Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait, 1901/1902, black chalk and watercolor, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection - Click to enlarge
The National Gallery of Art is exhibiting Picasso's Drawings, 1890-1921: Reinventing Tradition through May 6. Some 55 works by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) , who was the greatest draftsman of the 20th century, illustrate the development of his drawings over a 30-year period. They date from academic exercises of his youth in Spain to his works in the early 1920s and include his innovations of cubism and collage. It has been observed that “Drawing served as an essential means of invention and discovery in Picasso's multifaceted art, connecting him deeply with the grand tradition of European masters of the near and distant past.” The exhibition was co-organized by The Frick Collection, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
The National Gallery of Art is exhibiting The Baroque Genius of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione through July 8. Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609—1664) was a masterful interpreter of Italian Baroque, the naturalistic style which dominated 17th-century European art. This exhibition presents 80 works, including the National Gallery's holdings of the artist's prints and drawings, plus a number of important drawings from private collections. The sources of the artist’s style can be traced, for the first time, to other artists, including Rembrandt and Claude Lorrain, and later artists, from Tiepolo and Piranesi to Watteau and Boucher. The exhibition is organized according to themes and concerns, including biblical journeys, physiognomy, and graphic experiment.
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione - Noah Leading the Animals into the Ark, c. 1655 - brush and oil paint - Partial Gift of Gilbert Butler, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art - Click to enlarge
Antico: Hercules, model created by 1496, cast possibly by 1496 - bronze with gilding and silvering - The Frick Collection, New York, Gift of Miss Helen Clay Frick Copyright The Frick Collection - Click to enlarge
The National Gallery of Art is exhibiting Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes, through April 8, 2012. This exhibition is the first in the U.S. devoted to sculptor and goldsmith Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, who was from Mantua, Italy and is known as Antico (c. 1455–1528). He developed and refined the technology for producing multiple bronzes. Antico enlivened exquisite bronze reductions of ancient Roman sculptures with gilding and silvering. Nearly 40 works, including medals, reliefs, busts, and statuettes are being shown.
Antico: Venus Felix, model probably created by 1496, cast c. 1510 - bronze with gilding and silvering - Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Kunstkammer - Click to enlarge
The National Gallery of Art is exhibiting In the Tower: Mel Bochner, through April 8. Mel Bochner has explored “the intersections of linguistic and visual representation” for 45 years. He was one of the innovators of conceptual art during the 1960s as he conjoined visual form and language. The exhibition presents some 40 works that span Mr.Bochner’s career. The gallery’s In the Tower series of exhibitions centers on developments in art since midcentury.
Samuel F. B. Morse, Gallery of the Louvre, 1831–1833, oil on canvas, Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection - Click to enlarge
The National Gallery of Art is exhibiting Harry Callahan at 100, through March 4, 2012. Harry Callahan (1912–1999) has been called “one of the most innovative and influential photographers of the 20th century.” The exhibition features some 110 photographs that explore all facets of his art from its beginning in Detroit in the early 1940s to development in Chicago in the late 1940s and 1950s and its maturation in Providence and Atlanta from the 1960s through the 1990s. Mr. Callahan “explored new ways of looking at and presenting the world in photographs that are elegant, visually daring, and highly experimental.”
The National Gallery of Art is exhibiting A New Look: Samuel F.B. Morse's "Gallery of the Louvre," through July 8, 2012. Morse (1791-1872) was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. His newly-conserved painting titled Gallery of the Louvre was painted in Paris and New York between 1831 and 1833.
The National Building Museum (NBM) has extended the exhibition of LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition, a selection of LEGO® models created by Adam Reed Tucker, through September 3, 2012. Tucker, who is an architect, rekindled his childhood interest in LEGO® bricks and began experimenting with them as a medium for his art in 2003. As a result, he created 15 large-scale artistic models of some of the world’s most famous structures, including the Empire State Building, St. Louis' Gateway Arch, Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece Fallingwater and the NBM, using only LEGO bricks.
