Big Things at Hirshhorn

 

"Immersed in art" is not a figure of speech at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. It sums up the visitors' experience at the latest exhibition Big Things for Big Rooms. The straightforward title describes ten installations set in a succession of galleries on the third floor of the museum, a collection of diverse works spanning from the sixties until today, representing art movements from color field to land art and more. 

An explosion of colors at the entrance comes from a huge painting-sculpture, Light Depth (1969) from Sam Gilliam. A commission from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, it is a quintessential work of the artist's Drape paintings and a fitting start to the exhibition. Sam Gilliam born in Tupelo, Mississippi, spent his adult life in Washington where he became a prominent member of the District's arts community and was nicknamed the "Dean" in recognition of his influence. In contrast, Untitled (1969) from Robert Irwin is a sober piece made of shadows created by four white spotlights shining through a frosted clear disk, drawing organic shapes on the white wall. The flower-like pattern reaches a perfection found in nature with a dark band in the center like a pistil. The recently deceased artist (1928-2023) was part of the Light and Space movement prominent in California in the sixties and seventies. The following installation, Carrara Line (1985) from Richard Long could be a model for a land art piece set in the great outdoors: the narrow rocky white path running almost the whole length of the gallery invites the visitor for a walking meditation. The pure line of Carrara marble enhanced by the grey floor may lead to nowhere or to eternity. Minimalism and light art define the work from Dan Flavin (1933-1996) represented by "monument" for V. Tatlin (1967), one of the thirty-nine versions of the series started in 1964 ending in 1990, tribute to a beacon of the Constructivist movement Vladimir Tatlin. Set at floor level along the wall, the reductive neon sculpture splashes white light reflecting on the shiny ground. A blinding white, Théia 1, A (1979/2025) from Lygia Pape is a small piece representative of her Ttéia series. The ethereal corner piece made of tenuous gold threads seems to appear and disappear in a shifting interaction with the viewer walking by. A monumental spidery installation from the same series Ttéia 1, C (2003/2025) was recently on view at Bourse de Commerce/Pinault Collection for her first solo show in France, appropriately titled Weaving Space. Lygia Pape was a prominent member of the neo-concrete movement in Brazil. The natural light coming through a row of windows and the view of the neoclassical buildings across the Mall compete with Cloud (H2O) (2006), the installation from Spencer Finch suspended from the ceiling of the vast "Lerner Room". The ninety-five "water molecules" (white light bulbs arranged in a horizontal “Y” shape, with trios composed of two smaller bulbs and one large bulb connected by black metal rods as described in the brochure) are engineered to form a cloud-like construction easily mistaken for a decorative lightning. In contrast, Moon Dust (Apollo 17) (2009) brought dreams and poetry to the lobby of the Baltimore Museum of Art for several years. Installations can be overshadowed by their surroundings.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Following the intermission, part two of the exhibition starts with Round Rainbow (2005), a work from Olafur Eliasson set in a smaller dim gallery. Through a machinery (tripod, light, glass ring) easily disregarded, the magician of light creates fleeting shadows of orbs, spirals, volutes, resolving in rainbows, mirages on the walls, ways to reach a realm beyond time and space. The quiet visit is interrupted by loud sounds coming from a huge wooden shipping crate in the next gallery, its opening facing away. Inside, an absurdist video with a humorous twist features an endless loop of "chew, pass, wipe, pass back, receive, pack" between female protagonists in a satire about human physical labor and female exploitation in a capitalist economy. The commodity is human sweat and saliva, the final product, lemon-scented wipes. Boxes of "Tropical Breeze", their commercial name, are stacked high outside and inside the container, ready to be shipped. The installation Tropical Breeze (2004) from Mika Rottenberg is more than twenty years old and may not sustain the passage of time in a new age of robots. The refreshing site specific installation from Rashid Johnson is like a tropical island made of a metal skeleton filled with an exuberant greenery, homey props, and decorated with minimalist white light fixtures. The Changes (2025) offers a healing place, a refuge where the visitor can be vulnerable, a home. The conceptual piece can leave you indifferent or filled with empathy triggered by the live plants, the artist's goal. The last "big thing" is Third Light (2006) from a series The 7 Lights (2005-2007) about the seven-day creation narrated in the Bible. Paul Chan's installation combines sculptural elements, a rustic wooden table on sawhorses in the middle of the room, and animation with shadow silhouettes of objects and human figures floating on rectangular puddles of varied colored lights coming from a projector. The third day of the creation is about the apparition of life on earth. The fourteen-minute show leaves plenty of time to meditate on light or its absence, on enlightenment or lack of it. 

The ten works require more than the average thirty seconds usually allotted by visitors to view a piece of art. The selected diverse installations require a total physical and mental immersion to be fully taken in. Slow Art Day is April 11 this year. Here the only way to interiorize the art is a slow visit. At the end of the show, a small comfy room with deep armchairs is an invitation to browse through books and read quotes from each artist posted on the walls like Robert Irwin's "Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees" or Dan Flavin's: "I am not interested in creating objects, but rather in creating experiences."   

