Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Announces Free Fall 2024 Programs
September 26, 2024
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Announces Free Fall 2024 Programs
Expert-Led Tours, Film Screenings, Hands-On Artmaking, Innovative Art Experiences and Virtual Talks Spotlight Singular Creators and Contemporary Visionaries
The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has unveiled its fall 2024 lineup of free on-campus and virtual programs. From insightful gallery experiences to thought-provoking conversations with leading artists, this season’s offerings spotlight pivotal figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Alberto Giacometti, while celebrating contemporary voices such as Nathaniel Mary Quinn and Guadalupe Maravilla. As the Hirshhorn marks 50 years of influence, creativity, and art for all, these free programs honor the past and look boldly toward the future of modern and contemporary art.
In-Person Programs
Gallery Experience: Haitian Art in Revolutions
Friday, Sept. 27 | Noon | Second Level
Join Haitian Art Society board member Matt Dunn for a tour of Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960, where the rich cultural tapestry of Haiti comes alive through the works of artists Castera Bazile, Rigaud Benoit, and Hector Hyppolite within the development of modern art. Dunn will guide visitors through the narratives of these Haitian artists, alongside pieces by figures with deep cultural connections to Haiti, including Cuban-born Wifredo Lam and American Jacob Lawrence.
Performance: Agents of Deterioration by Maia Chao and Ethan Philbrick with the Children’s Chorus of Washington
Saturday, Oct. 5 | Noon, 2:30 PM and 4 PM | Second Level
Agents of Deterioration is a choral performance by artists Maia Chao and Ethan Philbrick composed in response to the Museum’s 50th anniversary exhibition, Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960. Considering the museum’s role in preserving artwork for future generations, the performance samples the language of art conservation in a meditation on permanence, loss, and the fragility. Museum conservators define agents of deterioration as those ten forces that cause objects to decay such as fire, water, pollutants, light, thieves and vandals, to name a few.
For this performance, Chao and Philbrick collaborate with young vocalists from the Children’s Chorus of Washington D.C. to create a sonic guided tour while performing a series of deteriorating choral pieces.
Advance registration is required. Attendees may reserve spaces online for one of three performances.
Happy 50th Birthday, Concrete Doughnut!
Thursday, Oct. 3 through Sunday, Oct. 6 | 10 AM | Lobby Level
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden reaches a milestone on Oct. 4, 2024: 50 years. Fifty is too big a birthday for one day, or one cake, so we’re partnering with four fine bakeries: Rose Avenue Bakery (Oct. 3); Founding Farmers Co. Catering & Events (Oct. 4); Astro Doughnuts & Fried Chicken (Oct. 5) and Just Fine Donuts (Oct. 6, vegan and nut-free) to celebrate our “concrete doughnut.” Between Thursday Oct. 3 and Sunday, Oct. 6, one bakery will provide 50 donuts to be distributed at 10 am in our lobby, one per person, until all have been shared.
Open Studio: Happy Birthday, Hirshhorn
Friday, Oct. 4 and Saturday, Oct. 5 | 10:30 AM–3 PM | Lower Level
Drop in for an artmaking adventure at the Hirshhorn! Explore modern and contemporary art through interactive, hands-on activities inspired by our 50th anniversary.
We’re highlighting artist Mark Bradford and his monumental 2017 “painting with paper,” Pickett’s Charge. All-ages activities will illuminate Bradford’s creative process, his materials, and what inspires him to make art.
Talk: Richard J. Powell on Jean-Michel Basquiat
Thursday, Oct.10 | 6:30 PM | Ring Auditorium
Distinguished author and art historian Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art & Art History at Duke University, explores the life and legacy of Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century, whose work remains a source of inspiration for artists globally.
This program is presented in tandem with Basquiat × Banksy, an exhibition focused on two monumental paintings: Basquiat’s Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (1982) and Banksy’s sharp-witted 2018 response, Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search. The installation introduces global street art traditions such as appropriation, layering, and homage. On view concurrently with the OSGEMEOS: Endless Story, this petite exhibition will provide historical context for how Basquiat and Banksy paved the way for contemporary artists like OSGEMEOS by bringing street art and collaborations into mainstream and art world cultures.
Advance registration is required. Attendees may reserve seats online.
Gallery Experience: Elke Seibert on Alberto Giacometti
Friday, Oct. 18 | Noon | Second Level
Elke Seibert, a scholar of modern European art and a renowned authority on Alberto Giacometti, brings her extensive knowledge of the Swiss artist’s work. Eleven of the more than 30 Giacometti pieces in the Hirshhorn’s collection are featured in the exhibition Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960. Through Seibert’s expert lens, Giacometti’s works will be contextualized within the broader revolutionary movements of the twentieth century.
This program is presented in partnership with the Embassy of Switzerland in the United States of America.
Film: The Giacomettis
Saturday, Oct. 19 | 2 PM | Ring Auditorium
Step into the breathtaking Swiss mountain valley of Bregaglia, the cradle of an extraordinary artistic dynasty, with a special screening of Susanna Fanzun’s The Giacomettis (2023). This 104-minute documentary takes viewers on a journey through the rugged alpine landscapes that shaped the lives and work of one of the most exceptional families in modern art history. Discover the rich heritage and creative legacy that flows from this remote valley, where Alberto Giacometti, his Impressionist father, and his gifted brothers created timeless masterpieces that continue to resonate around the world.
