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11 am – 5 pm

Proscenium: Elliott Hundley

photo of art work showing surface detail of various materials

Elliott Hundley, The Plague (detail), 2016. Collage, oil, pins, plastic, foam, and linen on panel. Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. © Elliott Hundley.

photo of artist's work consisting of 3d built up and layered abstract object in pinks and whites on a structure of wheels

Elliott Hundley, Echo, 2022. Polystyrene, encaustic, pins, wood, metal. Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. © Elliott Hundley.

photo of abstract work hanging on a light gray wall, consisting of a heavily worked surface with various objects and color palette of warm tones

Elliott Hundley, Tiered Sounds, 2017. Paper, oil, fabric, pins, plastic, glass, shells, lotus pods, metal, foam and linen on panel. Private Collection. © Elliott Hundley. Image courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles

photo of art work showing surface detail of various materials
photo of artist's work consisting of 3d built up and layered abstract object in pinks and whites on a structure of wheels
photo of abstract work hanging on a light gray wall, consisting of a heavily worked surface with various objects and color palette of warm tones

Lights up! Proscenium: Elliott Hundley, a mid-career solo exhibition, sets the scene. Sculptures and paintings are activated as dramatic devices, stages rife with an overabundance of sets, props, actors—though not necessarily proffering straightforward scripts. In a theater, the proscenium is the architectural structure around the stage that separates the stage from the audience and the invisible scrim—the fourth wall—between the fictional play and the real world where the audience is seated. Hundley imagines a scene that is an alternative to the one we exist in. Ancient Greek gods are still worshipped. Gravity is defied by floating rocks and columns. Stickpins, paper, feathers, goat hooves, and spangles have amassed into an impossibly complex and impractical confection held together by a miracle.

Proscenium: Elliot Hundley opens with By Achilles’ Tomb: Elliot Hundley in Ludington Court, an intervention by the artist contrasting and complementing his own works with the Museum’s renowned collection of antiquities.

Proscenium: Elliot Hundley is made possible through the generosity of The Earl and Shirley Greif Charitable Trust, Lilac Drive Foundation, Margaret Campbell Arvey, Susan D. Bowey, Jacquelyn Klein-Brown, Merrill W. Sherman, Susan and Bruce Worster, and anonymous donors.

On view in conjunction with By Achilles’ Tomb: Elliott Hundley and Antiquity @ SBMA.

Free* docent-led gallery tours are conducted daily and meet in Ludington Court near the State Street entrance. Tours provide an engaging opportunity to experience and discuss a variety of works in a relaxed, informal setting.

Tour Availability

11:30 am
May: 18
June: 13, 22


 

1 pm
April: 25, 26, 27, 30
May: 1, 3, 4, 9, 11, 15, 17, 21, 24, 25, 30
June: 1, 3, 7, 11, 15, 17, 21, 24, 27, 28


 

*free with the price of admission 

Santa Barbara Museum of Art Presents Mid-Career Exhibitions by Los Angeles Artist Elliott Hundley Opening April 20, 2025

Proscenium: Elliott Hundley

Through August 31, 2025

By Achilles’ Tomb: Elliott Hundley and Antiquity @ SBMA

Through February 22, 2026

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

photo of abstract work hanging on a light gray wall, consisting of a heavily worked surface with various objects and color palette of warm tones

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present an extensive mid-career exhibition of work by Elliott Hundley including an innovative installation rethinking the current display of Greco-Roman antiquities in the Museum’s Ludington Court. Proscenium (through August 31, 2025), a broad survey, sees his work through the lens of theater, props, sets, and backdrops. It brings together 50 artworks dating from 2000 to 2025, including paintings, collages, assemblages, bronzes, drawings, rarely seen early works, and loans from private collections. In By Achilles’ Tomb (through February 22, 2026), he rethinks and mischievously upends the display of Greco-Roman antiquities in SBMA’s Ludington Court. Long fascinated by the plays of Euripides (c. 480 – c. 406 BC), especially Medea (c. 431 BC), The Bacchae (c. 405 BC), and Hekabe (c. 424 BC), and ancient Greco-Roman culture and myths, he is an ideal artistic partner to reshape the Museum’s most prominent and public space, which opens onto Santa Barbara’s pedestrianized State Street.

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