"Damage Control" at the Hirshhorn Museum

In January, I briefly mentioned reading the book Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950. Imagine my surprise when it was on view at the Hirshhorn Museum over Spring Break. It featured some of my favorite video pieces including:

Steve McQueen, Dead Pan, 1997

Pipilotti Rist, Ever is Over All, 1997

Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958 [finally available online = wish that happened when I taught Art and Its Relationship to New Technology]

Robert Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1958

I am fairly certain I have seen this Rauschenberg on half a dozen occasions. It is featured in any exhibition that includes aggression (also Target Practice: Painting Under Attack, 1949 - 1978) and suddenly, its presence is expected. I would like to be surprised the next time it makes an appearance - perhaps curated into a show focusing on exercise or meditative actions.

There were some terrific Ed Ruscha works including The Royal Road Test and Los Angeles County Museum on Fire. I was also able to spend time with John Baldessari's Cremation Project and was reacquainted with how often nuclear bombs are featured in artwork. 

Chicago

Chicago! Art & Culture! At long last! The art highlights included: Pandora's Box: Joseph Cornell Unlocks the MCA Collection. The exhibition was broken down into the Box as Altar, The Voyeur, Repetition, Cut and Paste, and Film Works to name a few.


A Starn Twins double Rembrandt portrait on plywood tilting toward the viewer.


Nam June Paik, Exotic Garden, 1986


A Nick Cave Soundsuit


Mariko Mori, Birth of a Star, 1995 (it looked like a holograph the way it was displayed = ever so 1990s but fascinating nonetheless)


Pipilotti Rist, Sip My Ocean (the more installations I see of her work, the more fascinated I become with the viewing spaces)


Christian Boltanski altar installation (predictably one of my favorites)


Arman, Alarm Clocks, 1960 (note to self: look up more of his obsessive collections)

The main exhibition on display was Mark Bradford's retrospective. It was my first acquaintance with his work and I was drawn to his use of manipulating paper.


Mark Bradford, Corner of Desire and Piety, 2008

On to the Art Institute where Ralph Eugene Meatyard's Dolls and Masks was the main focus (more on that exhibition once I purchase the catalog). There were also some works I had seen a couple times before but was happy to view again:


Salvador Dali, Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1936


Eva Hesse, Hang Up, 1966


Felix Gonzalez-Torres

... and then....

The Wormhole, Wicker Park (with a replica of the Deloreon from Back to the Future).


Shit Fountain

Up next: Fascinating encounters with a giant Marilyn Monroe sculpture and rocks embedded into the Times Building.

The Return to Columbus, Ohio with the ArtSpeak Critique Class

Back to the Wexner Center for the Arts to see the Double Sexus exhibition with Hannah's and my critique class. Hans Bellmer's La Poupee (below) was on display. As much as I loved seeing the actual doll, I'm fairly certain Bellmer would have preferred that his audience only view the photographs. I didn't take any pictures of the beautiful welded tables that held the smaller, hand-colored images but dream of using a method of display like them in the future.



Rist's The Tender Room was much more visible during the evening last week. Although I liked seeing the pink panels on the windows in all their glory, I preferred the space dark to view the projections more easily.



Rist's video feed on the ceiling of the women's restroom.



Andy Hinck displaying every color in the spectrum in the entry of the Wexner.



A very intense game of Duckie Checkers at the Columbus Museum of Art exhibitions Shared Intelligence: American Painting and the Photograph and Fur, Fins, and Feathers.

Pipilotti Rist, "Ever is Over All,"

In preparation for the return to the Wexner tomorrow with the rest of the ArtSpeak critique class... Rist's "Ever is Over All" (skip ahead to 40 seconds):