Creating movement

Annmarie Garden unveils arts building

Friday, May 30, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL Annmarie Garden Sculpture Park is set to unveil its new 15,000-square-foot arts building. On the bottom floor, artists from around the United States contributed mixed media artworks to ‘‘Re.action.” Upstairs is ‘‘Olga Hirshhorn Recollects.” E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo

Joseph Hirshhorn, who died in 1981, was the founding donor for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. His widow, Olga, will attend the arts building’s May 30 opening of the exhibit, ‘‘Olga Hirshhorn Recollects,” which focuses on the Hirshhorns’ relationship with the legendary artists whose work they collected. ‘‘Recollects,” it seems, also pays tribute to Olga, who has loaned Annmarie Garden more than 900 pieces of art from her donation to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

On the first floor, ‘‘Re.action” presents selections of mixed-media artwork (mainly sculpture) selected by guest juror, Mark Ward, the director of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. The Visionary Art Museum, which was founded upon the ideas of the American Indian ‘‘vision quest,” is another source of inspiration for Annemarie’s new, 15,000-square-foot space.

A week before Annmarie Garden Sculpture Park unveiled its exhibits, Director Stacey Hann-Ruff walked below a shiny Alexander Calder piece hung from the ceiling in ‘‘Re.action.”

‘‘We joke about that piece,” she said. ‘‘We say it’s worth more than the building.”

The theme for ‘‘Re.action” was kinetic movement.

‘‘It could be actual movement or an illusion,” Hann-Ruff said.

With art that ranges from highly modern to almost purely whimsical, ‘‘Re.action” might also be noted for more than a few feats of engineering. Joseph Chirchirillo’s 11-foot-tall ‘‘Waterfall,” for instance, involves water, steel, copper pipes, found objects and electric motors.

Jamie Barmeister’s metal trash can, ‘‘Funky Junk,” on the other hand, might startle viewers as their approach triggers the trash inside it to move around.‘‘It’s just goofy fun,” Hann-Ruff said.

The ‘‘illusion” of movement, meanwhile, might be best represented by Monte Shelton’s ‘‘Large Spiral.” If you stare at this psychedelic oil painting for too long the room might start to spin.

To left of ‘‘Large Spiral” is ‘‘String Theory Made Easy,” double helixes made of aluminum and poplar laminate Dacron strings by Fielding Brown, a sculptor and physicist. Other examples include Glen Friedel’s paneled photogram as well as Christopher Gauthier’s chromogenic dye prints, in which the images are blurred, stretched-out and distorted.

Pieces from four Southern Maryland artists — Ed Rupard, Brenda Belfield, Jim Langley, and Tommy Younger — were chosen by Ward among entries from all over the United States.ÊLangley and Younger teamed up to make the colorful ‘‘Pneumatic Ball Drain,” which has a plastic tube with balls shooting inside of it and a turbine fan in the base.

While most art exhibitions come with warnings not to touch, most of the mixed media sculptures in ‘‘Re.action” come with operating instructions. Press the button and set Bradley Litwin’s electric machines into motion. Press the button to Karl Lautman’s ‘‘Who’s on First” and hear Abbot and Costello’s famous skit in Morse code. Press the button and hold it for three to five seconds; release it to see Shelton’s ‘‘Unforeseen Consequences.”

More traditional art-goers might be more pleased with ‘‘Recollects,” which includes 35 pieces out of the 900 from the Corcoran.

And while one of Robert Indiana’s amazing color lithographs pays homage to Pablo Picasso, most of these works — the majority of which are prints or drawings — pay homage to the Hirshhorns.

Picasso, for one, signed a small reproduction of a bacchanalian scene typical of his later years, ‘‘pour Olga bon ami” above a funny self-portrait. Roberto Matta paid tribute to the Hirshhorns on a napkin. Jules Olitski gave Olga a crayon drawing titled ‘‘Happy Birthday.” Menashe Kadishman, in his mixed lithograph with silkscreen, inscribes a happy 80th birthday message on the ears of sheep.

‘‘It’s like picking 25 delicious desserts,” Hann-Ruff said about choosing only 35 pieces among 900. ‘‘Which one do you pick? It’s very hard.”

‘‘Recollection” is as amusing as it is impressive. Although the content of it is quite different than that of ‘‘Re.action,” both exhibitions seem to be linked by a quest to make art galleries accessible and truly appropriate for all ages.

The second-floor mezzanine gallery is outfitted with colorful moveable walls. A giant orb-like ball on loan from the Smithsonian divides the room in half. Tall windows at each end of the gallery provide views out to the 30-acre property.

Hann-Ruff walked behind a wall that holds a commercial lithograph by Matisse and stood in front of a sculpture.

‘‘We call it futuristic space debris,” she said of the sculpture. ‘‘Doesn’t it look like something from Star Trek?”