Hirshhorn Museum

Abram "Al" Lerner, 94, the first director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., died Oct. 31 at an assisted-living facility in Canaan, Conn., following a recent heart attack, according to the museum. Lerner was a longtime art advisor to the museum's founder, Joseph Hirshhorn, a Latvian immigrant who made his fortunes on Wall Street and as an owner of uranium mines.

WASHINGTON - From his gray-brick walled compound in northeast Beijing, Ai Weiwei barely felt the tremors from the Sichuan earthquake on May 12, 2008. But within days, as the death toll mounted into the tens of thousands, many of them children buried under the rubble of shabbily built schools, he found himself standing in the ruins of a town destroyed by the 7.9-magnitude quake. For Ai, it was both heartbreaking and an existential moment that would find expression in his iconoclastic works, leading to clashes with Chinese authorities and catapulting him to status as one of the world's most celebrated artists.

A painting by the artist Alma W. Thomas, which had been selected to go on Michelle Obama's wall in her East Wing office, will no longer be mounted. "The reason why it was moved was because it didn't fit the space right," Semonti Stephens, the first lady's deputy press secretary, said of "Watusi (Hard Edge)," which had been borrowed from the Hirshhorn Museum. Stephens noted that the Obamas still "have a piece of [Thomas'] work in the residence. So they appreciate the artist's work."

A painting by the artist Alma W. Thomas, which had been selected to go on Michelle Obama's wall in her East Wing office, will no longer be mounted. "The reason why it was moved was because it didn't fit the space right," Semonti Stephens, the first lady's deputy press secretary, said of "Watusi (Hard Edge)," which had been borrowed from the Hirshhorn Museum. Stephens noted that the Obamas still "have a piece of [Thomas'] work in the residence. So they appreciate the artist's work."

The Hammer Museum, an institution with a broad historical reach that has transformed itself into a hot spot for contemporary art, will get an infusion of fresh curatorial blood in two top positions. Douglas Fogle, the curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh who organized last year's "Carnegie International," has been appointed chief curator and deputy director of exhibitions and public programs at the Westwood institution. Anne Ellegood, a contemporary art specialist at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., has been named the Hammer's chief curator.

Edith Tonelli, director of UCLA's Frederick S. Wight Gallery, was in a bind. By exhibiting eight contemporary Indian artists whose work is inspired by tantra--a philosophy and collection of meditational methods practiced by subsects of the Hindu and Buddhist religions--she was faced with minting a phrase that would simultaneously describe the little-known art movement's heritage and modernity. How about neo -tantra?

Sated as we are by reviews of the past year and decade, it's a relief to look ahead in 1990. Forget about the disappointments of 1989. Here come big exhibitions of art by Francis Bacon, John Baldessari, Kasimir Malevich, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Titian. The Soviets are sending more loan shows from their great museums, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is organizing a landmark exhibition on "The Fauve Landscape" and the J.

Within the sprightly, well-ordered world of Roger Brown's paintings lurks a profound unrest. The lollipop trees, perfect, ice-cream-scoop hills and cookie-cutter high-rises house a diseased humanity, a species plagued by disaster, violence and an urge toward self-destruction. The retrospective of Brown's work at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art doesn't look so foreboding at first.

In one corner, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) chatted with Mihich Vasa, a Yugoslavian-born artist and UCLA professor. On a wall nearby, a travel poster of the rolling Napa Valley vineyards vied for attention with an original Andy Warhol in pale, glowing pastels depicting the star-studded concrete at Mann's Chinese Theatre. Surprisingly, the setting was not the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, but Wilson's office in the Hart Senate Office Building.

An exhibition of works by Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros opens next Sunday at Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Park. Previously seen on the West Coast at the San Diego Museum of Art, the show had traveled to Moscow, Leningrad, Warsaw and Prague. In reviewing the exhibition in San Diego, Times art critic William Wilson wrote, "Siqueiros' art reflects passionate stubborn ideological conviction.