This program is presented in partnership with the Embassy of Switzerland in the United States of America.
21st Century Consort: Above and Beyond
Saturday, Nov. 16 | 5–7 PM | Ring Auditorium
21st Century Consort, the resident ensemble for contemporary music at the Smithsonian Institution, kicks off its 50th anniversary season with Above and Beyond. Directed by founder and conductor, Christopher Kendall, the program is inspired by the worlds above us, from the flights of birds to the distant reaches of the cosmos.
Above and Beyond program is presented in celebration of the 25th anniversary of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the 50th anniversary of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Visitors are encouraged to mine connections to the music throughout the Museum’s anniversary exhibition, Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960.
Artist Talk: Nathaniel Mary Quinn
Thursday, Nov. 21 | 6:30 PM | Ring Auditorium
Artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn joins Hirshhorn head curator Evelyn Hankins to explore the history and process behind his visually striking portraits.
Although his compositions resemble collage, Quinn draws and paints directly on paper using a variety of media, including paint, charcoal, and pastel, to render his subjects. His composite portraits often blend and blur fragments of the artist’s personal photographs and memories with imagery taken from print media and the Internet.
Quinn’s work Literacy Lab (2019) recently entered the Hirshhorn’s collection as a gift of Iris and Adam Singer. On view in Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960, the composite portrait is presented in conversation with Modernist compositions by Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger. Quinn’s work highlights its roots in history even as it upends conventions. Quinn created Literacy Lab through a process that evokes the Surrealists’ “exquisite corpse” technique: he used paper to conceal much of his composition, letting himself see only the area he was working on. The result is a mesmerizing yet disarming juxtaposition of pictorial elements varying in scale, perspective, and color that, even as they point to Picasso’s and other Cubists’ fragmented forms, create a wholly unique space for empathy and a reconsideration of how we view others.
Curator’s Tour: Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860-1960
Friday, Dec. 6 | Noon | Second Level
Hirshhorn assistant curator Betsy Johnson will walk visitors through the anniversary exhibition Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960, which marks the Museum’s 50th anniversary year and surveys one of the most revolutionary periods in art history. Among the featured artists: Francis Bacon, Amoako Boafo, Emily Carr, Joan Hartigan, Jasper Johns, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, Pablo Picasso, John Singer Sargent and many more.
Virtual Programs
Virtual Artist Talk: Guadalupe Maravilla
Tuesday, Oct. 29 | Noon EDT | Online via Zoom
Artist Guadalupe Maravilla joins Hirshhorn curator Marina Isgro online via Zoom to explore how art can be a tool for activism and healing.
Maravilla’s transdisciplinary work engages with a wide variety of visual cultures as well as his personal experiences, from his arrival in the United States as an unaccompanied migrant fleeing the Salvadoran Civil War to, more recently, overcoming colon cancer. Through painting, performance, sculpture, and workshops, he creates opportunities for audiences to grapple with issues of migration and generational trauma while establishing space and rituals for care, healing, and regeneration.
Maravilla’s 2021 work Disease Thrower #12 entered the Hirshhorn’s collection in 2023. The sculpture incorporates a mix of materials, including a gong, steel, wood, cotton, loofah, and other objects collected from a ritual of retracing the artist’s original migration route. Like other works in his Disease Thrower series, the work can be activated through performance to encourage meditative and healing processes.
Virtual Artist Talk: Mark Dion
Wednesday, Dec. 11 | Noon EST | Online via Zoom
American conceptual artist Mark Dion joins Hirshhorn curator Betsy Johnson for a virtual conversation. Dion, celebrated for his unique ability to merge art with natural history, will delve into his thought-provoking practice and discuss, The Desk of a Tropical Ecologist (Guyana Field: Semang Creek) (1999), in the Hirshhorn collection. This talk will offer a behind-the-scenes look at how Dion meticulously reconstructs the tools and artifacts of scientific inquiry, blurring the lines between art, science, and history.
About the Hirshhorn
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is the national museum of modern and contemporary art and a leading voice for 21st-century art and culture. Part of the Smithsonian, the Hirshhorn is located prominently on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Its holdings encompass one of the most important collections of postwar American and European art in the world. The Hirshhorn presents diverse exhibitions and offers an array of public programs on the art of our time—free to all. The Hirshhorn Museum is open daily, 10 am–5:30 pm (except Dec. 25). For more information, visit hirshhorn.si.edu. Follow the museum on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
All images by Jean-Michel Basquiat, all likenesses of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and all use of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s name © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.
Image: Hector Hyppolite, General Baubou and the Mambo, by 1948. Oil on paperboard mounted on wood. 27 ¼ × 6 1/8 in. (69.2 × 91.7 cm). The Joseph H. Hirshhorn Bequest, 1981. Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Photo: Lee Stalsworth.
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