Screening: ‘I Build the Tower’ for ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection’
On the occasion of ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection,’ join us for a screening of ‘I Build the Tower’ (2006), the feature-length documentary on Sam Rodia and the Watts Towers of Los Angeles by Edward Landler and Brad Byer.
Narrated by and featuring Los Angeles-based artist John Outterbridge, the film offers a layered portrait of Rodia’s monumental site of artistic construction and cultural significance. Outterbridge, a featured artist in the Eileen Harris Norton Collection and included in ’Destiny Is a Rose,’ appears in the documentary in conversation and reflection on the legacy of the Towers.
This film was selected by Camm Harrison, founder of Black Revivalist, a screening series project which showcases an array of underrated and overlooked gems within Black cinema, in collaboration with Ingrid Schaffner, Curatorial Senior Director at Hauser & Wirth.
Following the screening, please join us in the Courtyard for our 10 Year Party, a celebration of our decade in Downtown Los Angeles. Enjoy complimentary biscuits and lemonade by Manuela, Salt & Straw ice cream, exhibition tours, family workshops, and a live salsa set by Sangre Nueva.
‘I Build the Tower’ runs for approximately 87 minutes. The program is free to attend, however, reservations are recommended. Click here to register.
Further details on our summer screening program in June and July will be announced soon, stay tuned for an exciting line-up to come.
Installation view, ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection,’ Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles, 24 February –16 August 2026. Photo: Jeff McLane
About ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection’
Marking fifty years since Eileen Harris Norton’s first acquisition, 'Destiny Is a Rose’ presents more than 80 works that together reflect Harris Norton’s prescient vision and commitment to social justice and learning.
Titled after a painting by Kerry James Marshall, ‘Destiny Is a Rose’ includes work by such artists as Mark Bradford, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon Marshall, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Betye Saar, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Jack Whitten, among others. In conjunction with ‘Destiny Is a Rose,’ Hauser & Wirth Publishers will release a catalogue featuring text by Dr. Kellie Jones and curator Ingrid Schaffner, celebrating a collector who continues to be an agent of cultural change and growth.
About Ingrid Schaffner
Internationally admired as a curator, art critic, writer, and educator with nearly four decades of experience in the field of contemporary art, Schaffner is known for her generative and original scholarship focused on themes of archiving and collecting, photography, feminism, and alternate modernisms. Her 2013 exhibition ‘Jason Rhoades, Four Roads’ was the first American museum presentation of the sculptor’s work and was accompanied by a catalogue publication (Prestel); following its presentation at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, the exhibition traveled to Kunsthalle Bremen and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Schaffner was the curator of the 57th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in 2018. where she presented major installations by El Anatsui, Alex Da Corte, Zoe Leonard, Postcommodity and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, among others. From 2020 to 2023, she was the curator at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.
About Black Revivalist
Black Revivalist is an ongoing film screening series founded by film curator Camm Harrison, specializing in showcasing underseen and underrated Black cinema from across the diaspora. Presented at various art and cinema spaces throughout the Los Angeles area, the series highlights the rich diversity of Black filmmaking over the past two centuries, finding films' connective threads and connecting them to new and diverse audiences.
