Labor Arts: Factory Workers at the Hirschhorn

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Filmmaker Haroun Farocki shows "Workers Leaving The Factory in Eleven Decades" in his multi-monitor video installation at the Hirschhorn Museum, part of an exhibition entitled "The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image." Drawing on clips from over 100 years of cinema, Farocki explores images of workers at factory gates through eleven decades of cinema, from the earliest moving image through Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and right on up through the present. "Factories - and the whole subject of labor - are at the fringes of film history," Faroki says. The Hirshhorn Museum - free and open 10A-5:30P daily -- is located on the National Mall at the corner of Seventh Street SW and Independence Avenue. The show runs through May 11; the Farocki installation is on the 2nd floor to your immediate left at the top of the escalators, outside the main exhibition. - report/photo by Chris Garlock, with thanks to KJ Mohr at the National Museum of Women in the Arts for the tip. Got LaborArt? Email us at streetheat@dclaborarchives.org if you spot art with a labor or work angle!