A work by Harry Callahan at The National Gallery of Art - Click to enlarge
Photographer unknown, “Ram”, Bat’y ‘A’ 2d U.S. Cord Artl’y, Lt.”, 1865. Albumen silver print - Collection of Julia J. Norrell. Courtesy of the Corcoran - Click to enlarge
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is exhibiting Shadows of History: Photographs of the Civil War from the Collection of Julia J. Norrell, through May 6. The exhibition was inspired by the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, and features a collection developed in recent years by Washington collector Judy (Julia) Norrell. The photographs include geographical views, landscapes, and portraits of soldiers and officers at rest. They also show the death and destruction in the aftermath of battles. The exhibition includes photographs by George Barnard, Issac H. Bonsall, Matthew Brady, Alexander Gardner, James F. Gibson, Frederick F. Gutekunst, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Andrew J. Russell, D. B. Woodbury, and others. Rare imagery of African American regiments and their underappreciated role in the war is emphasized.
Shadows of History is complemented by Tim Hetherington: Sleeping Soldiers, which is also being shown through May 6. The exhibition is a new body of work featuring a three-screen video installation by Mr. Hetherington, who is "the acclaimed photojournalist and preeminent war photographer of our time." He followed U.S. Army soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team between 2007 & 2008 at a remote and dangerous post in Afghanistan. His photos and other documentation “animate his award-winning book Infidel.” He also combined media to create Sleeping Soldiers. In the presentation, he juxtaposes scenes of combat with still images of soldiers at rests.
Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, Sydney 2009. Photo: Olivia Martin-McGuire - Click to enlarge
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is exhibiting Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro: Are We There Yet? through March 11, 2012. The exhibition is the first by the Australian artists in the U.S. and was commissioned by and created for the Corcoran. The highlight of the exhibition is a “gallery-transforming installation” which “draws from American history, literature, pop culture, current affairs, and the specific architecture of the Corcoran to explore the symbolism of space exploration and the paradoxes of food consumption.” The exhibition is comprised of a site-specific gallery installation titled Are We There Yet? and a number of wall works constructed from Lego. The artists use “readymades” that are found on supermarket shelves and in toy stores. Are We There Yet? is a meditation on space travel.
The Phillips Collection is exhibiting Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard, through May 6. The renowned post-impressionist artists and others were inspired by the new technology of the Kodak handheld camera, and it “energized their working methods and creative vision.” The exhibition features some 200 snapshots, most previously unpublished, made by Bonnard, Vuillard and five other artists. The photographs are displayed with 70 paintings and works on paper that the snapshots inspired, “revealing fascinating parallels in cropping, lighting, and vantage point.”
The Phillips Collection is exhibiting French Drawings from the Aaronsohn Collection, through April 29. More than 20 drawings by modern masters active in France in the early 20th century, including Pierre Bonnard, André Derain, and Edouard Vuillard, are displayed. They “offer a glimpse into the role that drawing played in each artist’s work.” The exhibition includes portraits, nudes, landscapes, and cityscapes and celebrates recent gifts to the Collection from Jonathan and Roseann Aaronsohn.
Dalya Luttwak - "When Nature Takes Over" - Courtesy of The Kreeger Museum - Click to enlarge
The Kreeger Museum and Washington Sculptors Group (WSG) have collaborated to introduce two new sculptures by WSG members Martha Jackson-Jarvis and Dalya Luttwak on the Kreeger grounds. The sculptures will be on display through July 2013. Kreeger Director Judy A. Greenberg and Vivienne Lassman co-curated the exhibition, which is a continuation of the Museum’s commitment to exhibit and collaborate with Washington artists and organizations. The sculptures will remain on view through July 2013.
The Textile Museum is exhibiting Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep, through January 6, 2013. The exhibition presents a global selection of textiles depicting dragons and other fantastical creatures of legend. Dragons have taken many forms across the world and over time and have included beneficent nagas (divine snakes) of East and Southeast Asia and flying beasts of Western traditions. The powerful creatures symbolized prestige for those who were permitted to use their images to decorate clothes and furnishings. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the museum’s collection, and the textiles “illuminate imaginative images of mythical creatures as diverse as the peoples who created them.”
For Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep: Pillar rug, China, Ningxia, 19th century. TM R51.2.1. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1927. Click to enlarge
From Woven Treasures of Japan’s Tawaraya Workshop: "Uchigi (ceremonial court robe), 21st century. Courtesy of Hyoji Kitagawa - Click to enlarge
The Textile Museum will exhibit Woven Treasures of Japan's Tawaraya Workshop, March 23-August 12. The exhibition will feature some of the silks produced in Tawaraya in the Nishijin neighborhood of Kyoto. Tawaraya, which is more that 500 years old, is one of Nishijin’s oldest and most illustrious workshops and has supplied the Japanese Imperial Household with yusoku orimono, which are fine silks in patterns, weaves, and color combinations traditionally reserved for the garments and furnishings of the aristocracy, including the Emperor. The exhibition was organized with the help of Mr. Hyoji Kitagawa, the 18th-generation head of the Tawaraya. He was recently designated a Living National Treasure for “his knowledge and preservation of this unique cultural inheritance.” The exhibition will include kimonos, screens, and other colorful silks, which demonstrate the technical and aesthetic mastery of the workshop. They offer insight into the pageantry and refinement of Japanese court culture.
The Textile Museum will exhibit Sourcing the Museum, March 23-August 19. Renowned textile designer Jack Lenor Larseninvited twelve artists to explore the Museum’s historically and culturally varied collections, and then create new artworks which were inspired by them. The inspiring original and new artworks are juxtaposed in the exhibition. The historical textiles highlight the wide scope of the Museum’s collections, which range from rare Pre-Columbian and Late Roman weavings to Japanese kimono and Central Asian ikats. The participating artists include Olga de Amaral, James Bassler, Polly Barton, Archie Brennan, Lia Cook, Helena Hernmarck, Ayako Nikamoto, Jon Eric Riis, Warren Seelig, Kay Sekimachi, and Ethel Stein.
The American Art Museum will exhibit The Art of Video Games, March 16-September 30. The exhibition will be the first to comprehensively examine the evolution of video games as an artistic medium. The public was asked last year to choose the 80 games that they feel best represent particular moments in the overall timeline. Visitors can note “the development of visual effects and aesthetics since the 1970s, the emergence of games as a means for storytelling, the influence of world events and popular culture on game development, and the impact games can have on society.” The exhibition will include “multimedia presentations of video game footage, video interviews with developers and artists, large prints of in-game screen shots, historic video game consoles, and a selection of working video game systems for visitors to play.”
The American Art Museum is exhibiting Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage, through May 20. The show marks “a new direction for Ms. Leibovitz, who is one of America’s best-known living photographers. The photographs shown “were taken simply because Leibovitz was moved by the subject.” The images do not contain people. Rather, they feature landscapes, interiors, and objects that are “talismans of past lives." The photographer was inspired by visits to the homes of Thomas Jefferson, Emily Dickinson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pete Seeger, and Elvis Presley, and places such as Niagara Falls, Walden Pond, Old Faithful, and the Yosemite Valley. The show has been called “an evocative and deeply personal statement by a photographer whose career now spans more than forty years, encompassing a broad range of subject matter, history, and stylistic influences.” Together the pictures show Leibovitz at the height of her powers, unfettered by the demands of her commercial career and pondering how photographs, including her own, shape a narrative of history that informs the present. Guest curator Andy Grundberg, a former New York Times photography critic, organized the exhibition. A set of photographs from the exhibition will be acquired by the American Art Museum for its permanent collection.
Overmantel, The President's House, about 1824, watercolor on plaster, by Rufus Porter, Gift of the White House Historical Association, 1992, photo courtesy White House Historical Association - Click to enlarge
The American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery is exhibiting Something of Splendor: Decorative Arts from the White House, through May 6, 2012. The exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the White House Historical Association and traces the history of the decorative arts in the historic home. Some 90 objects from the White House collection are shown, including furniture, ceramics, metals, glass and textiles. There are also be archival prints and photographs of the interiors on view. Some of the objects have never been seen outside of the White House. The collection includes a box lined with wallpaper used in the White House before it was burned in 1814, a gilded armchair from 1875, a coverlet embroidered by First Lady Grace Coolidge between 1925 and 1927, and a service plate from the Reagans’ state china. A film featuring members of families who have lived in the White House runs continuously.
