I wasn't particularly upset when I learned on Wednesday June 9 that
the "social" opening that evening for Gabriel Orozco's 57 photographs
had
been cancelled by the Hirshhorn Museum in deference to Ronald Reagan.
Despite its nickname "Joe's Place" (referring to the founding personal
collection of Joseph Hirshhorn), this museum is part of the Smithsonian
Institution and thus part of the Federal Government. However, when I
arrived for the "Press Preview" the next morning at 9AM, I was
disturbed to
learn that Gabriel Orozco had fled Washington DC for London, where his
show
at The Serpentine Gallery
(http://www.serpentinegallery.org/future2.html)
opens in 3 weeks. As an example of what museum director Ned Rifkin
called
a new variety of visual artist who literally reside in multiple
international locations (in this instance Mexico City, Paris, & NYC),
Gabriel Orozco apparentally anticipated even more difficulty than ever
before "passing" through Reagan National Airport. Thus his Washington
DC
audience was deprived of his artist's talk. And I had no "live"
occasion
in which to continue my serial acrostic sonnets begun months ago during
a
screening of Juan Carlos Martin's useful documentary on Gabriel Orozco.
Barry Alpert
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