National Gallery of Art | Videos

Susan Meiselas, artist. In 1990 the National Gallery of Art launched an initiative to acquire the finest examples of the art of photography and to mount photography exhibitions of the highest quality, accompanied by scholarly publications and programs. In the years since, the Gallery’s collection of photographs has grown to nearly 15,000 works encompassing the history of the medium from its beginnings in 1839 to the present, featuring in-depth holdings of work by many of the masters of the art form. Commemorating the 25th anniversary of this initiative, the Gallery presents the exhibition The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Acquired with the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund. On view from May 3 through September 13, 2015, The Memory of Time explores the work of 26 contemporary artists who investigate the richness and complexity of photography’s relationship to time, memory, and history. In this lecture recorded on May 31, 2015, Susan Meiselas discusses the themes and broader historical context of the installation The Life of an Image: “Molotov Man,” 1979-2009 featured in the exhibition. This installation traces the life and authorship of this iconic image taken during the last days of the Nicaraguan revolution in 1979.

Vidya Dehejia, Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian Art, Columbia University. In this six-part lecture series entitled The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280, art historian Vidya Dehejia discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva, invoked as “Thief Who Stole My Heart.” Graceful, luminous sculptures of high copper content portrayed the deities as sensuous figures of sacred import. Every bronze is a portable image, carried through temple and town to participate in celebrations that combined the sacred with the joyous atmosphere of carnival. In these lectures, Dehejia discusses the images as tangible objects that interact in a concrete way with human activities and socioeconomic practices. She asks questions of this body of material that have never been asked before, concerning the source of wealth that enabled the creation of bronzes, the origin of copper not available locally, the role of women patrons, the strategic position of the Chola empire at the center of a flourishing ocean trade route between Aden and China, and the manner in which the Cholas covered the walls of their temples with thousands of inscriptions, converting them into public records offices. These sensuous portrayals of the divine gain their full meaning with critical study of information captured through a variety of lenses. In this sixth lecture, entitled "Worship in Uncertain Times: The Secret Burial of Bronzes in 1310," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on May 8, 2016, Professor Dehejia looks at the dramatic secret burial of bronzes in temple after temple in 1310, an attempt to safeguard them from armies of the Delhi sultanate that marched south to seize the fabled jewels of the Chola temples. These buried bronzes emerged in the 20th century when unsuspecting laborers began temple expansion projects. The lecture concludes with a look at today’s art market and the transformation of beloved sacred bronzes into highly prized works of art.

Vidya Dehejia, Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian Art, Columbia University. In this six-part lecture series entitled The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280, art historian Vidya Dehejia discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva, invoked as “Thief Who Stole My Heart.” Graceful, luminous sculptures of high copper content portrayed the deities as sensuous figures of sacred import. Every bronze is a portable image, carried through temple and town to participate in celebrations that combined the sacred with the joyous atmosphere of carnival. In these lectures, Dehejia discusses the images as tangible objects that interact in a concrete way with human activities and socioeconomic practices. She asks questions of this body of material that have never been asked before, concerning the source of wealth that enabled the creation of bronzes, the origin of copper not available locally, the role of women patrons, the strategic position of the Chola empire at the center of a flourishing ocean trade route between Aden and China, and the manner in which the Cholas covered the walls of their temples with thousands of inscriptions, converting them into public records offices. These sensuous portrayals of the divine gain their full meaning with critical study of information captured through a variety of lenses. In this fifth lecture, entitled "Chola Obsession with Sri Lanka and the Silk Route of the Sea in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on May 1, 2016, Professor Dehejia examines the bronze images of deities created in Buddhist Sri Lanka after it became a province of the Chola empire. Artists there, accustomed to creating relatively sedate forms of the Buddha, were baffled by a Dancing Lord whose very essence was movement. The lecture also reviews the Chola expeditions to southeast Asia in the context of the lucrative trade route between Aden and China.

