Comments (0) Best F-U NEW YORK Museum - 2010
Hammer Museum
Billionaires covet eponymous museums like starlets pursue bigger breasts, then stock them with established names like rappers flashing their bling. Yet time often transcends such vanities, and a good museum becomes a presenter of breakthrough or unsung work. So beckons the Hammer Museum. Start with architecture that interacts with the street, making its shows Wilshire Boulevard–visible. Add programming that thinks bigger — say, discourses on global politics or surfboard design or a talk with artist-provocateur Paul McCarthy — none of which gets it too far from its primary mission. As well as internationally acclaimed artists, the Hammer consistently reveals new L.A. talent and respects established ones. Mark Bradford showed here five years before he appeared in the Whitney Biennial. Elliot Hundley’s first museum show was here. Meanwhile, retrospectives for the illustrious Richard Hawkins and Llyn Foulkes are in the works, as is an L.A. biennial. And all of it is an easy walk to three bus lines. That’s cosmopolitan. 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Wstwd. (310) 443-7000, hammer.ucla.edu. —Tibby Rothman
