Edward Ruscha.HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum was designed by Gordon Bunshaft to house 6,000 pieces of the enormous art collection amassed by the industrialist Joseph H. Hirshhorn and presented by him to the nation in 1966. Opened in 1974, it is the capital city's first museum devoted exclusively to modern art. The building is a circular, windowless slab of concrete faced with pink granite. The gas stations, the strip, the plain language, the cool wit, the games with light: Surely Ed Ruscha is the consummate West Coast artist. Yet, to former Hirshhorn assistant director Neal Benezra (now at the Art Institute of Chicago), that's a limiting label. "I've always felt this work is of primary importance internationally," he says, and together with MOMA Moma (mō`mä), town, E central Mozambique. It is important mainly as a harbor for the export of tropical produce. Oxford director Kerry Brougher and associate curator Phyllis Rosenzweig, he's gathering seventy-five works from the '6os to the present (including all sixteen of Ruscha's books) to prove the point. June 29-Sept. 17; MOCA, Chicago, Nov. 20, 2000-Feb. 5, 2001; Miami Art Museum, Mar. 22- June 3, 2001; Modem Art Museum of Fort Worth, July 1-Sept. 30, 2001; and MOMA Oxford, Oct. 27, 2001-Jan. 13, 2002. |
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