Vidya Dehejia, Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian Art, Columbia University. In this six-part lecture series entitled The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280, art historian Vidya Dehejia discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva, invoked as “Thief Who Stole My Heart.” Graceful, luminous sculptures of high copper content portrayed the deities as sensuous figures of sacred import. Every bronze is a portable image, carried through temple and town to participate in celebrations that combined the sacred with the joyous atmosphere of carnival. In these lectures, Dehejia discusses the images as tangible objects that interact in a concrete way with human activities and socioeconomic practices. She asks questions of this body of material that have never been asked before, concerning the source of wealth that enabled the creation of bronzes, the origin of copper not available locally, the role of women patrons, the strategic position of the Chola empire at the center of a flourishing ocean trade route between Aden and China, and the manner in which the Cholas covered the walls of their temples with thousands of inscriptions, converting them into public records offices. These sensuous portrayals of the divine gain their full meaning with critical study of information captured through a variety of lenses. In this fourth lecture, entitled "An Eleventh-Century Master Sculptor: Ten Thousand Pearls Adorn a Bronze," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 24, 2016, Professor Dehejia describes how a master sculptor of the early 11th century worked in wax to create spectacular bronzes for a temple at Tiruvenkadu, along the Bay of Bengal, and highlights the fact that royalty had no hand in these commissions. Drawing on the many epigraphs inscribed on Emperor Rajaraja’s great temple at Thanjavur, it examines the rich jewelry created entirely to adorn the bronze images and questions whether the Cholas’ obsession with pearls motivated them to annex Sri Lanka.

Vidya Dehejia, Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian Art, Columbia University. In this six-part lecture series entitled The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280, art historian Vidya Dehejia discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva, invoked as “Thief Who Stole My Heart.” Graceful, luminous sculptures of high copper content portrayed the deities as sensuous figures of sacred import. Every bronze is a portable image, carried through temple and town to participate in celebrations that combined the sacred with the joyous atmosphere of carnival. In these lectures, Dehejia discusses the images as tangible objects that interact in a concrete way with human activities and socioeconomic practices. She asks questions of this body of material that have never been asked before, concerning the source of wealth that enabled the creation of bronzes, the origin of copper not available locally, the role of women patrons, the strategic position of the Chola empire at the center of a flourishing ocean trade route between Aden and China, and the manner in which the Cholas covered the walls of their temples with thousands of inscriptions, converting them into public records offices. These sensuous portrayals of the divine gain their full meaning with critical study of information captured through a variety of lenses. In this third lecture, entitled "Portrait of a Queen: Patronage of Dancing Shiva, c. 941–1002," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 17, 2016, Professor Dehejia explores the patronage of the 10th-century queen Sembiyan Mahadevi, whose bronze workshop created stunning images. It asks how she achieved the status of “Ruby of the Chola Dynasty” in a male-dominated society and what led her to introduce a special image of Dancing Shiva that to this day is the quintessential Tamil icon.

In this six-part lecture series entitled The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280, art historian Vidya Dehejia discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva, invoked as "Thief Who Stole My Heart." Graceful, luminous sculptures of high copper content portrayed the deities as sensuous figures of sacred import. Every bronze is a portable image, carried through temple and town to participate in celebrations that combined the sacred with the joyous atmosphere of carnival. In these lectures, Dehejia discusses the images as tangible objects that interact in a concrete way with human activities and socioeconomic practices. She asks questions of this body of material that have never been asked before, concerning the source of wealth that enabled the creation of bronzes, the origin of copper not available locally, the role of women patrons, the strategic position of the Chola empire at the center of a flourishing ocean trade route between Aden and China, and the manner in which the Cholas covered the walls of their temples with thousands of inscriptions, converting them into public records offices. These sensuous portrayals of the divine gain their full meaning with critical study of information captured through a variety of lenses. The second lecture, held on April 10, 2016, entitled "Shiva as 'Victor of Three Forts': Battling for Empire, 855 – 955," considers the first bronzes, created in the mid-ninth century at a time when the early Chola kings were still struggling to establish their dominion in south India. The lecture discusses the most favored form given to the god Shiva during these politically unstable times: his manifestation as Victor of Three Forts. It also reviews the extraordinary manner in which patrons and donors placed inscriptions on every available space on temple walls, base moldings, and even grille windows.

