art

Juan Tejedor, Bus Drawing, 2010, acrylic on paper, 42 x 62 inches

“Roger Gastman Takes to the Streets” at the Corcoran Gallery: With all the recent headlines about elusive British street artist Banksy and his Oscar-nominated doc “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” the Corcoran couldn’t have picked a better time to host street art scholar Roger Gastman. Gastman, who appeared in the film, will lecture this Thursday on his experience in the world of street art and the history of graffiti in D.C. Will he clear up the rumors behind the film and the identity of Mr. Brainwash? Can we even be sure Roger Gastman is Roger Gastman? You’ll have to RSVP to find out. Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15.

Continues after the jump. (more…)

I’m a huge fan of fire box conversions. My favorites remain the sculptures from Mt. Pleasant. I’m thinking this one from near the Capitol South metro has got to be one of the earliest.

Bouquet of Concaves as photographed by David Smith at Bolton Landing, 1959. Color transparency. (c) Estate of David Smith/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

While a number of museums and galleries are busy gearing up for the spring, this weekend brings two exciting and remarkably different exhibitions to the Phillips Collection, as well as the closing of some smaller shows. Click on a venue for a Google map of its address. As always, share your own recommendations in the comments.

David Smith Invents at the Phillips Collection: This Saturday , the Phillips opens its exhibition of late works by David Smith, one of the most celebrated Abstract Expressionist sculptors and one of my personal favorites. On display will be sculptures, paintings and works on paper that demonstrate Smith’s interest in translating geometric elements of abstract painting to three-dimensional form. On view Feb. 12 to May 15. Metro: Dupont Circle.

Suzannah Vaughan: Tracing Form at Flashpoint: Closing Saturday, this exhibition is presented in conjunction with Irish arts organization Solas Nua. Suzannah Vaughan’s work on view includes new concrete-and-glass sculptures accompanied by her “luminous string installations.” Vaughan’s sculptures seem to contain mysterious inner lives in their blue and green cores, reflecting her interest in “transient spaces, where utopian structures can exist outside the politics of reality.” On view until Feb. 12. Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown or Metro Center.

Continues after the jump. (more…)

Photo by Beth Shook

Beth is an art history grad student at George Mason University with a focus on modern art of the Americas.

Art picks for this week include a film, a lecture and three exhibition openings. Feel free to comment with your own recommendations – be it an upcoming show, street art or your favorite permanent installation (for the latter, I’d have to go with the contemporary art galleries at the American Art Museum).

The Cool School at the Corcoran Gallery: This Thursday, the Corcoran is screening the 2008 film The Cool School, a documentary about the role of the Ferus Gallery in the formation of a cohesive West Coast art scene in the 1950s and ’60s. New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis described it as “a myth-making tale of a group of post-World War II aesthetic adventurers who … created an exciting American moment.” Tickets are $12 and can be purchased online. Feb. 3 at 6:30 p.m.

Drive By at Project 4 Gallery: Opening Friday, this show features six artists confronting aspects of the urban landscape that we usually notice only peripherally. Works like Gregory Thielker’s hyperrealist oil paintings of rain on a car windshield and Michael A. Salter’s digital drawings of a surreal suburbia ask the viewer to take a closer look at the surroundings we tend to take for granted. On view Feb. 5 to March 5.

Continues after the jump. (more…)

Photo by PoPville flickr user mosley.brian

“Dear PoP,

Team gandhiwarmer and I are knitting a scarf, hat, and a flower garland for Gandhi’s statue, Q & 21st NW, in DC (sunday, january 30 at 3pm)! We are excited to do this again, last year’s in NYC in Union Square was a truly wonderful event! I am traveling from New Orleans and other team members from Richmond, VA and NYC.

Please come and join us if you can! We are asking people that come to bring no-longer-used or newly knitted hats/scarves to give to those in need, flowers for his feet, or just enjoy the gathering while listening to some great indian music during gandhi’s warming ceremony.

More info on the gandhiwarmer blog and Facebook event page.”

Normally I’ve been a huge fan of the art on some of the windows at the Convention Center. I don’t know though, these are a bit too whack for my taste. Anyone dig ’em?

Photo credit (c) Bruce Guthrie, Fragment KBI Wi Kani by Marcel Pinas at the Art Museum of the Americas.

Beth is an art history graduate student at George Mason University and works part-time at an emerging markets investment fund. Originally from Texas via New York, Beth graduated from Georgetown in 2009 with a degree in Spanish and has been living in Columbia Heights since then (and will probably never leave). In her free time, Beth practices amateur darkroom photography and conducts independent research projects, such as assessing where the best Tex-Mex is in D.C.

