Hirshhorn Blog

At the heart of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is its collection. The more than 12,000 objects that now comprise its holdings are largely the result of the generosity of the Museum's founder, Joseph H. Hirshhorn. Our collection also includes gifts from a new generation of donors and purchases that not only enhance the existing collection but also look to the future with recent works by emerging and influential international artists in all media.

This fall, we devote our galleries to the permanent collection—old favorites, new additions, and even an exploration of what might have been.

Visitors will have their first opportunity to view the acquisition of thirty-nine works from the world-renowned private collection of Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo. In addition to filling a Conceptual art gap in our collection, these works also round out holdings by specific artists. In nine instances, they're the first acquired by important and innovative Conceptual, Minimal, Light and Space, and Environmental artists.

We're also pleased that Dr. Panza and his wife, Giovanna, will serve as guest curators for the next installation of the Ways of Seeing series.

Terence Gower's Directions project considers a little-known period in the history of Joseph H. Hirshhorn's quest to find a home for his collection. The artist's research-based multimedia installation presents Hirshhorn's plan in the 1950s to build a town in the Canadian wilderness that would have art and culture at its core. Fortunately for us, these original grand designs were not realized, and Mr. Hirshhorn was compelled to continue his pursuit of a suitable repository for his art. The rest is history, which leads us to this museum and its role as the only institution solely dedicated to modern and contemporary art on the National Mall.

When you're here, please take a moment to also visit the lower level of the Museum. The Black Box features intriguing works by Semiconductor and Ori Gersht, and you still have time to catch Currents: Recent Acquisitions, which closes November 16 to make way for Strange Bodies, which opens in December. Strange Bodies offers a fresh look at some of the fascinating figurative works in the collection. The exhibition includes pieces that are new to the Museum as well as perennial favorites like Untitled (Big Man), 2000.

For those of you who would like to learn more about objects on view, we offer Friday Gallery Talks. These informal chats led by local artists, scholars, and Hirshhorn staff focus on a different work each week.

I hope to see you at the Hirshhorn soon!

Kerry Brougher
Acting Director and Chief Curator

As part of its mission to collect important works by the artists of our time, the Hirshhorn has recently acquired numerous works in diverse media by a range of international artists. Among the recent Contemporary Acquisitions Council (CAC) purchases is Margaret Salmon's poignant video installation Ninna Nanna, 2006, which follows the understated domestic dramas of three young mothers. The intimacies of feeding, changing, and soothing the infants are portrayed across a triptych of projections, while emotions ranging from tenderness to exhaustion register on the women's faces. This look at early motherhood replaces stereotypical bliss with a complex study of individuals adapting to new relationships and realities. Salmon shot the work in Italy and chose a haunting Italian lullaby to accompany her color and black-and-white 16mm imagery. The song and the quality of the film lend the work the otherworldly, nostalgic look of home movies of the past—an attribute that makes the artist's staged scenes seem unsettlingly authentic.

Also acquired by the CAC, Matthew Northridge's eye-popping Memorial to the Great Western Expo, September 11-October 20, 2007, is like an extravagant celebration reduced to a manageable scale. The work consists of 1,540 individual flag-like forms strung onto 55 separate rows, which are then installed in a dense layer across the corner of the gallery. While the form is reminiscent of the cheap colorful plastic flags car dealerships use to announce a big sale, the unique pattern and color scheme suggests something more akin to national or regional flags. Northridge uses found paper as the primary material for his labor-intensive and painstakingly precise works. He cuts details out of larger images from magazines, catalogues, and exhibition announcements and arranges them into repetitive patterns. Northridge's flag pieces reference completely fictional places that are rooted in the idealism of democracy and the egalitarianism of a world's fair. In this piece, his cropping reduces recognizable imagery into decoration and patterning but nonetheless instigates our consideration of such topics as national pride, world politics, corporate identity, and marketing strategies.

Augmenting its increasingly rich collection of moving-image artwork, films by the next three artists featured in the Black Box have also been purchased: Semiconductor's Magnetic Movie, 2007, Ori Gersht's Big Bang II, 2006, and Guido van der Werve's Nummer Negen (#9) the day I didn't turn with the world, 2007.

Two additional new media works from this year's The Cinema Effect exhibition were also recently added to the collection: Matthew Buckingham's A Man of the Crowd, 2003, and the hugely popular interactive work, You and I, Horizontal II, 2006, by Anthony McCall. The Hirshhorn also purchased Amy Sillman's painting P & H 2 (Behemoth), 2007, from her Directions show.

Since the initial gift of 6,000 works of art by founding donor Joseph H. Hirshhorn, the Museum has benefited from the generosity of local, national, and international collectors of modern and contemporary art. In addition to Mr. Hirshhorn's collection, 1,354 objects have been given by 378 donors over the years. (To see a full list of these donors, please visit our website.) Gifts to the collection have come from established prominent collectors as well as those just beginning to acquire art. The next time you walk through our galleries, take a look at the credit information for the work on view.

