The Hammer Museum at UCLA

On Wednesday January 27, 2016 at 7:30PM I attended a screening of the documentary, Heart of a Dog, by Laurie Anderson at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. I had never been to the museum or even heard of it, but after attending this screening an learning about their mission I was extremely impressed. There mission statement is, “The Hammer Museum at UCLA believes in the promise of art and ideas to illuminate our lives and build a more just world,” and all of the screenings and events held at the museum are free, which I find incredible, because spreading ideas through art to a community for free can make a huge difference. There is something special about the arts that everybody should experience and that is perspective, because each individual will find and take away something unique from the same piece of art that will hopefully better themselves and expand their mind to be accepting of many things.

The documentary was beautiful in that it took us inside the mind and memories of the filmmaker, Laurie Anderson, who had dealt with many deaths in her life and trying to find the reason for why we love something or somebody. Even though art and film may have very personal stories to tell, the human mind has the capacity to relate to other peoples troubles and find an imagined truth behind them. While I am not going to go in the theory behind documentary films, I will say that their purpose is to illustrate a truth in a certain way, and without art it is hard for people, especially communities of people to find new truths when they all live around common beliefs. This is what is amazing about Los Angeles and the invention of it was fueled by imagination, so it is fair to say that in a city built on imagination it is only fair to have art on display for free.

So overall, I believe the Hammer Museum is an awesome place because of how it gives back to the city of Los Angeles with new ideas and I hope to find more places like this by exploring the great city of Los Angeles. I would highly recommend checking it out, because they have so many free screenings of great films and even have a night where people can showcase their own films to an audience. Even the design of the museum is extremely creative and you have to go there to really experience it and all of the great art it has to offer.