Vidya Dehejia, Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian Art, Columbia University. In this six-part lecture series entitled The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280, art historian Vidya Dehejia discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva, invoked as "Thief Who Stole My Heart." Graceful, luminous sculptures of high copper content portrayed the deities as sensuous figures of sacred import. Every bronze is a portable image, carried through temple and town to participate in celebrations that combined the sacred with the joyous atmosphere of carnival. In these lectures, Dehejia discusses the images as tangible objects that interact in a concrete way with human activities and socioeconomic practices. She asks questions of this body of material that have never been asked before, concerning the source of wealth that enabled the creation of bronzes, the origin of copper not available locally, the role of women patrons, the strategic position of the Chola empire at the center of a flourishing ocean trade route between Aden and China, and the manner in which the Cholas covered the walls of their temples with thousands of inscriptions, converting them into public records offices. These sensuous portrayals of the divine gain their full meaning with critical study of information captured through a variety of lenses. The first lecture, held on April 3, 2016, entitled "Gods on Parade: Sacred Forms of Copper," focuses on the extraordinary concept of the deity as an active participant in a range of temple festivities, celebrating a wedding anniversary or enjoying the fresh breeze at the beach. It examines the introduction of copper to produce these many bronzes, whose method of creation allows no replicas; each Chola bronze is a singular, unique image, solid and weighty.

Alexandre Arrechea, artist, in conversation with Michelle Bird, curatorial assistant, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art. Alexandre Arrechea (b. Trinidad, Cuba, 1970) graduated from the prestigious Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana in 1994 and was a founding member of the Cuban artist collective Los Carpinteros (1991-2003). Arrechea's work employs visual metaphors for social themes of inequality, cultural disenfranchisement, and the disputed position of art in a global, media-driven society. Like many artists of his generation, he manipulates symbols and materials in an ambivalent manner, causing the viewer to walk away without a specific point of view about the work. In the spring of 2013, Arrechea exhibited a series of monumental sculptures that reflect on New York architecture along the Park Avenue Malls. Arrechea represented his homeland in the Cuban Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011, as well as at the Havana and Sao Paulo Biennials. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at such venues as the Arizona State University Art Museum; Art in General, New York; Kunsthalle, Berlin; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; New Museum, New York; P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; and Shanghai Art Museum, China. He currently lives and works in New York. In this conversation held on January 25, 2016, as part of the Works in Progress series at the National Gallery of Art, Arrechea discusses with Michelle Bird his development from working as an art student in Havana to his international career. He shares how the term "Space Defeated" was born as a reaction to the stiffness of cultural institutions and how this understanding has evolved over time. The conversation was preceded by a film screening of NOLIMITS, based on Arrechea's 2013 project, directed by photographer Juan Carlos Alom.

Cecily Brown, artist, in conversation with Harry Cooper, curator and head, department of modern art, National Gallery of Art. Born in London in 1969, Cecily Brown attended the Slade School of Fine Art in the early 1990s, just when such "Young British Artists" as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin were dominating the scene with provocative work. While Brown shared interests with some of them in feminism, sexuality, and mass media, her commitment to the history and practice of painting was distinctive. She moved to New York City in 1994 and has lived and worked there ever since. Brown paints with a fine balance of control and abandon, mining art history and the suggestions of the paint itself. For her inspiration, Brown relies on a variety of two-dimensional sources—from magazines and record album covers to children's books, movies, and a library of exhibition catalogs and monographs including studies of El Greco, Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Delacroix, Manet, and, present in her most recent work, Degas. Brown's ability to create dense, intricate spaces in which figures emerge from abstraction has earned her recognition as one of the most important contemporary painters. Her work is represented in the National Gallery of Art collection by Girl on a Swing (2004). Brown participated in the 23rd annual Elson Lecture with Harry Cooper on March 10, 2016.

A curator and paper conservator at the Naitonal Gallery of Art discuss Michael Heizer's Scrap Metal Drypoint#6 andits major treatment for the exhibition The Serial Impulse at the Gemini G.E.L. The treatment goal for Scrap Metal #6 was to improve its appearance by removing disfiguring stains on the paper support. Discoloration was reduced first overall in a bath, then selectively with weak bleaching solutions applied by brush.

