Elliott Hundley @ The Hammer

He had been a press darling, and such an astounding up-and-comer that galleries were warring over the right to claim him as their own. But earlier this year, I saw a group show at Peres Projects in which Elliott Hundley failed to live up to the hype. (Truth be told, I felt as though he contributed somethign that looked like a high school stoner's arts and crafts project.) But I'm happy to report that my feelings have changed. Gallery or no gallery, Elliott Hundley's sculptures/installations at the Hammer Museum look mighty incredible. From afar, they swirl with psychadelic yet learned formal gumption, popping the gallery space in and out of itself with an elegance that is relentless, organic, and delicate. In detail, they prick with the tiny pins that keep choice magazine cut-outs in their rightful, fully edited place, and illuminate miniature, mythological maps full of people, places, things culled from the real world. The Rauschenbergian lineage is clear, but there's something of Sarah Sze, Matthew Ritchie, and maybe even some Frank Stella crazy cut-out paintings/Elizabeth Murray 3D paintings; and, better than all of that, Hundley has a massive store of material and whimsy all his own. Sometimes, it's just fantastic to be proved wrong.



Hammer Projects: Elliott Hundley; through September 3rd at the UCLA Hammer Museum.