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| Jonathan Borofsky was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1942. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, in 1964, he studied at Ecole de Fontainbleau in Paris. In 1966 he received a Master's degree from Yale School of Art and Architecture. Borofsky has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The numbers in his pieces stem from a part of his conceptual art. He started years ago with numbers 1, 2, and 3 and now, with this piece has reached number 3,110,527. His work draws on many facets of past art movements including minimalism, conceptualism, and social realism.
Hammering Man is a sculpture made of steel, which stands 18 feet tall and is marked with the number 3,110,527. There is not just one Hammering Man, but numerous sculptures of different sizes located all over the world including New York, Los Angeles, Germany, and Japan each marked with a different number. Its arm is mechanized and makes a swinging motion up and down with the hammer in his hand for 8 hours a day. The large size of this sculpture makes it intimidating to behold, and also could reflect the immense number of men and women in the working class that oftentimes get overlooked. Borofsky draws on the idea that the working man has a lot of relative monotony in his/her job, demonstrated by the repetitive hammering motion. This sculpture can be seen as a profile of the typical everyday man.  (For Grades 9-12) What do you think the number is for? Since this sculpture is of a man, why do you think Borofsky didn’t make it the size of an average man? What statement is the artist trying to make with this art piece? Was he successful? Why or why not? |
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Jonathan Borofsky United States, born 1942 Hammering Man at 3,110,527 1-3/4" thick cor-ten steel with motorized aluminum arm, 1988 Gift of Matthew and Iris Strauss 1997.33 © Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego |
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