Ruth Fine, curator (1972-2012), National Gallery of Art, and curator and catalog editor, Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis is the first comprehensive museum overview of the work of this influential artist. Norman Lewis (1909-1979) became committed to issues of abstraction at the start of his career and continued to explore them over its entire trajectory. His art derived inspiration from music (jazz and classical) and nature (seasonal changes, plant forms, and the sea). Also central to his work were the dramatic confrontations of the civil rights movement, in which he was an active participant alongside fellow members of the New York art scene. Bridging the Harlem Renaissance, abstract expressionism, and other movements, Lewis is a crucial figure in American art whose reinsertion into the discourse further opens the field for recognition of the contributions of artists of color. Procession was organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and brings together works from major public and private collections. In this lecture, recorded on February 14, 2016, at the National Gallery of Art, exhibition curator Ruth Fine presents an overview of the approximately 130 paintings, unique works on paper, objects, and prints dating from the early 1930s through the late 1970s featured in both the Procession exhibition and its companion show Stone and Metal: Lithographs and Etchings by Norman Lewis. Bringing much-needed attention to Lewis’s output and significance in the history of American art, the multiauthor exhibition catalog—edited by Fine, who wrote the key overview essay—is a milestone in Lewis scholarship and a vital resource for future study of the artist and abstraction in his period.

Carol Mattusch, Mathy Professor of Art History, George Mason University. On view from December 13, 2015, through March 20, 2016, the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World features 50 works that survey the development of Hellenistic art as it spread from Greece throughout the Mediterranean between the fourth and first centuries BC. Through the medium of bronze, artists were able to capture the dynamic realism, expression, and detail that characterized the new artistic goals of the period. Power and Pathos brings together works from world-renowned archaeological museums in Austria, Denmark, France, Georgia, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, the United States, and the Vatican. The exhibition presents a unique opportunity to witness the importance of bronze in the ancient world, when it became the preferred medium for portrait sculpture. In this lecture recorded on February 7, 2016, at the National Gallery of Art, Carol Mattusch explains that many of the bronzes in Power and Pathos are incomplete, and explores these questions: What did the complete statues look like? What were the sculptures used for? And were they all statues or did some of them serve other functions?

Susan Tallman, adjunct associate professor of art history, theory, and criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and editor in chief, Art in Print. For centuries, Western artists strove to depict perfection and order—a created world that made more sense than the found one. Much contemporary art has chosen instead to articulate profusion, fragmentation, and the squiggly line between explanation and digression. In this lecture, held on January 24, 2016 to coincide with the exhibition The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L. at the National Gallery of Art, Susan Tallman looks at the essential role of prints and printmaking in the rise of conceptual and physical complexity. Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), the renowned Los Angeles artists’ workshop and publisher of fine art limited edition prints and sculptures, has collaborated with some of the most influential artists of the past five decades. On view from October 4, 2015 to February 7, 2016, The Serial Impulse features 17 multipart series by 17 different artists.

George Koutsouflakis, director, department of archaeological sites, monuments and research, Hellenic Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities. The exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, on view from December 13, 2015, through March 20, 2016, at the National Gallery of Art, features 50 works that survey the development of Hellenistic art as it spread from Greece throughout the Mediterranean between the fourth and first centuries BC. On land sites, bronze artworks have seldom survived the vicissitudes of history. The sea remains the richest reservoir of ancient bronzes lost during transit. While the Aegean Sea has yielded some of the most spectacular and well-known masterpieces over the last century, only a handful of them have been retrieved from excavated shipwrecks. These limited discoveries are by far outnumbered by isolated, chance finds, raised by fishing nets, which present no direct evidence of a context. No matter how exceptional, isolated bronzes offer little information on the circumstances of their transit, while wreck sites from where they were detached remain elusive and seem to persistently resist discovery. In this lecture recorded on January 17, 2016, marine archaeologist George Koutsouflakis presents an overview of bronzes found in the Aegean, highlighting the conditions of their recovery, elusiveness of the wrecks, and historical context of the transportation. This program is cosponsored by the Washington DC Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.

Narrated by Liev Schreiber, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, on view at the Gallery from December 13, 2015, to March 20, 2016. Produced by the department of exhibition programs, it explores artistic achievements of the Hellenistic period from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the rise of the Roman Empire. Bronze, with its gleaming surfaces, tensile strength, and ability to capture fine detail, became the preferred medium of Hellenistic sculptors for lifelike portraits expressing character and individuality, innovative images of deities, and dynamic expressions of movement. The film includes footage shot on location at archaeological sites in Greece—Delphi, Corinth, and Olympia—and was made possible by the HRH Foundation.