Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Media only:
Donna Sawyer (202) 633-4765 or sawyerd@si.edu
Gabriel Einsohn (202) 633-2822 or einsohng@si.edu
Public only:
(202) 633-1000 or https://hirshhorn.si.edu
Hirshhorn Museum Announces 2006-2008 Exhibitions and Special Projects
“Directions-Oliver Herring”
Through July 2, 2006
“Directions-Oliver Herring” includes Herring’s “Task,” performed at the Hirshhorn on April 29, and video works from the artist’s “Basic” series (2001), on view in the lower-level galleries. In this video series, Herring (b. Germany, 1964) creates situations in which performers, under his direction, express themselves and interact with one another. These works, later edited by the artist, are living experiments that present an openly inquisitive and joyful approach to human interaction. The project is organized by assistant curator Kristen Hileman.
This exhibition is part of the museum’s “Directions” series, which has brought the works of leading and emerging international artists to Washington since 1987. “Directions-Oliver Herring” is made possible by Ray Graham III, Trellis Fund and the Department of Fine Arts and Art History, George Washington University.
“Directions-Jim Lambie”
May 13-Oct. 2, 2006
Jim Lambie (b. Glasgow, Scotland, 1964) transforms the Hirshhorn Museum’s lobby into a lively, colorful and immersive environment that includes one of Lambie’s signature taped floor installations from his “Zobop” series. The artist’s site-specific installation that covers the museum’s lobby floor in fluorescent vinyl tape placed meticulously edge-to-edge in simple, patterns that respond to the museum’s architecture. In addition to Lambie’s floor installation, several sculptures made on site from objects found in Washington-area thrift stores, markets and pawn shops will also be on view. This is the first time Lambie’s work has been exhibited in Washington, D.C. The exhibition is organized by associate curator Anne Ellegood.
This project is part of the museum’s “Directions” series, which has brought the work of leading and emerging international artists to Washington since 1987. This project is made possible by Trellis Fund, Ray Graham III, Doug Ring and Cindy Miscikowski and contributions to the Hirshhorn’s Annual Circle.
“Black Box: Francis Alÿs”
April 17-Aug. 14, 2006
The second installation in the Hirshhorn’s Black Box space for new media features Francis Alÿs (b. Belgium, 1959), an artist who has lived and worked in Mexico City since 1990. Alÿs, who considers urban settings his “open-air studio,” often focuses on observing and manipulating aspects of everyday life. The featured film comes from his recently completed five-year series of projects set in London, which delve into the daily rituals and habits of the metropolis. “Guards” (2004-2005), follows 64 individual Coldstream Guards as they move through downtown London. Just outside the Black Box is “Shoeshine” (2005), which documents preparations for the regimental maneuver staged in “Guards.” The Black Box space is curated by associate curator Kelly Gordon. Support for the Black Box program is provided by Lawrence A. Cohen/Ringler Associates.
“Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth”
June 22-Sept. 10, 2006
(Traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Oct. 12-Jan 14, 2007)
The first survey of Anselm Kiefer’s (b. 1945, Germany) work in almost two decades, “Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth” emphasizes the layers of meaning in the artist’s work and specifically focuses on his career-long meditation of the relationship between heaven and earth. The presentation at the Hirshhorn is comprised of 40 major paintings, watercolors, books and sculptures created from 1969 to 2005, including two recent paintings from Kiefer’s studio in Barjac, France, that have never before been seen in public and will only be shown at the Hirshhorn. Key paintings from private and public collections in Europe and North America are also on view. Public opening with curator’s lecture and musical performance on June 22, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. The presentation at the Hirshhorn is coordinated by curator Valerie Fletcher.
“Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth” is made possible by the global financial services firm UBS. The exhibition is organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Additional support for the presentation at the Hirshhorn is provided by the Holenia Trust in memory of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, the Friends of James and Barbara Demetrion Endowment Fund, the Hirshhorn’s Board of Trustees and Robert Mnuchin.
