Tim Hetherington, Afghanistan, Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, Sterling Jones practices his golf swing while at the main KOP [Korengal Outpost] firebase in the valley. Soldiers spend about two weeks at the Restrepo outpost before coming back to the main KOP base, where they can get a hot shower and call their family., April 2008. Chromogenic (Lightjet) digital print.

>> As 30 Americans comes to a close mid-month, the Corcoran Gallery of Art offers two new exhibitions, opening Saturday, that mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War by highlighting the ways war has been documented with changing technology. Tim Hetherington: Sleeping Soldiers is a group of photographs of American soldiers defending Restrepo taken by the late photographer while embedded for a year with the Second Platoon of Battle Company of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade in the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. A video piece blends footage of daytime conflict with still images of sleeping soldiers, in a multi-layered, three-screen video installation. Shadows of History: Photographs of the Civil War from the Collection of Julia J. Norrell brings together some of the earliest images of battle from the first war to ever be documented using the new medium of photography.

>> Now in its eighth year, gute aussichten: new german photography 2011/2012, an annual graduate photography competition in Germany, debuts at the Goethe-Institut on Thursday. This diverse collection of work by seven winners of the competition encompasses the breadth of ideas and approaches of today’s young artists. 6 to 8 p.m. Please RSVP.

>> The Phillips Collection and Arena Stage celebrate painter Mark Rothko at Thursday’s Phillips After 5 with acting classes and improv games as well as live interpretations of works within the collection, all in conjunction with Red. Attend Intimacy and Art: The Story of Duncan and Marjorie Phillips gallery talk to hear the museum’s history through a real-life love story. 5 to 8:30 p.m. with gallery talks at 6 and 7 p.m. $12 ($10 for students and visitors over 62). Then, beginning Saturday, see the influential impact of photography on post-impressionist artists with the launch of Kodak’s handheld camera in 1888. Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard takes a look at how this new technology affected the artists’ approach with regard to composition and perspective as a result of the narrowed focus through the viewfinder when capturing everyday events.

>> Touchstone Gallery hosts a trio of receptions Friday. Carol Lopatin’s natural plein air landscape paintings study the country’s differences Coast to Coast. In the Last Two Years, Dina Volkova approached her work with a free-spirit led by her own state of being, which tended gravitate towards roads, figurative works and associative abstractions in a variety of media and technique. LOVE AND OTHER CRAVING is packed with work by 50 artists interpreting Love in this all-member show. 6 to 8:30 p.m.

>> Del Ray Artisans opens the mixed-media juried show Love, Politics & Scrabble: The Games People Play on Friday with artwork by the games we all play throughout life whether they’re games of skill and chance or the more manipulative kind. 7 to 10 p.m.

>> Gallery 555dc hosts Champagne Saturday for the opening reception of Jacqui Crocetta’s controlled-chaotic abstracts in warmly muted Acrylic on Canvas. 12 to 5 p.m.

>> Over at the National Gallery of Art, catch a German-language ciné-concert with the screening of Nathan the Wise, a 1920s film adaptation of an Enlightenment-era play about religious tolerance, at 2:30 p.m. At 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, see A Place in Berlin, an experimental documentary on the establishment and decommission of a Communist monument that still occupies its pedestal. Free, but remember that seating in the Gallery’s East Building Auditorium is on a first-come, first-seated basis.

>> While artists Jim Sanborn, Athena Tacha, Maria Moser and Nancy Wolf all work within the same art form, their interpretations, methods, and materials are as unique as the work each of them create. See them all in Drawing: An Exhibition of Widely Different Approaches to This Concept, opening at Marsha Mateyka Gallery on Saturday.

>> Washington Printmakers Gallery recognizes printmakers in BFA and MFA programs throughout the greater Mid-Atlantic in the 2nd Annual Excellence in Printmaking Exhibition, curated by Joann Moser, Senior Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and includes both traditional and avant-garde works. The opening reception and awards announcement is Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

>> With their second DC exhibit, Contemporary Wing launches NEXT GENERATION: Selections by Artists from the 30 Americans Collection, The Corcoran Gallery of Art’s showcase of African American artists of the past three decades on view through February 14. NEXT GENERATION previews the future of contemporary American art as told by many of the artists in 30 Americans. See the work by those with potential to define the landscape to come, beginning Saturday.

>> Also on Saturday, see Patricia Cronin’s Bodies and Soul, featuring Memorial to a Marriage, the nearly life-size bronze sculpture of the artist and her life-mate, at Conner Contemporary. Also on view is Wir packen in unseren Koffer / Packing Our Suitcase, a *gogo projects installation by international artist group Die Vettern, in which Washington, D.C. and the Austrian cities of Vienna and Linz are remodeled based on population growth and movement. The reception is from 6 to 8 p.m.

>> Pyramid Atlantic hosts an artist Super Bowl pre-party at Fire Station One in Silver Spring on Sunday. From 12 to 5 p.m., screenprint a poster or a custom t-shirt with your team’s logo or make a book, print, or letterpress. $5. RSVP to Jose.

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