Preview of Hammer Show

I have all of the work together for my show coming up at the Hammer Museum.

Here's a preview:This is a detail of an image whose frame is partially filled with dirt and glitter.


This one I took a meat cleaver to.

Since the installation at the Hammer deals with the text of a novella about a deteriorating family relationship , I tried to impose upon these images of an empty room something like a psychological wallpaper. I've been interested in how wallpaper is used to ascribe values to an environment in order to provided a daily reminder of class-specific values. I was trying to do something similar without using a repeating pattern, to give a sense of how the characters in my novella react within their space.

And then there's discomfort within fortunate circumstances:

This one is about 7 feet tall.

The second and third pictures are courtesy of the Hammer Museum and were taken by Brian Forrest.

The first picture comes courtesy of Circus Gallery.

A Typically Awkward First Blog Posting

I'd like to begin by thanking the Zachry Horn, who designed and built this site for me. Left to my own devices the site would have been a repellent mixture of dark colors combined to make navigation as difficult as possible.

The full site will be active on January 1. Until then, links within the site may or may not be fully active.

This site provides information about Christopher Russell, the Los Angeles based photographer and writer who graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1998. If you are looking for Christopher Russell, the Bay Area painter who graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 2006, his site is chrisrussellart.com. We have never met, but I rather expect he's experienced the same confusion that I have.

My activities in the near future will be:

11 December 7-10 pm

Union Center for the Arts

120 Judge John Aiso St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

I will be speaking on the topic of personal evasiveness within an art practice.
Ami Tallman will be speaking on the topic of hope and hopelessness.
Darin Klein will workshop the one page book.

January 11-13 Noon to 8 pm
Photo LA
Barker Hangar
3021 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405

I will have work installed and in portfolio boxes at the Circus Gallery Booth.

January 13-April 12
Christopher Russell: Hammer Project
Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024

When visiting the show, please remember that the bookstore will have a very limited quantity of my first book, Landsacpe. This volume has existed largely as rumor and a very limited quantity have been made available for this event. Also, the bookstore will have copies of Bedwetter Issue 5, and Against the Grain, the catalog for the show I curated at LACE during the summer.

January 15 7 pm
Artist's Talk
Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024

I will be speaking about my installation in the museum and making a first attempt to describe "literary installation," the term I've been using to describe my recent text/image projects.