August 2, 2006
Sweet Home ... D.C.
If the fiery hell holes of silent elevator shafts and devilishly high heat indexes have D.C. repenting with sweaty Hail Marys, there is an escape: find Alabama's finest photographer and sculptor William Christenberry at any of four art relief stations around the city. Cool A/C, (photographed) ice-cold Coca-Cola, and - Hallelujah - none of those famous Tuscaloosan chitlins! Get on up, lil' doggies, and drag yourself along on a Christenberry tour that's as Southern as the high falootin' humidity:
Hemphill Fine Arts
Ring the bell and come on up. Sorry, this 14th Street gallery obliges to lock the doors in this art-dangerous Yankee locale, but they promise a friendly voice and an open, cool gallery with nine never-seen-before Christenberry's. The 35 mm Kodachromes are more lush than an Alabama slammer, with color pushing up what otherwise would be flat Walker Evans copies. It's no shame that the earlier celebrated depression photographer sourced Christenberry's hometown of Tuscaloosa in his Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Smithsonian American Art Museum
A true chief cook and bottle washer, our man in question turned his eye to sculpture in the 1970's. Thick and heavy with southern lore like molasses -- a satin KKK doll would be over the top if it weren't so frightening -- Christenberry weaves in the Heart of Dixie in metal signage collages, sculpted architectural models, and his original medium of painting. He's been teaching at the local Corcoran since 1967 but his art never strays from Hale County no matter the form.
The Phillips Collection
Last stop before dinner! Or if it's already Thursday, grab a root beforehand at one of the many Dupont Circle eats and digest at leisure during an Artful Evening. Sure there are only two Christenberry's here, but one is the awesome Southern Monument with a sand pit that begs knub-handed young art vandals everywhere. While you're stopping in, please do help yourself to the free talks and Swiss-alps-cool but cramped Paul Klee show.
Politics and Prose
Time for the cherry on top. Stop by the Van Ness bookstore and meet the illustrious artist in person tonight at 7 p.m. Listen to him discuss the changes of his childhood landscape, then take a piece of his Southern charm home with you with an autographed copy of William Christenberry: Photographs.
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Adrian! Van Ness bookstore!? Van Ness is a street, not a neighborhood!
You can blame me for that addition, Tyler, but what? Van Ness is certainly a neighborhood. At least, that's what my friends call it who, you know, live there!
Great tips! I saw Christenberry's work at the American Art Museum and fell in love with his photographs. Unfortunately I can't make it to the book signing, but I will definitely check out the other places soon.
*I* live there. And no one I know calls anywhere up here Van Ness. In various places: Forest Hills. Tenleytown, North Cleveland Park. But Van Ness? Street. Part of a Metro stop. Not a 'hood.
North Cleveland Park?? Never heard of it, and I lived in CP for three years while I was going to AU - almost everyone I went to school with lived in (the neighborhood of) Van Ness. We must live in two different cities!
If you look on maps, the neighborhood north of Melvin Hazen Park is called North Cleveland Park and to the north of that, Forest Hills. Do you really think that the neighborhood was called Van Ness before the Red Line went through? Same thing with Friendship Heights taking over parts of Chevy Chase.
Boy, I had no idea people were so up-in-arms about the names of upper NW neighborhoods! I don't know what to tell ya, we (meaning my friends and I) all call it Van Ness. Seriously, in three years, I never heard "North Cleveland Park," though I would wager, geographically, that's probably where my apartment was. Reject the maps! Don't let The Man tell you were you live! Or something.
DC Government's DC Atlas shows a neighborhood called Van Ness, centered on UDC. According to that site, it's between Cleveland Park and North Cleveland Park.
http://dcgis.dc.gov/dcgis/cwp/view,a,1192,q,487938.asp
Please can we have a gang war over this? NorthWestside Story . . .
I just called Revolution Records and asked them what neighborhood they are located in and they said "Van Ness."
Adrian,
Nice round-up of shows featuring Christenberry's work.
Not that I want to stoke the fires of the Van Ness Civil War naming rights, but being from the Hale County, Alabama area (from across the state line in Lowndes County, Mississippi) and being an amateur Civil War historian, I think it worth noting that the Hale County featured in Christenberry's photographs was named after Lt. Col. Stephen Fowler Hale, a Confederate officer killed at the Battle of Gaines' Mill in Virginia.
I hope this information will help bring peace to this ongoing D.C. Mapquest conflict! :)
James
Regardless of where North Cleveland Park is, Poltiics and Prose is well to the north of the Van Ness-UDC Metrorail station. People refer to the commercial strip adjacent to the station as "Van Ness," but P&P is far north and quite out of bounds. It's walkable to Van Ness-UDC station, but not in its immediate neighborhood. Using that logic, that's like referring to Mount Pleasant as part of Columbia Heights, just because it's within walking distance of the Green Line station or saying American University Park as Tenleytown for the very same reason.
I'll shut up now.
In any case, Politics & Prose is a fantastic bookstore. Any event is a good excuse to go there. And if you go tonight, I recommend taking a bus up Connecticut Ave., not walking from the Van Ness-UDC Metro station. Unless you're interested in sweating to death.
If you can't make it to this Christenberry talk, he's speaking at American Art on September 6(but you have to reserve in advance).
I live there and I always refer to it as Van Ness...
Picky dude!
I am on DCist Heather's side. It's totally Van Ness. I realize it may've been a separately-named neighborhood before the Metro, but alas, progress changes many things. No biggie.