Laurie Anderson: Four Talks at the Hirshhorn
A few weeks ago after enjoying one of our Saturday brunches, the weather was nice enough for us to wander a bit and we headed towards the National Mall to see what was going on in the “doughnut” AKA The Hirshhorn Museum. Since we have access to the Smithsonian museums all the time, there usually isn’t something new, but we were pleasantly surprised to see new things!
We wandered through Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960, but then came to the delightful sensory overload that is Laurie Anderson: Four Talks.
Laurie Anderson is one of the leading multimedia artists of our time, and her innovative work in performance, music, technology, and visual art has profoundly influenced popular culture for more than forty years. In 2021, as part of The Weather—her largest US exhibition to date—the Hirshhorn invited Anderson to create a new work on site.
Laurie Anderson worked ten-hour days at the Museum for more than two weeks, painting directly on the walls and floors of this large gallery and covering nearly every inch with stories, song lyrics, jokes, and commentary on current events. Painting in a stream-of-consciousness manner without preparatory sketches, she created an enveloping and intensely personal installation that takes visitors on a journey through her mind.
The installation’s title, Four Talks (2021), refers to the four sculptures—a raven, a parrot, a canoe, and a shelf—at its center, each accompanied by a pithy story or text passage. Monumentally scaled, conceptually rich, and visually captivating, Four Talks, currently on long-term view on the second-floor outer ring, represents a key achievement in Laurie Anderson’s career.
Again, it’s one of those times I feel lucky and spoiled to have easy access to art, and especially an exhibit that really made us both stop and think and ponder over several of the quotes. If you have a chance to go visit, it’s absolutely worth it.
