Inside the Hirschhorn Museum/Gallery/Looky Building Thing

I mostly love this museum for its lockable lockers, gift shop full of cool kid gifts, and pure freedom of movement. Other than no flash photog or touching the art, you can go and do where/whatever you fancy. In an ambling circular fashion.

Basement level. This was a large rectangle of intestine-shaped clear gel. I know.

Clothes hangers strung together. File under "well, huh. I could do that."

A nice Lichtenstein collection came through Austin last spring - saw it w/Tim.  So I didn't linger as long here.

Upstairs, finally, something actually surprising and delightful.  One of their de Kooning's "Woman" series, 1965.

It was always easy for me to love Frank Stella, with soothing geometrics and craaaazy '60s colors.

English on one curved side, cyrillic on the other. This was my favorite piece of the day, if I had to choose.  

This was my favorite pic of the day, if I had to choose.

I leave you with 3 short videos that perfectly reproduce how I felt, wandering through the gallery that day.

This was the featured exhibit. Mesmerizing.

Shot from the hip as I walked around, including a glimpse at a hypnotic linear Rube Goldburg video on the wall of Peter Fischli and David Weiss' The Way Things Go.

The original:

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The Hirschhorn Scupture Garden

Joseph Hirschhorn (uranium mining magnate and ravenous art collector) and his wife Olga Zatorsky hung out with Lady Bird and then-Pres LBJ. You didn't know how to spell their last name. The extra "h" threw you off.

Shaking hands at the museum's groundbreaking, 1969.

It's next to the Castle. Here I am feebly trying to capture the rose gardens on the way.

   

Walking around the side on my way to the sculpture garden. Those enormous pipes are  suspended in the air with wire tension alone. It rises about 20 meters from the ground, past the roof of the building.

Yoko Ono's The Wish Tree for Washington, DC, 2007. You're asked to whisper something to the tree. There's a path so you can get up near it and aim for its ear. No, I can't tell you, or it won't come true.

One of Aristide Maillol's Three Nymphs.

Rodin's Crouching Woman

You can see how the garden is sunk into the Mall. Across the street is the main museum (left, in the trees), and the Castle, with Mark di Suvero's massive red steel construction guarding the walls.

The business end of that gold ball in the previous pic. Arnaldo Pomodoro (Arnold Tomato?)'s amazing gear-ey bronze, Sphere no. 6 ( Sphere Within a Sphere).

Henry Moore's Reclining Figure from one end of the fountain pond...

and from the other end. She changed a bit along the way.

20 years ago, this used to be David Smith's own little corner (see cubist polished stainless steel piece two pics up). Now it's Miro's. With the museum behind. Next, what it looked like inside.

DC, Day Two: Lisa's Rehersal Dinner

 

It was at the Metropolitan Club, a block from the New Exec. Office Building. There was a slide show in an anteroom, with rotating pics of Nick and Lisa as children (mostly Dhaka photos, one with me and Lis circa 1975). One of Lisa's best friends remarked full volume as she walked in, "What kind of stuck-up, conservative, stuffy place is this?!" But it was beautiful inside, all marble and guilt gilt. Like the set of Monty Python's Cocktail Bar ("More lemming, sir?" "Oh, just a squeeze, Harry" [SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK]).

 

Lisa was struck by Francesca: "...his incredibly beautiful, poised, amazing oldest daughter, who is just such an utter delight."

Francesca and I snuck off into the library, which was huge, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves: 

"I don't think we're supposed to be in here, Dad." "I know. Smile."

She makes the world glow.

Yes, that's the Virgin Queen behind me there.

 

And an endless magazine rack, updated daily.

Dinner was amazing: Washingtonian haut cuisine, including a beautifully constructed vegetarian number.

 

 
 

The evening cranked up with round after round of speeches, accolades, blessings, and toasts, ending with Lisa and Nick giving out prizes. I tied Maude and her spouse for "people with the same wedding anniversary." Got me a big box of liquor-filled chocolates.

I wish these pics did justice to how gorgeous Lisa and her friends and family looked. Such a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful evening.

DC, Day One: Georgetown and Air & Space Museum

First shot, at the Grandparents' house. Mom looks great. Francesca looks 22.

After our trip to the spy museum, we went shopping in Georgetown.

I took all these shots with my mobile. Camera phones have come a looooong way.

Wisconsin & M st. The rare times I had money in the '80s, I'd make a beeline for Nathans.

Papa Razzo. The first of many of these wonderful poses by my beautiful daughter. "Stop! You are such a tourist!"

Anyway: Blues Alley. Spiro Gyra's playing. I once had most of their albums, back in my Tower Records clerk days.

Then I dragged Francesca to the Air & Space Museum, where she was beyond bored.

Look, one of the first computers! Because I am an über geek.

Five full-sized aircraft in this shot.

I like the lighting on this one.

Rocket Man. Burning out his fuse up here alone.

At one point, there was an exhibit on flight dynamics - pitch, roll. She pointed to "yaw," and said, "Oh migod! Where's the 'N'?"

That wacky sculpture at the back of the museum. Francesca took this one - nice shot. Then I chased her around, also trying to get a nice shot. To no avail.

Up Next: Visiting the Hirshhorn solo, while the grands take their much-relieved granddaughter shopping.

"Continuum," by Charles O. Perry