Hipsters at the Hirshhorn

The other evening I received a last minute email from a friend who happened to have an extra ticket to the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum After Hours. Deciding to be spontaneous, I took her up on the offer to explore the cultured nightlife of DC. The After Hours event allows you to enjoy jazz in the sculpture gardens and explore a rotation of exhibitions, currently a Strange Bodies exhibit.

Once I successfully navigated the arduous entrance process, and passing for a Whitney Kenerly, my adopted identity from the extra ticket, I was able to take in the scene. The crowd was entirely hipster; I imagined everyone there as young, recently-settled urban middle-classers or older teenagers interested in non-mainstream fashion and culture. Girls in spandex, guys in vests. I felt compelled to go home and immediately subscribe to Clash and peruse the Pitchfork Media website. Which of these is not like the other? This guy in his pastel polo and khaki shorts.

Known for its figurative art, the Hirshhorn was presenting the rotating exhibit, Strange Bodies, and attempted to show how expressionistic and surrealistic impulses toward human representation have evolved in recent decades. I must admit that I was equally entertained by both the art and the overheard hipster analysis and interpretation of the art’s deeper meaning.

Something I couldn’t help but notice throughout the evening was that our group seemed to, at all times, have a 10 foot buffer from other patrons. And it wasn’t like we were exuding a skunk-scented haze. By the end of the evening, I was starting to believe that I was no longer looking at the Strange Body exhibit, but in fact, was the Strange Body exhibit.