Jane Fonda Discusses the Need for Art and Activism at Hammer Museum Gala

Yahoo

18-05-2025

"Jane Fonda is the single-most intense, magical, brave, curious, change-making, honest and profoundly vulnerable person I've ever known," began Mary Steenburgen when she took the stage with husband Ted Danson at the Hammer Museum's 20th annual Gala in the Garden on Saturday, May 17."The heartbreaks of Jane's childhood might have crushed most people," she continued. "They served to set her on a lifetime journey to learn about love: to learn to receive and give love.""The first night we had dinner together, the conversation of the 20 or so people there covered many delicate subjects — from relationships to mushroom adventures, to feelings about aging and beauty," Steenburgen recalled. "Jane was breathtakingly open, and shared all kinds of things that made my socially-shy self shake with fear for her. ... And on the way home, I said to Ted, 'She needs to be more careful than that — she is too open! It makes her just too vulnerable to the jerks of the world.'"
"And that night, I had a sleepless night — during which I questioned every single thing about my own existence and decided by morning that Jane should be way, way less like me, and I should be way, way more like Jane Fonda," Steenburgen said. "I like the effect she's had on my life. She Fonda-fied it, and that has been a gift."Steenburgen recalled how the first time Fonda came over and was leaving her home, she asked whether they were going to be friends — to which Steenburgen said, "Yes.""And she said, 'Okay, but you have to be intentional about it, because I only have so much time left and we have to be intentional,'" Steenburgen recalled.
"She got me arrested," Danson chimed in. "I was turning 70, and I was looking for a nice soft landing space, and Jane was turning 80 and doing the exact opposite. She had her foot on the accelerator and going as fast as she could to make change — to make people's lives better. The arresting came because she invited me to be part of the Fire Drill Fridays, the national movement to protest government inaction on climate change, which she started in October of 2019 with Greenpeace USA. ... Jane Fonda, the international movie star, Jane Fonda in her 80s ... changed me forever and galvanized me to keep my foot on the accelerator and do my best to affect change."The two-time Academy Award-winning actor, producer, author and activist received a standing ovation as she took the stage. "You see, these two human beings — Ted and Mary — are for me, avatars of love," Fonda began. "I have never known people so capable of love and generosity, and I'm so grateful that they're my friends!" "I'm so honored by this wonderful award from this wonderful and unique museum," Fonda continued. "It's improbable, this museum. Don't you think the Hammer is an improbable museum? A relatively small institution in a nondescript office building on Wilshire Boulevard!"
"And I've often wondered how come this museum is here, in this weird place?" Fonda posed. "I always figured Armand Hammer must have owned the building and he said, 'Just put my collection on the first two floors.' But then, Annie Philbin came along ... and transformed the place in every way: spiritually, artistically, physically. Created this garden space. Welcomed the incredible — and if you haven't eaten there, you should — Alice Waters restaurant.""See, I knew Armand Hammer a little bit," Fonda went on. "I bet none of you can say that? I fought with him a little bit over who got credit for helping the famous Soviet Refusenik get out of Russia to Israel. But that's another story ... You're glad I'm not going to tell that story!"
"Annie came along and rearranged it all, and what she created — and what Zoë is now leading — is a brave, outside-the-box, cutting-edge, community center, artist-embraced welcoming space for a truly diverse audience," Fonda said. "Zoë gets it — and she's going to carry on, and I'm so excited about that."Then Fonda got more grave. "Two critical things that are needed in today's dysfunctional, anti-nature, anti-democratic world: Art and activism," she said. "I'm an actor — I like to think that's an art form. I consider myself an artist, and Ted and Mary and all the other wonderful actors that are here. Dustin [Hoffman] — do you consider yourself an artist? Yeah, we're artists — so we have every right to be here!"
"But I'm also an activist," she said. "I tried hedonism, I tried ignorance, and they didn't make me very happy. So I went for having purpose in my life, and that felt much better.""Over time, however, I've learned that activism alone doesn't always bring people to what they may be too scared or too left-brained to acknowledge — and this is where art comes in," Fonda went on. "I find it utterly fascinating that all the great conduits of perception throughout history, Buddha, Mohammad, Jesus, Ho Chi Minh — did you know that Ho Chi Minh let his people know there was going to be a Tet offensive by writing a poem? All of these great people spoke to us in art form. Poetry, parable, metaphor. Why?" she posed to the crowd."Because the nonlinear, non-cerebral forms that are art speak on a different frequency above the chaos and dysfunction and awaken us to consciousness," Fonda answered. "There's a reason that dictators have always hated artists. Since the Greeks and Romans, artists have found a way to give the finger to tyrants and inspire change. During the Renaissance, Michelangelo often gave the finger to the Medicis. ... Dante, Diego Rivera — who worked for the Rockefellers and painted Lenin on the walls of Radio City. Alice Neel. Barbara Kruger. Judy Chicago. Many of you are here in this room including — and it's an honor, Lauren [Halsey], to share this night with you."
