"Linn Meyers: Our View From Here" - Exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC - Curated by Stéphane Aquin, May 12, 2016 - May, 14, 2017

[Tweaked]

From the Hirshhorn website:

Linn Meyers (American, b. Washington, D.C., 1968; lives and works in Washington, D.C. - website) will create her largest work, “Our View From Here,” at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden this spring. The site-specific wall drawing, which stretches the entire circumference of the inner-circle galleries on the museum’s second level, more than 400 linear feet, will be on view May 12, 2016–May 14, 2017. The drawing is temporary and will be painted over at the end of the exhibition’s yearlong run. Meyers will discuss her work in a Meet the Artist talk Wednesday, May 25, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

“We are rethinking the ways our spaces can be used, throughout the museum,” said Melissa Chiu, the Hirshhorn’s director. “And we will be taking full advantage of the inner-circle galleries as venues for site-specific 360-degree artworks. Linn Meyers’ project will be the first in a series of exhibitions by some of the most exciting artists working today.”

Meyers creates her works by hand-drawing thousands of closely spaced, rippling lines, each nested beside the one that came before it. Drawing alone for long hours each day with a type of marker often used by graffiti writers, she welcomes the imperfections that are a natural part of working without templates or taped lines. The resulting patterns flow and pulse with energy.

[Tweaked]

We wandered around the Linn Meyers show over the weekend.  If you are one of those people who sit through boring staff meetings making little doodles on your note pad, then this is the show for you.  The inner circle of the second level of the Hirshhorn is empty, except for Meyers' monumental doodles, like topographic contour lines drawn free hand on the walls.  I'm not sure I would put this show in the "must see" category, but if you are down on the Mall this summer, it's fun little walk around the museum.   

[Tweaked]

Photo:

[DonRocks]

On 5/10/2016 at 2:41 PM, Tweaked said:

Meyers creates her works by hand-drawing thousands of closely spaced, rippling lines, each nested beside the one that came before it. Drawing alone for long hours each day with a type of marker often used by graffiti writers, she welcomes the imperfections that are a natural part of working without templates or taped lines. The resulting patterns flow and pulse with energy.

Thanks to Tweaked for this post, or I wouldn't have ever known about this terrific exhibit.

The pictures I'm posting should not be viewed until *after* you've seen the exhibit, which (in my opinion) should be explored clockwise first; counter-clockwise second, getting nearer-and-farther from the drawings as you walk around the building. Like many exhibitions, this is one where you cannot get anything but a faint shadow out of by looking at pictures; you need to actually be there. Please show proper respect to Linn Meyers by actually going and viewing her endless hours of labor spent on this 400-linear-foot-long work of art.

(And as a *huge* added bonus, after you view the Meyers exhibit, which takes about 30 minutes to traverse in both directions, you'll be treated to one of the singularly great exhibits you'll ever see, with Robert Irwin occupying the outer perimeter of the same floor (see Meyers first, Irwin second - I'll write a separate post about the Irwin exhibition)).

These pictures are meant to be seen *after* you view the exhibition. Don't cheat yourself or Linn Meyers by looking at these pictures without first seeing this wonderful exhibit, which will be at the Hirshhorn until next May, and will then be painted over forever.

*** SPOILERS FOLLOW ***

The entrance:

 

Looking counter-clockwise (I suggest going clockwise first, then reversing the loop and going counter-clockwise, although it doesn't really matter which direction you go in first (although with Robert Irwin exhibit, it's absolutely *imperative* that you go clockwise, because that's in chronological order)):

 

Three perspectives of the exact same nucleus: 1) close-up, 2) halfway back, and 3) all the way against the back wall:

  

Is it a bird?

The sense of motion is palpable when you see this in person:

On the left side, it's a mountain range; on the right side, it's a bird feeding its young - or is it?

Everything is drawn to fit the building:

A palm tree?

Or, is it a whale?

Detail:

And what on earth is this?

It's just the floor:

[DIShGo]

The movement she creates with the stroke of a marker is astounding. Lines on a wall are transformed into the wrinkles on a blanket or an elephant's face, the waves in the ocean or the feathers on a bird.

Texture, movement and dimension are created with simple lines. Staring into the vortex of one of the pieces, I felt like Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo" gazing down the bell tower stairway. The movement is that palpable.