Exhibits

Amelia Earhart's Personal Collection

November 12, 2007 - November 11, 2008
National Postal Museum
Lower Level, Southwest, Philatelic Gallery
Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, was an avid stamp and cover collector. On view are key pieces from her collection, including photographs and stamps commemorating her flights. She often flew signed pieces of mail that were then sold to philatelists to support her endeavors.
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Black Box: Rivane Neuenschwander

December 17, 2007 - April 20, 2008 Rotating Exhibition
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Lower Level
The Black Box Theater showcases rotating exhibitions of contemporary artists who use film or video as their creative medium. Films or videos run continuously.

December 17, 2007-April 20, 2008:
Films by Rivane Neuenschwander, including
• Quarta-Feira de Cinzas/Epilogue (2006, color, 5:48 min.) Rivane Neuenschwander (Brazilian, born 1967, lives and works in Brazil) includes themes of chance and improvisation in her films and is perhaps best known for her photographic series. She was a finalist for the Hugo Boss award in 2004. Works include Quarta-Feira de Cinzas/Epilogue (2006) -- Portuguese for Ash Wednesday -- a collaboration with artist Cao Guimaraes and offers a mesmerizing close-up view of a community of ants hauling large, thin, colored flecks of confetti from Carnival celebrations.
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Discovering Rastafari!

November 2, 2007 - November 7, 2008
National Museum of Natural History
1st Floor, Northeast Wing, African Voices Focus Gallery (Hall 7)
Featuring rare photographs, artifacts, and ephemera, this exhibition moves beyond the popular Jamaican music known as reggae to explore the origins and practice of the Rastafari religion in Jamaica and the movement's subsequent spread across the Caribbean and around the world.

Video footage featuring male and female Rastafari of different ages, nationalities, ethnicities, and socioeconomic classes highlights the unity of the movement. An overview of the three major "mansions" (organizations) reveals the diversity of Rastafari and the core of sacred practices that guide the daily lives of its practitioners.
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Color as Field: American Painting, 1950-1975

February 29, 2008 - May 26, 2008
Smithsonian American Art Museum
3rd Floor, North Galleries
This first full-scale examination of the Color Field Movement -- which emerged in the U.S. in the 1950s -- features approximately 40 paintings by such major figures as Gene Davis, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, and Frank Stella. A Color Field painting is characterized by pouring, staining, spraying, or painting thinned paint onto raw canvas to create vast chromatic expanses. The movement constitutes one of the crowning achievements of postwar American abstract art.
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In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight

March 21, 2008 - January 2, 2009
National Air and Space Museum
First Floor, West End, Gallery 104
Details of the often overlooked "simple beauty" of aircraft and spacecraft design can be seen in the 56 color photographs by museum photographer Carolyn Russo. By emphasizing the aesthetic, Russo creates images that distill the complexity of airplanes and spaceships into bold combinations of line, shape, light, and color.
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The Honor of Your Company Is Requested: President Lincoln's Inaugural Ball

March 8, 2008 - January 18, 2010 (new opening date)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
2nd Floor, South Gallery
On view in this small exhibition to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball is ephemera from the ball, including the invitation and menu, as well as engravings illustrating the night's events and other artifacts. The ball took place in the building on March 6, 1865, during the final stages of the Civil War and only six weeks before Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater.
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Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection

March 14, 2008 - July 6, 2008
Renwick Gallery
1st Floor, Special Exhibitions Gallery
This exhibition features 275 pieces of avant-garde jewelry by contemporary artists from around the world. It also provides a history of jewelry making while honoring it as an important craft in the world of fine arts. Also on view are 20 drawings and watercolors and five constructions and sculptures.
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El Anatsui: Gawu

March 12, 2008 - September 2, 2008
National Museum of African Art
Sublevel 1, Sylvia H. Williams Gallery
This is the first solo exhibition of works by El Anatsui, one of Africa's leading contemporary artists, who was originally from Ghana and has lived in Nigeria since 1975. Having experimented with a variety of media, his most recent focus is on the use of discarded metal objects -- tops from food tins or wrappers from flattened metal liquor bottles -- hundreds or even thousands of which are joined together to resemble weavings that both reflect the tradition of Ghanaian strip cloths and the abstraction of modernist paintings. El Anatsui indicates that the word gawu (derived from Ewe, his native language) has several potential meanings, including "metal" and "a fashioned cloak." The term, therefore, manages to encapsulate the medium, process, and format of the works that will be on view, reflecting the artist's transformation of discarded materials into objects of striking beauty and originality.

Related publication: $35.95 (paper)
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Discover What Your Favorite Museum Has to Offer

Whether it's your first visit, or your 51st, there's always something new to see. Don't miss these featured exhibits - and check each museum for their complete schedule of special collections.