Pushing the envelope with mundane, everyday materials, Dan Steinhilber's show now at G Fine Art is a multidimensional and thought provoking exhibit. Steinhilber incorporates ordinary media to create a cohesive show where the images flow from one to the next and each element incorporates the last, sharing common themes. Packing peanuts, garbage bags and florescent light bulbs are cast in a new light with photography, sculpture, drawing and installation. The walls of the gallery display......

As you might imagine, there's not a whole lot going on in the art world this week, and unlike the last holiday, even the Smithsonians close on Christmas Day. Nevertheless, we found a few exhibits for you to poke around this weekend. And if you're one of those last minute gift buyers and can't bear to wage war at the mall, don't forget our guide to art museum memberships for something a little more unique......

>> This week's arts pick goes to the Curator's Office, who will be hosting performance artist Kathryn Cornelius in her first private gallery solo show, Common Ground. Cornelius, who has taken her wry performances around the world, will display two videos and two photograph series that show her searching for a kind of inner spirituality in an overconnected, digital world. Jeffry Cudlin writes in the exhibit brochure, "In these pieces, Cornelius appears silent, collected......

FRIDAY: >> The city's free concert series follows MC Hammer with a rare appearance by salsa legend Willie Colon, 7-9 p.m. at Woodrow Wilson Center. >> President Nixon’s White House counsel John Dean will be at Politics and Prose to discuss his book, Broken Government, which examines "the institutional damage he believes the Republican Party has inflicted on the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government during the Bush administration." 7 p.m. He'll also be......

It's round two of the official opening of the fall art season. If you didn't get to check out all the openings last week (and who humanly could have?), spend part of your Saturday afternoon perusing the rest -- our reviewer particularly enjoyed the show at Flashpoint. But block off your evenings for the parties to celebrate the following openings: >> Up in Bethesda, it's the big night for the Trawick Prize finalists, as they......

As always with the end of summer, there have been slim pickings in the art world, and most galleries are banking on you using Labor Day weekend for one final trek to sunny beaches. We scrounged up a few options for those of you sticking around town, which you may want to consider using as a warm-up for next week, when the fall art season opens with a bang. >> G Fine Art is warming......

If you've been complaining that Memorial Day weekend wiped out your wallet, D.C. art venues heard your pleas for something a little less draining on your finances. This weekend the city is chock full of free activities, from private gallery openings to neighborhood wide social events. Put on your walking shoes and check out the following: >> It's time again for the annual Dupont Kalorama Museum Walk Weekend. Held on the first full weekend in......

>> Artomatic comes to a close this weekend, after five long weeks of inundating us with massive quantities of art, free performances, lectures, concerts, film series, demonstrations and workshops, and spirited community building that even your old summer camp counselor couldn't match. If you haven't gone down to Crystal City yet, the old Patent Office location is only a few blocks from the metro, and the art fair only rises up every two (sometimes three)......

>> Your major opening this weekend is brought to you by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The nearly 120 piece Saul Steinberg retrospective, Illuminations, features the artist's witty and deeply observant take on world events throughout his 60 year history with The New Yorker, as well as the many other sculpture, painting, and various artworks that get a little meta in their parsing of creative methods. DCist is going to check out the show this......

>> The gallery at Flashpoint opens a new show tonight with works by Christopher Saah. Nightscenes includes 25 photographs that turn back alleys and gritty streets into noir-influenced nostalgia. Check them out during the opening reception tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. >> The Nevin Kelly Gallery also has an opening tonight, celebrating their first photography show in the four years its been open. Yanina Manolova and Mark Parascandola's images will contrast formal studio work......

>>Seriously, Just Don't Hit Send Next Time: If you missed the gallery-style cage match and possible legal battle between artist Doug Sanford and his ex-girlfriend caused by the Fraser Gallery's last exhibit, stop by the space anyway and see what drama their new exhibit will cause. Though the 6th Annual International Photography Competition probably won't spur the hatred of a woman scorned, it'll at least feature some ridiculously talented artists. The opening reception is tomorrow......

