Global Vision by D. Hammons

Global Vision, 1995, is a large-scale site-specific installation consisting of a concrete mixer and two cassette tape players.

It was first exhibited in Pescara at the Fuori Uso '95 - Caravanserraglio Arte Contemporanea exhibition, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, for which it was created.

Once the grinder is activated, the wheels, moving in a circular motion along the horizontal and vertical axes, create a global vision of the environment enriched by a carefully selected musical selection, featuring tracks by Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown, with profound complementary meanings.

When the grinder turns in one direction, opera music featuring Luciano Pavarotti plays; when it turns in the other direction, you hear songs by James Brown. The artist aims to convey the ambiguous sense of globalization, which in the 1990s was becoming an increasingly widespread political and economic topic.

The artist sees the coexistence of different cultures: bourgeois or aristocratic - like operatic music - and popular and activist - like the music of James Brown. Both nonetheless are overshadowed by a continuous, incessant noise, progressive or retrograde: the grinding and mechanical noise of the concrete mixer that crushes and mixes everything.

Born in 1943 in Springfield, Illinois, David Hammons moved to Los Angeles in 1963, where he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) and the Otis Art Institute.

In 1974, he relocated to New York, where he still resides. Although he did not shy away from participating in exhibitions, galleries, and museums in his early years, for many years the street became the preferred field for his actions and works.

All his works testify to his choice to position himself on the margins of the art system in an absolutely discreet manner.

His practice, which mainly embraces performance and sculpture, is rooted in a profound critique of American society and the elite art world.

His growth occurred in parallel with the rediscovery of African American culture, of which he is one of the main reference points, along with artists like Glenn Ligon, Kara Walker, Mark Bradford, and Theaster Gates.

The recognition of David Hammons' artistic value has been supported over the years by major international critics and curators, from Tom Finkelpearl to Laura Hoptman, from Robert Sill to Kelly Jones, and by major international museums.

This is how art critic Gilda Williams writes in the catalog of Fuori Uso '95 (curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, Umberto Sala, printed in 1996).

All his works mainly address the issues of the relationship between minority Black culture and the increasingly opulent American society, as well as the value and function of art.

The artist mostly uses poor materials found on the street, halfway between Duchampian ready-made and Arte Povera.
Hammons is an acute subverter of symbols with which he expresses dissent, using his own body or transforming everyday objects into "allegories of the outsider's experience in the contemporary world, whether an artist, a stranger, a madman, or more stubbornly, a person of color," as stated in the profile dedicated to him on the MoMA website.

Fuori Uso ’95 - Caravanserraglio Arte Contemporanea, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, was the sixth edition of the annual exhibition produced by the Artenova Association, directed by gallery owner Cesare Manzo, held each time in different abandoned locations in the city of Pescara.

The 1995 edition was particularly significant, attracting over 50,000 visitors, thanks to the participation of 42 international artists.Among them were some highly prestigious names such as Haim Steinbach, Julian Opie, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft, Peter Halley, Joseph Kosuth, Paul McCarthy, Mimmo Paladino, and Enzo Cucchi.T

he site-specific event required artists to come to the location to create their work. David Hammons, as evidenced by the exhibition catalog, photographic and video documents, personal recollections of the curator and visitors of that edition, indeed produced this work on site.