Showing posts with label The Hirschhorn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Hirschhorn. Show all posts
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Yayoi Kunama @ the Hirshhorn
My original intent was to get in to the Yayoi Kusama exhibit, but not a chance!
I guess this pumpkin was a sort of consolation prize.
Antipodes
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Highlights From My Hirschhorn Visit
Without further ado, here are seven randomly selected pieces from the current selections from it's collection on display. Enjoy. None are of a quality to reproduce, but all should work to whet your appetite to come to D.C. and see the magic for yourselves!
Friday, May 18, 2012
Suprasensorial: Experiments In Light. Color. And Space
Ai WeiWei: Circle Of Animals/Zodiac Heads @ the Hirschhorn Museum April 19, 2012 to February 24, 2013
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Art I'm Seeing #23
"Morris Louis New: An American Master Revisited" at the Hirshhorn was the perfect way to spend the day after Christmas. I went late in the afternoon as darkness was descended amidst a steady cold rain and found the museum nearly empty: Bad for the museum, excellent for the exhibit-goer; especially, with this exhibit. I can't imagine finding the holiness of these large works in the midst of a crowd.
The show is not super-large and it doesn't give much insight into the first couple of decades of Louis' career. Decades obliterated for the most part by the artist himself, who destroyed as many of the early works, as possible. Rather it picks up with his oeuvre after a visit with Helen Frankenthaler. He witnessed her use of a new technique involving raw canvases and hyper-thinned oils and it was an epiphany that I think not only transformed his expressive life, but also validated Frankenthaler's to the extent that any pupil can rise to become a shadow over their teacher.
The show clearly covers the scope and evolution of Louis' post-Frankenthaler career. And I found the initial works the most compelling. They are like altars defining a space that is spiritual to the visceral sense that you wish you had the courage to kneel before them in an attitude of expectant prayerfulness.
I've seen many Morris Louis works in museums from New York to London, from San Francisco to DC, but until you experience a trinity of them in a space as pure and undistracting as the Hirshhorn....it's like you have never seen one of his works before. The closest analogy that I can think of to this is Rothko, and the Rothko Chapel at the Tate Modern in London. Singularly, the works are beautiful; together, they are transcendental.
You have until January 6th to catch this amazing show.
The show is not super-large and it doesn't give much insight into the first couple of decades of Louis' career. Decades obliterated for the most part by the artist himself, who destroyed as many of the early works, as possible. Rather it picks up with his oeuvre after a visit with Helen Frankenthaler. He witnessed her use of a new technique involving raw canvases and hyper-thinned oils and it was an epiphany that I think not only transformed his expressive life, but also validated Frankenthaler's to the extent that any pupil can rise to become a shadow over their teacher.
The show clearly covers the scope and evolution of Louis' post-Frankenthaler career. And I found the initial works the most compelling. They are like altars defining a space that is spiritual to the visceral sense that you wish you had the courage to kneel before them in an attitude of expectant prayerfulness.
I've seen many Morris Louis works in museums from New York to London, from San Francisco to DC, but until you experience a trinity of them in a space as pure and undistracting as the Hirshhorn....it's like you have never seen one of his works before. The closest analogy that I can think of to this is Rothko, and the Rothko Chapel at the Tate Modern in London. Singularly, the works are beautiful; together, they are transcendental.
You have until January 6th to catch this amazing show.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Art I'm Seeing #12
Anselm Kiefer is at the Hirschhorn.
Born a few months before the end of WW II in Germany, Anselm’s entire life has been devoted to the search for meaning. Raised a Catholic, he began the journey from an authoritarian Christian worldview. And to his credit and our great blessing, he did not stop there.
Kiefer is a pilgrim. His works reflect the many ideas that have informed and captivated him along the way. They evolve without rejecting the lessons already learned or the ideas previously encountered. This can be seen in both the subject matter and the materials. And so we are treated to intimate notebooks with scrapes of images cut from popular magazines and monumental volumes assembled of pages crafted in lead and painted with esoteric star charts. We encounter small watercolors simply framed and enormous canvases crafted with lead, paint, dirt, crushed glass and adored with snow skies, bird cages, dried sunflower stalks measuring a easy 12 feet in length!--and very many permutations and combinations of each and more. As an installation alone, the show is amazing.
And the catalogue, (that is another good one from this layman's perspective), culminates with an astounding interview with the artist. It's one of the most enjoyable reads I have ever discovered as part of any collection of exhibition catalogues.
The exhibition is titled: "Heaven and Earth" and I want to end this brief reflection with some of Anselm's quotes from the interview.
~1 "Heaven is an idea, a piece of ancient internal knowledge. It is not a physical construction."
~2 "There is always hope, but that must be combined with irony, and more important, skepticism. The context of knowledge is changing constantly. At one moment we pray from the top of a mountain and the next from a seat in a jet plane or a bomber cockpit. How can we not see that as ironic and skeptical?"
