I finally upgraded to an iPhone 4S, so I tried out the newest version of Instagram at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden today. One of my favorite places in Washington.
DC Museumgoer
Art. Travel. Culture.
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Hong Kong Hipstamatic
Posting this just because I love it. Makes me want to go back to Hong Kong. For more Hipstamatic pics of the city, see photographer Palani Mohan’s full slideshow on the Asia Society blog.
I seem to be drawn to Mohan’s work. He also published a great book of photos called Vanishing Giants: Elephants of Asia, which is sitting on my bookshelf.
Like this:
Eye on China
China’s Dickensian-level environmental problems have been widely reported on, but I found a fresh eye on the subject today at FotoWeek DC’s main exhibition space.
British photographer Sean Gallagher‘s series on desertification and biodiversity loss in China strips away all the noise, telling a compelling story of altered environments through portraits of people and animals. It’s part of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting’s presentation at FotoWeek DC, which includes wrenching series on child brides, prisoners in Sierra Leone, and Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army.
There’s a lot of human brutality on display, which is maybe why I liked Gallagher’s work best. It’s thought-provoking without assaulting the viewer, balancing China’s natural beauty with encroaching degradation. Not an easy balance.
Check out the Pulitzer Center show through Nov. 12 at FotoWeek DC central, 18th and L St. NW.
Like this:
Iwo Jima Goes Green
Biking around town this morning, I noticed several banners promoting urban forestry hanging from streetlights. Turns out they’ve been up since May, courtesy of the DC Urban Forest Project.
Check out their photo gallery of all 100 banners. Lots of creative ideas here, but the Iwo Jima send-up is my favorite.
Buddhist Bank ?
World Bank lobby, July 22, 6:15 p.m.
Matisse’s Ladies’ Man
The Barnes Foundation isn’t easy to visit. In fact, I told my sister it was like arranging a meeting at a CIA safe house.
We ordered tickets in February. We got lost on the way because the estate sits totally unmarked on a residential
street in Merion, PA. We were given a 15-minute window in which to arrive and park. And when we finally arrived, we realized there was no wall text with any of the paintings; we didn’t know what we were looking at.
It’s an enigmatic place with a tangled political history– watch the documentary Art of the Steal to get a full, if one-sided, account–but it’s also one of the world’s greatest collections of 19th and 20th century French paintings. The Cezannes and Renoirs are legion, but, as usual, the Matisses drew me in.
This painting, A Sitting Rifian, sits in the mansion’s main salon and is hard to miss. My first thought, upon seeing it, was: “A ladies’ man.” Funny, because the same afternoon Dominique Strauss-Kahn made a calamitous decision in a New York hotel room, forever altering my perception of the phrase.
I’ll use it advisedly from here on.
Woodley Park’s Best: Tulips
One of my favorite things about spring in Washington? The tulip gardens at the Marriott Wardman Park, right in my neighborhood. Amid the cherry blossom madness, they don’t get the attention they deserve. They are meticulously planted every year.
Art for the Traveler
Here’s a cool career path I didn’t know existed: director of arts and cultural affairs for an airport.
According to the New York Times, Yolanda Sanchez, who holds this title at Miami International Airport, is in the vanguard of a movement to make air travel a lot less stressful and at least a little edifying. She’s making things happen:
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Among the current offerings are a mural by local children, ironworks from Haiti and a show of 24 large-scale photographs by recent participants in the Everglades Park Service’s artist-in-residence program.
Ms. Sanchez said a 4,400-square-foot sculpture garden was planned for the new North Terminal.
In fact, I wandered down a corridor hung with student paintings in the Miami airport when I traveled back from Guatemala last December. I had a three-hour layover; it cheered me up.
Hope to see more of this closer to home. DCA, I’m looking at you.
Photo by Photo Phiend via Flickr/Creative Commons.
‘Tahrir’ Means Liberation
Found in the Smithsonian collections online: A 1959 photo of Cairo’s minarets. Go #egypt.
