The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons

A documentary film about a living artist is especially difficult to do when the subject won’t participate, including not sitting for an interview. That’s one reason why The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons is noteworthy. The film is absorbing anyhow, minus the artist’s retrospective musings, thanks to contributions from many smart and observant artists and others.

This is a substantial, patiently made, entertaining portrait, with a percussive, rhythmic jazz score by Ramachandra Borcar and some emphatic spoken word courtesy of Umar Bin Hassan of the Last Poets. But eventually, the rich interpretive consideration of Hammons’s essence, philosophy and process starts to vanish.

While it is engaging to witness and hear of the ways that Hammons has continued to reject and undermine this market-minded approach to his work in the present day, the film’s focus on tracing Hammons’ work through capital, be it social or monetary, leaves the film with a bottom-heavy feeling of what can only be described as “ick.”