                                                        

photographs by the author:

-Rashid Johnson "The Changes" (2025

-Mika Rottenberg "Tropical Breeze" (2004)

-Sam Gilliam "Light Depth" (1969)

Guston meets Picasso

 

Philip Guston (1913-1980) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) could have met. Guston discovered Picasso's work while visiting the Arensberg Collection in the 1920's in Los Angeles and later in 1937 when the famous Guernica (1937) reached the American shores and toured several cities to bolster the aid for Spanish refugees. The same year, Bombardment (1937) from Guston and The dream and Lie of Franco (1937), a series of prints from Picasso hung close by in the exhibition organized to support the Spanish people and world democracy in New York City. The Irony of History, the latest exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris housed in Hôtel Salé, emphasizes the link between the two artists through their politically engaged works, mainly the influence of the elder Picasso on Guston. The display set on two levels of the museum includes mostly satirical paintings and drawings from the two artists, and offers an overview of Guston's career. 

For the visitors less familiar with Philip Guston, a detailed biography introduces the show next to one painting, Sleeping (1977), a "gustonesque" self-deprecatory portrait of the artist in a fetal position hiding under his blanket, waiting for inspiration. The drawing of a cubist Picasso in his studio facing an empty canvas (The Artist before His Canvas,1938) is paired with a smoking, hooded Guston surrounded by his familiar props, clock and light bulb, painting a self-portrait (The Studio,1969).We can almost hear him mutter his famous quote: "The idea of evil fascinated me. I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be evil." Another quote from Guston conveys his internal conflict as an artist confronted with a troubled political landscape. "What kind of a man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going frustrated fury about everything - and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?" Both appear lost for inspiration in the context of war atrocities during the Spanish Civil War for the former and the Vietnam War for the latter. The Painter of the Hole (1947), a watercolor from George Grosz who witnessed the horrors of two world wars would be a fitting addition. Two figurative works next to each other in a similar neoclassical style: Jeune fille au chapeau les mains croisées/ Girl in a Hat with Her Hands Clasped (1921) and an early work from a seventeen-year-old Guston Mother and Child (1930) hint to the influence of Picasso as well as Renaissance Masters on the burgeoning artist. Three small studies for murals commissioned through the WPA allude to his connections with Mexican muralists like Siqueiros, Orozco and Rivera then active in California. Close to a collage of enlarged newspaper clips about the bombing of Guernica, Bombardment (1937), a tondo from Guston appears of modest size for its content. A response to the destruction of the Basque town by the Fascists, the composition features harrowing scenes including a mother and child hurled by the blast, buildings reduced to rubbles, a figure wearing a gas masks, all spinning around an explosion crater as airplanes hover in formation above. Nearby the sketch of the head of a terrified agonizing horse by Picasso is the only reference to his famous cubist painting Guernica (1937) now housed at the Reina Sophía Museum in Madrid. 

Guston's political engagement through his art started early with his hooded figures about the KKK appearing in the 1930's but his satirical work blossomed in the 70's. Poor Richard, the series of seventy-three caricatures about Nixon and his administration, released in 2001 after Guston's death, was made in 1971. He was then close to his neighbor in Woodstock, the novelist Philip Roth who wrote Our Gang, a political satire about Nixon. His books and publications are exposed in a glass case under bright spotlights with Guston's drawings nearby displayed in a double raw along the wall and Picasso's Plate I and II of Dream and Lie of Franco (1937) which inspired Guston. Picasso's eleven ink and gouache caricatures of famous people (from 1905 to 1959) are found close to sixteen such portraits from Guston made around 1955 with ink or pencil on paper. The only color is brought by a portrait of Nixon titled San Clemente (1975). The square painting depicts the former president who found refuge in California after his resignation. Doubled over with his swollen left leg wrapped in frayed bandages, he appears miserable and also laughable with his phallic nose and tears of self-pity. Guston's obsession with Nixon supplied most of his material for his political caricatures in the 70's. The austere display is followed by two vibrant paintings from Guston's abstract expressionist period in the 50's as the exhibition turns into an abbreviated chronological review of Guston's career. After a short brake from painting, Guston shocked the art world when he released his first cartoonish figurative paintings in 1970 at the Marlborough gallery. Seven well-known paintings sum up his production, all quintessential Guston, accompanied by wall texts providing their context. Guston's caustic wit transpires in all of them from the earliest Dawn (1970) with its hooded shady figures to the latest, East-Coker Tse (1979) about the artist himself, on his death bed. The short display ends abruptly to be continued in the basement where twelve of his late paintings are lined up around a room. Of small format they were made following Guston's heart attack and offer a sample of his iconic symbols in ink and acrylic on paper.    

Philip Guston is the latest artist invited for a temporary exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris, most of which are organized to emphasize the influence of Picasso on their guests' work. The highlight of the show is the display of rarely seen caricatures of both artists in the same space. In spite of belonging to different worlds and times, their connection is striking and underlines the power of political satire in visual art. It is challenging for the visitor to look at more than one hundred small drawings, each with a story and implied historical references. Guston's works on view are carefully selected, and the show allows to see in a new light well-known pieces included in Philip Guston Now, an exhaustive exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in 2023, this time short and to the point in "Picasso's temple". 

photographs by the author:

1- Philip Guston "Sleeping" (1977)

2- Pablo Picasso "L'Artiste devant sa toile/The Artist in front of his canvas" (1938)

3- Philip Guston "San Clemente" (1975)

4- Pablo Picasso "Songe et mensonge de Franco/Dream and lie of Franco" Plate I (1937)

5- Philip Guston "Bombardment" (1937)