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SPRING/SUMMER 2010 A letter from the director In 2014, the Hirshhorn will celebrate its fortieth anniversary. Many of these elements are already an intrinsic part of the As we approach this signifi cant milestone, I am pleased to Hirshhorn’s work. Our ongoing commitment to research and launch a series of letters informing you about a range of excit- substantive exhibitions is evidenced by the opening of Yves ing initiatives now underway to mark this event. The core of Klein: With the Void, Full Powers, the fi rst US retrospective this effort is a recently adopted plan outlining seven priorities in nearly thirty years of the career of one of the most for the Museum in the coming years that together will make infl uential artists of the twentieth century. And the depth, the Hirshhorn not only a renowned museum of modern and breadth, and strength of our collection is central to current contemporary art, but a truly international resource for the art exhibitions on renowned abstract artist and educator Josef and ideas of our time. Albers—the Hirshhorn’s holdings are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world—as well as an exploration Briefl y, the seven priorities are: of artists’ diverse approaches to color and abstraction in ColorForms and the latest Directions project featuring a fundamental commitment to research and cutting-edge new media work by Irish artist greatly heightened focus on education for all audiences John Gerrard. and generations that enhances our role in the Smithsonian’s knowledge-based mission; Other aspects represent new areas of emphasis, crucial to a twenty-fi rst-century museum. In our approaches to our an emphasis on thematic content in exhibitions physical, digital, and educational presence, the Hirshhorn and programming dealing with key issues in art will be developing ways of more broadly connecting to and society; and engaging with its local, national, and international community to explore of the art, ideas, and issues of today. a forward-thinking approach to collecting and We look forward to having you with us in the exciting conserving works of art; times ahead. a revitalization of the Museum’s public spaces as gathering places and educational centers; a deployment of state-of-the-art technologies connecting our audiences on-site and online; Richard Koshalek Director the continual, direct engagement of artists in the life of the Museum and its programs; exciting new collaborations with other cultural and educational institutions, nationwide and internationally. General Information The Hirshhorn is located on the Administrative Offi ces: Admission is free. To subscribe to the National Mall on Independence Avenue 202-633-4674 eNews, e-mail [email protected]. at Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC. For up-to-date information about tours The nearest Metro stops are L’Enfant Press/Marketing: and program listings, please call Plaza (Maryland Avenue/Smithsonian 202-633-1618 202-633-1000 or visit our website: Museum exit) and Smithsonian. hirshhorn.si.edu. Development/Membership: Contact 202-633-2836 Hours and Location Information: Open daily except December 25 202-633-1000 This publication is a benefi t of Museum: 10 am to 5:30 pm membership in the Hirshhorn Annual Plaza: 7:30 am to 5:30 pm Programs/Tour Information: Circle. Join today by visiting Sculpture Garden: 7:30 am to dusk 202-633-EDUC (202-633-3382) hirshhorn.si.edu or call 202-633-2836. Design concept sketches by Diller Scofi dio + Renfro for the seasonal infl atable pavilion, which would provide a vibrant public space for a range of education and arts programs at the Museum. “ ...the Hirshhorn project is informal, egalitarian and free of conventional hierarchies. It aims to provide an elastic framework for a more inclusive culture, one that is in a continual process of re-invention.” — Nicolai Ouroussoff, New York Times JOSEF ALBERS: INNOVATION AND INSPIRATION On view through April 11 In a career that spanned more than would be commercially manufactured in well known as an abstract painter and fi fty years, Josef Albers (American, laminated glass for use as windows in colorist. Believing that colors have b. Bottrop, Germany, 1888–1976) buildings. no inherent emotional associations, not only established his own artistic When the Bauhaus closed after he emphasized the subjectivity of prominence through his exploration the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, visual perception. Restricting himself of abstract form and color, but also Albers and his wife, noted fi ber artist to a standardized format of only a infl uenced generations of European and Anni Albers, fl ed to the United States. few superimposed squares, Albers American artists and designers through There, he was recruited to head Black generated innumerable studies of the his innovative teaching methods. Mountain College, an experimental interactions of multiple colors until his Albers began his career in the early new school in North Carolina, where he death in 1976. 