COURTESY MMA
It feels like not a week goes by without word coming in of a new museum, gallery, or expansion in Los Angeles. Coming across the transom today is news that the Hammer Museum is embarking on a plan to add 40,000 square feet and renovate its existing home. Heading up the project, which is slated for a 2020 completion, is Michael Maltzan, who has also designed other spaces at the museum.
The new square footage is located in an office tower adjoining the Hammer’s current home. In total, the renovation will result in 60 percent more room for galleries. The Hammer notes in a new release that it has the third-largest collection in L.A, so officials there are, as you might imagine, pretty excited about having more room to show it.
“This transformation will provide 60 percent more exhibition space including collection galleries and a works on paper gallery to highlight our growing collection of photographs and drawings,” Ann Philbin, the Hammer’s director, said in a statement.
And if you’re in the City of Angels this weekend, there are big things happening at the Hammer! On Sunday, January 29, it will open a retrospective by the estimable Jimmie Durham, as well as “Dubuffet Drawings, 1935–1962,” a stellar show that originated at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York earlier this year.