In Pat Steir’s large-scale, black-and-white abstraction July Waterfall (1991), water is portrayed in abundant form, cascading downwards, while in Maren Hassinger’s 1972 sculpture River, water acts as a proxy for the nostalgic imagery that Didion used to describe her Sacramento roots. The exhibition’s first section takes as a theme water and fluidity, abounding with references to the American West. Installation view of “Joan Didion: What She Means” 2022–23, at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Alongside the Hammer’s chief curator Connie Butler, Als organized the exhibition according to Didion’s biography, beginning with a section focused on Didion’s upbringing in Sacramento and move to Berkeley and ending with an examination of the latter part of her life, in which she grappled with grief, over the death of her husband and daughter. “I think that one of the things that is very important to me as a writer and as a visual person is to figure out the ways in which text and image can work together,” he said.Īcross more than 200 objects, spanning paintings, sculpture, photography, video, and ephemera, the exhibition, which is on view until February 19 before it travels to the Pérez Art Museum Miami in July, includes work by artists like Ed Ruscha, Irving Penn, and Andy Warhol, whom Didion collected, alongside the work of several major contemporary artists like Betye Saar, Noah Purifoy, Jack Pierson, Suzanne Jackson, Glenn Ligon, and Martin Puryear, among others. Parsing Didion’s biography through visuals is a massive task, Als said, and he has aimed to compose the Hammer show with an experimental spirit in mind. “I’m always looking to see the effects of that kind of feeling in exhibitions.”

“They weren’t prescribed to what an exhibition in the museum was supposed to be,” Als recalled of the 1980 show.

In addition to including objects related to Didion and artists who have honored her in the work, Als wanted his show to draw from exhibitions that have stuck with him over the years, like “The Times Square Show,” a 1980 raucous convening of more than 100 New York artists organized by Colab (aka Collaborative Projects Inc.). With Didion’s permission, Als began working on this new show in 2019, roughly two years before her passing. “I think that the shows are in some way, the visual equivalent of essay writing,” Als told ARTnews in an interview. This genre of portrait exhibitions is a familiar one for Als, who has organized similar shows dedicated to writers Toni Morrison and James Baldwin and artists Alice Neel and Frank. In Los Angeles, the Hammer Museum's 20-Year Makeover Ends on a Subtle Note

What joan didion means