There aren’t many openings this week, but there are several noteworthy events and ongoing exhibitions around town. Here are some highlights:

DEBT: Simon Gouverneur and Andy Moon Wilson at Curator’s Office: A small and mesmerizing exhibition that asks to what extent an artist is indebted to his predecessors. The show includes dozens of drawings, most of which are just 4″ by 4″, by Atlanta-based artist and carpet designer Andy Moon Wilson. Moon Wilson’s vibrant, optically jarring works are juxtaposed with the more metaphysical (but still pattern-obsessed) paintings by one of his influences, Simon Gouverneur. On view until Feb. 12.

Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions at the Art Museum of the Americas: I’m reposting this one because I had very little info on it last week. Wrestling with the Image tackles head-on the discourse surrounding Caribbean identity, or to phrase it better, the region’s multiplicity of identities. The media exhibited, including contemporary paintings, prints, drawings, video art, mixed media installations (read: conch shell strobe lights) and photographs, are as diverse as the 36 artists behind them. And it’s no accident that the accompanying labels often demarcate with a slash the artists’ birthplace and current country of residence: the works are inherently global, and they reflect the diasporic nature of art from the past decade. With minimal wall texts, the exhibition catalog, available for download here, is a useful guide. On view until March 10.

Continues after the jump. (more…)

Photo by Beth Shook

I told you it was new feature week here on PoP! The following feature is something I’ve been hoping to put together for a while now. Given all the great museums around town, I wanted somebody who actually followed the scene closely to make some recommendations every week. Enter Beth Shook and her Weekly Art Lens:

Beth is an art history graduate student at George Mason University and works part-time at an emerging markets investment fund. Originally from Texas via New York, Beth graduated from Georgetown in 2009 with a degree in Spanish and has been living in Columbia Heights since then (and will probably never leave). In her free time, Beth practices amateur darkroom photography and conducts independent research projects, such as assessing where the best Tex-Mex is in D.C.

Every Tuesday I’ll be posting local exhibition openings, closings and visual art-related events to look out for during the week. Readers are encouraged to leave comments with other recommendations – the list is by no means exhaustive. This week’s highlights in no particular order:

Rise and Fall: Fiona Tan at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: Closing this Friday, Rise and Fall is a beautiful and dramatic exploration of the artist’s cultural identity, her vision of the people close to her and how memory is constructed in general. Tan manages repeatedly to meld classic genres with contemporary mediums, most notably in her 2008 work Provenance, a mesmerizing set of filmed black and white portraits of her friends and family inspired in part by 17th-century Dutch paintings. On view until Jan. 21.

Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions at the Art Museum of the Americas: Not much info is up on the OAS site at this point, but this exhibition’s focus on Caribbean art is unique enough that it will definitely be worth a visit. The exhibition preview and gallery talk is this Friday at 5:30 p.m. with the opening reception to follow. On view Jan. 21 to March 10.

Saturnalia: New Works by Gallery Artists at Irvine Contemporary: A diverse group exhibition that is small but striking in its thematic and technical scope. Highlights include Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi’s mixed media paintings that explore Iranian-American identity, as well as Melissa Ichiuji’s kitschy and grotesque found-object sculptures (if “Black Swan” didn’t give you sexual nightmares, these might). On view until Feb. 12.

R.C. Gorman: Early Prints and Drawings, 1966–1974 at the National Museum of American Indian: My last visit to the NMAI was two years ago to see a retrospective of the Indian painter Fritz Scholder, a haunting show with interesting, if sometimes excessive, interpretation. According to the Smithsonian press release, the show will focus on his depictions of the female form and “Indian madonnas.” On view until May 1.

Behind-the-Scenes Introduction to the Lunder Conservation Center at the National Portrait Gallery: The Smithsonian’s Lunder Conservation Center, which, as it turns out, has its own Twitter feed, offers free demonstrations most Wednesdays from 3 to 3:30 p.m. Seems like it would be a pretty cool way to spend a lunch break for those in the Metro Center/Gallery Place area. Meet at the Luce Foundation Center info desk on the third floor of the west wing. Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 3:00 p.m.

Short list: Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Museum of Censored Art; DEBT: Simon Gouverneur and Andy Moon Wilson at Curator’s Office; Now: Spencer Finch at the Corcoran Gallery.

From a press release celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Phillips Collection (1600 21st Street, NW):

Jan. 15, 10 a.m.−5 p.m.
Jan. 16, 11 a.m.−6 p.m.

Featuring the grand reopening of the newly renovated Phillips house, birthday cake designs by some of D.C.’s finest pastry chefs, complimentary champagne, and more. For details, read below.

Washington, D.C.— In 2011, The Phillips Collection celebrates its 90th anniversary and launches the countdown to its centennial, beginning with a free weekend on Jan. 15 and 16 and marking the end of the year with an anniversary birthday bash on Nov. 5. Special installations and programs throughout the year debut stunning new acquisitions in contemporary art, engage artists in conversation with the collection, and tell the story of artistic innovation at the heart of the museum since Duncan Phillips opened its doors in 1921.”

Caos on F after the jump. (more…)