The American Art Museum is exhibiting Multiplicity, through March 11, 2012. The exhibition feature 83 works from the museum’s permanent collection by outstanding contemporary artists including John Baldessari, John Cage, Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, R. Luke DuBois, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Julie Mehretu, Martin Puryear, Susan Rothenberg, Kiki Smith, and Kara Walker. The artists make multiple images from the same matrix and create series, sequences, and images that comprise numerous parts. They “explore repetition, pairing, and variations on a theme as artistic strategies. Implicit in their exploration of multiplicity is a challenge to rarity and uniqueness as determinants of value.” Joann Moser, senior curator, selected the works displayed in the exhibition.
Desk and Bookcase, about 1798-1808, mahogany, made by Thomas Seymour, probably with John Seymour, Boston, MA, Gift of an anonymous donor and the White House Historical Association, 1974, photo courtesy White House Historical Association - Click to enlarge
The American Art Museum is exhibiting Inventing a Better Mousetrap: Patent Models from the Rothschild Collection, through November 3, 2013. American patent law in the nineteenth century required the submission and public display of a model with each patent application. The scale models in miniature illustrate the imaginative fervor of the era and also the craftsmanship required to fabricate them. Thirty-five models submitted by inventors from across the U.S. are being displayed. All of the models were originally displayed in large cases in the grand galleries of the building, which had housed the Patent Office. The models are grouped by category, including domestic life, leisure, agriculture, and machinery and complemented by drawings and illustrations. An early patent signed by George Washington is included, plus a full-scale model of a "better" mousetrap. A case of "mystery models," each accompanied by a clue, challenges visitors to guess their purpose.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is exhibiting a 150th Commemoration of the Civil War: The Death of Ellsworth through March 18, 2012. There are four alcove exhibitions—one for each year of the Civil War. The first exhibit recounts the death of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, who was a friend of President Lincoln, in Alexandria, Va. James Barber, National Portrait Gallery historian, curated the exhibition.
From: Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits from the Harry Warnecke Studio - The National Portrait Gallery - Click to enlarge
The National Portrait Gallery will exhibit In Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits from the Harry Warnecke Studio, March 2-September 3. Pioneering photographer Harry Warnecke (1903–1984) and his associates at the New York Daily News created stunning color portraits for the newspaper’s Sunday News magazine - well before color reproductions and color snapshots became commonplace. He used a special one-shot camera of his own design to begin producing color images for the Daily News in the 1930s. Warnecke and his team photographed hundreds of people, and the exhibition features 24 celebrity portraits from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, including photos of Lucille Ball, Jackie Robinson, Babe Didrikson, Gene Autry, Ethel Waters, Generals Eisenhower and Patton, and comedians W. C. Fields and Laurel and Hardy.
The National Portrait Gallery will exhibit The Confederate Sketches of Adalbert Volck, March 30-January 21, 2013. A dentist by trade, Mr. Volck emigrated to the U.S. in 1848 from Germany and settled in Baltimore. He sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War and created a publication which featured pictorial propaganda that vilified President Abraham Lincoln, abolitionists, and Union soldiers. The exhibition features many of his original etchings and lithographs, plus a copper plate used to print one of the images in the publication.
The National Portrait Gallery will exhibit Mathew Brady’s Photographs of Union Generals, March 30-May 31, 2015. Although he is best known for his photographic documentation of the Civil War, Mr. Brady produced studio portraits in his New York and Washington galleries throughout the war. The exhibition will feature modern albumen prints made from Brady’s original negatives, which are in the museum's Frederick Hill Meserve Collection. The installation will include portraits of many of the North’s military leaders, such as George McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses Grant.
