Giovanni Anselmo, Invisible, 1971. Photo by Lee Stalsworth
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In its current exhibit, What Absence Is Made Of, The Hirshhorn brings together more than 70 works across seven decades, all of which explore the creative ways that absence can be expressed. Visitors will be able to observe how leading artists like Damien Hirst, Annette Lemieux, Constantin Brancusi, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ed Atkins, Huang Yong Ping, and John Baldessair deal with the loss of something – or something that has never appeared at all. The exhibit focuses on the way artists express absence through sculpture, video installation, painting, photography, and other mediums, and includes recent acquisitions made by the museum as well as rarely shown works.
Included in the show are pieces that explore the cultural, social and political influences that lie behind them. Baldessari, a conceptual artist working in the late 60s, incinerated all of the paintings he made between 1953 and 1966 and used the ashes to bake cookies which he preserved in a glass jar and titled Cremation Project. The piece asks viewers to look beyond the boundaries of the physical object, thereby emphasizing concept over object. In Abbottabad (2013), Huang Yong Ping has recreated the compound where Osama bin Laden hid for years before he was discovered and eventually killed. In The Asthmatic Escaped II (1992), Damien Hirst constructs two large glass boxes that contain a tripod, film, a saucer, biscuits, a plastic cup, jeans, a T-shirt, trainers, and an inhaler. These objects suggest the absence of a person, in this case Francis Bacon, who passed away shortly before Hirst created the tribute to him.
General Information
- Meet your Associate Rep by the Information Desk inside the Independence Ave., NW, entrance no later than listed start time.
- While there is metered street parking and several parking lots and garages near the building, space is limited, your best bet is using METRO.
