News
US National Cathedral to Excommunicate Stained Glass Confederate Flags
The flags of all 50 states hang in plain sight over the nave of the Washington National Cathedral, but for decades, two Confederate flags went largely unnoticed.
Washington DC
Art
Airships and Reanimated Corpses from the Pages of Early Science Fiction
WASHINGTON, DC — Science fiction rose to prominence in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when authors like H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Mary Shelley imagined the extraordinary possibilities of advances in technology and exploration.
Art
A Cherokee Artist Wrestling with Grief, Colonialism, and False Dichotomies
WASHINGTON, DC — Kay WalkingStick has devoted herself to breaking down perceived dichotomies.
Art
Kevin Spacey Temporarily Joins George Washington at the National Portrait Gallery
WASHINGTON, DC — In February, the National Portrait Gallery unveiled with presidential pomp a portrait of Kevin Spacey as Frank J. Underwood, dark prince of politics in the popular Netflix series House of Cards.
Art
The Inca Rope Bridge That's Woven Across a River Each Year
WASHINGTON, DC — Each June in Huinchiri, Peru, four Quechua communities on two sides of a gorge join together to build a bridge out of grass, creating a form of ancient infrastructure that dates back at least five centuries to the Inca Empire.
Art
A Sprawling Tapestry’s Surreal Visions of Egypt
WASHINGTON, DC — In 2011, the Egyptian-Lebanese artist Lara Baladi began her ongoing project Vox Populi, Archiving a Revolution in the Digital Age, her attempt to archive the flood of documentation that emerged out of the events of Tahrir Square and its aftermath.
Film
A Portrait of an Iranian Artist Who Went Home After 25 Years in Exile
WASHINGTON, DC — In Iran, it’s difficult to know where the artistic and the political are separated, if they can be separated at all.
Art
From Michelangelo to Marden, Seven Fierce Fistfights from Art History
WASHINGTON, DC — In her ongoing series Le ‘NEW’ Monocle, Shana Lutker creates stage sets and performances based on the circumstances and philosophical undertones of fistfights instigated by Surrealists in Paris in the 1920s.
Art
Wondering About the Future of the Smithsonian's Craft Museum
WASHINGTON, DC — The work presented at the Renwick Gallery was always a perfect counterpoint to the artifacts and antiquities, modernist painting, and contemporary sculpture and film on view at the various museums on the National Mall.
Art
A Strange Family Drama, Starring Found Object Sculptures
WASHINGTON, DC — The Black Box film series at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden isn’t where you'd expect to find a gaggle of teenage boys.
Art
More Than a Year After the Dissolution of the Corcoran, Its Art School Still Struggles in a New Home
WASHINGTON, DC — Maeve McCool vividly remembers when she first learned that the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the conjoining Corcoran College of Art and Design would be no more.
Art
Folded and Fragmented Drawings of the Natural World
WASHINGTON, DC — The everyday organisms of our natural world become mysterious and illusory in the drawings of Beverly Ress.