From: General Ulysses S. Grant - From: Mathew Brady’s Photographs of Union Generals - The National Portrait Gallery - Click to enlarge
The National Portrait Gallery is exhibiting The Black List: Photographs by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, through April 22, 2012. The exhibition features portraits of prominent African Americans of various professions, disciplines, and backgrounds. The word “blacklist” usually denotes “a group of people marginalized and denied work or social approval.” Fifty prominent African Americans seek to redefine the word in the exhibition by providing insight on the struggles, triumphs, and joys of black life in the U.S. The photographs shown include personalities in the fields of politics, music, business, civil activism, literature, the arts, and athletics. Those featured include political activist and university professor Angela Davis; musician John Legend and actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, and composer Martin Van Peebles.
An early photo of the Girl Scouts - courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery - Click to enlarge
The National Portrait Gallery is exhibiting Juliette Gordon Low and the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts, through January 6, 2013. Ms. Low founded the organization in 1912 in Savannah, Georgia. Girl Scout membership has grown from eighteen in the first troop to 3.3 million, and it’s now the largest educational organization for girls in the world.
Abraham Lincoln by John Henry Brown - Watercolor on ivory - 1860 - National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution - Click to enlarge
The National Portrait Galleryis exhibiting Mementos: Painted and Photographic Miniatures, 1750–1920, through May 13, 2012.Miniature paintings were usually created as “love tokens or personal mementoes” during the 18th and early 19th centuries.When photographic processes emerged by the 1840s, small photo portraits came on the scene, but there was a great revival of miniature portraits, often painted by women, in the later 19th century.
James Smithson by Henri-Joseph Johns - Gouache on ivory - 1816 - Click to enlarge
From Masters of Mercy: Buddha's Amazing Disciples - Supernatural Powers, Five Hundred Arhats: Scroll 57, Kano Kazunobu (1816-63); Japan, Edo Period, ca. 1854-63; Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk; Image credit: Collection: Zō;jōji, Tokyo, Japan - Click to enlarge
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will exhibit Masters of Mercy: Buddha's Amazing Disciples, March 10-July 8. In addition, the Gallery will exhibit Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji, March 24-June 17. The two exhibitions of Japanese art will be displayed in honor of the Cherry Blossom centennial and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's 25th anniversary year. In Masters of Mercy, Kano Kazunobu's (1861-63) “phantasmagoric paintings reflect a popular theme in Edo art: the lives and deeds of Buddha's legendary 500 disciples.” The exhibition features selections from Kazunobu's 100-painting series, created for the important Pure Land Buddhist temple, Zōjōji. The paintings have never before displayed outside Japan. Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji will highlight works by Japan’s most famous artist, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). The exhibition will give visitors a rare opportunity to see prints of exceptional quality representing all 46 images in his most acclaimed print series.
From Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji: Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa-oki nami-ura), also known as the Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjûrokkei), Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849); Japan, Edo period, 1830-32; Polychrome woodblock print, ink and color on paper; Bequest of Mrs. H.O Havemeyer, H. O. Havemeyer Collection; The Metropolitcan Museum of Art - Click to enlarge
From "Family Matters" - Portrait of Yinti, Prince Xun(1688-1755), and Wife - China, Qing dynasty, 2ndhalf 18thcentury Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk - Image credit: Arthur M. Sackler - Click to enlarge
The Sackler Gallery is exhibiting Feast Your Eyes: A Taste for Luxury in Ancient Iran, through a closing date to be announced later. The exhibition celebrates the gallery’s 25th anniversary, and features a selection from the Freer and Sackler's collection of luxury metalwork from ancient Iran. The display includes works ranging in shape from deep bowls and footed plates to elaborate drinking vessels associated with court ceremonies and rituals. Other works which are decorated with royal imagery including hunting or enthronement scenes were probably intended as gifts to foreign and local dignitaries. Depictions of kings and their royal attributes and pastimes helped to define the power and identity of ancient royalty, who continued to rule well after the arrival of Islam in the 7th century. The Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is exhibiting Family Matters: Portraits from the Qing Court, through January 16, 2013. The exhibition presents 16 portraits of imperial men and women, who were related by blood or marriage, plus rare jewelry and other objects that offer a look at their lives in the later half of China's Qing dynasty. It has been noted that “intricate liaisons and political ambitions shaped the history of the Qing dynasty from the early to mid-18th century. The portraits provide glimpses of a court often filled with intrigue.” The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is exhibiting Ancient Iranian Ceramics, through July 16, 2012. Craftsmen developed distinctive pottery some 3,000 years ago in the area south of the Caspian Sea in what is now Iran. This small installation features some of the outstanding treasures in the Sackler Gallery's collection of ancient Iranian ceramics.
