Hirshhorn Museum Offers March/April Public Programs

Thursday, March 14, 2013

This spring, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden offers a range of educational programs that invite audiences to engage with artists, curators and works on view on a deeper level. All programs are free and in the Ring Auditorium, unless otherwise noted. 

Meet the Artist: Flatform
Thursday, March 14; 7 p.m.
“A Meditation on Imaginary Landscapes”
Founded in 2007 and based in Berlin and Milan, Flatform is a media-arts collective that creates time-based works, film events and installations, many of which revolve around landscape and biopolitics. Their award-winning shorts have been featured in festivals worldwide, as well as in the Hors Pistes celebration of moving-image works organized by the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The artists will present an overview of their work to date. Presented in conjunction with the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital.

Meet the Artist: Christo
Wednesday, March 27; 6:30 p.m.
“Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Two Works in Progress”
Early in his career, Christo created actual-size reinterpretations of commercial displays such as Store Front, included in the new Hirshhorn exhibition “Out of the Ordinary.” He and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, went on to develop public art projects that involved wrapping pieces of architecture in fabric or intervening in the landscape on a grand scale. In this evening’s lecture, Christo discusses two ongoing projects: “Over the River,” 5.9 miles of fabric panels to be temporarily suspended above 42 miles of the Arkansas River in Colorado, and “The Mastaba,” the largest sculpture in the world and the pair’s only permanent large-scale work, to be located near Abu Dhabi. 

Busboys and Poets “Belief+Doubt” Poetry Event
Friday, April 12; 8 p.m.
Hirshhorn Lobby and Lower Level
$10 Advance Tickets Required
Busboys and Poets, a DC-area group of restaurants and multicultural arts venues, presents a poetry showcase in celebration of “Belief+Doubt,” Barbara Kruger’s site-specific installation on the Hirshhorn’s Lower Level. Performances will include local masters of slam, spoken-word, American Sign Language, literary and teen poetry. Tickets are required and must be purchased in advance at busboysandpoets.com. 

2013 James T. Demetrion Lecture: Jeff Koons
Thursday, April 18; 7 p.m.
Internationally recognized artist Jeff Koons is best known for public works such as the large-scale floral installation “Puppy.” His ironically monumental reimaginings of banal subjects such as inflatable toys and kitschy photos and his appropriations of commercial imagery have been exhibited worldwide. Based on a re-creation of a destroyed late-19th-century original, Koons’ stainless steel sculpture “Kiepenkerl” is currently on view at the entrance to the Hirshhorn’s sculpture garden. 

Curator’s Tour of “Over, Under, Next: Experiments in Mixed Media, 1913–Present”
Wednesday, April 24; 7 p.m.
Second Level
Associate curator Evelyn Hankins discusses ways in which artists from almost every major art movement over the past century—from cubism, dada and surrealism through abstract expressionism, pop and post-modernism—have made use of unorthodox and incongruous materials to subvert conventional definitions of art. “Over, Under, Next,” the first in a series of permanent collection-related exhibitions leading up to the museum’s 40th anniversary in 2014, opens April 18. 

About the Hirshhorn
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian’s museum of international modern and contemporary art, has nearly 12,000 paintings, sculptures, photographs, mixed-media installations, works on paper and new media works in its collection. The Hirshhorn presents diverse exhibitions and offers an array of public programs that explore modern and contemporary art. Located at Independence Avenue and Seventh Street S.W., the museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). Admission to the galleries and special programs is free. For more information about exhibitions and events, visit hirshhorn.si.edu. Follow the Hirshhorn on Facebook at facebook.com/hirshhorn and on Twitter at twitter.com/hirshhorn. Or sign up for the museum’s eBlasts at hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/social-media. To request accessibility services, contact Kristy Maruca at marucak@si.edu or (202) 633-2796, preferably two weeks in advance. 

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