Hammer Museum Acquires “Sleepy Maxo with Blue Jersey” by John Ahearn

Charlie James Gallery is delighted to announce the acquisition of John Ahearn’s Sleepy Maxo with Blue Jersey by the Hammer Museum. The gallery wishes to thank Connie Butler, Chief Curator for the Hammer Museum, for championing the artist for acquisition, and for collector and super-connector Dee Kerrison for helping to facilitate this placement.

Sleepy Maxo with Blue Jersey was shown at the gallery in January 2021 as part of John Ahearn's exhibition with Rigoberto Torres titled The Bronx Comes to LA. "Sleepy Maxo" is a portrait of Maxo Allen, a musical artist that John intersected with early in 2020. A friend connected the two to create casts of Maxo to celebrate his new rap album release. Maxo flew to New York in late October of 2020 to make a three cast arrangement of Maxo exploring different moods. Ahearn studied his instagram postings and found ideas for three casts, which he called “Serious,” “Sleepy," and “Smiling.” The “Serious” piece was placed in an excellent private LA collection, “Sleepy” is now a part of the Hammer Museum, and “Smiling” was gifted to Maxo by John. It was an honor to bring John and Rigoberto’s work to LA and we’re delighted that a piece of the show will live on in the Hammer collection. Congratulations all!

John Ahearn (b. 1951, Binghamton, NY) studied at Cornell University and was a founding member of Collaborative Projects, Inc. and co-organizer of the Times Square Show (1980). Ahearn’s work alongside that of his long-time collaborator, Rigoberto Torres was the subject of a survey exhibition, South Bronx Hall of Fame, organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, Houston in 1991, which traveled to museums in Europe and North America. In the 1980s and 1990s the artists executed several outdoor murals in the Bronx, New York and collaborated on public projects and exhibitions in Europe and North America. Between 2000 and 2002 Ahearn completed a public project in Pan Chiao, Taiwan and between 2005 and 2006, Ahearn and Torres collaborated on two large scale wall murals at the Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea in Brazil. In the fall of 2010, their work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Aljira Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, NJ. In May 2012, John Ahearn alongside Rigoberto Torres participated in the special projects section of the Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island, where they presented a reconstruction of their legendary 1979 exhibition at Fashion Moda, South Bronx Hall of Fame. Ahearn’s work has been included in group exhibitions at the New Museum of Contemporary Art (1980); the Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1982); the Whitney Museum of American Art (1985); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1993); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1996); the Irish Museum of Modern Art (2008-2009); the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2009-2010); and “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1, New York (2015). Ahearn lives and works in NY and is represented by Alexander and Bonin, New York.