At two museums!
Mark your calendar for Warhol on the Mall set to open September 25 at both the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Films, concerts, gallery talks, a symposium, lectures, children's programs, teen programs, teachers' programs, and studio workshops are some of the offerings which will complement the huge presentation about the man (1928-1987) and his art.
What would Andy Warhol be without "after hours"? (At the Hirshhorn October 14. Tickets will only be sold in advance, beginning September 19 at 10 a.m., and will likely sell quickly: $25 each.)
The National Gallery's exhibit is called Warhol: Headlines which runs through January 2, 2012, and the Hirshhorn's is Andy Warhol: Shadows, through January 15, 2012. Both are free. (Unless otherwise noted.)
The National Gallery's exhibition is the first anywhere to focus on Warhol's works about news headlines and will show the original pieces the artist used for the basis of his art and how he, who became editor and author, changed them.
Another first will be at the Hirshhorn where 102 Warhol silkscreened and hand-painted canvases will hang edge-to-edge around the Hirshhorn's curved galleries.
Said Molly Donovan, exhibition curator and associate curator of modern and contemporary art, National Gallery of Art: “In his headline works, Warhol shines a spotlight on our insatiable appetite for the sensational side of the news, calling attention to our role as consumers of the media. I imagine if he were alive today, he would delight in the media scandals, and tell us that they are of our own making. Warhol: Headlines, which was inspired by the National Gallery’s A Boy For Meg (1962) painting, took four years to research and organize. The time was needed to tease out the headline theme through Warhol’s entire career. Like the 24-hour news cycle, Warhol came at us from a variety of angles and media, and sometimes the link to the headline theme is not direct, but more oblique. In addition, loans are coming from all over the world, and so time was needed to travel to examine each object, and to organize the four-venue international tour.”
Part of the extravaganza will include the Washington debut on Saturday, November 12 of 13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips who will sing and play guitar and keyboard against a backdrop of silent screen tests featuring "Baby" Jane Holzer, Dennis Hopper, Lou Reed and Edie Sedgwick, among others. They will perform at 4 p.m. in the East Building Auditorium at the National Gallery of Art.
Beginning November 10 and running through February 26 will be Directions: Empire3 at the Hirshhorn which is "three time-based media responses" to the lighting of the Empire State Building by President Herbert Hoover on May 1, 1931. Wolfgang Staehle streamed his 1999 study, Empire 24/7 via live webcast while Warhol filmed the building overnight in 1964, and Douglas Gordon based his 1997 Bootleg (Empire) on Warhol's creation.
From Washington Headlines travels to the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (February 11–May 13, 2012); Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, Rome (June 11–September 9, 2012); and The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (October 14, 2012–January 6, 2013). The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, Rome, and the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt.
Major sponsors are the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
For Shadows, major exhibition funding is provided by the Bell Family Foundation and Constance R. Caplan with additional support from the Holenia Trust Fund, in memory of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, the Friends of Jim and Barbara Demetrion Endowment Fund, and the Hirshhorn's Board of Trustees.
Coming up: a listing of important Warhol Mall dates
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