The Way Things Go

Kinsey and I have started a system where we split a day in half and we each pick a museum to see. Last Saturday, it was the Hirshhorn Museum of Contemporary Art for me and the National Holocaust Museum for Kinsey.

Even the pigeons are friendly in DC. They seem to be enjoying Kinsey's cast off hot dog bun.

We started off with the Hirshhorn Museum. The museum itself was pretty small, but they had a pretty decent collection, including one of Andy Warhol's screenprints, Flowers. The museum was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft, who won the Pritzker in 1988. The modern building was laid out in the shape of a ring which made walking through the exhibits hassle-free.

This untitled installation by Dan Steinhilber was Kinsey's favorite part of the museum. Floor to ceiling clothes hangers.

The Hirshhorn had a full room of Alexander Calder's mobiles which I really enjoyed and made for some nice photo shadow studies.

There was also a full room of Willem de Kooning, including three of his controversial Woman series. I know this kind of abstract expressionism isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I really enjoy de Kooning's work.

Being shaped like a ring created a nice courtyard for the museum, which contained this big ol' fountain.







One of the most engrossing parts of the museum was this video by the Swiss duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss, titled The Way Things Go. It's 30 minutes of Rube Goldberg-like chain reactions using everyday household objects. Overall a pretty good trick . . . or illusion!

After we went to the Hirshhorn, we stopped by the Holocaust museum. It was a very intense experience. I've read books and seen documentaries on the Holocaust, but I've never seen anything as graphic as what was at this museum. And it was chock-full of information; unfortunately it was also chock-full of people. For some reason, they let way too many people into the beginning of the exhibitions, which really created a bottleneck. Overall, it was a good experience.