Image of Brooklyn Squad 1 fire truck door, courtesy National Museum of American History.>> To mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the American History Museum has created a special experience for visitors to view 50 objects from the three sites — New York City, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — in September 11: Remembrance and Reflection. Artifacts on display include airplane fragments, a door from a crushed FDNY fire truck, a Pentagon map from the building’s second floor, and objects recovered from offices. They are presented with little interpretation in open cases along with the museum’s recent acquisitions related to how American lives have changed since September 2001. Opening today.
>> Also opening today, the Newseum will expand it’s G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories of the First Century exhibit to include War on Terror: The FBI’s New Focus. This expanded section will review the FBI’s changed mission after 9/11. Sixty new artifacts, including engine parts and landing gear from the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center, will be added to the gallery to illustrate the FBI’s efforts to fight terrorism. The museum will also wave admission on September 10 and 11.
>> Do you like art? Do you like science? How about art inspired by science? At the Natural History Museum, see artwork by Shih Chieh Huang that explores bioluminescence. The Bright Beneath: The Luminous Art of Shih Chieh Huang showcases Huang’s fascination with deep-ocean animals during his time as an Artist Research Fellow. See his haunting installations suspended in the Sant Ocean Hall Focus Gallery. Opening September 3.
>> Pop artist Andy Warhol had a lifelong obsession with tabloids and news media. In Warhol: Headlines, opening at the National Gallery of Art on September 25, see a collection of Warhol’s work based on these headlines. Similar to his body of work, this theme, found in paintings, photographs, drawings and video, is big, bold and sensational.
>> The Hirshhorn will also present work by Warhol starting September 25. In Andy Warhol: Shadows, see the pop artist’s lesser-known group of work centered on the shadows of his studio. The exhibit consists of 102 silkscreened and hand-painted canvases installed edge-to-edge, extending for almost 450 linear feet around the museum’s curved galleries.
>> The Phillips Collection welcomes back Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party to its original location in the first gallery Duncan Phillips opened to the public. In 90 Years of New: Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party and European Masterworks other early acquisitions by Bonnard, Cézanne, Monet and van Gogh are also on display. Opening today.
>> At the Sackler Gallery, Power/Play: China’s Empress Dowager presents 35 glass-plate negatives, two original prints and film clips of the Empress. She allowed a young photographer named Xunling to take staged shots of her and her court. The 35 glass-plate negatives are the only portraits of the Empress, held outside of the Palace Museum in Beijing. Opening September 24.
>> Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley opens at the African Art Museum on September 14. This exhibit presents a comprehensive view of the arts produced in the region and includes some of the most abstract, dramatic and inventive sculpture from sub-Saharan Africa.
>> Spend an evening with twice-loved clothing at the Textile Museum during PM @ The TM: Twice is Nice. Don your best vintage dress, or trade it for something new to you. Enjoy music, yogurt, baked goods and cocktails, and view the museum’s current exhibits: Second Lives: the Age-Old Art of Recycling Textiles and Green: the Color and the Cause. September 8. Tickets: $10.
>> The Kreeger Museum unveils two new sculptures installed on its ground. The works, created by Martha Jackson-Jarvis and Dalya Luttwak, was selected in collaboration with the Washington Sculptors Group. The sculptures will be on view starting September 15.