From Family Matters: Portrait of the Qianlong Emperor in front of the White Pagoda - China, Qing dynasty, 20th century, or possibly late 18th-19th century - Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper - Image credit: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery - Click to enlarge
From Sweet Silent Thought: Harmony in Green and Rose: The Music Room 1860–61 - Oil on canvas - Image credit: Freer Gallery of Art - Click to enlarge
The Freer Gallery or Art is exhibiting Sweet Silent Thought: Whistler’s Interiors, through the Summer of 2012. The small exhibition examines the recurring themes of reading, music, reverie and studio practice in aesthetic spaces depicted in the artist’s works. The artist’s works on paper from the late 1850s through the early 1890s are also be featured, highlighting his creative development from Realism to Aestheticism.
The Freer Gallery of Art is exhibiting Winged Spirits: Birds in Chinese Painting, through August 5. Many birds have strong symbolic associations in Chinese culture, especially in combination with certain "auspicious flowers." Birds and flowers emerged as major themes in traditional Chinese painting in the 10th century. The exhibition features more than 35 species of birds depicted in flight, on the ground or in water, or perched on tree branches.
Room installation: Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room - James McNeill Whistler, 1834-1903 - 1876-1877 - Oil paint and gold leaf on canvas, leather, and wood - Gift of Charles Lang Freer - Click to enlarge
The Peacock Room, a lavishly-decorated dining room - and work of art - designed by James McNeill Whistler, is on display through April 2013. The room has been reinstalled in the Freer Gallery of Art for the first time as it appeared in the home of museum-founder Charles Lang Freer in 1908 and includes more than 250 of his ceramics from China, Japan, Syria and Egypt.
From The Peacock Room: Jar with design of deer holding lingzhi fungus - China, Qing dynasty, 19th century - Stoneware with white slip and cobalt pigment under clear crackled glaze; wooden lid with amethyst knob - Gift of Charles Lang Freer - Click to enlarge
The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden will exhibit Hirshhorn 360-Degree Projection by Doug Aitken, March 22- May 13. The internationally-renowned contemporary artist will transform the Hirshhorn's circular building into "liquid architecture" using some 11 high-definition projectors. The site-specific installation will seamlessly “blend imagery to envelop the entire facade of the Gordon Bunshaft-designed structure with a 360-degree panorama that makes the museum recede into cinematic space. Exploding film conventions, the work cannot be seen from any single perspective or at any single moment in time.”
The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden will exhibit Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space, February 23-May 13. The exhibition consists of large-scale installations by five South American artists who created landmark works in the 1950s and 1960s. The artists developed large-scale, multimedia constructions of light and color and greatly influenced their contemporaries and subsequent generations, but they were often overlooked in publications and exhibitions. The artists are: Lucio Fontana (1899 Argentina - 1968 Italy) Julio Le Parc (1928 Argentina - active France) Carlos Cruz-Diez (1923 Venezuela - active France) Jesús Rafael Soto (1923 Venezuela - 2005 France) Hélio Oiticica (Brazilian, 1937-1980).
The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden is exhibiting Black Box: Ali Kazma, through April 30. The Black Box theater showcases works by contemporary film or video artists. Mr. Kazma, who is from Turkey, focuses on documentary videos. The exhibition marks his U.S. museum debut.
The Hirshhorn is exhibiting Directions: Empire3, through February 26, 2012. “Empire” refers to the Empire State Building which was dedicated in 1931 in New York City. The exhibition features the presentation of three time-based media responses to the landmark by Andy Warhol, Douglas Gordon and Wolfgang Staehle. Warhol filmed the building overnight in 1964. Gordon subsequently videotaped two hours of Warhol’s film at a public exhibition in Berlin and released it as "Bootleg (Empire)." In 1999, Staehle streamed his study, "Empire 24/7," via live webcast. Excerpts from the works are installed together in the “Directions” gallery of the Hirshhorn.
