David Hammons

An in-depth look at a public art project by David Hammons with an overview of the enigmatic artist’s career

Published to commemorate David Hammons’s (b. 1943) public art project Day’s End, this book documents the sculpture and offers broader context into Hammons’s enigmatic work.

In 2014, Hammons sent the Whitney Museum of American Art a sketch for a monument to Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–1978), which pays homage to Matta-Clark’s legendary Day’s End (1975)—an industrial, cathedral-like space of altered architecture—once located near today’s Whitney.

Completed in 2021, Hammons’s work, also titled Day’s End, was developed by the Whitney in collaboration with Hudson River Park and is on permanent view. One of the most important artists working in the United States today, David Hammons makes art across mediums, often outside traditional venues.

In addition to photographic documentation, the book includes essays on the origins of Day’s End and the scope of Hammons’s career.