Lynn Hershman Leeson

Lynn Hershman Leeson, Lorna

Lynn Hershman Leeson
Lorna, 1979–84
Video, color, and sound, with television interactive LaserDisc shown as DVD, modified remote control, television cabinet, night table, end table, wood chair, upholstered chair, mirror, fishbowl with plastic goldfish, clothing, wallet, belt, shoes, watch, telephone, magazines, framed storyboards, and framed art
Dimensions variable
Collection of Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation
© Lynn Hershman Leeson. Images courtesy the Artist and Bridget Donahue, NYC

  • March 28, 2023 6:00 PM

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Call 817.840.2144 for advance tickets (10 am until 3 pm the day of the lecture)

For me, and I suspect for many others, the pandemic has prompted much soul-searching about different aspects of my life. Foremost is my dependence on technology, which I found especially troubling over the past year. At a certain point ... I felt almost like I was losing my mind, as if my ability to distinguish between the virtual and physical worlds were slipping. It was a strangely mesmerizing and frightening sensation that I recalled recently, after seeing Lynn Hershman Leeson’s exhilarating and intense solo show at the New Museum, “Twisted.” A pioneering new media artist and ... Hershman Leeson has been contemplating our connection to machines since the 1960s. —Jillian Steinhauer, ”Critic’s Pick, Lynn Hershman Leeson: The Artist Is Prescient,” New York Times (July 8, 2021)

Lynn Hershman Leeson, a groundbreaking artist and filmmaker who uses varied media to address themes of contemporary society, is featured in I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen. Since the 1960s Hershman Leeson has demonstrated her interest in the intersection of technology and humanity, working across media from drawing and sculpture to internet art and DNA programming. Most recently, as stated in her biography for the exhibition catalogue, “Her mature art practice delves deeply into gender biases, identity, surveillance, transmutation, the moral dilemmas of technological advancements, humanity’s relationship with technology, and the role of media as a tool for empowerment and repression.”

This rigor and commitment are evident in the artist’s virtual Tuesday Evenings at the Modern presentation in conjunction with I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen. This is a screen-based presentation for a screen-based exhibition, as the audience gathers on site or online for insight into Hershman Leeson’s groundbreaking contributions.

Over the last five decades, Lynn Hershman Lesson has developed an international reputation, and is cited as one of the most influential media artists based on her fruitful, innovative career. In 2021 Hershman Leeson was the subject of a retrospective at the New Museum, New York. Her works are included in collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Tate, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Comunidad de Madrid, Spain to name a few.


This popular series of lectures and presentations by artists, architects, historians, and critics is free and open to the public. Lectures begin at 6 pm in the Modern’s auditorium. Seating is at 5:30 pm. A livestream broadcast of the lecture will be available here.

A limited number of tickets (limit two per person) will be available for purchase ($5) from 10 am until 3 pm the day of the lecture online. Free admission tickets (limit two per person) are available at the Modern’s information desk beginning at 4 pm on the day of the lecture.  

On Tuesday nights during the lecture series, the galleries are open until 6 pm and Café Modern’s bar is open (no food service available.) Lectures will not be broadcast into the café this season.