The Hirshhorn is exhibiting contemporary sculptor Dan Flavin's “untitled (to Helga and Carlo, with respect and affection)” (1974), through May 13, 2012. Flavin is acclaimed for his sculptural installations made from mass-produced fluorescent light fixtures. He started a series of large-scale freestanding “barrier works” in 1966. They are so-named because they extend across a designated space, prohibiting access to portions of the gallery and bathing the room in light. The modular works’ dimensions “change with the proportions of each space in which they are displayed.” The effect is to “redefine the viewer’s experience of the architectural space.” The Hirshhorn’s new barrier sculpture is a piece in this signature series and extends more than 75 feet. First installed in 1975 at the Kunsthalle Basel, the sculpture is dedicated to Carlo Huber, who was director there, and his wife, Helga.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is exhibiting 25 x 25: Artists' Books from the NMWA Collectionthrough March 4. The exhibition “celebrates the generosity of donors who helped NMWA to build a foremost collection of artists’ books.” The collection now has more than 1,000 unique books and limited editions in a variety of formats.
The NMWAwill present Royalists to Romantics: Women Artists from the Louvre, Versailles, and Other French National Collections, February 24-July 29. The exhibition will feature 77 paintings, prints, and sculptures from the revolutionary ear of 1750 to 1850. Many of the rare works to be exhibited have never been seen outside of France.
The NMWAwill present New York Avenue Sculpture Project: Chakaia Booker, March 8-March 9, 2014. The internationally-renowned sculptor will be the second artist for the New York Avenue Sculpture Project, which is the only public art space featuring changing installations of contemporary works by women artists.
The NMWAwill present R(ad)ical Love: Sister Mary Corita, March 9-July 15. The exhibition will feature 62 prints created between 1963 and 1967 and will showcase “the bold graphic language that Sister Mary Corita developed to communicate her vision of peace and love in the 1960s.”
The NMWAwill present 25 x 25: Artists' Books from the NMWA CollectionMarch 16-June 24. The exhibition will celebrate the generosity of donors who helped NMWA to build its esteemed collection of artists’ books.
The NMWAwill exhibit Women Silversmiths from the NMWA Collection, March 23-September 23. The exhibition will honor the silver anniversary of the museum and will feature more than 30 pieces by British and Irish women silversmiths from the late 17th to early 19th centuries.
Cristóbal Gabarrón - Veritas XX, 2001 - Oil and pigment, rusted steel - (treated with acids and resins) - Courtesy of The Katzen Museum - Click to enlarge
The Katzen Arts Center at American University is exhibiting Anil Revri: Faith and Liberation through Abstraction through April 15. Mr. Revri’s paintings “function as aids to meditation, while at the same time the process of their creation is itself an act of meditation.”
The Katzen is exhibiting Gabarrón’s Roots, through April 15. The exhibition of his sculptures and paintings is the first showing of Cristóbal Gabarrón’s work in Washington, though his work has been seen in hundreds of exhibitions around the world. His colorful sculptures “are larger than life, yet human in scale and effect.” His painted tondos (circular paintings or reliefs) “evoke archaeological and zoological mysteries.”
Cristóbal Gabarrón - Veritas XX, 2001 - Oil and pigment, rusted steel - (treated with acids and resins) - Courtesy of The Katzen Museum - Click to enlarge
Raoul Middleman - Fairfield, 2008 - Oil on paper- Courtesy of The Katzen Museum - Click to enlarge
The Katzen is exhibiting Raoul Middleman: City Limits, through March 18. Mr. Middleman, who is from Baltimore, paints nudes that "are not pretty—they are sagging, dimpled, and real. His cityscapes reveal the underbelly of post-industrial rot, his narrative paintings give contemporary life to his personal obsessions.”
