From the Exhibition: 40 Top Art Events of the Downtown Era: A Timeline, 1974–1992

David Hammons, Higher Goals, Card, Public Art Fund, 1986

Offset print, 7″ x 5″.

The non-profit Public Art Fund was founded in 1977 to present site-specific installations in outdoor spaces throughout the five boroughs of New York, feeding artists’ growing desires for an audience larger and more diverse than the regular gallery-going crowd.

Hammons’s temporary installation consisted of five telephone poles adorned with bottle caps in geometric patterns and surmounted by basketball hoops. The oversized posts—double or triple the height of a regulation backboard—wryly evoked the idea of sports stardom as an out-of-reach aspiration, especially for poor young African-Americans.

Front

Reverse

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DOWNTOWN ERA EXHIBITION HOMEPAGE

From the Exhibition: 40 Top Art Events of the Downtown Era: A Timeline, 1974–1992