40th anniversary programming
Spring 2015
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Independence Avenue at Seventh Street SW
Washington DC 20560
Hours: Daily 10am–5:30pm,
closed December 25
For our complete programs calendar, visit our website.
Jason Moran and Theaster Gates: Meet the Artists
Film: Jason Moran: Looks of a Lot
Thursday, March 19
Film screening at 6pm, discussion at 7:15pm
Ring Auditorium
In May 2014, renowned jazz pianist, composer, and performance artist Jason Moran collaborated with visual artist Theaster Gates on Looks of a Lot, a live performance commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The similarly titled documentary by RoundO Films follows their collaboration. Also featured in the film are saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark and bassist and vocalist Katie Ernst, as well as students from the Kenwood Academy Jazz Band, musicians who were integral to the project. Join us for a screening of the documentary followed by a discussion between Moran and Gates.
Media sponsor: Artnet
Curators in Conversation: Melissa Chiu and James T. Demetrion
Hirshhorn: Past, Present, and Future
Thursday, April 2, 6:30pm
Ring Auditorium
As part of the Hirshhorn’s ongoing 40th anniversary celebration, director Melissa Chiu welcomes former director Jim Demetrion for a discussion of the legacy and future of the Museum. Demetrion’s 17-year tenure, from 1984 to 2001, was marked by outstanding acquisitions of works by artists such as Bruce Nauman, William Kentridge, Louise Bourgeois, Ron Mueck, Anselm Kiefer, Janine Antoni, Lucian Freud, Juan Muñoz, Gerhard Richter, Susan Rothenberg, Wolfgang Laib, Martin Puryear, Francis Bacon, Doris Salcedo, and Jeff Koons, as well as by major individual and group exhibitions and dynamic directions shows highlighting emerging artists. This program is presented as part of the ongoing Curators in Conversation series, which focuses on creativity—what inspires curiosity, motivates imagination, and produces meaning.
This series is sponsored by Joanne Gold and Andrew Stern.
Julie Mehretu: Meet the Artist
Friday, April 24, 6:30pm
Ring Auditorium
Ethiopian-born American artist Julie Mehretu speaks about her practice as part of the Hirshhorn’s ongoing Meet the Artist series. Exploring time and place, Mehretu layers gestural marks and architectural, geographical, and historical symbols to create large-scale semi-abstract canvases. Her work is included in The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, on view at the National Museum of African Art April 8–August 2, 2015. Guest-curated by Simon Njami, the multimedia exhibition exploring Dante’s fourteenth-century epic includes original commissions and renowned works of art by approximately 40 of the most dynamic contemporary artists from 19 African nations and the diaspora. This program is presented in collaboration with the National Museum of African Art.
Media sponsor: Artnet
