Sight Scene: Acquisition Accomplished

THE STATED PURPOSE of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden's creatively titled Contemporary Acquisitions Council? To acquire contemporary art.

And what representatives make up this august body? Seventeen patrons in all, including D.C. power collectors Heather and Tony Podesta and Lorie Peters Lauthier. And what powers is this body granted? To vote on how the Hirshhorn Museum will develop its collection through new acquisitions.

It's a rare thing that Congress agrees on any one course of action. If anything, art's even more subjective than policy — if you think the immigration reform bill was divisive, wait until you hear people's reactions to Damien Hirst's latest creation, a diamond-encrusted skull. So it's quite telling that one artwork found the full, unanimous support of the CAC: Alyson Shotz's "Radiant." The piece, pictured at left, is an array of long, slender planes of treated glass installed against a wall in such a way to reflect and refract light. Shotz's work often involves light, but not light bulbs — instead, she uses synthetic materials like fresnel lens sheets and glass beads, commercial materials that are for the most part transparent to light. Shotz's fractal sculptures force viewers to examine the structure that underscores the beauty of the natural world, and her sculpture will fit right in with the Hirshhorn's strong sculptural tradition.

A funkier acquisition comes from closer to home with Iona Rozeal Brown's "off the dome: don't front, you know we got you open." The artist, who is represented at G Fine Art, has long examined the intersection of Japanese and black American culture, specifically through the lens of hip-hop. Her recombinant work reflects a recombinant understanding of race. In large part, Brown's art flatters hip-hop and pop culture for its cool and diversity but doesn't entirely shy away from questions about the way that capitalism allows the individual to shop a la carte for cultural signifiers, context be damned. Accomplished though Brown is — few artists are able to electrify the community as she does — her work has not found much new territory that isn't already claimed by star-artist Kehinde Wiley.

Andrea Pollan recently showed the work of Nicholas and Sheila Pye in one of the best exhibits that has shown at Curator's Office. One of the husband-and-wife team's videos, The Lovers II, at right, was given to the Hirshhorn as a gift by Patricia Gidwitz. (The CAC also acquired the Pyes' The Paper Wall.) The Pyes' works make for extraordinary additions. A powerful blend of staged photography, physical comedy, and historically minded video art, The Lovers II, at right, surpasses viewer expectations by taking on an unexpected, and rarely examined, topic: marriage. And take on one another, they do. The spouses stage physical and psychological contests in sets constructed to provide a flat, almost two-dimensional backdrop for the action.

Other artists whose work the Hirshhorn acquired include Michael Bell-Smith, Edgar Orlaineta and Walid Raad.

CLARIFICATION: A piece that was given to the museum as a gift was erroneously listed as an acquisition. The post has been corrected.

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