The Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

The Hirshorn Museum has been on my mind since a UPS truck drove through the concrete barriers and plate glass window in front of the museum in early May.  The museum reopened the following day and there was no damage to the exhibits, but I felt like checking in on the museum all the same.

With its sculpture garden, view of the mall from the upper galleries and a few new exhibits, the Hirshorn has something for everyone.  I could write for pages about the beautifully designed sculpture garden or the room of Calder mobiles on the third floor, but I was blown away by two of the current exhibitions: Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers and Chris Chong Chan Fui's Block B.  (http://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions)  

Seated Yucatan Woman                                            Pendour

Francisco Zuniga - 1913                           Barbara Hepworth

                                                                                  1947-48

 Yves Klein is a French artist who died at 34 years of age after only 7 short years as a working artist.  He is best known for his monochromatic pieces.  I'll admit that when I entered the exhibit, and saw rows of paintings, each squares of a single color, I thought nice, but boring.   As I kept moving, however, I became captivated the way in which working with a single color allowed Klein to explore texture and dimension in ways that wouldn't translate as well if the viewer was distracted by other colors.  The monocolor brings the other aspects of the pieces (not all of these were paintings) to the forefront. 

Not only did he invent and patent his own blue (International Klein Blue (IKB), which is pretty cool, but the man used blow torches to texturize his paintings.  There is a video of Klein standing with a giant torch (and firemen at the ready to cool the paintings down) happily burning his canvases then adding his signature blue in various areas.  Some of the alternatives to burning on display include, painted canvas sprayed with water, whole body prints rolled on canvas, and sculptures large trays of pigment like a big blue sandbox with sculptures suspended above.  His exuberance is almost palpable in his pieces. I came away a huge fan of Yves Klein and with a new appreciation for monochromatic work.  A little IKB may be in order as an ode to Klein for my next pedicure.

Untitled Fire Painting - 1961

The other exhibit that I loved was Chris Chong Chan Fui's Block B Video.  The video is a mesmerizing look into a massive apartment complex in Malaysia.  The video focuses on 50 + apartments and the comings and goings of the residents through several days and nights.  Voice overs with English subtitles guide us through the imagined plotlines in this voyeuristic soap opera.  So much better than any reality TV...