Professor of Philosophical Theology ar the Yale University 

 Divinity School. The series ended with "Scanley Spencer's 

 Artistic Legacy," an exploration by Hugh Davies, Director of 

 rhe Museum of Concemporary An in San Diego. After closing 

 in Washington, the exhibition furthet introduced non-Britons 

 to Spencer's work at the Centto Culrural/Arte Contemporaneo 

 in Mexico City (February 19-May 10, 1998) and the California 

 Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San 

 Francisco (June 8— September 6, 1998). 



"George Segal, A Retrospective: Sculptures, Paintings, 

 Drawings," on tour from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 

 in Canada where it was organized by guest curator Marco 

 Livingstone, appeared at rhe Hirshhorn February 19 to May 

 17, 1998. This four-decade retrospective honored an American 

 artist (b. 1924) whose evocative sculptures of everyday people 

 in urban environments have become signature works of 

 modern art. The show included such landmark works of the 

 Pop Art era as Cinema, 1963, as well as single-figure reliefs, 

 boldly expressive paintings and pascels, and the original, 

 mixed-media version of Depression Bread Line, 1991, recently 

 cast in bronze for Washington's new, much-visited Franklin 

 Delano Roosevelt Memorial. Public programs included a 

 dialog with the artist on March 9, an event so popular that 

 some 200 people had to be turned away, as well as writers' 

 workshops, two programs for families, and multiple screen- 

 ings of a documenrary in which Segal's singular working 

 method is shown. Ads in subways and buses illustrating 

 (appropriately) the Hirshhorn 's Bus Riders, 1962, appeared as 

 a public service by special arrangement with Washington 

 Metropolitan Transit Authority. The 62-piece exhibition, 

 which attracted sizable crowds and widespread local media 

 coverage, including two television pieces, traveled after clos- 

 ing at the Hirshhorn to the Jewish Museum in New York and 

 the Miami Art Museum in Florida. 



"Triumph of the Spirit: Carlos Alfonzo, A Survey, 1975— 

 1991," a large exhibition of paintings otganized for the Miami 

 Art Museum by Associate Curator Olga M. Viso of the 

 Hirshhorn, came to Washington in a slightly abridged ver- 

 sion, appearing June 18— Seprember 13, 1998. Featuring the 

 expressive, symbol-laden imagery of this Havana-born, 

 Miami-based painter (1950— 1991), the show went far in estab- 

 lishing a place for Alfonzo, who died at age 40 on the brink of 

 broad recognirion, within international art currents of the 

 1980s. A scholarly catalog with an essay by Viso and contribu- 

 tions from Giulio V. Blanc, Dan Cameron, Julia P. Herzberg, 

 and Cesar Trasobares accompanied the show, and Hilton 

 Kramer of The New York Observer, among others in the local 

 and national press, wrote about Alfonzo's work with en- 

 thusiasm. The exhibition's Washington presentation received 

 major support from the Smithsonian Larino Imtianves Fund, 

 and because the show had a summer time frame, public 

 programs were able to tie into the Smithsonian's "Art Night 

 on the Mall" program of exrended evening hours on Thursdays. 

 Viso presented a three-part exhibition tour for Art Night. 

 Most notable, however, was "Latin Music on the Plaza," an 



outdoor concert series — rhe Hirshhorn's firsr ever — that 

 attracred some 8,000 visitors over 11 weeks. The series was 

 cosponsored with the Prince George's Arts Council and co- 

 ordinated by Senior Educator Teresia Bush of the Hirshhorn. 



The Directions series conrinued to introduce the diverse 

 work of artists establishing international reputations. "Direc- 

 tions — Toba Khedoori" (November 20-February 22, 1998) 

 presented rhree floor-to-ceiling wax -covered painrings on 

 paper by this Los Angeles-based Australian-bom artist (b. 1964). 

 Organized by Associate Curator Viso, who discussed Khe- 

 doon's work in a gallery talk on December 4, the show 

 revealed the artist's dexterous approach to phantom figura- 

 tion, as one critic has coined a current trend, in enormous 

 floaring images of a rooftop railing, a cutaway view of a 

 house, and a section of empty theater seats. In "Directions — 

 Kiki Smith: Night" (March 19— June 21, I998), an American 

 artist (b. 1954) who energized figurative sculpture in the late 

 1980s with her expressively anatomical images of the human 

 body revealed a new direcrion focused on nature. The show, 

 organized by Associate Curator Phyllis Rosenzweig, feacured a 

 metaphorical, nocturnal ecosystem consisting of a diorama- 

 like phoro-ecching of animals interacting ar night and, filling 

 the Directions Gallery's cencer, long platforms displaying 

 literally dozens of silhouetted and three-dimensional sculptures 

 of birds, stars, flowers, rabbits, cats, snowflakes, raindrops, 

 eggs, and other natural elements. Bringing sound and move- 

 ment into the space, "Directions — Tony Oursler: Video Dolls 

 with Tracy Leipold" (July 2-September 7, 1998) created a live- 

 ly, amusing, often unsettling environment in the first solo 

 museum show in Washington for this innovative artist (b. 1957). 

 Organized by public affairs head Sidney Lawrence, the show 

 presented six of Oursler 's unusual doll-like cloth figures — 

 from puppet to effigy size — wherein talking heads in the 

 form of live-action video projections of expressive, loquacious, 

 anguished faces confront and amuse the viewer. The artist's 

 most frequent model and collaborator, performer Tracy 

 Leipold, was the focus of this group of works. In a series of 

 public programs for Art Night, Oursler's interest in film, the 

 media, and psychology (specifically a condition known as mul- 

 tiple personality disorder) was explored. 



Notable acquisitions for the year included German artist 

 Georg Baselitz's carved-wood sculpture, Tragic Head, 1988, 

 exhibited on the lower level and featured in the Winter 1998 

 calendar. Also acquired but not displayed until later were 

 American artist and MacArthur Prize recipient James Turrell s 

 outstanding light installation, Milk Run, 1996, and Pop artist 

 Claes Oldenburg's important early soft sculpture Bathtub 

 (Mode!) — Ghost Version, 1966. 



Public programs, some newly introduced, provided diverse 

 opportunities for education and enrichment during the year. 

 The 1997 Mordes Lecture in Contemporary An, made possible 

 by Board member Marvin Mordes of Baltimore and his wife, 

 Elayne, featured Roberta Smith, longtime art critic for the 

 New York Times and, in the early 1980s, the Village Voice, who 

 gave a lecture on November 2, 1997, ritled "On Becoming 



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