David Hammons, White Cube Mason's Yard

Away from the commotion surrounding Tracey Emin in Bermondsey, White Cube’s Masons Yard is hosting a new exhibition by David Hammons, the notorious performance artist and sculptor who once urinated on a Richard Serra work to convey his distaste for formalist sculpture without any meaning: he named this performance ‘Pissed off’ (1981).
Hammons work is entirely bound up with racial and political issues, influenced greatly by Black Power and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s from the early days of his career. It was during this time that Hammons first came to the attention of the art world with his ‘Body Prints’, a series of imprints of his own African-American body made straight onto greasy paper. In this way Hammons has always made himself central to his work, negotiating his presence in the world in order to tackle contemporary cultural and racial stereotypes. In Hammons’ ‘Spade’(c.1970) for example a series of garden spades became a metaphor for his own race, and gave new meaning to a derogatory term used by prejudiced whites.
Found objects like chicken bones, afro hair and elephant dung often find their way into his work, as he looks back at anti-art movements like Arte Povera and Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Urinal’. He can also be incredibly effective in his simplicity, commenting once: ‘The less I do, the more of an artist I am’.
A clandestine figure that rarely agrees to speak to press or display at major galleries, Hammons is similar to mysterious personas like Andy Warhold or Duchamp who also intently worked in private. Hammons is elusive to say the least, so the opportunity to see his work in the quiet Mason’s Yard space is a gift not to be missed.