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......

While the name might promise simple sweetness and pleasantries, the exhibit You Catch More Flies with Honey…, now on display at Carroll Square Gallery, is not simple or superficial. Curated by Hemphill Fine Arts, the exhibit features five artists in the first annual OPTIMA exhibition, which showcases artists whose works have natural connections and form dynamic relationships when viewed together. Bright color infuses the gallery as each artist uses a cheerful color palette to hide......

Hemphill Fine Arts opened two shows this past weekend, showcasing James Huckenpahler's digital prints in Mindless Pleasures and David Byrne's furniture design in Furnishing the Self – Upholstering the Soul (Chairs). And while both shows are housed in the same gallery space, they displayed art at opposite ends of the spectrum in both medium and in feel. The first of the two shows at Hemphill is Huckenpahler’s computer art presented in Mindless Pleasures. His work......

>> 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......

Renee Stout, a very cool D.C. resident and assemblage artist, has a new collection of works on view at Hemphill Fine Arts -- Journal: Book One. Walking into this cabinet of curiosity, you are greeted by a large, accurately painted advertisement for the corner psychic. By putting on the airs of alter ego Fatima Mayfield, Stout is able to role play as a fictitious herbalist/fortuneteller who enters the arena of the shadowy and strange.......

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......

Mingering Mike: The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar is something that you just have to see to believe. The story of Mingering Mike, now on display at Hemphill Fine Arts, is an unforgettable one, crammed with baffling outsider art, obsessive imagination, and music-induced parallelism. The District, during the 60s and 70s, serves as its backdrop. It follows a Washington, D.C. man and his drawn-out fantasy of being a famous musician. Mike’s story was......

FRIDAY: >> We told you all about the Buzzlife White Party at Five yesterday, so follow the link for more details. >> ArtOutlet presents its first ever Flash animation film festival, called Flick, at Warehouse. Tim Bracken opens the event with an alt-country set at 7 p.m., with screenings from selected artists beginning at 8. $5 suggested donation, also Saturday. SATURDAY: >> Like we mentioned in this week's music agenda, the artwork of Mingering Mike,......

Back in the Swinging Sixties, Washington was home to a collection of artists who were dubbed forerunners of abstract, color field painting. As an integral part of this season’s ColorField.remix, a visitation of the legacy left behind by the Washington Color School painters, Hemphill Fine Arts presents a three-artist exhibition: Jason Gubbiotti’s Wrong Way to Paradise; Leon Berkowitz’s The Cathedral Series; and Portia Munson’s Pink Project: Contained. Although Jason Gubbiotti currently lives and works in......

>> Welcome to March and another First Friday in Dupont Circle from 6 to 8 p.m. Find the gallery locations here. >> We've all got our old movie favorites. If you pop in Gone with the Wind everytime you're home sick, or channel surf for old episodes of I Dream of Jeanie on a Sunday afternoon, you're just the person Mark Bennett is drawing for. His India ink draftings of the fictional homes used in......

>> Celebrate the grand opening of the Honfleur Gallery this Saturday at 7 p.m. This very welcome addition to the city's art scene is located near the Anacostia metro and appropriately begins its life with East of the River, a mixed media exhibition that includes both professionals and first-timers who celebrate their history with the area. Especially notable is the work by John Muller from DreamCity, an organization that does some serious community building in......

Colby Caldwell, a local fave for the past decade or so, moves back into the realm of photography with his current show, small game, at Hemphill Fine Arts. After spending years working with Super 8 film, Caldwell has fully embraced photographic technique, moreso than the videos and photos themselves, as his art. Entering the gallery, the viewer is greeted by his best work in the show, the gestus pictures series. These large photographs feature individuals......

FRIDAY: >> Baltimore's Fertile Ground return to 9:30 Club for a concert with collaborator Raheem DeVaughn called Let's Do It Again. Also singer Anthony David. 9 p.m., $22. >> Gallery Openings of Note: Maria Friberg opens her show, titled embedded, at Conner Contemporary, reception 6 to 8 p.m. That's embedded #4 at left. Also we checked out a preview of Colby Caldwell's new show, Small Game, at Hemphill Fine Arts on Wednesday, and definitely recommend......

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......

