Displaying items by tag: hirshhorn museum

The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. is turning 40, and the institution is celebrating in style with a glitzy bash at New York's 4 World Trade Center on November 9. The reasoning for the location: fundraising is expected to be on a scale the museum has never previously seen.

Guests will gather to honor 40 of the world's most significant contemporary artists in recognition of the role they played not only in shaping the Hirshhorn Museum's legacy, but also the contemporary cultural landscape of present-day America.

Two iconic works by Dan Flavin (American, b. New York, 1933–1996) from the collection of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will be on view through Nov. 15. “untitled (to Helga and Carlo, with respect and affection)” (1974) and “‘monument’ for V. Tatlin” (1967) are examples of two of the artist’s most renowned series, the “barriers” and the “monuments,” respectively.

A leading figure of Minimal art, Flavin used mass-produced fluorescent light fixtures to make sculptural installations in which light is the primary medium. By blurring the boundary between artwork and environment, he challenged the definition of sculpture as a discrete object.

The Smithsonian’s plan to build an inflatable pavilion that will bubble out of the Hirshhorn Museum may be put on hold. Announced by Richard Koshalek, the museum’s director, in 2009, costs for the project have tripled from $5 million to $15.5 million over time. If the project comes to fruition, it won’t be completed until 2014. The structure, designed by the architectural firm Diller Scolfidio + Renfro was originally slated to open at the end of this year.

Smithsonian Undersecretary, Richard Kurin, says half of the funds needed for construction have been raised. However, the project won’t move forward without full funding.

Ai Weiwei has become China's most prominent international artist in large part because he is also his country's most persistent and popular dissident.

Last year, his growing celebrity prompted the Chinese government to arrest him at Beijing's airport as he was about to depart on a foreign trip. He was detained in secrecy for three months, charged with "economic crimes."

Since being released in June 2011, Ai, whose work was exhibited at Arcadia University in 2010, has been prohibited from leaving China. His art continues to represent him around the world, however. In fact, we seem to be in the middle of an Ai Weiwei boom.