Art
Pitting Environmental Preservation Against Historic Charm
Strict historic preservation codes often favor aesthetic interests over energy-saving initiatives like solar panels — but the material and financial considerations play a part, too.
Washington DC
Art
Images of Black Women as Avatars of Spiritual Agency
Delita Martin's latest exhibition, Calling Down the Spirits, seeks to visualize the incorporeal and genetic strands that tether generations of Black women to each other and to the spiritual world.
News
Trump Threatens to Eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, Again
The 2021 budget proposal labels the NEA, as well as National Endowment for the Humanities, under the category of "wasteful and unnecessary funding."
Announcement
The Center for Contemporary Political Art in DC Presents a Boris Lurie Retrospective
Boris Lurie in America: He Had the Courage to Say NO! is on view through April 26. There is no admission fee.
In Brief
Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley's Portraits of the Obamas Get a National Tour
Starting in June 2021, the official portraits of Michelle and Barack Obama will leave the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC to tour five cities across the country.
In Brief
National Archives Apologizes for Altering a Photograph of the 2017 Women's March
The museum will remove an edited version of a photograph of the 2017 Women's March that blurred protest placards and replace it with the original, unaltered image.
Art
Saying Goodbye to the Newseum in the Age of Fake News
It felt important to visit the Newseum 10 years ago, when every journalist I knew still believed great reporting would always win. Now, in the wake of its recent closure, the delusory nature of that kind of thinking doesn’t get any more obvious.
Art
The Hirshhorn Shows Off Its New Duchamp Collection
The Hirshhorn Museum, which previously had only one work by Duchamp, now ranks near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art as holding the most prominent public collections of his work.
News
Tufts University Removes Sackler Name From Med School; Smithsonian Rebrands Its Sackler Gallery
The billionaire Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma who are well known for their philanthropy, has come under intense scrutiny in the art world.
Art
A "Last Supper" Recreated With DC Locals Has Been Hidden in Former Church's Walls
The frieze was discovered during a rehab of a building in Columbia Heights. Its reemergence tells a story of gentrification and DC’s Black community.
Art
Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Celebrates the Modern Portrait
Hugo Crosthwaite, the first Latinx artist to receive the Outwin Boochever Portrait, won first prize for his animation of a woman’s journey from Tijuana, Mexico, to the United States.
In Brief
Hobby Lobby Will Return Biblical Antiquities Allegedly Stolen by Oxford Professor
The Museum of the Bible, founded by the owners of arts-and-crafts store chain Hobby Lobby, will turn over biblical fragments it had acquired from an Oxford professor.