teen Thursdays between Memorial and Labor days as parr of 

 Art Night on the Mall, a Smithsonian extended-hours initia- 

 tive shared with the National Museum of African Art, the 

 Freer Gallery of Art, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and che 

 International Gallery at the Ripley Center. Art Nights at the 

 Hirshhorn attracted more than 8,000 visitors for in-depth, 

 after-hours viewing and — on ten Thursdays coinciding with 

 its run — programs designed to deepen and enrich the 

 museum's major summer exhibition. 



That exhibition, "Distemper: Dissonant Themes in the Art 

 of the 1990s,'' was co-organized by the Hirshhorn s Assistant 

 Director of Public Programs/Chief Curator Neal Benezra and 

 Assistant Curator Olga Viso and accompanied by a fully il- 

 lustrated catalog co-published with Distributed Art Publish- 

 ers (D.A.P.). The exhibition, presented with the Lannan 

 Foundation's major support and the generosity of numerous 

 other national and international sponsors, probed a global at- 

 titude of malaise as evidenced in paintings, a film installation, 

 and ensembles of sculptures by ten midcareer artists from 

 Europe and the Americas. During daytime hours, a Resource 

 Center encouraged visitors to discuss their ideas and reactions 

 with museum educators and to peruse articles, catalogs, and 

 other publications on each artist represented. On Art Nights, 

 an estimated 30 to 50 visitors gathered in a gallery at 7:15 

 p.m. each week for an in-depth analysis by a curator or 

 educator of one artist's vision. Extending the "Distemper" 

 theme into another medium. Art Night programming con- 

 tinued with a series of international films — Zero Kelvin (Den- 

 mark), Sans Soleil (France), and Bab El-OuedCity (Algeria) 

 being three examples. The films were shown at 8 p.m. in the 

 280-seat Ring Auditorium and drew nearly full houses for all 

 ten screenings. At the Hirshhorn's outdoor Full Circle Cafe — 

 which also remained open late on Thursdays — table displays 

 listed weekly programs, and exhibition posters from the Sack- 

 ler and African Art museums reminded visitors that Art 

 Night was a pan-institutional event. 



Earlier large-scale exhibitions at the Hirshhorn also high- 

 lighted international contemporary an, underscoring the 

 achievements, coincidentally, of two Germans. "Stephan 

 Balkenhol: Sculptures and Drawings" (October 19, 1995- 

 January 15, 1996) introduced this wood sculptor's deft, often 

 witty carved and painted renderings of young people and 

 animals in his first North American museum showing. The 

 show's freestanding works, reliefs, multifigure installations 

 and white-on-black drawings spurred numerous public 

 programs, including Young at Art workshops on carving and 

 penguin themes; a day of tours and demonstrations about 

 wood sculpture; and, spurred by the Everyman theme in 

 Balkenhol s work, a 20th Century Consort musical perfor- 

 mance. A catalog by organizing curator Neal Benezra, Direc- 

 tor of Public Programs/Chief Curator, was co-published with 

 Cantz Verlag of Germany. 



Following Balkenhol was "Georg Baselitz" (February 15- 

 May 5, 1996), a three-decade retrospective featuring more than 

 90 paintings, drawings, and sculptures by a German artist 



known for lush, boldly inverted images frequently identified 

 with Neo-Expressionist trends of the early 1980s. Two 

 curators' talks, docent-led tours, and a family painting 

 workshop highlighted the exhibition, which arrived at the 

 Hirshhorn from its second showing at the Los Angeles County 

 Museum of Art accompanied by a substantial catalog. The 

 widely reviewed exhibition was organized and first shown by 

 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and made 

 possible in Washington, D.C., by the Holenia Trust Fund. 

 After Washington, the show traveled to the Neue National- 

 galerie in Berlin. 



The year's smaller shows in the ongoing "Directions" series 

 featured a broad range of work by three American artists just 

 now gaining wide reputations. Carmen Lomas Garza, a San 

 Francisco— based painter, was represented by vivid narrative 

 paintings chronicling her South Texas childhood with 

 deliberate references to the customs and popular art forms of 

 Mexican American culture (November 18, 1995-February 19, 

 1996). Lomas Garza participated in a Young at Art paper 

 cutout workshop and a family day with tours and performan- 

 ces — geared to the local Spanish-speaking community. 

 Washington native Bevetly Semmes, now based in New York, 

 exhibited Kimberly, 1994, a room-size fabric installation with 

 cascades of pink organza and gold velvet in the form of a 

 monumental prom dress (March 21— June 23, 1996). Her whim- 

 sical sculpture inspired a highly original improvisational 

 theater piece for a Young at Art workshop. Semmes gave a gal- 

 lery talk, while a video co-produced with the Virginia 

 Museum of Fine Arts also explored her work. Byron Kim, a 

 California-born, New York-based painter, exhibited ten 

 abstract canvases from his "Grey-Green" series, begun in 1994, 

 based on his response to the color and cultural importance of 

 Korean celadon ceramics (July 18— October 20, 1996). Kim also 

 gave a gallery talk, returning several weeks later to participate 

 in a panel, "The Production of Beauty," with curator Louise 

 Cort of the Freer Gallery of Art. The majority of Kim's 

 abstractions were based on objects from the Freer s collection. 



Among distinguished speakers at the Hirshhorn this year 

 were the American curator Richard Armstrong, presenting 

 "In Search of the 1996 Carnegie International" as the third an- 

 nual Mordes Lecture in Contemporary Art. This series, which 

 brings to Washington the perspectives of critics, curators and 

 other leaders in the field, is sponsored by collectors Dr. Mar- 

 vin and Elayne Mordes of Baltimore. Curator Bernard Blistene 

 of the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pom- 

 pidou, Paris, and former Director of Museums in Marseille, 

 France, lectured on French art since i960 in cosponsorship 

 with the Alliance Franchise. American sculptor Judith Shea ex- 

 plored her own work as part of the "Collection Reviewed" art- 

 ist-speaker series supported by the Smithsonian Special 

 Exhibition Fund. 



Other educational highlights included a writer's workshop 

 with five authors helping some 65 participants compose 

 poetry and prose based on paintings in the permanent collec- 

 tion. The five Young at Art family workshops mentioned 



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