Give your pulse, your heartbeat and fingerprints for a Hirshhorn show

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967), Pulse Room, 2006, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

An exhibition in Washington will leave its perfect home here tomorrow.  

Pulse by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has been up at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden since last fall, during which time it has collected thousands of heartbeats, pulses, and fingerprints from visitors who have stopped to wonder and add their own identities to produce the display.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967), Pulse Index, 2010, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Some of the latest technologies in yet another interactive art show (isn't that what most contemporary shows are these days?) are combined with voluntary contributions with results to be seen pronto. 

Water, lights, human movement, sensors, touch, and vital signs mix in huge galleries to show a little bit of just who you are in the grand population, physiologically speaking. (Not that you can pick out your own pieces in the show since they all look and sound alike!)

Three Pulse installations fill the museum's second floor, the first, Pulse Index records fingerprints and heart rates when visitors insert their fingers in a sensor. 

That information enters a large grid cell of 10,000 others while simultaneously discarding the oldest record, somewhat like the grand scheme of life. ("Out with the old and in with the new!  Fare thee well!")

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967), Pulse Tank, 2008, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The second installation, Pulse Tank (2008) finds visitors interacting with sensors on water tanks. Computers detect pulses, sending ripples on the water which reflect shadows to fall over walls in a combination of unidentified human offerings and links.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967), Pulse Room, 2006, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Hundreds of light bulbs electrified by visitors touching a sensor, hang from the ceiling in the third installation, Pulse Room (2006).  Heartbeats and the concomitant sounds are heard throughout the space.  As more people come through the gallery, new beats become the latest part of the bulb sensation and move on down the row or line, making a pattern of movement until they, too, exit the story at the last bulb or end.  (Question:  How long does this journey take? It would seem to depend on the number of people in the gallery.  A lot would mean a fast exit.)


Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was born in 1967 in Mexico City and graduated from Concordia University in Montreal with a B.S. in physical chemistry. In 2003 he founded the Antimodular Research Laboratory in Montreal where engineers, architects, programmers and artists from around the world study, create and make. Now he and his team are at work on more than 20 permanent installations, commissioned by global "new age" electric collectors.

In 2007 Lozano-Hemmer's art took him to Venice and the Biennale where he was the first artist to represent Mexico. 

Large interactive Lozano-Hemmer displays may be found in New York, Vancouver, Berlin, and museums around the world.

From his website:

His main interest is in creating platforms for public participation, by perverting technologies such as robotics, computerized surveillance or telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival and animatronics, his light and shadow works are "antimonuments for alien agency".

Whether the FBI, the CIA, the FSB, or the North Koreans would okay their employees engaging in Pulse is debatable, but, on the other hand, maybe they are the ones behind it all. Could be a joint venture.


What:  Pulse by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

When:  Now through tomorrow, April 28, 2019, from 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Where:  Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall at Independence Avenue and Seventh Street, S.W.

How much:  No charge

Metro stations:  Smithsonian or L'Enfant Plaza (Maryland Avenue exit)

For more information:   202-633-1000

patricialesli@gmail.com

Sean Scully has left the Hirshhorn

Sean Scully at the opening of Sean Scully: Landlines, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sept.12, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Dear All,

If the Trump shutdown or other reason caused you to miss the fabulous exhibit, Sean Scully: Landline, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, please see images here of the show and of the artist who came to town for the opening and to talk about his art. 

The Landline series made its U.S. debut at the Hirshhorn after appearing at the Venice Biennale in 2015. 

Sean Scully with his Landline: Bend Triptych, 2017, private collection, at the opening of Sean Scully: Landlines, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sept. 12, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sean Scully at the opening of Sean Scully: Landlines, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sept. 12, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

According to the Hirshhorn, the "Landline paintings show Scully's transition away from his earlier hard-edged minimalism to his current, more expressive style, a style that no doubt elicits the beauty and brilliance of the natural world" which Mr. Scully conveys by watercolors, oils, and sculptures.

Sean Scully, Stack Blues, 2017, private collection, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie 

Sean Scully, Landline Baltic, 2018, Landline Far Blue Lake, 2018, and Untitled (Landline), 2016, all loaned by private collectors, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

Mr. Scully is quoted at Wikipedia in a 2005 article by Joao Ribas:

I hold to a very Romantic ideal of what's possible in art, and I hold to the idea of the 'personal universal.' This is a complex agenda. My project is complicated in this way, and in that sense I'm out of fashion. I'm going against the current trend towards bizarreness, oddness; as you just called it, the 'esoteric', which of course was around in the 1930s. That's what is being revisited now. In between the two great wars, there was a very strong period, particularly in Europe, of a strange, bizarre, distorted and perverse kind of figuration, with freaks in the paintings. Very disturbing twins, subjects like that. These paintings were mostly coming out of Italy and Germany. Now we have a return to that—again in a strange period, after the end of Modernism.