The Hammer Museum, an institution with a broad historical reach that has transformed itself into a hot spot for contemporary art, will get an infusion of fresh curatorial blood in two top positions. Douglas Fogle, the curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh who organized last year's "Carnegie International," has been appointed chief curator and deputy director of exhibitions and public programs at the Westwood institution. Anne Ellegood, a contemporary art specialist at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., has been named the Hammer's chief curator.

Abram "Al" Lerner, 94, the first director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., died Oct. 31 at an assisted-living facility in Canaan, Conn., following a recent heart attack, according to the museum. Lerner was a longtime art advisor to the museum's founder, Joseph Hirshhorn, a Latvian immigrant who made his fortunes on Wall Street and as an owner of uranium mines.

Sated as we are by reviews of the past year and decade, it's a relief to look ahead in 1990. Forget about the disappointments of 1989. Here come big exhibitions of art by Francis Bacon, John Baldessari, Kasimir Malevich, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Titian. The Soviets are sending more loan shows from their great museums, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is organizing a landmark exhibition on "The Fauve Landscape" and the J.

Within the sprightly, well-ordered world of Roger Brown's paintings lurks a profound unrest. The lollipop trees, perfect, ice-cream-scoop hills and cookie-cutter high-rises house a diseased humanity, a species plagued by disaster, violence and an urge toward self-destruction. The retrospective of Brown's work at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art doesn't look so foreboding at first.

Contemporary art collectors from Los Angeles, New York and plenty of places in between are expected at Sotheby's in Manhattan on Monday for three days of sales dominated by work from the fabled collections of Ethel Scull and Robert C. Scull, once called "the Mom and Pop of Pop Art." Nine major artworks from the collection of Ethel Redner Scull go on the block Monday evening, followed the next two days by 140 works from the estate of her former husband, taxi magnate Robert C. Scull.

Edith Tonelli, director of UCLA's Frederick S. Wight Gallery, was in a bind. By exhibiting eight contemporary Indian artists whose work is inspired by tantra--a philosophy and collection of meditational methods practiced by subsects of the Hindu and Buddhist religions--she was faced with minting a phrase that would simultaneously describe the little-known art movement's heritage and modernity. How about neo -tantra?

Contemporary art collectors from Los Angeles, New York and plenty of places in between are expected at Sotheby's in Manhattan on Monday for three days of sales dominated by work from the fabled collections of Ethel Scull and Robert C. Scull, once called "the Mom and Pop of Pop Art." Nine major artworks from the collection of Ethel Redner Scull go on the block Monday evening, followed the next two days by 140 works from the estate of her former husband, taxi magnate Robert C. Scull.

WASHINGTON - From his gray-brick walled compound in northeast Beijing, Ai Weiwei barely felt the tremors from the Sichuan earthquake on May 12, 2008. But within days, as the death toll mounted into the tens of thousands, many of them children buried under the rubble of shabbily built schools, he found himself standing in the ruins of a town destroyed by the 7.9-magnitude quake. For Ai, it was both heartbreaking and an existential moment that would find expression in his iconoclastic works, leading to clashes with Chinese authorities and catapulting him to status as one of the world's most celebrated artists.

An exhibition of works by Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros opens next Sunday at Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Park. Previously seen on the West Coast at the San Diego Museum of Art, the show had traveled to Moscow, Leningrad, Warsaw and Prague. In reviewing the exhibition in San Diego, Times art critic William Wilson wrote, "Siqueiros' art reflects passionate stubborn ideological conviction.

In one corner, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) chatted with Mihich Vasa, a Yugoslavian-born artist and UCLA professor. On a wall nearby, a travel poster of the rolling Napa Valley vineyards vied for attention with an original Andy Warhol in pale, glowing pastels depicting the star-studded concrete at Mann's Chinese Theatre. Surprisingly, the setting was not the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, but Wilson's office in the Hart Senate Office Building.