The work of Frohawk Two Feathers, pseudonym of Chicago-born and L.A.-based artist Umar Rashid, is steeped in folklore. For the better part of ten years the artist has visually explored narratives of colonialism through paintings and exhibitions that cumulatively function like chapters in an epic fantasy.

Wilmer Wilson’s a busy man. Today he’ll be channeling Henry Box Brown in a performance that’s part of the city-wide public art extravaganza called the Five by Five Project.

Let’s face it: D.C. is not a fashion mecca. While we (you and I, dear reader) may not be part of the unkempt masses which ride Metro in and out of the city daily, the occasional trip to H&M on F Street does not a fashion maven make. Fortunately for us, the folks at Worn Magazine will look past our ill-fitting pleated pants to find the fashion avant-garde in our midst and blog about them. Worn Magazine releases its third print issue today and will party with you tonight to celebrate. (You must purchase tickets in advance.) We caught up with Worn Magazine’s editor-in-chief Nicole Aguirre to talk about the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities, shopping local and good looking people.

Mia Feuer‘s sculptures don’t care for your personal space. They take inspiration from the inner workings of the urban landscape and bring fractured outdoor structures into the gallery, usually at such a large scale that you’ll have to duck. Her massive site-specific installation at Conner Contemporary Art, Stress Cone, on display through April 30, is no different.

There is a small caveat to keep in mind when considering the artwork in Select, the Washington Project for the Arts’ annual fundraising art auction, on display at 700 6th Street NW through March 11: the works are presented without an overarching curatorial theme and without artist statements. Essentially, if you want contextual information about the work or artists in Select, you may want to start by going through our archive.

There is a small caveat to keep in mind when considering the artwork in Select, the Washington Project for the Arts’ annual fundraising art auction, on display at 700 6th Street NW through March 11: the works are presented without an overarching curatorial theme and without artist statements. Essentially, if you want contextual information about the work or artists in Select, you may want to start by going through our archive.

Brandon Morse’s third solo show at Conner Contemporary Art, High Pressure System, on display through March 5, finds the artist considering natural processes within the exceedingly quantitative framework of generative art. The three works presented by Morse are computer visualizations of dynamic, physically-based systems driven by scientific algorithms, coded and implemented using the C++ programming language. This, of course, is only the technological jargon — but technique is half the charm of High Pressure System. The other half is Morse’s ability to efface most of its outward traces.

Travis Childers’ work in (UN)NATURAL, one of three concurrent shows at the Greater Reston Arts Center (GRACE) on display through February 18, alters and repurposes domestic objects into new contexts that touch on themes of habitat. Childers’ narratives center on nature and the banality of office life – two oddly disparate subjects that become subtly intertwined in his work.

Last night, the Washington Jewish Community Center (DCJCC) hosted a packed house of over two hundred people for the highly-anticipated panel discussion “hide/SPEAK: An Evening with David C. Ward of the National Portrait Gallery.” The panel also included Transformer director Victoria Reis, ARTINFO blogger Tyler Green and DCJCC Bronfman Gallery director Dafna Steinberg.

But everyone was there to hear Ward, the National Portrait Gallery historian and co-curator of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, explain his stance on the Smithsonian’s controversial decision to pull the Wojnarowicz video and their subsequent rejection of AA Bronson’s request, made in protest, that his work be pulled from the show and returned to the National Gallery of Canada.

In design, form has tended to follow function, even if only symbolically. With the advent of digital technologies, designers have moved toward a minimalist “black box” aesthetic (think iPhones, or external hard drives), where the plain exterior references internal complexities seemingly beyond our comprehension, rather than the functional principles of the object itself. Perhaps in response, a new American design aesthetic is emerging, one that is compared in significance to America’s mid-century design heyday, and which emphasizes function and symbolic functionalism while paying homage to handcrafting and America’s industrial past. D.C.-based designer Jonah Takagi works within this context, and we caught up with him to talk about living and working in D.C., as well as his first solo gallery show, New American Design, currently on display at Civilian Art Projects (in partnership with Apartment Zero).