Curator's Tour: Revolutions

FREE
Meet at the Information Desk in the Lobby

Hirshhorn curators Marina Isgro and Betsy Johnson will walk visitors through the exhibition Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960, which surveys one of the most revolutionary periods in art history and which recently had 50 works rotate onto view.

About the Exhibition
Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection highlights works from the early half of the Museum’s collection.

During this period, artists in both Europe and North America—working in light of new technologies, groundbreaking scientific discoveries, and rapidly expanding cities, while also responding to World Wars I and II—invented dramatically novel approaches to art-making. These years saw the development of abstraction in Western art, the increased use of nontraditional materials, and the rise of conceptualism, the notion that the idea behind an artwork is more important than the art object itself. Many artists used their work to comment on social and political issues; others looked inward, making art that dealt with personal expression or problems of form. Revolutions is primarily organized chronologically but also opens dialogues across history, with select contemporary artworks installed in conversation with modern masterworks to demonstrate how ideas and approaches formulated from 1860 to 1960 remain critical today.

If you have questions or a request for access services or accommodations that can make your experience more inclusive, please contact hirshhornexperience@si.edu. One to two weeks’ advance notice is recommended but not required.