 Sean Scully, Landline Blue Red, 2016, private collection, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sean Scully, Landline Orient, 2017, private collection, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sean Scully, Horizon Nine, 2013, private collection, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sean Scully, Landline 5.20.15, 2015, private collection, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

At his website, Mr. Scully outlines his life in years: He was born in 1945 in Dublin and grew up in a working class neighborhood in London. He attended Catholic schools and was influenced by the paintings he saw in parishes. As a boy, he wanted to become an artist.  

When he was a teenager, he became interested in American rhythm and blues and started a music club. He continues to love popular music.

Sean Scully with his Stack Colors, 2017, private collection, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sept.12, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sean Scully at the opening of Sean Scully: Landlines, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sept. 12, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sean Scully at the opening of Sean Scully: Landlines, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sept.12, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sean Scully at the opening of Sean Scully: Landlines, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sept. 12, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sean Scully at the opening of Sean Scully: Landlines, with Melissa Chiu, Hirshhorn director, and  Stéphane Aquin, chief curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sept.12, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Mr. Scully attended art classes in London where he regularly visited Vincent van Gogh's Van Gogh's Chair (1888) at the Tate Gallery. Its "directness has a profound effect on the young artist," according to his bio.

 Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh's Chair, 1888/www.VincentVanGogh.org

At age 21, Mr. Scully "decides to dedicate himself entirely to art studies" and continues art classes.

He was 28 when, at his first solo show in London, every piece sold, Four years later New York City was the venue for his first solo exhibition in the U.S.  In 1983 his 19-year-old son, Paul, died in a car accident, the same year Mr. Scully became an American citizen.  

In 2015 when the Landline series was featured at the Venice Biennale, Mr. Scully was honored by the Chinese as the first western artist to enjoy a major retrospective there.

Melissa Chiu, the Hirshhorn director calls him "one of the most influential painters working today" and curator Stéphane Aquin comments that Mr. Scully's style stems from abstract expressionism, "inspired by personal memories" of his growing up years in Ireland, especially his time, the Hirshhorn says, "looking out to sea."

Landline next travels to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut where it opens February 23, 2019. 

Sandy Guttman provided curatorial assistance at the Hirshhorn. A catalogue is available.

patricialesli@gmail.com

'Baselitz,' a horror show on walls at the Hirshhorn

 Georg Baselitz, Zero End, 2013, Private Collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The first major U.S. exhibition in more than 20 years of a living German artist ends next month at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum

More than 100 paintings, paper works, and sculptures by Georg Baselitz are on view, some for the first time in this country.

Georg Baselitz, Oberon (1st Orthodox, Salon 64--E.Neizvestny), 1964, Stadel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

In celebration of his 80th birthday, the Hirshhorn, which hosted Baselitz in 1996, presents six decades of his works, "one of the most original and inventive figurative artists of his generation," the Hirshhorn says.

I'll say.  What an understatement.

What stands in memory are the sordid, artificial mammals Baselitz makes.  He wants to share his misery with you.

This is a horror show on walls. This is not a family fun house at the Hirshhorn. Take your children and Gramps at your own risk. I do not recommend it as a venue for a first date.  I do not recommend it as a venue for the second date, and if you get to the third date and want to end it all, why this would be a good place! Pretend like you love the stuff and watch him/her flee!

  Georg Baselitz, Win D., 1959, Private Collection


"I proceed from a state of disharmony, from ugly things," Baselitz is quoted, but, judging on the presentation, he is stuck on "ugly things" with broad, heavy brush strokes, bold colors, and "in your face" depictions of somber human creatures, many, ready for suicide.

The display will not leave you in a romantic state of mind.  It will not inspire or lift. It will leave you plummeting into Baselitz' pit of self-torture.  

American abstract expressionists influenced Baselitz who has come to exercise his own command of contemporary American artists, the Hirshhorn says.  He is frequently called a neo-expressionist which the Tate defines as " a reaction to the minimalism and conceptual art that had dominated the 1970s."  In Italy, neo-expressionists are deemed part of  "Transavanguardia" or "beyond the avant-garde." Ahem.

  Georg Baselitz, Fifties Portrait - M. W., 1969, Private Collection


Baselitz attended art school in Communist East Berlin and studied the "officially sanctioned form of social realism" until he was expelled in 1957 for “sociopolitical immaturity.” He continued his studies in West Berlin and helped revive German Expressionism, a form the Nazis denounced.

