Event 1: Hammer Museum

The first time I had visited the Hammer Museum was with my family when I just started out at UCLA last year and loved how interesting and captivating all the pieces of artwork were. This time around I had gone by myself and was surprised to see how different all the current exhibits were. The first thing that caught my attention inevitably were the spinning chairs. I completely thought I would tip over if I started spinning but to my surprise, it didn’t. These chairs were a product of Thomas Heatherwick’s exhibition, Provocations. I was so confused as to how I was not tipping over but it is evident that math had to have played a role in designing these chairs because the artist had to make sure to do it in such a way that one would not fall of.          

All of the artwork was great but I found Charles Gaines, Gridwork to be the most intriguing and my personal favorite. I found this exhibit in particular to be closely related to what we covered in unit 2, Math + Art. Comparable to what I stated above, when I first saw the exhibit it appeared to be a colorful tree and as I approached it I noticed it is composed of numbered squares projected onto a grid pattern. There were numerous projects similar to this one and I really enjoyed and appreciated the contribution of math and science to compose such aesthetically pleasing pieces of artwork. And after taking DESMA 9, it is neat to be able to connect the concepts learned throughout the course and have a new appreciation for something I hadn't before.