The Katzen is exhibiting Regaining Our Faculties: Zoë Charlton, Tim Doud, Deborah Kahn, and Luis Manuel Cravo Silva, through March 18. The artists are American University faculty members who have been on sabbaticals.
The Katzen is presenting Kids@Katzen: The Photographic Life, through February 28.
Deborah Kahn - Blue Head, 2007 - Oil on canvas - Courtesy of The Katzen Museum - Click to enlarge
"Hands" by David Bergholz - Click to enlarge
The Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery of the Washington DC Jewish Community Center is presenting Walking Tel Aviv: Photographs by David Bergholz, through April 6. The exhibition displays a side of a uniquely Israeli city that is often described as “the secular heart of Israel.” Photographer and artist David Bergholz spent two weeks in March 2008 walking in the seaside city with his wife, Eleanor Mallet, who is a writer and journalist. The photos present “a very real place beyond what is shown on the news or in the tourist brochures.” The exhibit is coupled with a prose poem by Mallet.
Zenith Gallery at Chevy Chase Pavilion is presenting Year’s End / New Beginnings: Art in all Media, now through February 25. The mixed media show salutes "the whimsical spirit of the visual arts, and rings in the New Year.” The participating artists are Fabiano Amin, Justin Beller, Brooke Fierce Bronner, Jay Burch, Eric Ehlenberger, Stephen Hansen, Peter Kephart, Joan Konkel, Bradley Stevens, Cassie Taggart and Ken Wyner. Visit www.zenithgallery.com
Calder Brannock - Courtesy of Flashpoint - Click to enlarge
The Gallery at Flashpointin downtown DC is presenting Jacqueline Levine: The Temptation, through March 16. Ms. Levine’s solo exhibition has transformed the gallery into an immersive installation featuring large-scale figurative sculptures. The title of the exhibition “refers to the ease with which we are able to give in to personal fears. The artist enacts works of individual expression as a form of rebellion against these fears.” Ms. Levine, who is based in Arlington, VA, will give a talk at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Luce Center on February 25.
The Gallery at Flashpointiwill exhibit Calder Brannock: Adventure Residency Program Headquarters, March 23-April 27, 2012. The exhibition will build upon Brannock’s earlier project, Camper Contemporary, a mobile art gallery fashioned from a vintage camper. He will expand upon Camper Contemporary’s Adventure projects, “organizing artists and audience members to take trips to produce artworks based on shared experiences.” Visitors will be encouraged to borrow objects from the gallery to create self-guided personal adventures. Visit www.flashpointdc.org/venues/art_gallery.html
A work by Jacqueline Levine from her installation entitled Gorgeous Imagination. Courtesy of Flashpoint - Click to enlarge
An image of the photograph "Oranges in a Bowl" by Gayle Krughoff - Courtesy of CHAL - Click to enlarge
The Capitol Hill Art League (CHAL) is presenting an all-media juried exhibit entitled Far Away, through March 2 at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, in SE Washington. The juror of the show is Marsha Staiger, who is a painter and instructor at The Art League in Alexandria, VA. CHAL is a visual arts program of the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. For information about CHAL and how artists may join the League visit http://www.caphillartleague.org/
The Goethe-Institut Washingtonis exhibiting gute aussichten: young german photography 2011/2012, through April 29. The exhibition features works by seven winners of the eighth annual German competition for graduate photography students: Sebastian Lang, Sara-Lena Maierhofer, Johannes Post, Luise Schröder, Miriam Schwedt, Julia Unkel and Franziska Zacharias. Their images provide “an insight into the multifaceted themes that form the focus of young artists’ interests today.”
![Tim Hetherington, Afghanistan, Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, Sterling Jones practices his golf swing while at the main KOP [Korengal Outpost] firebase in the valley. Soldiers spend about two weeks at the Restrepo outpost before coming back to the main KOP base, where they can get a hot shower and call their family., April 2008. Chromogenic (Lightjet) digital print. Courtesy, Estate of Tim Hetherington. © Tim Hetherington](images/100_022CorcoranHetheringtonSterling_Jones_practices_his_golf_swing.jpg)
