No Humans Involved

Presented by the Hammer

Impact Report

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Project Summary
From October 10, 2021 through January 9, 2022 the Hammer
Museum presented No Humans Involved, a group exhibition of
works by seven artists and collectives. Taking its title from
the seminal letter “No Humans Involved: An Open Letter to
My Colleagues,” written by Jamaican cultural theorist Sylvia
Wynter in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles uprisings,
the exhibition expanded on Wynter’s ideas by highlighting
practices that centered on non-Western knowledge and
spiritual practices, challenged the limits of corporeal identity,
and considered the nonhuman (or “antihuman”) as a point of
departure.
No Humans Involved featured several site-specific multimedia
and sculptural installations, and nearly all new work produced
specifically for the Hammer exhibition. The artists, hailing
from diverse regions across the diasporic Americas, submitted
dynamic projects that extended their engagement with
marginalized histories and cultural traditions. Eddie Aparicio
(United States, b. 1990) uses organic materials common to
Indigenous practices in Central America to create sculptural
installations responding to the civil war in El Salvador and
the extraction of natural resources from the region. For No
Humans Involved, Aparicio produced a site-specific sculpture
made of amber, which slowly warped and deteriorated over
the course of the exhibition. Tau Lewis (Canada, b. 1983)
exhibited two stunning and textured portraits made of
hand-sewing, quilting, and assemblage that examined Black
geographies such as oceans, forests, and the cosmos as
generative information centers that have been erased or lost to
colonization. SANGREE (Mexico, b. 1985 and 1986)
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created two new bodies of works in stone and ceramic for
an installation inspired by Mesoamerican arts and culture,
esoteric traditions with contemporary aesthetics, and viral
marketing and branding strategies. Wilmer Wilson IV’s (United
States, b. 1989) sourcing of archives of Black American history,
and examination of the psychological and social impacts of
chattel slavery in the United States, resulted in Measures Not
Men, a monumental sculpture of salt-blocks. Sondra Perry
(United States, b. 1989), who uses open-source software,
found footage, and digital tools to create avatars of herself,
submitted a new lenticular work examining how technology can
shape (or limit) one’s representation and identity. Las Nietas
de Nonó (Puerto Rico, b. 1979 and 1982), who work at the
intersection of performance, ecology, and art activism, created
a site-specific installation of ceramics, video, and mixed media
to bring attention to history of displacement, violation, and
prosecution of Black communities in Puerto Rico. Finally,
WangShui’s video-based mixed-media installation highlighted
queer sensibilities in Chinese spiritualities and architecture.
In addition to a fully-illustrated catalogue, designed by
Studio ELLA and featuring new texts by Erin Christovale and
Dr. Zakkiyah Jackson, the exhibition was supplemented by
a suite of live performances by Las Nietas de Nonó. Much
of the exhibition’s planned programming was adjusted or
restructured due to COVID-19 precautions.
Exhibition Attendance: 20,616
Program Attendance: 1,136*
*Includes in-person and virtual programs
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Curator’s Message
Although Sylvia Wynter’s writing in the fraught political
moment of the early 1990s serves as the conceptual framework
for No Humans Involved, at the heart of this exhibition are
issues that we as citizens continue to grapple with today:
police brutality, racial inequity, systemic injustice, and the
violation of basic human rights. What it means to be human,
and who is given the right to be considered human, are the
questions that Wynter posed in the context of the Los Angeles
uprisings in her original essay “No Humans Involved: An Open
Letter to My Colleagues,” and that this exhibition, in turn,
seeks to expand through the work of seven incredible artists
and collectives. At its core, No Humans Involved is an exhibition
that offers insight into a future humanism that breaches our
current embodiment of “Man,” which is fraught with identity
constructs that continue to oppress people of color and uphold
Western imperialism.
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No Humans Involved has been a project developed in a
continuous unfolding. This sensibility of unfolding and marking
over time brings to mind the Los Angeles–based artist Eddie
Aparicio’s Sepultura de semillas / Sepulchre of Seeds, a site-
specific sculpture made of amber that was made to slowly
deteriorate and melt over the course of the exhibition. These
dynamic projects in mixed media, video, sculpture, ceramic,
and assemblage were deeply shaped by years of conversation,
contextualizing, and friendship with our artists, particularly
through the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am honored
to finally bring this exhibition to fruition at the Hammer
Museum, and deeply grateful for the mutual relationship of
ambition and patience that we developed together over the
past three years.
Erin Christovale
Associate Curator, Hammer Museum
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Exhibition Catalogue
No Humans Involved was accompanied by a fully illustrated
catalogue. Published by DelMonico Books and designed by
STUDIO ELLA, this exhibition catalogue features a foreword
by Ann Philbin and texts by Erin Christovale, Anthony Bogues,
Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, as well as a reprint of Sylvia Wynter’s
“No Humans Involved: An Open Letter to My Colleagues.”
Archival, never before seen 16mm film photos by Michael Cho
of April 29, 1992, the first day of uprisings in Los Angeles,
are featured throughout the publication.

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Programs and Tours
Lunchtime Art Talks
October 20, November 3 and 10, December 1 and 15, 2021
The Hammer organized five 15-minute, curator-led art talks
focusing on specific works by Wilmer Wilson IV, Tau Lewis,
SANGREE, and Eddie Aparicio.
No Humans Involved Curator Walk-through
October 24, 2021
Associate Curator Erin Christovale led an in-person walk-
through of the exhibition for the public at the museum.
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Photo: Gina Clyne
No Humans Involved: Visita Guiada
4 de Diciembre, 2021
Los educadores del Hammer Museum guiarán visitas en español
sobre las exposiciónes del museo. Acompáñenos para discutir
las obras de la exposición No Humans Involved.
No More Tears
December 12, 16, and 18, 2021
Artist collective Las Nietas de Nono presented three in-gallery
performances in conjunction with their installation in the
exhibition. The performance and installation No More Tears
(2021) is based on the collective’s ongoing correspondence
with their cousins the Salgado brothers, who were recently
released after serving several years in federal prison.
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Press
No Humans Involved was featured in a variety of publications.
Please find a selection of articles included at the end of this
report.
“By taking the position that humanness, as an engineering
of Western thought, is neither esteemed nor desirable, the
No Humans Involved artists build worlds onto themselves,
charting something anew.”
–Essence Harden, Cultured
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“By embracing the ’nonhuman’ as a point of departure instead
of having to justify or prove the humanity of its artists, the
exhibition succeeds in presenting a more generative, more
expansive definition of what humanity is allowed to look and
feel like.”
–Caroline Ellen Liou, Hyperallergic
“The ideas expressed in Wynter’s communiqué are ones that
continuously echo in the culture. Her open letter has more
directly inspired other cultural phenomena too—such as an
ongoing exhibition at the Hammer Museum that likewise bears
the title No Humans Involved.”
–Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times
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 Thank You
On behalf of all those who were enlightened, challenged, and inspired by
No Humans Involved, the Hammer Museum extends its sincere gratitude to
our funders and lenders. Thank you for your support!

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