Max Hooper Schneider at The Hammer

On view: September 21, 2019–February 2, 2020

Walking into Max Hooper Schneider’s installation at The Hammer is like walking into a psychedelic aquarium — the central sculpture is a hodge podge landscape. Plastic plants and costume jewelry crawl over brick-a-brack. A dollhouse is filled with dentures. There is flooring made of bottle caps. Much of the installation has been spray painted or covered in a type of resin, so that the disparate objects meld together into unlikely tableaus. To further set the scene, the room’s lighting mimics the fluctuations of the sun. So at various points of the day, you may enter into bright white, muted yellow, or a moody pink glow. The sound piece that accompanies the work, by Jorge Elbrecht, is ethereal yet industrial, much like Schieder’s work. His amalgamation mimics the natural world, while simultaneously being made up of synthetic and man-made junk. As such, the work’s message is somewhat unclear and perhaps even nihilist, pointing out that our plastic creations might exist long after we will.