Hammer Museum offers free admission

The Hammer Museum in Westwood has announced free admission during the summer season. For the first time, all of the museum’s special exhibitions, permanent collection galleries and public programs will be presented free of charge to all visitors through Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4.

“The Hammer Museum has a popular tradition of offering its public programs free of charge, and we look forward to celebrating the 2005 summer season by inviting museum visitors into the exhibition and collection galleries for free as well,” said Hammer director Ann Philbin. “We’ve noticed that attendance is always highest during our free Thursdays, and many people regularly enjoy the public courtyard and free programs. Completely opening the museum for an entire season is something of an experiment and will make some of the city’s best art and culture accessible to all Los Angeles residents and visitors.”

Hammer Summer 2005 includes exhibitions ranging from video installations by Patty Chang and Fiona Tan and a survey of photography by Stephen Shore to ongoing Hammer projects and the permanent collection of masters including works by Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Cezanne.

The museum continues its tradition of presenting a diverse schedule of enlightening and entertaining summer programs, which include outdoor music performances and film screenings, intimate readings of contemporary fiction and poetry, and lectures and conversations on popular culture, politics and the arts.

Outdoor courtyard events include the following.

The museum is pleased to announce a new collaboration with the Sundance Institute, presenting Sundance Summer Shorts at the Hammer. This series of awardwinning short films was co-organized by the Sundance Institute and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where it was previously shown. The Hammer Museum is the only West Coast venue for this four-part series showcasing the innovation and energy in the field of short films from 2005 and past Sundance film festivals. Screenings will take place in the Hammer’s outdoor courtyard on consecutive Friday nights beginning July 8.

From narrative to documentary to animation, the program features such directors as Spike Jonze, Andrew Jarecki, Phil Morrison, Peter Sollett and Andrea Arnold. This series was organized by John Cooper, director of programming, Sundance Film Festival; Trevor Groth, senior programmer, Sundance Film Festival; and Jytte Jensen, curator, Department of Film and Media at the Museum of Modern Art.

Inspired by the words of Lou Reed, “Also I Like to Rock” is a series of outdoor concerts showcasing up-and-coming rock bands from San Francisco and Los Angeles. Transforming the Hammer courtyard into a venue with a stage to rock, this three-part series will be presented on consecutive Thursday nights beginning July 14 and will feature two to three bands each evening, accompanied by projected images of great moments in rock-film history. Bands featured are Space Mtn, Monsters Are Waiting, Vagenius, The Ebb & Flow, Bedroom Walls, Club Unicornio and My Barbarian. The bands take the stage at 8 p.m. and doors and cash bar open at 7 p.m.