Jacob C Hammes
Roundtable - UN Security Council
wood, graphite, cast eurethane, mixed media
2023
Jacob C Hammes
Roundtable - Belt and Road Forum
wood, graphite, cast eurethane, mixed media
2023
Jacob C Hammes
Roundtable - G7
wood, graphite, cast eurethane, mixed media
2023
Jacob C Hammes
Roundtable - Belt and Road Forum (detail)
wood, graphite, cast eurethane, mixed media
2023
Jacob C Hammes
Roundtable - G20
wood, graphite, cast eurethane, mixed media
2023
Jacob C Hammes
Roundtable - IMF Worldbank
wood, graphite, cast eurethane, mixed media
2023
Jacob C Hammes
Summit and Valley Series
wood, graphite, cast eurethane, mixed media
2023
In Summit and Valley, Hammes renders highly detailed sculptures cast in graphite and urethane, depicting the gathering locations of world leaders, who often meet to plan our political futures at round or ring-shaped tables.
In Hammes’ series, depictions of these scenes feature scale models of chairs, coffee cups, and water pitchers, providing evidence of human presence amidst the strange geometry of these bureaucratic settings. The sooty, shiny, and metallic sheen of graphite saturating these sculptures invokes a certain Noir-like treatment recalling Kubrick’s pentagon war room in Dr. Strangelove – as a high contrast, ominous, almost alchemical place where death and violence are never far away. While there’s a close association with the actual proportions and ephemera found in these real architectures, certain elements reveal familiar symbolism, harkening to the haunting uncanniness of the memento mori – the ever present specter of death.