“Ways of Seeing: John Baldessari Explores the Collection”
July 26-early April 2007
This July the Hirshhorn launches a new initiative in which artists create installations using works drawn from the museum’s collection. John Baldessari (b. California, 1931) is the first artist to participate in this project offering the public new insights and perspectives on the Hirshhorn’s collection. In 2005, the Hirshhorn received a major gift of four early works by Baldessari, given by The Glenstone Foundation/Mitchell P. Rales in honor of the Hirshhorn’s former director, Ned Rifkin. These works are from an important period in the artist’s career during which he became a primary force in establishing what would later be termed “conceptual” art. The first by Baldessari to enter the Hirshhorn collection, the works will be on view concurrently with the artist’s installation. Programming includes Meet the Artist: John Baldessari on Sept. 28, at 7 p.m. The project is organized by assistant curator Kristen Hileman.
“The Uncertainty of Objects and Ideas: Recent Sculpture”
Oct. 26, 2006-Jan. 7, 2007
Presenting recent works by nine international contemporary artists of different generations, this exhibition features freestanding sculptures created with a wide range of materials that investigate the translation of ideas and observations into physical forms. These artists give shape to the fleeting, theoretical, and difficult-to-explain in an effort to visualize social and scientific phenomena, while highlighting the uncertainty of both materials and ideas and the range of meaning. Combining the hand-made with mass-produced consumer objects, the artists use materials usually associated with sculpture-clay, plaster, steel, wood, papier-mâché and glass-as well as natural and synthetic “found” objects such as plants, furniture, used batteries, plastic flowers, toys and even air freshener. Genuinely experimental, the artists respond to the history of sculpture while offering insights into how the medium can still expand our ways of seeing. Artists included are Andrea Cohen, Björn Dahlem, Isa Genzken, Mark Handforth, Rachel Harrison, Evan Holloway, Charles Long, Mindy Shapero and Franz West. The exhibition is organized by associate curator Anne Ellegood.
“Wolfgang Tillmans”
Feb. 15-May 13, 2007
(The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, May 20-Aug.20, 2006 and the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, Los Angeles, Sept.-Nov. 2006)
Wolfgang Tillmans (b. Germany, 1968) is internationally recognized for his photography that captures often overlooked subjects and moments in everyday life. The exhibition at the Hirshhorn, co-organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MCA) and the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, Los Angeles, is the first major solo exhibition of this artist to tour in the United States. Tillmans’s work concentrates on deceptively casual views of friends and acquaintances caught at their most unguardedly “human” moments. He presents his photographs in distinctive installations, in which variously sized photographs are affixed to the walls in deliberate (yet seemingly random) arrangements, in order to create a variety of physical and emotional relationships with the viewer based on placement and scale. Tillmans’s presentation at the Hirshhorn features installations consisting of approximately 300 photographs. The exhibition is co-curated by Dominic Molon, associate curator, MCA, and Russell Ferguson, deputy director of exhibitions and chief curator, Hammer Museum.
“The Cinema Effect” (working title)
Part I: “Dreams” late June-Sept. 2007; Part II: “Realisms” mid-Oct. 2007-early Jan. 2008
Film and video technology (as well as television and the internet) and their vocabularies have permeated contemporary culture so that the very boundaries between “real life” and make-believe are often indistinct-sometimes to the point of being indecipherable. “The Cinema Effect” is a two-part exhibition that will focus on contemporary works of art and the ways in which they adapt, challenge or reflect the influence of cinema and its blurring of definitions of fact and fiction. In addition to single-channel and multi-screen installations by a range of international artists, the exhibition also includes works in other media to demonstrate the pervasiveness of cinema’s effect on contemporary culture. Among other artists included are Omer Fast and Isaac Julien, whose work the Hirshhorn has recently acquired.
“Dreams” explores the experience intrinsic to film viewing-the transition from waking to dream-like state and the return to consciousness-as well as its darker, voyeuristic implications and is organized by chief curator Kerry Brougher and associate curator Kelly Gordon. “Realisms” focuses on the question of reality vs. illusion that is inherent to film and is a defining issue for our culture and for many artists and is organized by associate curator Anne Ellegood and assistant curator Kristen Hileman.
About the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian’s museum of international modern and contemporary art, has some 11,500 paintings, sculptures, mixed media installations and works on paper in its collection. The Hirshhorn maintains an active and diverse exhibition program and offers an array of free public programs that explore the art of our time. The museum, located at Independence Avenue and Seventh Street S.W., is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25), and admission is free.
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