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May 03 2010
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Uncategorized, Freer-Sackler, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Phillips Collection, Hirshhorn

Lonely Planet DC: A Dissent

So. Lonely Planet’s new DC city guide is out. They’ve got the neighborhoods, nightlife and Obama era vibe down, but I gotta quibble with their top museum picks:

1. Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery
2. Corcoran Gallery of Art
3. Hirshhorn Museum
4. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
5. Freer Sackler Galleries

First off, how can you not include the National Gallery of Art, the Mall’s eminence grise and one of the world’s great museums? And the Hirshhorn? Sorry, but I can go a couple years without setting foot in that place and not miss it. I rarely find their temporary exhibits engaging. And if I have to pick between the Corcoran and the Phillips, the Phillips wins, for consistently creative shows in an intimate setting. I love looking at art while walking on creaky floorboards.

Here, my amended list:

1. National Gallery of Art
2. Freer Sackler Galleries
3. Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery
4. The Phillips Collection
5. US Holocaust Memorial Museum

But that’s me. Maybe a little more establishment than the Lonely Planet credo.

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May 02 2010
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National Gallery of Art, Uncategorized

Allen Ginsberg: Portraits of Youth

It’s only May, but I have a feeling this exhibit may make my top five this year.

Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg opened today at the National Gallery of Art, and while I was never a big fan of “Howl,” I gotta admit the poet’s got an eye for people. The show consists of 79 black and white photos, most of which are portraits of that troubled but visionary tribe: Ginsberg himself, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso.

The shock of the show rests in two very different photos of Jack Kerouac, taken a decade apart. The first, from 1953 (above), shows a confident young man rambling around New York’s Lower East side; the second, from 1964, shows the writer slumped in a chair in Ginsberg’s apartment. Ginsberg notes, in a crabbed, handwritten caption, that Kerouac looked like “his old man” by this point: red-faced, corpulent, and shuddering.

It’s an accurate description. Kerouac looks like he’s aged 30 years.

There’s real innocence in Ginsberg’s photos from the early 50s, however: the then-unknown Beats look fresh-faced and full of bravado. He deftly captures that moment in early adulthood when all paths lay open, compromises have yet to be made.

It’s a moment I was thinking about just yesterday, after reading this lengthy NYT Magazine piece on young, idealistic Obama aides living the dream in Logan Circle. I e-mailed my best friend about it, reminding her of our own group house days on Jenifer Street in Northwest DC. “Those days are long gone,” she said.

Our challenge is not to become jaded.

Beat Memories runs through September 6, 2010.

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Apr 30 2010
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National Museum of African Art, Uncategorized

Museum Find: Ghana’s Asafo Flags

There’s plenty to learn about African folklore and wildlife at the National Museum of African Art’s Artful Animals exhibit–hippos represent wealth, a chameleon’s curled tail represents the passage of time–but two items in particular were a revelation to me: Fante Asafo flags from Ghana.

The museum’s two roughly designed cotton flags include animal motifs and a Union Jack in the upper left corner. My inner history major was piqued: What were these relics of Empire?

Turns out the flags represent military companies in coastal Ghana and depict historical events or proverbs, often through the display of animals. Flags made before Ghana’s independence in 1957 show the Union Jack, those made after 1957 incorporate the Ghanaian flag.

I later found this fascinating collection of Fante Asafo flags posted by an art gallery in Boston. Not only are the scenes on the flags wildly divergent, the British flag is interpreted in every way imaginable.

I’m usually into Asian art, not African, but these are so cool they make me want to start collecting.

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Apr 18 2010
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TIME Covers the Presidents

TIME changed its “Man of the Year” cover to “Person of the Year” in 1999, but no individual woman has won recognition under the new moniker.

Three women were selected as “Persons of the Year” for whistleblowing in 2002, and Melinda Gates appeared alongside husband Bill and rock star/aid advocate Bono in 2005, but still no solo outing for the fairer sex.

Perhaps, if we elect a female President before the magazine goes under, she might have a shot. The clock is ticking.

At the National Portrait Gallery, “From FDR to Obama: Presidents on Time” showcases U.S. Presidents who have appeared on the cover since the magazine’s founding in 1923. Gerald Ford was the only President not to receive “Man of the Year” honors, and Richard Nixon appeared on the cover more than any other person, at 55 times.

John F. Kennedy and George H.W. Bush were vocally unhappy with their cover likenesses, with Bush going so far as to freeze TIME out of White House press coverage. With print media in its death throes, it’s hard to imagine Obama caring much today.

But what will replace the iconic 20th century media accolade? A photo posted on Politico for more than a few hours? A Twitter hashtag that outpaces #JustinBieber?

Just one female Person of the Year before it all turns to dust, TIME. Is that too much to ask?

Presidents on Time runs through September 26, 2010 at the National Portrait Gallery.

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Mar 21 2010
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Uncategorized

The Cherry Blossom Alternative


For my money, the tulip trees behind the Smithsonian Castle are just as spectacular as the cherry blossoms, and a lot less trampled.

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Feb 06 2010
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Homage to Salinger

Once DC has dug out from Snowmageddon, check out the National Portrait Gallery’s homage to J.D. Salinger: the original portrait created for a 1961 Time magazine cover, in which the famously anti-authoritarian scribe stands against an amber wave of grain.

And if you’ve ever doubted Salinger’s eccentricity, read this fascinating essay by Joanna Smith Rakoff, a former literary agency staffer who opened Salinger’s fan mail for many years. I’ve read several pieces on Salinger since his Jan. 27 death; Rakoff’s is by far the most illuminating.

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Feb 06 2010
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Uncategorized

Snowmageddon Silence

If you were hoping to visit any DC museums this weekend, forget it. I got as far as Taft Bridge in Woodley Park.

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Dec 26 2009
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National Portrait Gallery, Uncategorized

Voices from the Heartland


It’s a misty Boxing Day in Washington, so I thought I’d catch Up in the Air, a movie I’ve been wanting to see for months now on the strength of great reviews, and, yes, the ever-swelling star power of George Clooney. Clooney is great, as usual, but the film’s most affecting scenes don’t center around the leading man; they’re the brief dialogues with recently laid-off, real people who ponder how they’ll tell the spouse and kids and start anew.

It’s the voice of America at a particularly sorry moment in time.

At the National Portrait Gallery right now, you’ll find a nice bookend to Up in the Air, in the voices of the residents of Maquoketa, Iowa. Part of the gallery’s Portraiture Now: Communities exhibit, the Maquoketa project is the brainchild of artist Rose Frantzen, who hung out a shingle on the town’s Main Street and successfully recruited 180 fellow Iowans to sit for portraits. She then enlisted her musically-minded brother to record brief interviews with each subject and layer their voices in a kind of documentary symphony, which floats over the gallery space.

It’s tempting to match the portraits with the voices, which expound on the joys of small-town life, the challenges of raising kids, the impact of Walmart’s arrival in town, but the show’s effect is amplified if you step back and consider the people of Maquoketa in their entirety. Maybe I was still mulling Clooney’s character, whose compulsive travel precludes any sustainable human connection, but I found it more interesting to guess how each of the voices relates to one another: friends, family, neighbors, strangers?

Portraiture Now: Communities runs through July 5, 2010.

Image credit: Rose Frantzen / Collection of the artist, Maquoketa, IA

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