Image: ‘Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials’, installation view, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, April 5–August 23, 2026. Courtesy of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles will mark the closing weekend of ‘Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials’ with an afternoon symposium featuring artists, curators and scholars. Titled ‘The Manifestation of Form: Living Materials in Contemporary Art,’ the programme runs from 2pm to 5pm on Saturday, August 22, one day before the exhibition closes on August 23. The Hammer Museum at UCLA co-presents the symposium with the Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Jessi DiTillio, curatorial assistant at the Hammer Museum, will give the welcome and opening remarks, and artist Rose B. Simpson will deliver the keynote address. A panel discussion follows with artist Carmen Argote, Idurre Alonso, Head of Modern and Contemporary Art and Curator of Latin American Collections at the Getty Research Institute, and Silvia Forni, Shirley & Ralph Shapiro Director of the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Pablo José Ramírez, Curator at the Hammer Museum and the exhibition’s curator, will moderate, and an audience Q&A is scheduled.
The symposium’s title follows the exhibition’s focus on “living materials,” as described by the Hammer. The published programme does not specify the individual works or themes that will be discussed, but its lineup brings together practitioners and researchers from contemporary art, museum curation and university and museum scholarship. Simpson and Argote will represent artist perspectives, while Alonso and Forni will contribute institutional and curatorial viewpoints.
The event will be followed by a reception commemorating the closing of ‘Several Eternities in a Day’. The exhibition, which opened on April 5, 2026, remains on view through Sunday, August 23, at the Hammer Museum. The museum’s newsletter also lists a conversation-based exhibition tour led by Hammer educators at 1pm on August 22, before the symposium begins.
A separate artist-led programme is scheduled for the same Saturday, from 1pm to 5pm. ‘Art Lab x Markings’ will be led by ‘Several Eternities in a Day’ artist Jackie Amézquita in collaboration with AMBOS and Heart of LA. The bilingual community workshop includes a hands-on weaving activity described by the museum as rooted in techniques passed down through generations of Indigenous communities.
Admission to the symposium is free, with seats assigned at the box office on a first-come, first-served basis, one per visitor, from one hour before the event. The Hammer Museum, located at 10899 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, states that museum admission is free. Its galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday from 11am to 6pm, with the museum closed on Mondays. The symposium is listed for Saturday, August 22, at the Hammer Museum.
