Moving Beyond the Earth

National Air and Space Museum
Now – New Permanent
Get a first hands feel for the history of human spaceflight during the space shuttle and space station era. Immerse yourself in the story and technology of human spaceflight. Visitors will see the Earth as it is viewed from the space station, learn what it feels like to orbit in the shuttle and quiz themselves to learn if they are “flight ready” for a space journey. See a 12-foot-tall space shuttle model and other launch vehicles, astronaut gear and other historic spaceflight artifacts.

 

Nature’s Best 2009 Photography Awards: Windland Smith Rice International Awards

National Museum of Natural History
Now – 05/02/2010
This exhibition features winners in 19 categories from the 2009 Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards, including the Grand Prize, Conservation Photographer of the Year, Youth Photographer of the Year and selected Highly Honored images. The annual awards honor the best amateur and professional nature photographers from around the world.

 

Holidays On Display

National Museum of American History
Now – November 2010
This exhibit examines the art, industry and history of commercial holiday displays that enchanted the public from the 1920s to the 1960s. The exhibition focuses on the craftsmanship and creative effort involved in holiday displays and the memories they created. “Holidays on Display” examines the subject from the viewpoints of artists, producers and the public for whom the displays were made. For many Americans, department store displays stand out as an enjoyable memory and an integral component of civic, social life.

 

Children at Play in Chinese Painting

Freer Gallery of Art
Now – 5/23/10
Children at play in fragrant gardens or at work in lush fields have been a recurring theme in Chinese art over the past two millennia. This exhibition displays objects and paintings that depict children playing in urban and rural settings, the common childhood delights of catching butterflies and skipping rope, boys herding oxen and romping in fields are all lovingly depicted in engaging scenes throughout the centuries.

 

A Song for the Horse Nation

George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, New York City
Now – 7/07/11
From its reintroduction to the North American continent in the 16th century by the Spanish conquistadors, Native peoples quickly adapted the horse into their culture, becoming among the best horsemen in the world. This exhibition pays homage to this enduring relationship with approximately 100 works from the museum’s collection, including objects such as shirts, saddles, buffalo robes and bags. The exhibition also addresses the decimation of the herds by the U.S. Army as Native peoples were forced onto reservations.

 

Directions – John Gerrard

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Now – 3/28/10
This exhibition features works by Irish artist John Gerrard (b. 1974, Dublin) who photographed farms and oil fields in 360 degrees and then used computer simulations to create a cinematic movement around the sites. With new technologies offering artists opportunities to create works with dimensions no one has seen before, Gerrard uses customized 3-D gaming software to re-imagine landscape art. A former student of the Art Institute of Chicago, Gerrard is inspired by the look, the history and politics of the Dust Bowl region. He creates contemplative, vivid scenes of farms and oil fields that raise questions about the effect of human progress on the environment.

 

Portraiture Now: Communities

National Portrait Gallery
Now – 7/5/10
How is community defined today? Through new electronic networking, our connections are increasingly widespread; yet, we are still drawn to the idea of small communities and face-to-face interaction. Three artists, Rose Frantzen, Jim Torok, and Rebecca Westcott, explore the idea of community in portraits of friends, neighbors and family.

 

The African Presence in Mexico

Anacostia Community Museum
Now – 7/4/10
This traveling exhibition looks at the history, culture and art of Afro-Mexicans, beginning in the colonial era and continuing to present day. Highlights of the exhibition include Spanish colonial "casta" paintings (paintings used to delineate racial categories); artifacts related to the traditions and popular culture of the Afro-Mexicans; and dozens of paintings, masks, photography and other works of art.

 

Yinka Shonibare MBE

National Museum of African Art
Now – 3/7/10
On display will be the most comprehensive exhibition of works— including dramatic sculptural tableaux, paintings, photographs, and film—by this internationally renowned Nigerian, London-based artist to date.

 

IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americans

National Museum of the American Indian
Now – 5/30/10
A discussion of the cultural integration and diffusion of African American and American Indian people, especially those of blended heritage, this exhibition will also engage visitors on the dynamics of race, community, culture and creativity and will address the human desire to belong.