~3 "You don't have to be spiritual to get in touch with spirituality. I't easier, but it's not always necessary. It can happen that someone who does not think about spirituality, does not consider it in his life, can get in touch with the spiritual through circumstances he is not responsible for or aware of."
~4 "All stories of heaven begin on earth."
Born a few months before the end of WW II in Germany, Anselm’s entire life has been devoted to the search for meaning. Raised a Catholic, he began the journey from an authoritarian Christian worldview. And to his credit and our great blessing, he did not stop there.
Kiefer is a pilgrim. His works reflect the many ideas that have informed and captivated him along the way. They evolve without rejecting the lessons already learned or the ideas previously encountered. This can be seen in both the subject matter and the materials. And so we are treated to intimate notebooks with scrapes of images cut from popular magazines and monumental volumes assembled of pages crafted in lead and painted with esoteric star charts. We encounter small watercolors simply framed and enormous canvases crafted with lead, paint, dirt, crushed glass and adored with snow skies, bird cages, dried sunflower stalks measuring a easy 12 feet in length!--and very many permutations and combinations of each and more. As an installation alone, the show is amazing.
And the catalogue, (that is another good one from this layman's perspective), culminates with an astounding interview with the artist. It's one of the most enjoyable reads I have ever discovered as part of any collection of exhibition catalogues.
The exhibition is titled: "Heaven and Earth" and I want to end this brief reflection with some of Anselm's quotes from the interview.
~1 "Heaven is an idea, a piece of ancient internal knowledge. It is not a physical construction."
~2 "There is always hope, but that must be combined with irony, and more important, skepticism. The context of knowledge is changing constantly. At one moment we pray from the top of a mountain and the next from a seat in a jet plane or a bomber cockpit. How can we not see that as ironic and skeptical?"
~3 "You don't have to be spiritual to get in touch with spirituality. I't easier, but it's not always necessary. It can happen that someone who does not think about spirituality, does not consider it in his life, can get in touch with the spiritual through circumstances he is not responsible for or aware of."
~4 "All stories of heaven begin on earth."
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Art I'm Seeing #1
Today, after a colleague asked me last week what was new on the Mall, I spent the afternoon researching the answer. First stop, my beloved National Gallery of Art where they are in eager preparation for their next opening: "Cezanne in Province" on Sunday, January 29th. Presently there is a Homer show that I'd seen months ago and so skipped, a collection of the bird prints of John James Audubon (which was alive with children and parents and bird houses and laughter and shouts of excited discovery -- very UN-NGA, and very delightful!), and a small show of the prints of the French artist Félix Buhot. The images presented here are his from that show. The bottom image actually being a painting, but very sweet and captivating. I spent the bulk of my time here, and kept thinking how limited my college education in printmaking was! My instructor Mrs. N. G.-W. was just not up to the task.... But neither was I, I guess, since it's only taken me 23 years to figure this out!
Afterwards, I walked over to the Hirshhorn which is also in the birth throws of launching a new exhibition of the works of Hiroshi Sugimoto, but continues with a retrospective of objects from its permanent collection. Objects that they are augmenting from time to time. This visit's standout was an amazing little bas-relief by Isamu Noguchi. Approximately 2 feet wide by 3 feet tall, it was a gently formed "landscape" in white that had angled openings (some oblong, some round) through which half a dozen muted shades of light emitted. The mounds were topped with hooks through which twine stretched, and threaded upon which a few cork balls hung and kept taught via the force of gravity. This addition cast shadows across the surface and helped to highlight and isolate the color created by the light. It was so simple and I could tell that most of the people in the gallery thought it inane at best. Why is beauty so hard to see?
To this I would add a painting by Louis Morris called "Point of Tranquility" which I swear could be his 'masterwork'. I will scan and set its image in a post just before this one.
Afterwards, I walked over to the Hirshhorn which is also in the birth throws of launching a new exhibition of the works of Hiroshi Sugimoto, but continues with a retrospective of objects from its permanent collection. Objects that they are augmenting from time to time. This visit's standout was an amazing little bas-relief by Isamu Noguchi. Approximately 2 feet wide by 3 feet tall, it was a gently formed "landscape" in white that had angled openings (some oblong, some round) through which half a dozen muted shades of light emitted. The mounds were topped with hooks through which twine stretched, and threaded upon which a few cork balls hung and kept taught via the force of gravity. This addition cast shadows across the surface and helped to highlight and isolate the color created by the light. It was so simple and I could tell that most of the people in the gallery thought it inane at best. Why is beauty so hard to see?
To this I would add a painting by Louis Morris called "Point of Tranquility" which I swear could be his 'masterwork'. I will scan and set its image in a post just before this one.
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