More at Hirshhorn

Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection 1860-1960, the title of a major survey of the museum's artworks omits part of its content. To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the Hirshhorn is not only providing a review of a century of art history through 270 of its masterpieces, it offers also a selection of paintings and photographs from nineteen contemporary artists, strategically spread throughout the seven galleries. Each work is displayed on colored walls to call for attention and is accompanied by a  text introducing the artists, almost half of them women.     

 You cannot miss the sculpture of Nicolas Party at the entrance. The massive, towering bright head of a humanoid possibly born from a computer could be replicated ad infinitum. Emotionless, of garish colors, simply called Head (2018-2022), the sculpture made me long for Party's installation Draw the Curtain (2021) wrapped around the building during its renovations. In keeping with bright colors, Cobalt Blue Dress (2020) from Amoako Boafo, artist-in-residence at the Rubell in 2019, is hung side by side with a portrait Mrs. Kate A. Moore (1884) from John Singer Sargent. The provocative setting allows to compare the fresh simplicity of Boafo's anonymous sitter to the haughty socialite, highlighting the changes in society. 

The next featured artists are photographers, each paired with a painter. The result can be baffling. Per the wall text, an abstract  photographic assemblage from David Alekhuogie about Black Lives Matter connects him to "a long history of Modernist painting" and in particular to a bird's eye view of the Eiffel Tower from Robert Delaunay. In keeping with these questionable associations, we find Barbara Kasten linked to the constructivist movement, Paul Pfeiffer with George Bellows and farther the painter Nathaniel Mary Quinn next to Picasso. Catherine Opie's series about the inauguration of President Obama would suggest that she is a photojournalist. She is best represented by her raw, sometimes difficult to look at intimate photographs of herself or outcasts. Her photographs are matched with a painting from Childe Assam commemorating the first anniversary of US entry into WWI. In gallery 5 labelled "Aftershocks" about post-war artists, Rashid Johnson's monochrome abstract Anxious Red Painting "August 18th" (2020) is deemed "stylistically having much in common with that of Jean Dubuffet". Why not Cy Twombly's red scribbles? 

Size matters. The large multimedia piece from Loie Hollowell overshadows a delicate pastel from Georgia O'Keeffe, less than a quarter of its size. Colors matter. The hues of  Ann Pibal's geometric abstract acrylic on aluminum panel "build on ...Piet Mondrian and other de Stijl artists" are skewed by the orange paint of the wall which transforms a piece of art into a decorative accessory worthy of an interior design magazine. The unfortunate effect of the colored walls is that it undermines the works like the dreamy rococo-inspired scene from Flora Yukhnovich or the moon like landscape from Torkwase Dyson. 

Untitled #12 (The Marsh) (2017), a gelatin silver photograph from Davoud Bey is more than it seems. At first a large (5-foot-wide) reflecting black surface (on an orange wall), the photograph reveals a quiet body of water surrounded by hazy brushes under a moonless sky when coming closer. Immersed in the night landscape, one can imagine the terrifying journey of the enslaved persons travelling the Underground Railroad under the cover of darkness. Stepping back, I saw my own fading shadow and the work turned into a memento mori. Looking at the powerful piece I could not find its "dialogue with Arthur Dove and Marsden Hartley". The only sculpture from contemporary artists in the galleries Selfportrait nude descending a staircase at the Raval (2012) is a conceptual work from the Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas featuring a ladder to nowhere made of discarded material matched with a small collotype reproduction of the famous painting from Marcel Duchamp. Zao Wou-ki, Franz Kline and Torkwase Dyson favor black. Bird and Lava #4 (2021) from the latter is a  view of a lunar landscape crossed by floating strokes of black paint attached to short threadlike white tails and a tiny orange dot at the bottom, like a spark. The rounded canvas (8 feet in diameter) feels like looking through a telescope. The tondo reveals the skills of the artist who can create at once a meditative and narrative piece through her mastering of abstract and conceptual art.

 I may have missed a few artists, but like tasting too many wines, it becomes difficult to stay focused on each one. Curators are supposed to help us go through the maze of the exhibition and the attempt to single out contemporary artists by the colors of the walls is distracting at best. The location of their works, the comments on the wall texts, are constant reminders of the influence of past trailblazers. What makes them successful contemporary artists is that, after digesting centuries of art history, they refresh techniques and themes, own them, and make them relevant to today's world.

Should we be reminded of the influence of prehistoric cave paintings on Picasso each time we look at his bulls? 

photographs by the author:

Torkwase Dyson "Bird and Lava #04" (2021)

David Alekhuogie "34.0113°N, 118.3358°W, Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Drive" (2021)/ Robert Delaunay "Eiffel Tower and Gardens, Champ de Mars" (1922)

Loie Hollowell "Boob Wheel" (2019)/ Georgia O'Keeffe "Goat's Horn with Red (1945)

Flora Yukhnovich "Lipstick, Lip Gloss, Hickeys Too" (2022)