EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA SERIES 2009

Juror: Kelly Gordon, Associate Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Since 2006, the Experimental Media Series has showcased the talents of artists working in sound and video art.

This year’s selection of finalists’ works will present the leading edge in electronic media works. The most compelling entries, as selected by the juror Kelly Gordon, Associate Curator of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and based on overall quality and innovation, will be awarded the Kraft Prize for New Media and the WPA Experimental Art Prize, two cash prizes of $750 each, to be presented on October 1 at The Phillips Collection.

VENUE SCHEDULE:

October 1, 2009, 6:30-8:15 pm
The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20009
Admission is free or by suggested donation only

October 13 and 14, 2009, 7:00-9:00 pm
Maryland Institute College of Art, Falvey Hall, 1301 W. Mount Royal Ave, Baltimore, MD 21217
Admission is free and open to the public

October 15, 2009, 8:00-9:30 pm
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 7th Street and Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20013
Admission is free and open to the public

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Stephen Ausherman (US)
Stephanie Barber (US)
Bret Battey (UK )
Patrick Bergeron (CA)
Manuella Blackburn (UK)
Aaron Bowles (US)
Lin Culbertson (US)
Robert Ladislas Derr (US)
Nhieu Do (US)
Brian Evans (US)
Harvey Goldman (US)
Lee Henderson (CA)
Janne Holtermann (DE)
Daniel Iglesia (US)
Ben McCormick (US)
Karl J. Mendonca (US)
Jonathan Monaghan (US)
Neil Ira Needleman (US)
Julia Oldham (US)
Kala Pierson (US)
Maria Pithara (US)
Gerard Freixes Ribera (ES)
Stefan Riebel (DE)
Alberto Roblest (US)
Jack Dingo Ryan (US)
Eldad Tsabary (CA) & Robert Voisey (US)
Jessica Westbrook (US)

Source: WPA

ART CONVERSATION

September 3, 6:30 p.m.

Hirshhorn curator Kristen Hileman and Phillips Collection curator Vesela Sretenovic discuss "Looking at Baselitz and Guston: Part I," about works by Georg Baselitz and Philip Guston.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Seventh Street and Independence Avenue SW

Free. 202-633-1000.

"Directions-Terence Gower, Public Spirit"

November 5, 2008 to March 22, 2009

The Canadian artist considers a little-known period in the history of founding-donor Joseph H. Hirshhorn’s quest to find a home for his collection. Gower’s research-based multimedia installation reveals Hirshhorn’s plan in the 1950s to build a town with art and culture at its core in the wilderness of Ontario, Canada. The original designs for the community were never realized, thus Hirshhorn was compelled to continue his pursuit of a permanent home for his art.

Based on materials uncovered by Gower as a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow in 2007, the project presents an animated video “tour” of the town, aluminum sculptures derived from original models of the museum and office tower buildings and an installation of four cases of archival materials. The cases feature a number of materials Gower discovered during his research, texts written by the artist and a selection of works on paper from the Hirshhorn’s collection dating from the 1930s to 1950s by artists such as Man Ray, Josef Albers, Irene Rice Pereira and Victor Vasarely. These are works that might have been included in an inaugural exhibition at the museum had Hirshhorn, Ontario, been realized.

The “Directions” series highlights the vitality, diversity and inventiveness that characterizes contemporary art. It has brought new work by emerging and established artists to Washington, D.C., since 1987. This exhibition is made possible in part by Trellis Fund and the Peter Norton Family Foundation and is organized by Hirshhorn curator Anne Ellegood.

Black Box: Semiconductor

Magnetic Movie
August 25, 2008-December 14, 2008

Artists Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt, aka Semiconductor, have collaborated since 1999 on various forms of “digital noise and computer anarchy,” including films, experimental DVDs, and multimedia performances. The London-based pair makes moving-image works that reveal our physical world in flux: cities in motion, shifting landscapes, and systems in chaos. They strive to transcend the constraints of time, scale, and natural forces and explore the world beyond human experience, questioning our very existence.

Among the shorts featured in the Black Box is Magnetic Movie, 2007, an eye-dazzling “documentary” created during the artists’ residency at the NASA Space Sciences Laboratories, UC Berkeley. The secret lives of invisible magnetic fields are exposed as chaotic ever-changing geometries. VLF (very low frequency) audio recordings reveal recurrent “whistlers” produced by fleeting electrons, while space scientists describe their discoveries. As we watch the film it’s not clear: Are we observing a series of scientific experiments, the universe in flux, or a documentary of a fictional world?

