Untitled (Rock Head) 2005

Curator: Welcome. We’re standing before David Hammons’ “Untitled (Rock Head)” from 2005, a mixed-media sculpture incorporating found objects and charcoal. It’s deceptively simple, yet holds a quiet power. What’s your initial take? Editor: Hauntingly primal, like something unearthed from a forgotten ritual site. The dark charcoal mass perched atop the stone feels both heavy and precariously balanced. It whispers of elemental forces, you know? A somber mood... Curator: Interesting, primal is spot on. Hammons often plays with the inherent symbolism of everyday objects. That stark contrast—the raw, earthy rock against the almost velvet-like charcoal—feels loaded. It's abstraction flirting with figuration. I wonder if the cultural implications are that primal. Editor: The dark mass, it's evocative! Like soot, or volcanic ash, a visual echo of mourning rituals, maybe even a crown of mourning or is that wishful thinking? Perhaps this 'head' is crowned with something we usually don't regard as beautiful, powerful though. The cultural implications go deeper than just primal forces, hinting at societal wounds, at least to me. It doesn't have the beauty that Greek Sculpture did, instead it hints that we are dirtying something inherently innocent. Curator: Perhaps, that might be a reading, but the man who would place basketball hoops into surreal landscapes... To call Hammons subversive would be a serious understatement. I'm also seeing echoes of the Afro, of Blackness idealized, abstracted into almost geological form. Like, how we are our own foundation for power and progress. Editor: Right, Hammons is definitely challenging aesthetic norms! The shape itself—vaguely egg-like—suggests potential, but that darkened crown makes it almost foreboding, yeah? And an Afro that is being burnt by the sun as we speak. The symbol isn't about the form itself but it's decaying state or even being reborn as ash. It gets reborn as something, there is some positive outlook, though bleak in expression. Curator: Absolutely, the 'decaying' is a fantastic observation! It’s in that tension, between potential and ruin that Hammons lives, always holding space for uncomfortable beauty and quiet defiance. Thanks for that illuminating reading! Editor: A shared pleasure. And now I wonder about the future that our symbols tell... what archeological team in the distant future will try to discern from this forgotten totem?