In 2019, the writer Joan Didion gave the Hammer Museum her blessing for a planned exhibition on her work and its influence. Opening nearly one year after her death, at age 87, it follows the life and artistic evolution of Didion. Organized by the critic Hilton Als, the show unfolds geographically. There’s Didion’s Northern California early years, a short-lived time in New York, the Los Angeles and Hawaii period (during which she wrote The White Album), and then a 30-year span that covers New York, Miami, and San Salvador. Works by 50 artists that Didion either inspired or was inspired by (such as Ed Ruscha, Diane Arbus, Helen Lundeberg) are on view, along with letters, photos, manuscripts, and footage from films for which she wrote the screenplays. —Jensen Davis