The Hammer Museum
For one of the most boundary-pushing art museums in Los Angeles, we knew we had to put their subversive spirit front and center in our campaign. A manifesto came pretty quickly from there:
The Hammer was built as a home for bold movements by people with bolder ideas.
We champion art that makes people uncomfortable and changes how they see the world in a few brushstrokes. We’re not here to make you pay admission, or scold you for taking photos. We’re here to let you ask the questions and dismiss the answers. To give you the flint to spark new ideas, movements, actions – and, maybe one day, art that demands a place on our walls.
But none of that’s ever going to happen by playing it safe. To be truly bold is to create, inspire, and revolt.
Enjoy our museum however you want to – as long as you start dismantling the status quo on your way out.
ASK, INSPIRE, REVOLT
EXTENSIONS
The simple truth is that sometimes, we all want to revolt.
Teachers, bosses, oppression, greed, the system… everyone’s got their cause, but too often, we talk ourselves out of speaking out. Whether we’re pacified by politeness or afraid of getting our wrists slapped, revolutionary thought still lingers in us, waiting anxiously to be released.
Here at the Hammer, we’d like to give it that release.
Each month in our museum and in ads around Los Angeles, we’ll post a bold question that demands some of that revolutionary thinking you’ve been holding onto. Tell us: is all art valid? Is there a history lesson you wish you were taught more honestly in school? What’s one part of your identity that’s regularly silenced?
We’ll rotate some of our favorite revolutionary submissions via ticker tape displays and monitors in our lobby. The message is simple: if you never thought you’d see a revolutionary forum with ideas like yours on a wall, wait until you see the rest of our museum.
Most high schools have only one solution for free thinkers: detention.
At the Hammer, we have a different response for the radicals: we want you here.
The Hammer is partnering with the Los Angeles Unified School District to create a new after school program - where once you may have landed in detention, you now have the option to shape your artistic future. Each month, we’ll invite performance artists, noise makers, and fellow free thinkers further along in their careers to discuss their process and offer a forum to share yours.
Where others see rebellion, we see potential.
Bring your potential to fruition at the Hammer’s Detention Reinvention program.
DETENTION REINVENTION
Copy: Tim Gagnon and Conor O’Callaghan
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