The new gallery season celebrations continue tomorrow, with openings galore. If you can't make the parties at night, take a Saturday afternoon stroll and check out the shows that opened last week. Friday >> Lycra's not just for undergarments anymore — now it's art! Visit Project 4 and see how Alex Gutierrez turns ass-molding spandex into a site-specific installation that is "a sort of 'bodyscape' architecture ... that is both prison-like and protective." Who doesn't......

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......

It's going to be a beautiful weekend, folks. Don't spend it inside watching some lame soccer game (yeah, I said it). Get some sun, some exercise, and - better than that - get some art this Saturday. Go ahead, grab your roommate, your sweetie-pie, or hey, subvert the Hallmark Establishment by bonding with Dad on your own time, and set off on an art walk to our local galleries. A number of shows are closing......

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......

FRIDAY: >> Get in line early tonight at the Rorschach Theatre in Columbia Heights for a special Pay-What-You-Can performance of their revival of Tony Kushner's A Bright Room Called Day. Set in Berlin in the 1930's, Bright Room is one of Kushner's (Angels in America, Homebody/Kabul) earlier plays, but by no means his least accomplished. If younger District residents aren't able to connect easily with Zillah, who is consumed by a hatred for Ronald Reagan,......

Whether we like it or not, planned communities and multi-family condos are becoming the future of the American landscape. Vanishing are the rural houses and the vast stretches of farmland – the McMansion has arrived to replace such quaint lifestyles. Documenting this loss is photographer Anne Rowland, whose exhibit Private Property at Hemphill Fine Arts, is a rush of nostalgia for her childhood home and an era that seems to be coming to a close.......

Out With the New: Irvine Contemporary gallery is officially moving into the old Fusebox space on 14th St. NW as of May 1, but in the meantime they have their last show at the old Connecticut Ave. space, with new paintings by Susan Jamison and Robert Mellor opening Friday, opening with a reception on April 7 from 6 to 8 p.m. Mellor's Gracile is at right. Other Dupont Circle galleries will also be open since......

If you've ever suspected dollhouses of evils more sinister than mini Easybake cakes and faux brick wallpaper, Corrine May Botz will confirm your woe. Horror and beauty come in convincing 1/25th scale in her dark and crafty photographs at Hemphill Fine Art's backroom. Take a walk around the small space, taking in the noirish interiors, and you won't notice the even darker subject matter. Botz has photographed a series of models made by deceased......

The Agenda's a little late this week, and we're awfully sorry to leave you hangin'. We've been expanding our regular visual arts coverage (hope you noticed), but in so doing got behind on our long-standing duties. Luckily, there's a slew of events this weekend to point out, so hopefully you'll forgive our tardiness and not throw any drinks in our faces when we see you at openings over the next few days. White wine may......

FRIDAY: >> New York's Latin-funk collective Yerba Buena, the energetic offspring of Venezuelan-born producer Andrés Levin and his Cuban-born wife Ileana Padrón (aka Cucu Diamantes), is the only band touring the country today that could bring together a guest artist line-up for their latest album, Island Life, that includes M1 from Dead Prez, comedian and actor John Leguizamo, and gypsy punks Gogol Bordello. The combo may occasionally feel like its trying to be an Afro-Cuban......

>> This month marks Irvine Contemporary's second anniversary. Help celebrate by checking out their exhibit, "Christine Kesler: New Directions," opening Friday (reception 6-8 p.m.). Work on display includes multi-media collages by the MICA graduate. >> Conner Contemporary Art also opens a new exhibit Friday, featuring the work of Wayne Gonzales. A New Orleans-born but New York-based artist, Gonzales uses his paintings as a means of political commentary. For the works in this show, he focused......

>> 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......

In case you thought the past several days were just some wretched dream, yes, it really is September. Summer, for all intents and purposes, is deceased. School is back in session, the Amazonian humidity is behind us, and we can all look forward to a successful and productive fall. If that doesn't cheer you up, perhaps leaving the house this weekend will? Go on, give it a shot. FRIDAY >>In honor of the impending bicentennial......

(From DCist contributor Seth Thomas Pietras) DCist ventured down to Hemphill Fine Arts on 14th Street NW to see the opening of the William Christenberry exhibit and was satisfied not only by the artwork but by an increasingly lively neighborhood for a Thursday night at seven o’clock. Amid the new construction and old tattered buildings, a vibrant, active crowd was wandering about the restaurants, bars and stores. Never mind this inconsistent and torturous weather, the......