Tom Morello and CalArts faculty member Sam Durant are at the Hammer Museum on Wednesday. | Photo courtesy of the Hammer Museum
Tomorrow night (Jan. 12), guitarist and political activist Tom Morello and CalArts School of Art faculty Sam Durant (Art MFA 91) will speak in the Hammer Museum’s Hammer Conversations series, which “pairs creative thinkers from a range of disciplines for engaging, provocative discussions on culture, science, and the arts.”
Morello, a Grammy Award-winning guitarist of several rock bands including Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, Street Sweeper Social Club, and a solo project, The Nightwatchman, is also widely recognized for his political activism. He, along with musician Serj Tankian, co-founded the Axis of Justice, a nonprofit organization that joins musicians, fans and grassroots political organizations in support of peace, human rights and economic equality initiatives.
Durant is a multimedia artist who creates site-specific, politically and socially fueled works, while often referencing Native American and other historical imagery. He has exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally, most recently with one-person exhibitions at Sadie Coles HQ, London, and the Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. His work has been the subject of numerous books and publications.
Morello and Durant have garnered multiple awards for their work, but will throw down their respective axes to come together to speak substantively about various social and political topics on Wednesday.
Hammer Conversations
Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Wednesday, Jan. 12, 7 p.m.
Free
Below is a politically tinged music video of the second single from Rage Against the Machine’s 1996 album Evil Empire: