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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Joan Didion: What She Means

Brigitte Lacombe, Joan Didion, New York, 1996.

July 13, 2023 – Jan 7, 2024
1103 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132, United States

In 2019, the writer Joan Didion gave the Hammer Museum her blessing for a planned exhibition on her work and its influence. Opening in 2022, nearly one year after her death (she was 87), it follows Didion’s life and artistic evolution. 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. The exhibition now touches down in Miami. —Jensen Davis

Courtesy of the artist and Lacombe, Inc.