Jane Hammond: The John Ashbery Collaboration, 1993-2001

This catalogue documents a body of work created by Hammond following a unique collaboration with the renowned poet John Ashbery. In 1993, Hammond commissioned Ashbery to create a set of unique titles that would act as catalysts for her recombinative paintings. Ashbery provided 44 such titles that employ his characteristically eclectic use of language, such as Confessions of a Fop, A Parliament of Refrigerator Magnets, Freezer Burn, and others. Since 1993, these titles have been the initial source of Hammond's creative process. The 60 paintings created to date in this series are, like all of her work, produced from a controlled iconographic pool of 276 pictorial representations, drawn from such texts as 19th-century technical manuals, old children's books, pornographic comics, and the like. The relationships between titles and paintings range from obscure to playfully evident, yet all derive from the lively intersection between language and image.