The Alchemist of Identity: The Life and Legacy of David Hammons In the vibrant, often turbulent landscape of late twentieth-century American art, few figures loom as enigmatically or as powerfully as David Hammons. Born in 1943 in Springfield, Illinois, as the youngest of ten children raised by a single mother, Hammons’ journey is one of profound movement—both geographical and conceptual. His migration from the Midwest to the sun-drenched, experimental art scenes of Los Angeles in the 1960s set the stage for a career defined by the reclamation of discarded materials and the interrogation of…