David Hammons: Day’s End
A Monument To New York
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David Hammons’s Day’s End (2014–21) is at once massive and ethereal, its thin steel frame shimmering and evanescing with the weather and time of day. It is, as the artist’s original sketch asserted, a monument to Gordon Matta-Clark’s impactful intervention on Pier 52. Though the original Day’s End (1975) is long-gone it resounds within Hammons’s twenty-first century structure, as does the storied history of the surrounding environment.
The Whitney has guided the realization of Hammons’s artwork from fundraising through construction, but as it is a tribute to the layered narratives of the land, Day’s End (2014–21) belongs to everyone and to no one. So in May 2021, the Whitney and Hudson River Park commemorated the project’s completion with a special ceremony dedicating the sculpture to the people of New York. It is a permanent public sculpture, a new neighborhood landmark, and a shared community space where visitors are invited to wander, gather, enjoy the waterfront, and watch the sunset at day’s end.
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Artist David Hammons meets with the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director, Adam D. Weinberg. After seven years of planning and construction, Hammons’s completed Day’s End (2014–21) sculpture stands on Gansevoort Peninsula in Hudson River Park, just beyond the Museum’s windows. Photograph by Jason Schmidt
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In May 2021 the Whitney, together with Hudson River Park, commemorated the completion of David Hammons’s Day’s End (2014–21) with a special outdoor dedication ceremony on Gansevoort Peninsula. This sunset event formally marked the handover of Day’s End to the people of New York.
David Hammons, Day’s End, 2014–21. Stainless steel and precast concrete, 52 × 325 × 65 ft. (15.9 × 99 × 20 m) overall. © David Hammons. Photograph by Matthew Carasella
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David Hammons, Day’s End, 2014–21. Stainless steel and precast concrete, 52 × 325 × 65 ft. (15.9 × 99 × 20 m) overall. © David Hammons. Photograph by Jason Schmidt
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David Hammons, Day’s End, 2014–21. Stainless steel and precast concrete, 52 × 325 × 65 ft. (15.9 × 99 × 20 m) overall. © David Hammons. Photograph by Jason Schmidt