The Living World Feels Dead at the Hammer
“Several Eternities” feels overly careful and unable to combust as fully as it could have.
LOS ANGELES — The rumbling in a small foyer in the Hammer Museum gave me pause before I entered a gallery where eight boulders hunkered amidst piles of soil. I couldn’t help but look up at the rattling of track lights overhead. Was this my first California earthquake of the millennium?
Somewhat reassuringly, nearby wall text explained that Raven Chacon’s sound piece “Study for Vertical Earth” (2026) had translocated underground audio recordings to animate the constructed space of the galleries. This unsettling beginning for the exhibition Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials induces a sense of immersion in a specific place, in contrast to the dozens of standalone, mostly visual pieces of sculpture and painting. Accompanying signage provides reminders of the not-always-visible spirits which, like the vibrations of Chacon’s audio interventions, inhabit the world around us. This connection to such animated spirits through living forms is one primary principle underlying the show.
