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Tag: contemporary art

Cooper Hewitt Pro-Seminar Series IV: Luigi Colani ponders the Big Bang

Elizabeth Broman
April 16, 2019
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Cooper Hewitt Pro-Seminar Series IV: Luigi Colani ponders the Big BangImage features collection of 120 plates in YLEM by Luigi Colani.

This post was contributed by Evelyn Meynard, graduate student in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies program offered jointly by the Parsons School of Design and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Elizabeth Broman, Reference Librarian, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Library. 

All incoming students in The New School Parsons History of Design and Curatorial Studies (MA) Masters’ Degree Program at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum take an object and research based class called Pro-Seminar. This course trains students in conducting formal analyses, writing catalog entries, and making visual presentations that require students to conduct and integrate primary and secondary source research. The Cooper Hewitt Library regularly collaborates with faculty and students, providing research resources, curriculum consultation and Special Collections presentations for classes.  Selecting  one work from the Cooper-Hewitt collection to study during the semester, that ”work” can be a book from the Cooper Hewitt Design Library presented by staff during curatorial orientations.

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Ian Cheng: Live Simulation

Erin Rushing
March 14, 2016
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Ian Cheng
Photograph of Ian Cheng from Natt & Dag.

This post was written by Tim Cannon, intern in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library.

Suspended Animation, which opened on February 10 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, features work by six contemporary artists working with digitally generated images. Among these artists is Ian Cheng, a New York-based artist who worked for George Lucas’ visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, before earning an MFA at Columbia University. His work is typically based on computer simulations, often lacking a fixed duration or narrative, so that the action unfolds more or less spontaneously, according to an algorithm rather than a plan. Cheng’s live simulation (his term for the programs he makes) Emissary in the Squat of the Gods, will appear in the exhibition.

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New to the Hirshhorn Library: Latin American Artists

Salima Appiah-Duffell
January 8, 2016
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Since 2014, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library (HMSG) has received grants totalling $15,000 to catalog materials of Latin American artists. Former Smithsonian American Art Museum Curatorial Assistant, Florencia Bazzano-Nelson, explains why these materials are important:

“Scholarly holdings regarding Latin American art are important because they provide the historical and cultural context for many artists in these collections … In a global environment, it is important for us to understand what is happening in the arts of other places, especially those places that have maintained a fluid cultural dialogue with the United States for more than two centuries.”

Funds for this ongoing project were provided by the Washington Art Library Resources Committee (WALRC). This non-profit is made up of research institutions related to art and architecture in the metropolitan DC area. With their support, the HMSG library has had over 200 materials processed so far. Below are some highlights from the recently cataloged items.

 

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Rise and Shine: Pop Art Breakfast by Roy Lichtenstein

Sofia Silva
September 30, 2015
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If life were like a work of art, what would it look like? How would you take the most ordinary daily routine, such as breakfast, and transform it into an artistic masterpiece? While looking through the Art and Artist Files at the Hirshhorn Museum and American Art/Portrait Gallery libraries, I was given a better idea of what it would be like to have breakfast in the boldly graphic world of Roy Lichtenstein, one of the most important figures in Pop Art.

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“Langley Leap” at the Hirshhorn Library

Erin Rushing
June 15, 2015
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HMSG stacks
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library stacks.

This post was written by Lily Zhang, a senior at Langley High School.

I had no idea how real senioritis was until I caught it. Worse than the common cold, the dreaded senioritis hinders motivation with distracting visions of prom, parties, and graduation. But at Langley High in McLean, we are provided with a novel cure: no school. While other seniors in surrounding high schools continue to attend school in May, Langley seniors have the opportunity to “leap” outside school walls and participate in a 10-day internship of our choosing. The Langley Leap program gives us a chance to explore possible areas of interest beyond classroom lectures and tests, an opportunity I believe to be irreplaceable and essential to the overall high school experience.

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