With one of the artist’s signature pumpkins damaged in a selfie attempt, has Washington reached peak Kusama? While you’re trying to get your hands on timed passes for that blockbuster show, here are some other, less selfie-friendly options for local art consumers.
Betsy Law, “Grandma.”
Exposed DC 2017 @AJAX
The 11th annual edition of this show introduces a new venue for the winners of a photography competition that was originally hosted by DCist. The organizers of the show extended this year’s deadline to make allowances for images of post-Inaugral protests, and the show as usual offers a mix of political activism and slices of life far from the usual tourist haunts.
Opening reception is Thursday, March 9 at AJAX, 1011 4th ST. NW. $20. Buy tickets here.
From the 2007 Artomatic in Crystal City. Photo by Joe Flood.
The Return of Artomatic
After recent outposts in the far Maryland suburbs, the sprawling, uncurated group show returns closer to D.C. this month, as we reported last fall. Registration is now open for artists interested in displaying their wares, whether it be visual arts, poetry, or performance. Anyone can participate, though as a former participant myself, I can tell you it’s a lot of work. Artomatic exhibits open to the public on March 24, and will be accessible from the underground concourse of Crystal City, linked to the Art Underground, which already includes arts spaces for Synetic Theater, the FotoWalk Underground, ArtJamz Underground, and others.
March 24 through May 6 at Vornado/Charles E. Smith, 1800 S. Bell Street, Crystal City.
From bird, 1998/2008. Photo Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth ©2016 Roni Horn
Roni Horn @Glenstone
New York born artist Roni Horn has explored “the mutable nature of art and identity” over a four-decade career encompassing drawing, sculpture, photography, installations, and non-fiction books like Weather Reports You. Glenstone will exhibit more than 30 works by Horn, and has scheduled a series of public programs to accompany the exhibit. These include a readings, performances, outdoor film screenings selected by the artist, and most notably, guided tours of the exhibition by artists and thinkers influenced by Horn, including Tacita Dean and Ragnar Kjartansson, subject of a recent Hirshhorn retrospective.
March 9, 2017—January 28, 2018 at Glenstone, 12002 Glen Road
Potomac, MD. Free, but visits must be scheduled in advance. Check available admission times here.
Lionel M. Bernstein (Philip Dolin/410 GooDBuddY)
Lionel M. Bernstein @ 410 GooDBuddy
Bernstein is an American gastroenterologist and one-time Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He also uses a chainsaw to make sculptures in his backyard. Born in Chicago in 1923, he moved to Washington in 1967, where he had a long career at the Veterans Administration and the National Institute of Health. Meet the veteran artist-doctor at the opening of this exhibition of abstract wooden sculptures.
March 25-May 17 at 410 GooDBuddy, 410 Florida Ave. NW. Opening reception March 25 4-7 p.m.
George Condo, Detail from Untitled, 2003. Image courtesy Skarstedt Gallery and Sprüth Mager
George Condo: The Way I Think @ Phillips
Prolific New York painter George Condo was the subject of a 2011 exhibit at the New Museum. Who would have thought that The Phillips would be the local institution to bring this East Village art figure to D.C.? Condo channels a line of artists from Goya to Picasso to Guston to create vivid, disorienting portraits. The Phillips will exhibit a selection of 200 of Condo’s drawings, sketches and “drawing paintings” that span his long career.
March 11—June 25 at The Phillips Collection.
Henry Peter Bosse, Construction of Rock and Brush Dam, L.W., 1891 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon)
East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography @ NGA
This selection of 175 early photographs from daguerreotypes to cyanotypes (pictured above) makes up the first exhibition to present 19th century American photography made East of the Mississippi. Images depict the country’s national wonders, some of which had already been altered by industrialization and the Civil War.
March 12—July 16 at the National Gallery of Art, West Building.
Alma Thomas, Red Rose Cantata, 1973. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Vincent Melzac
Symposium: The African American Art World in 20th-Century Washington, DC @ NGA
The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art hosts a two-day symposium that focuses on Washington’s African-American artists. An artists’ panel on March 17 includes sculptor Lilian Thomas Burwell, color field painter Sam Gilliam, and sculptor Martin Puryear, among other area artists.
March 16—17 from 10 am. to 5 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Free
Tim Doud, Pink Poodle. Oil on linen, 2001-2002. Courtesy of Gallery Neptune.
Tim Doud: Prologue @ Gallery Neptune & Brown
An Associate Professor in the Department of Art at American University, Tim Doud is a distinctive portraitist influenced by Alice Neel and Lucian Freud, Doud spends months with a subject to develop a final product that is a collaboration between the sitter’s personality and Doud’s technique and observation.
March 4—April 1 at Gallery Neptune & Brown, 1530 14th St. NW.
Polly Apfelbaum, “Night Flowering” (detail), 2009; Woodblock print on handmade paper. Photo by Lee Stalsworth; © Polly Apfelbaum
Chromatic Scale: Prints by Polly Apfelbaum @ NMWA
Best known for brightly colored large-scale installations that go far beyond painting, the Pennsylvania-born artist uses a similar palette in her old-school return to two-dimensions: meticulously handmade woodcut prints. Apfelbaum has lived in New York since 1978 and has exhibited everywhere from San Francisco to Finland, and in Washington was featured in the 44th Corcoran Painting Biennial.
March 10—July 2 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
