Hirshhorn Museum
ART + IDEAS + PEOPLE
Now in our fifth decade, the Hirshhorn is a leading voice for contemporary art and culture and provides a global platform for the art and artists of our time. Located in the heart of Washington, DC, on the National Mall, we are free to all. As one of the most visited modern art museums in the US, we seek to share the transformative power of modern and contemporary art by creating meaningful personal experiences in which art, artists, audiences, and ideas converge. Through groundbreaking exhibitions, events, research, and acquisitions, we create the space where people encounter the most important artists of the 21st century. The Hirshhorn’s holdings encompass one of the most important collections of postwar art in the world, and we are committed to providing the artists of today a global platform to explore new ways to create, including performance, digital media, video, and technology.
A Window Suddenly
Opens: Contemporary Photography in China
Nov 04, 2022–Jan 07, 2024
A Window Suddenly Opens
A Window Suddenly Opens: Contemporary Photography in China is the Hirshhorn’s first survey of photography by leading multigenerational Chinese artists made over the past three decades. The exhibition showcases 186 artworks made between 1993 and 2022, of which 141 are a landmark promised gift to the Hirshhorn from pioneering collector of Chinese art Larry Warsh. The exhibition’s title is drawn from a 1997 publication, a near manifesto, by Rong Rong and Liu Zheng that celebrated the possibilities in shifting the practice of photography away from realism toward a conceptual art practice.
A Window Suddenly Opens chronicles how, over three decades, emerging Chinese artists independently embraced the immediacy of print and digital photography and recorded performance and video art during an unprecedented cultural shift away from the priority of the collective to a revived focus on the self. Among the roster of 25 participating artists to engage with this trend are Cang Xin, Cao Fei, Lin Tianmiao, LuYang and Song Dong. Artists such as Hong Hao, Huang Yan, Qiu Zhijie, Sheng Qi and Zhang Dali questioned individualism in a rapidly mechanizing environment, responding in and to the moment with candor.
Featured artists include Cang Xin, Cao Fei, Chen Shaoxiong, Cui Xiuwen, Gu Dexin, Hai Bo, Hong Hao, Hong Lei, Huang Yan, Lin Tianmiao, LuYang, Ma Liuming, Qiu Zhijie, Rong Rong, Sheng Qi, Song Dong, Song Yongping, Wang Jinsong, Wang Qingsong, Weng Fen, Xing Danwen, Zhang Dali, Zhang Huan, Zhang Peili and Zhuang Hui.
A catalogue copublished by Yale University Press includes contributions by Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu and Assistant Curator Betsy Johnson, Claire Roberts, Orville Schell, Karen Smith and Taliesin Thomas, as well as original texts by 18 of the artists in the exhibition.