"We've always been a progressive lot, we artists — which is why there's been persecution," Fonda said. "It's why Joseph McCarthy went after Hollywood so cruelly in the 1950s. It's why now the arts are being defunded. It's the knee-jerk thing that tyrants do, because deep down, they know, we expose the truth." "But art, in combination with activism, this is the winning ticket," Fonda concluded. "It's what I feel the Hammer represents. Art reminds us that the world, as it is, is not all there is. That there are other possibilities to strive for. Activism helps us turn the possibility that is opened by art into reality. ... Art can penetrate our defenses, so that we can see and hear what we've been afraid of seeing and hearing, and activism can offer ways to turn us from preoccupation with ourselves into the healing action of service. So let's all be activists — in whatever ways we can."Earlier in the evening, Thelma Golden, the Ford Foundation Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, praised the night's other honoree, Lauren Halsey.
"I first met Lauren through the incomparable Charles Gaines," Golden said. "Lauren walks through the world representing space and place: the place that formed her, South Central Los Angeles. She doesn't just represent it; she embodies it. She's its visionary, its frequency, its witness and its oracle. ... She doesn't just observe the visual world of Black life; she dignifies it. She elevates the ephemera, the overlooked, the everyday. She builds monuments that shimmer with neon and hum with bass — that pulse with memory and possibility. In doing so, she recast the material of her neighborhood into something mythic, radiant and enduring.""When Lauren came to New York as an artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2014, I saw that truth forming, clear as day," Golden said. "She arrived in Harlem with an inordinate amount of Cali-cool. ... and she left having woven a little bit of Harlem into her spirit."
"Watching her move through my Harlem, I learned what defined so much of Lauren's practice and has deeply influenced my own," Golden continued. "And that is to truly honor the idiosyncrasies of Black life is to see them as sacred. Lauren's work does that: it names the small moments monumental. It makes dignity structural. She's an artist of place, and yes, more than that, she is a guardian of presence. Of Black presence: of our dreams, our demands, our art and our architecture, our rhythm and our refusal to have any of this erased."Golden cited Halsey's Mohn Award-winning Made in L.A. 2018 installation at the Hammer Museum — "a shimmering temple to the South Central soul" — and her 2023 rooftop commission at the MET, "where she raised the vision of her community into the skyline of New York City." "Lauren has shown us that our stories do not belong on the margins; they belong in the clouds."
"And then, there's what she builds beyond museum walls," she continued, referencing the Summaeverythang non-profit Halsey founded in 2020. "And now we look forward to the future, when her upcoming public work here in L.A., sister dreamer, will rise as a sculpture park: a garden of memory and myth, sphinxes and columns carved in the image of her people, her family, friends and freedom fighters. A space for spiritual sanctuary and celebration, resistance and joy." (Halsey's sculpture park titled Sister dreamer, lauren halsey's architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles is scheduled to open in early 2026.)
Golden concluded: "Lauren is a world-builder — worlds that witness, worlds that remember, worlds that protect, worlds that imagine what hasn't yet been built, but must be. She doesn't just imagine freedom — she architects it. Lauren, I want to thank you, because what I know is that the work you make is not only of this moment; it is for this moment. You are a seer, a builder, a bomb."
When she took the stage, Halsey expressed her gratitude to Golden and to her partner of 10 years — who helped her along her journey, from "sleeping on my grandma's floor, living off of Figueroa and Manchester in the trenches for five years [and] in the studio pulling all-nighters." Of her Summaeverythang community center, Halsey noted: "We're building a magnificent space, a Barbara Bestor-designed center that will bridge arts, health, wellness and education for kids in South Central, Compton and Watts. ... We're close to breaking ground. Hit me up, please!"
It's also an exciting time at the Hammer Museum, which is now at the helm of director Ryan following Philbin's departure. Following a cocktail hour during which gala guests from the art and entertainment world mingled and explored the current exhibits — and before the three-course dinner (of a garden gems salad, salmon and dessert, served atop placemats designed by Halsey) and performance by U.K.-based artist Griff — Ryan addressed the room. (Read our story with Zoë Ryan from our March women's issue here.)
"I would like to thank and acknowledge Annie Philbin," Ryan said. "Annie, you have been so supportive, so generous with your time and insights. You have built something so special here at the Hammer and defined our mission: the power of art and ideas to illuminate our lives and build a more just world. I feel very privileged to carry the torch and stay true to the values that are ingrained in the Hammer — especially at a time of extreme polarization in our country, when many feel unsafe, unwelcome and unheard."
Then Ryan made a promise: "The Hammer is, and always will be, a gathering place for everyone in our community," she said. "A forum for sharing points of view, and for presenting emerging and underrecognized artists and ideas. At times like these, our cultural institutions are more important than ever — essential to amplifying the voices of artists and thought-leaders who have the power to change perspectives on the world.""This gala is our biggest fundraiser of the year, and it is doubly important in a time of economic uncertainty and when federal support of the arts is under threats," Ryan concluded of the event, which raised $2.4 million to support the Hammer's exhibits and programs. "Simply put: artists matter and museums matter."