 

Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009

The National Portrait Gallery
Now – 8/22/10
The National Portrait Gallery invited artists working in the figurative arts to submit portraits of people close to them. Submissions were entered in every type of visual-arts media, including paintings, photographs, film, video and digital animation. The juried competition will result in an exhibition of approximately 49 of the finalists’ works. Visitors to the exhibition and the museum’s Web site can vote on the people’s choice award through Jan. 18, 2010. A fully illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition. Brandon Brame Fortune, curator of painting and sculpture, is the competition director and curator of the exhibition.

 

Falnama: The Book of Omens

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Now – 1/24/10
Whether by consulting the position of the planets, casting horoscopes or interpreting dreams, the art of divination was widely practiced throughout the Islamic world. The most splendid tools ever devised to foretell the future were a type of illustrated texts known as the Falnama (Book of Omens). Notable for their monumental size, brilliantly painted compositions and unusual subject matter, the manuscripts, created in Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey in the 16th and early 17th centuries, are the center piece of “Falnama: The Book of Omens.”

 

Brian Jungen: Strange Comfort

National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC
Now – 8/8/10
Brian Jungen (Dunne-za First Nations/Swiss/Canadian), widely regarded as a foremost Native artist of his generation, transforms the familiar and banal into exquisite objects that reference themes of globalization, pop culture, museums and the commodification of Indian imagery. His works have included a pod of whales made from plastic chairs, totem poles made from golf bags and a massive basketball court made from 224 sewing tables. “Strange Comfort” will feature Jungen’s iconic works, as well as major pieces never before seen in the United States.

 

Anne Truitt: Perception and Reflection

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Now – 1/3/10
The first major exhibition of Truitt’s work since her death in 2004, the Hirshhorn Museum offers a full survey of the artist’s sculpture and two-dimensional works spanning her 40-year career. In addition to a variety of three-dimensional works in which the artist explored the effects of scale and proportion, the retrospective presents the column sculptures that became the hallmark of Truitt’s profoundly focused practice and also includes the first completed monograph on the artist.

 

Accelerate: A National Juried Exhibition for Emerging Artists with Disabilities, Ages 16 – 25

S. Dillon Ripley Center
Now – 1/06/10
Featuring works by 15 award-winning emerging artist with disabilities, ages 16 to 25, the exhibition reflects the artists' experiences. The exhibit reveals how the artists find motivation and shape their lives through art.

 

One Life: Thomas Paine, The Radical Founding Father

National Portrait Gallery
Now – 11/29/09
Inspiration does not always have an extravagant introduction; often all it needs is a little common sense. The life of Thomas Paine (1737-1809) fills this one room exhibit focusing on his pamphlet "Common Sense," which inspired Americans to declare freedom from England. Paine's travels, tribulations and victories are explored through caricatures and original documents on display. A recently acquired portrait of Paine, rendered by French artist Laurent Dabos is featured as well.

 

Staged Stories: Renwick Craft Invitational 2009

Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Art Museum
Now – 01/03/10
Established in 2000, the Renwick Craft Invitational highlights the ingenuity and talent of today's artists. Fourth in the exhibition series, the exhibit features ceramic, fiber and glass renderings. Kate Bonansinga, director of the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso, is the guest curator.

 

Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, First Artist On Another World

National Air and Space Museum
Now – 1/13/10
Celebration the 40th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing, the National Air and Space Museum hosts an exhibition of paintings with a signature view of the world. American artists and Apollo 12 astronaut, Alan Bean rendered approximately 40 original paintings and drawings. The exhibition offers an insight on what the Earth looks like from 238,000 miles away—a perspective that is rendered by the only artist to have walked on the lunar surface. Artifacts from the National Air and Space Museum's collection provide a 3D reference to the lunar experience depicted in the painting.

 

Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Smithsonian American Art Museum
Now – 1/10/10
This exhibition celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper. These exceptional watercolors, pastels and drawings from the 1920s to the 1960s reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Rarely seen works from the museum's permanent collection by such masters as Stuart Davis, Sam Francis, Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning, Grant Wood and Andrew Wyeth are featured in the exhibition.

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