>> Transformer opens a show this weekend showcasing the work of two extremely talented photographers. Lely Constantinople and Antonia Tricarico utilize a slew of cameras as they approach people on the streets, taking portraits and learning the person behind the picture. They look for the commonalities in strangers who may pass each other everyday, never seeing it themselves. Unsurprisingly, these documentary artists each have pieces hanging in the National Museum of American History. Stop......

What's that you say? You have nothing to do Saturday? Fear not, art lovers, we've found so many events for you this Saturday that you'll have to practice your wind sprints in order to make it to every one. >> Fourteenth Street NW is a good home base for your gallery hopping on Saturday, as three galleries will be hosting parties. The Randall Scott Gallery is celebrating its grand opening with a reception for No......

With so many large cities boasting their own international fine art shows and biennials, isn't it high time that the nation's capital got a piece of that action? Finally, it looks like we have a major fine art show of our very own. You might have already heard the buzz about artDC, but now it's time to start marking your calendars. The fair's organizers have announced that the show will be held next April 27-30......

While passers-by gawk and whip out cell phones to snap impromptu photos, Director Annie Gawlak and her cohorts sit across the street in G Fine Art and watch through their window in amusement. Giant disembodied heads sit in the open commercial space like the contents of so many baskets of French royalty after the Revolution. It's not a funeral home for the oversized though...or, perhaps it is, in a way. It's Ledelle Moe's exhibit, sponsored......

Written by DCist contributor Genevieve Smith. With perhaps the exception of art involving excrement or the denigration of religious icons, there are very few types of contemporary art more likely to raise the ire (or at least the eyebrow) of nonbelievers than those using found art objects. Walking into a gallery filled with readymades, one can almost hear a grumbling murmur of "my six year-old could have made that." But while a sculpture constructed out......

Artist Steven Cushner has filled three full rooms at Hemphill Fine Arts with his geometric abstract paintings that explore conflict and difficult choices. Working in acrylics and watercolors, he arranges both familiar and unusual shapes in precarious or straining positions, always questioning whether the pieces really fit. Whether you’re a fan of abstract art, or if you looked at the image of the painting on your right and thought, “I have no clue what that's......

FRIDAY: >> Get in your first Friday Art Night while you still can, people. D.C. galleries in the summer can be like ghost towns. Openings of note include Avish Khebrehzadeh at Conner Contemporary (6 to 8 p.m., her work Theater is pictured) and Steven Cushner and John Watson at Hemphill Fine Arts (6:30 to 8:30 p.m.). Also note openings for Jeff Spaulding and Ledelle Moe at G Fine Art are on Saturday from 6:30 to......

>> Despite what we hear is a serious rash of over-dressed staffers at the Corcoran Gallery of Art running off to "dentist appointments" with updated résumés in hand after several high profile dismissals were announced earlier this month, there appear to be several good reasons to head down to the beleaguered museum. The first major retrospective of the work of Robert Bechtle, the San Francisco-based painter known for his photorealistic streetscapes, is up through June......

>> New York artist Faith Ringgold's latest series, Jazz Stories 2004: Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow, will be at the University of Maryland's The Art Gallery starting Wed. through Dec. 10. If you were inspired by last weekend's Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, try to make it there by 5 p.m. tomorrow for the artist talk, then stick around for the opening reception from 7 to 9 p.m. >> Hemphill Fine Arts is hosting a......

The city was in bloom this weekend. Near this DCist's apartment, we spied a number of tourists blocking the Connecticut Avenue sidewalk near Woodley Road to snap photos of the giant bed of tulips on the embankment of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. From cherry blossoms the previous weekend to now tulips ... what's next weekend's flower of choice? Over on Euclid Street, were this photo from DCist Photos was snapped, even the weeds and......

(Review from DCist contributor J.T. Kirkland of Thinking About Art) For as long as there have been magic tricks, magicians have worked very hard to keep the secrets of their trade, well, secret. Part of the allure of magic is that the viewer always asks, “How’d he do that?” We never question a magic trick before it takes place. That just doesn’t make sense. As soon as we’ve been fooled, however, we naturally want to......