by Flaunt.

DAVID MEDALLA: IN CONVERSATION WITH THE COSMOS
Born in Manila, Philippines, David Medalla is an artist primarily known for his “biokinetic” sculptures produced in London in the 1960s. As cofounder of the influential gallery Signals London, Medalla played a vital role in introducing important global artists such as Lygia Clark, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Takis (Panayiotis Vassilakis) to Britain. In the late 1960s Medalla founded the Exploding Galaxy, an experimental performance group that enacted happenings in public settings across London and performed as an opening act for Pink Floyd and other rock groups. For more than six decades, Medalla presented artworks, installations, and performances in a variety of venues across the globe, from small artist-run spaces to major museums.
 
In Conversation with the Cosmos spans the artist’s career, beginning with early paintings and drawings from the late 1950s and concluding with the last works he produced before his death in 2020.  The exhibition includes an array of works on paper, paintings, art objects, printed ephemera, and other archival materials, as well as one of the artist’s Cloud Canyons, also known as bubble machines, considered by many as a pioneering example of kinetic art. Together these materials narrate Medalla’s personal encounters alongside his involvement in political action, public performances, and exhibitions. An underlying current of this examination focuses on Medalla’s erotic sensibility, an ever-present aspect of his art making that most critical, art historical, and curatorial evaluations have repressed. 
 
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog published by the Hammer and DelMonico Books, featuring essays by Aram Moshayedi, Magalí Arriola, and CJ Salapare, with an extensive chronology of the artist’s life compiled by Nyah Ginwright.
 
David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos is organized by Aram Moshayedi, interim chief curator, with Nyah Ginwright, curatorial assistant.
 
Major support for David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Generous support is provided by Karen Hillenburg, and Christine Meleo Bernstein and Armyan Bernstein. Additional support is provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, David Regan and Edgar Cervantes, John Auerbach and Edward Tang, Beth and Ken Karmin, and Edward Lee.

MORE EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW THIS SUMMER
The Hammer will open three additional new exhibitions this summer, including:

Houseguest: Mute Flesh—EJ Hill Selects from the Grunwald Center Collection
June 1–August 25
Artist EJ Hill is the curator for the latest iteration of Houseguest, a series in which a contemporary artist is invited to create an exhibition from the permanent collection of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts. Mute Flesh explores traces and transcendence in works by Eve Fowler, Barbara T. Smith, Charles White, David Wojnarowicz, and others.
 
Hammer Projects: Jordan Strafer
June 9–August 25
New York-based artist and filmmaker Jordan Strafer’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles presents LOOPHOLE (2023) and DECADENCE (2024), the first two chapters in a planned trilogy of videos set against the backdrop of a fictionalized high-profile rape trial in 1990s-era Florida, pulling from the genre of erotic thrillers and televised court cases from the period.
 
Hammer Projects: Jordan Strafer is organized by Aram Moshayedi, interim chief curator, with Nyah Ginwright, curatorial assistant. DECADENCE was co-commissioned by The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and The Vega Foundation. Hammer Projects: Jordan Strafer is presented in conjunction with a related project at The Renaissance Society, May 4–July 7, 2024.

Hammer Projects is presented in memory of Tom Slaughter and with support from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation. Lead funding is provided by the Hammer Collective. Generous support is also provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, with additional support from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture.
 
Sum of the Parts: Serial Imagery in Printmaking, 1500 to Now
July 13–November 17
Selected from the collection of the Grunwald Center, this exhibition will not only examine prints formally conceived as sets or series, but will equally consider artists’ serial procedures and approaches in prints across five centuries. The exhibition features works by some twenty artists, including Albrecht Dürer, Jacques Callot, Wassily Kandinsky, Henri Matisse, Bridget Riley, and Zarina Hashmi.
 
Organized by Naoko Takahatake, director and chief curator, Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, with Jennie Waldow, Luce Curatorial Fellow.