Money Tree

Centering the thick trunk of a tree in an otherwise urban scene, Hammons uses the image of a hoop to allude simultaneously to basketball and to the history of lynching in the U.S. The title suggests the way in which, for a select few, professional basketball can be a vehicle for economic mobility. At the same time, the metaphor of the hoop-adorned tree recalls the gruesome spectacle and documentation of lynchings of Black Americans. Hammons conjures these dual significations through the simple convergence of accidental, found forms.