Dramatically affected by post-World War II Germany, Baselitz sees everything with a jaundiced, negative eye and seeks to upend order.  His works are testimony to that mantra. He was born in Deutschbaselitz, the name he adopted as his own in 1958 or 1961 (different years cited around the Web).  His birth name was Hans-Georg Kern.

Several of his landmark "upside down" paintings,  which earned him international recognition starting in 1969, are at the Hirshhorn.

Once he turned his first figures upside-down, Wikipedia says, Baselitz kept turning.

An object painted upside down is suitable for painting because it is unsuitable as an object, Baselitz is quoted in 1981. Some of Baselitz' works are unsuitable because they are unsuitable.

 Georg Baselitz, Finger Painting - Apple Trees, 1973, Collection of Udo and Anette Brandhorst


He frequently paints with his wife, Elze, to whom he has been married 56 years.

 Georg Baselitz, Model for a Sculpture, 1979-80, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Ludwig Collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie

He was chosen to represent Germany in the prestigious Venice Biennale in 1980 where he took his first sculpture, "Model for a Sculpture," which was controversial because of its similarity to the Nazi salute.

Georg Baselitz, Model for a Sculpture, 1979-80, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Ludwig Collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Georg Baselitz, Model for a Sculpture, 1979-80, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Ludwig Collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Georg Baselitz, Model for a Sculpture, 1979-80, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Ludwig Collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie
 
Baselitz has a reputation for thinking poorly of women artists, an opinion he reiterated in 2015 in an interview with Kate Connolly of the Guardian and earlier, in 2013 when he told Der Spiegel: "Women don't paint very well. It's a fact. There are, of course, exceptions....Women simply don't pass the test. (...) The market test, the value test."

Artnet News investigated. 

  Georg Baselitz, On the Right and Left a Church, 1987, Peress Family Collection

 Until 2014 the most paid for a "'Mr. Upside Down'" was $7.45 million for his 1983 Der Brückechor (The Brücke Chorus).

This price fell short of the $44.4 million paid in 2014 for Georgia O'Keefe's 1932 Jimseed Weed/White Flower No. 1 or Joan Mitchell's Untitled which brought $11.925 million in the same year, or the $10.7 million paid in 2011 for Spider created in 1996 by Louise Bourgeois. (It may be the same Spider by Ms. Bourgeois, 1996, across the Mall from the Hirshhorn at National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden! See it here.) 

And there are more women artists who outrank Baselitz in terms of money.  

Artnet News and writer Brian Boucher combed auction records to find out just how high Baselitz ranked in 2015 monetary terms: 932.

^{Perhaps the next time he comes to town, the artist will visit the National Museum of Women in the Arts and check out the art and the value of its holdings.  Baselitz could stand a little "pick me up."}

  Georg Baselitz, My New Hat, 2003, Pinault Collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie

   Georg Baselitz, My New Hat, 2003, Pinault Collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Georg Baselitz, Mrs. Ultramarine, 2004, Dasmaximum Kunst Gegenwart, Traunreut/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Georg Baselitz, The Naked Man, 1962 Private Collection Based on "lewd and obscene content," German authorities seized several Baselitz works in 1963 including the one above, one of his most controversial which conveyed the artist's "discontent with German socialist policies." This fellow (in a coffin?) greets visitors on the right wall at the exhibition entrance at the Hirshhorn.

Baselitz opened in Basel, Switzerland in January before coming to Washington.

Tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. the Hirshhorn's chief curator, Stéphane Aquin who has an essay in the catalogue, will lead an hour-long tour of Baselitz at the museum. Meet in the lobby.

Below is the cover of the big (200+ pages) catalog for Baselitz with an interview with the artist, essays, photos of him working, full page color reproductions of his works, and a timeline of his life. Like the show, the book is arranged chronologically.

The exhibition is co-sponsored by Fondation Beyeler, whose director, Sam Keller, and the Hirshhorn director, Melissa Chiu write in the foreword to the catalogue that Baselitz exhibitions in the U.S. and Switzerland "are a rarity."  Quelle surprise! 

The cover of the catalogue found at Amazon, $52.36 (hardcover) or $35 (paper) plus shipping. I could not find the catalogue online at the Hirshhorn or at Smithsonian shops.

What:  Baselitz: Six Decades

When:  Now through September 16, 2018, from 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Open every day

Where:  Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall at Independence Avenue and Seventh Street, S.W.

How much:  No charge

Metro stations:  Smithsonian or L'Enfant Plaza (Maryland Avenue exit)

For more information:   202-633-1000

patricialesli@gmail.com