Artist Talk: Torkwase Dyson and Flora Yukhnovich

Advance registration for this program is at capacity. A standby line will open in the lobby at 5 pm on Friday, Mar. 22 to redistribute seats in event of no-shows.

Questions? Email Hirshhornexperience@si.edu
Hirshhorn Insiders, email HMSGdevelopment@si.edu

 

To inaugurate the Hirshhorn’s 50th anniversary and the opening of Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960, join us for a conversation between celebrated artists Torkwase Dyson and Flora Yukhnovich. Revolutions surveys one of the most innovative periods in art history by presenting 270 artworks by 126 artists in the Hirshhorn collection. Alongside Modern masterpieces, the installation includes 19 interventions by contemporary artists including Dyson and Yukhnovich which demonstrate the continued vitality of late 19th- and early 20th-century approaches.

Dyson and Yukhnovich will be joined by the Hirshhorn’s Marina Isgro, associate curator and Betsy Johnson, assistant curator, to discuss how both artists draw from the rich artistic heritage, from gestural abstraction to the monochrome, and the ways they rework these forms to speak to the present moment.

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Torkwase Dyson (b. Chicago, Illinois, 1973) describes herself as a painter working across multiple mediums to explore the continuity among ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. Examining the history and future of Black spatial liberation strategies, Dyson’s abstract works grapple with the ways in which space is perceived and negotiated, particularly by Black and Brown bodies. In 2021, a solo exhibition of Dyson’s work was on view at the Hall Art Foundation, Schloss Derneburg, Germany, and her work was also presented at the 13th Shanghai Biennale. In addition to participating in group exhibitions at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus; the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson; the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; and Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, Dyson has had solo exhibitions and installations at Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago; Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia; Suzanne Lemberg Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Vermont; and Serpentine Pavilion, Serpentine Galleries, London.

Born in 1990, Flora Yukhnovich completed her MA at the City & Guilds of London Art School in 2017. She had her first solo exhibition at Brocket, London, in December 2017 and has exhibited at Parafin, London; the Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region (GASK), Czech Republic; the Jerwood Gallery Hastings, UK; and Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University, UK. In 2023, Yukhnovich was one of the first artists to take part in a series of solo exhibitions responding to the collections of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, titled Ashmolean NOW (July 8, 2023–January 14, 2024). Work by the artist was featured in the survey exhibition Impressionism: A World View, on view at the Nassau County Museum of Art, New York (2022). Collections include the Government Art Collection, London; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. In 2018, she completed the Great Women Artists Residency at Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy.

 

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960 highlights works from the earlier half of the Museum’s collection. In response to new technologies, groundbreaking scientific discoveries, and rapidly expanding cities, as well as World Wars I and II, artists in both Europe and North America invented dramatically novel approaches to artmaking during this time. This period saw the development of abstraction in Western art, the increased use of nontraditional materials, and the rise of Conceptualism—the notion that the idea behind an artwork is more important than the art object. Many artists used their work to comment on social and political issues; others looked inward, making art that dealt with personal expression or the problems of form itself. Revolutions is primarily organized chronologically, but it also opens dialogues across history, with select contemporary artworks installed in conversation with modern masterworks to demonstrate that ideas and approaches formulated between 1860 and 1960 remain critical today.

 

If you have questions or a request for access services or accommodations that can make your experience more inclusive, please contact hirshhornexperience@si.edu. One to two weeks’ advance notice is recommended but not required.