The Museum is incredibly fortunate to have a family of donors who support the institution by giving works of art that continue to enhance the collection. Several of these works are on view this fall. Longtime friends of the Hirshhorn and local collectors Mitchell P. Rales and Anthony and Heather Podesta have donated many works of art over the years. Rales is chairman of The Glenstone Foundation, which supports education, the arts, animal rights, and environmental projects. Through the foundation, Mr. Rales has donated eighteen works of art, including several Conceptual pieces by John Baldessari, and a suite of thirteen Seascapes by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. Several of these photographs are currently on view on the third level.

The Podestas have given fifty-three pieces to the Hirshhorn. Among them is a work by Tony Oursler, two by Darren Almond, seven photographs by Nikki Lee, which were on view earlier this year in Currents: Recent Acquisitions, and a painting by Fiona Rae, Sunburst Finish, 1997, currently on the third level of the Museum. The Podestas have a generous history of giving gifts of art to museums in several states. Mr. Podesta is a top lobbyist who, among his many accomplishments, was appointed by President Clinton to his Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

We continually welcome works by our expanding base of donors. Mario Cader-Frech and Robert Wennett jointly gave three pieces: Dan Steinhilber's popular sculpture made of simple, paper-covered wire hangers, Untitled, 2002; Maggie Michaels's abstract painting Genie, 2003; and Jiha Moon's work on paper Styx, 2005, are all on view in Currents: Recent Acquisitions on the lower level. Both Mr. Cader-Frech and Mr. Wennett are collectors of contemporary art in their own right and businessmen and philanthropists in Miami and DC.

The Contemporary Acquisitions Council, created in 2006, has provided the opportunity for twenty-six donors (for a list, visit our website) to participate in the acquisitions process. They learn about new directions in contemporary art while meeting others who share their enthusiasm for the Hirshhorn.

First-time donors of art to the Hirshhorn Jill and Peter Kraus, Danielle and David Ganek, and Mark Rosman pooled their resources in order to purchase Pentagon, 2004Ð05, a large-scale abstracted painting of the famous building, by Wayne Gonzales, on view in the lower-level lobby. Their collaborative effort is a creative approach to pursuing their passion for contemporary art and their desire to share it with visitors to the Museum for generations to come.

If you are interested in becoming involved with the Hirshhorn as a member or donor of art, please contact our development office at 202-633-0570.

Curators Anne Ellegood and Evelyn Hankins have recently reinstalled a number of collection galleries on the third level of the Museum. In the lobby, several important paintings from the 1960s by Frank Stella offer a stark contrast to the Abstract Expressionist canvases (on view in adjacent galleries) by such renowned painters as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, who gained notoriety in the 1950s. Stella's abstract canvases embrace hard-edged geometries. Working in both mono- and multichrome palettes, his use of familiar shapes and repeated forms create rhythmic and dynamic spaces that deny illusion in painting. Another gallery includes a selection of early twentieth-century paintings that depict scenes from everyday life, including George Wesley Bellows' lively portrayal of a boxing match and the serene and somewhat haunting depiction of a couple seated in a theater by Edward Hopper. To enhance and complicate the presentations of American abstraction throughout the galleries, several important geometric abstract works by Latin American artists have been brought together, including two extraordinary sculptures by Jesus Rafael Soto, whose repeated forms suggest movement, and a recently acquired blue and yellow shaped canvas by Havana-born Carmen Herrera, on view for the first time.

Every Friday at 12:30 pm, the Hirshhorn hosts free informal gallery discussions. Museum staff as well as local artists, scholars, and people from a variety of viewpoints share their insights with visitors and encourage a dialogue about the works on view. Curatorial Research Associate Ryan Hill emphasizes this interactive approach at the Hirshhorn. "The act of looking can be a conversation between the viewer and an artwork," he notes. "When experienced with others in the social space of the Museum, people think and feel in ways they may not expect."

Regular attendees to the program have observed that it is "a great way to spend my lunch break" or to "find out more about my favorite pieces in the collection." Local artist Linn Meyers said "it's a 'quickie' but it always has depth, something to mull over for the rest of my Friday afternoon."

Speakers have included locals like Mary Coble, William Christenberry, and iona rozeal brown, giving them a public platform to discuss their work and that of others. Attendees also have the chance to hear from visiting artists shown in Hirshhorn exhibitions, such as Alyson Shotz, featured in Currents, and Terence Gower, whose Directions project is on view this fall.

Curators and scholars from across the country as well as local art historians and critics have also participated, allowing the program to present a well-rounded context for talking and thinking about art. Optical engineer and presenter Suzanne St. Cyr said "I really enjoyed using my background as a scientist to discuss my interest in art and perception."

Most discussions last for about thirty minutes, allowing DC-area residents as well as tourists to stop by for a bit of culture and the opportunity to meet others interested in the arts. Several times a year, these talks take the form of hour-long conversations, usually between an artist and a curator, critic, or another artist, held in the Ring Auditorium.

Be sure to check our website regularly for updates to the schedule. This season promises to be especially lively, and there are a few surprise guests in the works.

Did you miss one of our talks? Most Friday Gallery Talks are available as free podcasts at  hirshhorn.si.edu and iTunes.