the Mall" on chursday) drew an average 500 additional visitors 

 per evening to the museum. 



Other exhibitions added to the year's spectrum of 20th- 

 century art. "Richard Lindner: Paintings and Watercolors, 

 1948— 1977," the first broad look in more than 20 years at the 

 richly symbolic, Pop Art-era imagery of this German-born 

 American artist (1901-1978), opened October 17. Accom- 

 panied by several public programs and a scholarly 172-page 

 catalog by Hirshhorn curator Dr. Judith Zilczer, the exhibi- 

 tion traveled to the Haus der Kunst in Munich for a spring 

 1997 showing. The project was made possible by the 

 Smithsonian's Special Exhibition Fund. An additional grant 

 from Ellen and Max Palevsky was matched by the Jerome L. 

 Greene Foundation, the Jacob and Charlotte Lehrman Trust, 

 the Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation, Conde Nast Publi- 

 cations, Inc., and an anonymous donor. 



"JeffWall," a twenty-year retrospective of backlit photo- 

 graphic tableaux by this Canadian artist — staged scenes of 

 suburbia, home life, and the workplace — launched its three- 

 city tour at the Hirshhorn on February 20. The artist was 

 present to lead some 80 visitors on an exhibition tour and 

 returned March 13 for a public dialog with art historian 

 Michael Fried. Accompanied by a catalog by Kerry Brougher, 

 the show was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, 

 Los Angeles, to where it traveled next, followed by the Art 

 Center Mito in Japan. The Smithsonian's Special Exhibition 

 Fund and the Embassy of Canada supported the Washington 

 presentation. 



"Directions — Juan Muhoz," an exhibition featuring a new 

 installation of cast-resin works by a Madrid-based sculptor 

 (b. 1953) in the forefront of a current resurgence in figurative 

 sculpture, opened March 7. Munoz, whose popular quintet of 

 bronze figures Conversation Piece (1994— 1995), is installed out- 

 doors near the Hirshhorn 's entrance, spoke at a noontime slide 

 presentation in dialog with Neal Benezra, the Hirshhorn's 

 Assistant Director for Art and Public Programs, and on 

 March 22, a mime and theater program was presented for chil- 

 dren. The exhibition was supported by the Glen Eagles Foun- 

 dation, Anita and Burton Reiner, and William Goldiner, M.D. 



The two other "Directions" exhibitions this year — "Direc- 

 tions — Rudolf Schwarzkogler" (November 7, 1996— January 

 20, 1998) and "Directions — Louise Lawler: Monochrome" 

 (July 17-October 19, 1997) — revealed two approaches to 

 photography as a tool rather than as an end product in con- 

 temporary art. The late, influential Schwarzkogler's 37 black- 

 and-white images from the 1960s documented his staged 

 "Actions," prototypes of performance art, and received largely 

 positive reviews in the press. The exhibition was funded by a 

 private donation with additional support from the Austrian 

 Cultural Institute, a government organization promoting that 

 country's culture in the United States. The later show of 

 Lawler's work focused on her use of the photographic medium 

 both to create pictorial records of art objects in different 

 spaces and situations and to evoke a mood through mono- 

 chromatic color. 



In a second-floor gallery beginning November 20, Paul 

 Gauguin's Hina with Two Attendants, a tamanu-wood sculp- 

 ture carved in Tahiti in 1892, was the focus of a small interpre- 

 tive show enriched by documents and objects from various 

 Smithsonian sources. A similar presentation of Raymond 

 Duchamp- Villon's 1914 masterwork The Horse followed on 

 May 23. Part of the ongoing "Collection in Context" series 

 supported by the Smithsonian Special Exhibition Fund, these 

 shows sought to deepen understanding of a single art object 

 by exploring technical, scientific, sociological, and eth- 

 nographic undercurrents and implications of its creation. 



Complementing more than a dozen lectures and gallery 

 presentations relating to exhibitions, this year's Mordes Lec- 

 ture in Contemporary Art on November 3 featured a slide-il- 

 lustrated talk, "Histories, Encounters, and Engagements: 

 Showing Modern Art in the Museum," by Nicholas Setota, 

 the Director of the Tate Gallery in London. Serota, a widely 

 respected contemporary art specialist and museum admin- 

 istrator, spoke mainly about the Tate Gallery's plans to open a 

 new building in 1999. It was the fourth such presentation by 

 an international figute in the field in this annual series spon- 

 sored by Dr. Marvin and Elayne Mordes of Baltimote. 



Novel approaches to educating an uninitiated public were 

 particularly successful this year. A Resource Center focusing 

 on complex art — a concept inaugurated for exhibitions 

 ("Bruce Nauman" in 1994 and "Distemper" in 1996) — was 

 implemented in 1997 for works in the permanent collection 

 installed on the third floor. For several hours each week a 

 trained staff member interacted with visitors at a "station" in 

 the Abram Lerner Room there. Earlier in the year a Writers' 

 Workshop engaged 65 aspiring authors, who used images 

 from backlit photographs in the Jeff Wall exhibition as sources 

 for their literary works. 



Museum educators introduced young people to the 

 museum through performances and hands-on activities. 

 Eleven "Young at Aft" programs brought several hundred six- 

 to-mne-year-olds and accompanying adults to six museum 

 exhibitions to engage in creative activities — such as T-shirt 

 design, storytelling, and improvisational theater and dance. 

 Several times during the year, teachers explored the galleries 

 and developed methods for bringing their insights back to 

 the classroom. Workshops (for credit) were offered to teachers 

 of all disciplines from Prince George's County, Maryland. The 

 D.C. Art Teachers Association had an all-day session with 

 museum educators. Class presentations by artists focused on 

 the collection and inspired many young people to visit the 

 museum on their own. 



Summer programs for "Art Night on the Mall" at the 

 Hirshhorn brought together the disciplines of film and art. In 

 conjunction with "The Hirshhorn Collects: Recent Acquisi- 

 tions 1992—1996," a weekly Thursday-evening gallery talk on 

 a single object was followed by a screening of a film whose ap- 

 proach, subject, atmosphere, or technique made for thought- 

 provoking parallels. Earlier in the year, the Hirshhorn's film 

 series again presented several programs in collaboration with 



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