Innovative Sound and Installation Artist Susan Philipsz Speaks in Washington, DC, for the First Time

Winter 2016 Programs Highlight Hyperallergic Editor Hrag Vartanian and Video Artist Agnieszka Polska
January 14, 2016
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The winter season of public programs at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden begins Jan. 15. Events will be held in the museum’s Ring Auditorium unless otherwise specified. All are free of charge. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Bewilder Sensation: Surrealism and Poetry Today

Sunday, Jan. 24; 3 p.m.; second level

Local poets influenced by surrealism present short readings and performances in the galleries of “Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York.” Bewilder Sensation takes its title from a 1935 lecture by founding surrealist André Breton, “Surrealist Situation of the Object: Situation of the Surrealist Object.” Rod Smith, Doug Lang, Tina Darragh, Dan Gutstein, K. Lorraine Graham, Bernard Welt, Casey Smith and PINKTUM (Mel Nichols & Liora Valero) will be reading and performing.

Film: Pure Man Ray

Sunday, Jan. 31; 3 p.m.

Among the godfathers of experimental film, Man Ray described his vanguard shorts as Cinéma Pur [Pure Cinema], as they resisted conventional notions of internal logic, dramatic arc and narrative content. Chronological screenings of Le Retour à la Raison (1923), Emak-Bakia (1926), L’Étoile de Mer [The Starfish] (1928) and Les Mystères du Château du Dé (1929) will be interspersed with discussions led by artist and scholar Karen Yasinsky, who will unpack the novel, sensational and surrealistic elements of these iconic films.

Beyond Surrealist Sculpture

Wednesday, Feb. 3; 6:30 p.m.

Hirshhorn Senior Curator Valerie Fletcher and scholars Martica Sawin (author of Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School) and Laurie Wilson (author of Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man) discuss some of the diverse ways that modern and contemporary artists have built on the ideas and methods represented in surrealist sculpture.

Agnieszka Polska: Meet the Artist

Thursday, Feb. 11; 6:30 p.m.

Polish video artist Agnieszka Polska gives a performative lecture and discusses her practice and her work on view in the exhibition “Suspended Animation.”

Hyperallergic: Hrag Vartanian and Sharon Louden

Monday, March 21; 6:30 p.m.

Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief of the art blogazine Hyperallergic, is joined by artist Sharon Louden, editor of Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: Essays by 40 Working Artists, to discuss current issues in the art world, such as the various models that allow an artist to maintain his or her practice and what it means for an artist to be a “culture producer.”

Susan Philipsz: Meet the Artist

Wednesday, March 30; 6:30 p.m.

Sound and installation artist Susan Philipsz discusses her immersive environments, such as “Part File Score” (2014). On view on the third level starting Jan. 22, this artwork draws on the life and work of modernist film composer Hanns Eisler, who was persecuted by Nazi Germany and McCarthy-Era America.

Friday Gallery Talks

Meet at the Information Desk in the lobby for lunchtime discussions of current exhibitions:

Robert Lehrman on Joseph Cornell in “Marvelous Objects”

Jan. 15; 12:30 p.m.

Art collector Robert Lehrman, a specialist in the work of Joseph Cornell, discusses the artist’s works on view in “Marvelous Objects.”

Sue Frank on “Marvelous Objects”

Jan. 22; 12:30 p.m.

Phillips Collection curator Sue Frank discusses works by Alexander Calder and David Smith in “Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York.”

Mika Yoshitake on Shana Lutker

Jan. 29; 12:30 p.m.

Hirshhorn Associate Curator Mika Yoshitake leads a tour of “Shana Lutker: Le ‘NEW’ Monocle, Chapters 1–3.”

Shana Lutker

Feb. 5; 12:30 p.m.

Artist Shana Lutker discusses the research and artworks that contribute to the installations in her current exhibition, which is based on the historic fistfights of surrealist artists.

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Photo: Susan Philipsz in her installation “Part File Score” at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York

SI-23-2016