Magnetic Movie was awarded best film at Cutting Edge and at the 2008 British Animation Awards and best experimental film at the 2007 Tirana International Film Festival. Joseph Gerhardt was born in 1972, Oxford, England, and has a bachelor’s of arts in sculpture from the University of Brighton. Ruth Jarman was born in 1973, Fareham, England, and has a bachelor’s in critical fine art practice from the University of Brighton.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Smithsonian Institution
Independence Avenue
Washington, D.C., 20024

See Moving Pictures at the Hirshhorn

Blake Gopnik covers "Dreams," in today's WaPO, "the stunning show that opened yesterday at the Hirshhorn Museum, is like nothing you've ever seen in a museum. Its 21 works of moving-picture art -- part of an ambitious Hirshhorn project called "The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image" -- are strung along a dark labyrinth of rooms. The installation perfectly captures that magic moment of potential when the lights go down in movieland and anything can happen."

Read more Here

Linn MEYERS artist talk at Hirshhorn

Linn MEYERS: Friday Gallery Talk

January 18, 12:30 pm

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Linn MEYERS will be giving a talk at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden with curatorial research associate Ryan Hill on Currents: Recent Acquisitions, a show that includes Meyers’s work.

G FINE ART
1515 Fourteenth St. NW
Washington, DC 20005
202.462.1601

Meet the Artist - Mircea Cantor

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Ring Auditorium, 7pm

Mircea Cantor presents an additional film and speaks about his work featured in the Black Box space for new media. A selection of Cantor's short films will be screened on Thursday, October 4, at 11 am and 1 pm in Ring Auditorium.

All programs are free and take place in Ring Auditorium unless otherwise noted. Seating is limited and available on a first-come basis, so plan to arrive early. Unless otherwise noted, doors open at 6:30 pm; advance ticketing starts at 6:15 pm. One ticket per person. Meet the Artist talks are available for download as free Podcasts.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is located on the National Mall in downtown Washington, DC, at the corner of Seventh Street SW and Independence Avenue. West of the US Capitol and east of the Washington Monument, it is the round building next to the Smithsonian's red brick Arts and Industries building.

We All Need a Pygmalion:

A Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style: Musical Panel Discussion

Saturday, September 29, 2007
3pm, Ring Auditorium
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

PERFORMANCE
Artist to Artist: Pablo Helguera
Pablo Helguera is an educator and artist who uses satire to explore the complicated social structure of the contemporary art scene. His performance at the Hirshhorn, “We all need a Pygmalion,” takes the form of a “self-improvement” workshop with a musical component—Helguera sings songs about the art world to melodies from My Fair Lady. The performance is an introduction to his book The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style. Written in the style of an old-school etiquette handbook, Helguera’s wry advice is practical for any artist.

Related Exhibition: Mexico Treasures of the Smithsonian and Lola Alvarez Bravo

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is located on the National Mall in downtown Washington, DC, at the corner of Seventh Street SW and Independence Avenue. West of the US Capitol and east of the Washington Monument, it is the round building next to the Smithsonian's red brick Arts and Industries building.

Diane Upright on Morris Louis tonight

Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited
September 20, 2007 - January 6, 2008

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

“Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited” is the first consideration of Washington, D.C.–based artist Morris Louis’s work since 1986. The exhibition presents major paintings dating from the early 1950s until his death in late 1962, the years Louis developed an innovative method of painting by “staining” his unprimed canvases with thinned washes of acrylic pigments. The artist, who was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1912, studied at the Maryland Institute of Fine and Applied Arts. As a young man he painted in a realist manner; only in his forties did he find his signature style. Even in cramped quarters in Washington D.C., Louis was able to make large paintings, achieving an exuberant, lyrical celebration of colors hovering in white space. Louis became an inspirational figure for other artists in the Color Field movement in the 1960s, notably Kenneth Noland and Helen Frankenthaler. The exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art, in close collaboration with the artist’s widow, Marcella Louis Brenner and independent scholar Diane Upright. The Hirshhorn’s presentation is coordinated by senior curator Valerie Fletcher. Coinciding with this exhibition will be galleries devoted to the recent research and conservation of Color Field paintings in the Hirshhorn’s collection.

LECTURE
Diane Upright on Morris Louis
September 20, 2007 at 7 pm
Join Diane Upright on the opening day of the Morris Louis Now exhibition as she shares her perspectives on the artist. The foremost authority on Louis, Dr. Upright is a former professor of art history at Harvard University and was a curator at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. In 1985 she published Morris Louis:The Complete Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, widely considered to be a major contribution to the understanding of Louis's aesthetic and influence. Support for this lecture is provided by Dr. Penn Lupovich.

FRIDAY GALLERY TALK
High Museum Curator Jeffrey Grove on Morris Louis
September 21, 2007 at 12:30 pm

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is located on the National Mall in downtown Washington, DC, at the corner of Seventh Street SW and Independence Avenue. West of the US Capitol and east of the Washington Monument, it is the round building next to the Smithsonian's red brick Arts and Industries building.