1920s at the revolutionary Bauhaus taught a modifi ed Bauhaus curriculum Josef Albers: Innovation and school in Weimar, Germany, which for fi fteen years. An enthusiastic Inspiration presents nearly sixty works championed vanguard aesthetics and motivator, Albers shared his experience from the Museum’s extensive, world- promoted ways to improve modern life with materials and design before renowned collection, never before on through pragmatic art and design. He gradually focusing on color. view. The exhibition is enhanced by key created bold compositions in black and By the time Albers became loans from the Josef and Anni Albers white, as well as the primary colors chairman of the design department Foundation. Documentary photographs red, yellow, and blue, which he hoped at Yale University in 1950, he was and examples of his teaching aids offer Previous page, from left to right: Josef Albers, Homage to the Square: I-S (LXXI-B), 1971; Homage to the Square: Blue Reminding, 1966; Homage to the Square: Yellow and Ochre, 1964; this page, top and right: Josef Albers, Fugue (B), 1925–28; Final Study for “6 and 3,” 1931. All works from the Hirshhorn’s collection. Photos by Lee Stalsworth insights into Albers’ artistic endeavors, process, and concepts. The exhibition concludes with a display of works by artists who studied under, worked with, or directly inspired Albers, notably Anni Albers, Richard Anuskiewicz, Ilya Bolotowsky, Burgoyne Diller, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Rauschenberg, and Donald Judd. Josef Albers: Innovation and Inspiration is organized by senior curator Valerie Fletcher. The exhibition is made possible in part by the Hirshhorn’s Board of Trustees and donors to the Annual Circle. hirshhorn.si.edu 3 YVES KLEIN: WITH THE VOID, FULL POWERS May 20– September 12 m to line Previous page Yves Klein, Le Saut dans le vide [Leap into the Void], 1960. Private Collection. Image courtesy Yves Klein Archives Yves Klein, Untitled Fire Painting, 1961. Private Collection. Image courtesy Yves Klein Archives Yves Klein making Fire Paintings at the Centre d’Essais du Gaz de France, Paris, 1961. Image courtesy Yves Klein Archives “ What he was trying to Yves Klein (French, b. Nice, 1928– immaterial spirituality through pure establish through the trace 1962) created what he considered his color (primarily an ultramarine blue of fi rst artwork when he signed the sky his own invention—International Klein of fi re…was the ‘presence above Nice in 1947. This simple yet Blue), inaugurating his defi ning series of absence,’ the mark of bold statement encapsulates the es- of monochromes in 1957. He even life that is diffused energy.” sence of the artist’s goal—to capture went so far in his renowned 1958 —Pierre Restany and convey the immaterial. During an exhibition of “the Void” to present intense, prolifi c career that lasted only white galleries emptied of all artworks. from 1954 to 1962, when he suffered Among Klein’s best-known works are a heart attack at the age of 34, Klein the Anthropometries, begun in 1958. took the art scene by storm with his Under his direction, nude female models experiments in painting, sculpture, were smeared with his ultramarine blue performance, photography, music, the- and used as “living brushes” to make ater, fi lm, architecture, and theoretical body prints on prepared paper. The writing. resulting images are not only imprints Self-identifi ed as “the painter of of the models but also represent their space,” Klein sought to achieve temporary physical presence. hirshhorn.si.edu 7 Yves Klein, Untitled Anthropometry, 1960. From the Hirshhorn’s collection. Photo by Lee Stalsworth Yves Klein, Untitled Blue Sponge Relief, 1960. Glenstone. Image courtesy Glenstone, photo by Tim Nighswander/Imaging4Art In the late 1950s, but most notably modern art’s concern with the material beginning in 1961, Klein began literally object to contemporary notions of the to use fi re, which he considered “the conceptual nature of art and is informed universal principle of expression,” as part by Klein’s study of the mystical sect of his creative process. His Fire Paintings, Rosicrucianism, philosophical and poetic in which fi re either replaced or was investigations of space and science, and combined with paint, embody the ideas the practice of judo, which he described of process, transformation, creation, as “the discovery of the human body in a destruction, dissolution, and elemental spiritual space.” cosmology that were so essential to The fi rst major retrospective of the all of his art. artist’s work in the US in nearly thirty The artist’s diverse body of work years, Yves Klein: With the Void, represents a pivotal transition from Full Powers features examples from all Yves Klein, 1961. “ All paintings, of whatever kind, abstract or representational, Image courtesy have on me the effect of the bars on a prison window.

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