You still have time to see the summer blockbuster HIVE at the National Building Museum, Ai Weiwei at the Hirshhorn, and exhibits on Marlene Dietrich and Sylvia Plath at the Portrait Gallery. But even during one of the slowest months of the year, there’s a lot of new things going on in the area’s galleries.
Bill Rock, BatPig (Built-in Cowl Shades), 2017 (Civilian)
BILL ROCK: BATPIG @ CIVILIAN
As the summer blockbuster movie season winds down, you can catch a more unusual superhero at Civilian for a week-long show. Bill Rock, who has taught courses at Georgetown University and the Smithsonian, creates mixed media collages on canvas, depicting whimsical characters including a beast that “reinvent[s] himself in order to serve a purpose more important to himself…This is a fairly sizable challenge for a pig. But this isn’t just any pig, this is BatPig.”
Wednesday, August 2—Saturday, August 5 at Civilian Art Projects, 4718 14th Street NW. Opening reception Wednesday, August 2, 2017 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m; artist talk on Saturday, August 5 at 3:00 p.m.
(Mirtho Linguet/Vivid Solutions)
MIRTHO LINGUET: BLACK DOLLS @ VIVID SOLUTIONS
French Guiana-born Mirtho Linguet worked as a fashion photographer before breaking into a vivid style that blends documentary techniques with a highly personal vision. For this series, Linguet presents, “scenarios of magical realism to visualize the lived experiences of those in his home, French Guiana. Black Dolls is inspired by a 1973 verse by poet Léon-Gontran Damas: “Give me back my black dolls/ so they dispel/ the eternal image/ the / hallucinatory image/ of stacked large assed puppets/ whose miserable mercy/ the wind carries to the nose.”
August 18—October 7 at Vivid Solutions Gallery, Anacostia Arts Center, 1231 Good Hope Road SE. An opening reception will be held on August 19 5-8 p.m. Gallery hours are Tuesday—Saturday 10 a.m.—7 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.—3 p.m. and by appointment.
(Melanie Gritzka del Villar/Hillyer Art Space)
MELANIE GRITZKA-DEL VILLAR: RE-TRACING ROOTS/ROUTES @ HILLYER
After exploring trade routes between Spain, Mexico, and her home country of the Philippines, Melanie Gritzka del Villar was inspired to use found objects, photographs, stories, and maps to delve into the history of a Spanish Galleon trade, which transported silver, silk, porcelain, and spices for centuries Her new work, “[allows] her to reimagine her own identity which surges between Europe, Mexico and the Philippines.”
August 4-27 at Hillyer Art Space, 9 Hillyer Court NW (behind the Phillips Collection). Opening reception on Friday, August 4 from 6-9 p.m.
Markus Lüpertz, Holzschindeln—dithyrambisch (Wood Shingles—Dithyrambic) (1966)© 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
AZAM AHMED: OPEN CONVERSATION @ PHILLIPS
Do artists have a social responsibility? Early in his career, German painter Markus Lüpertz did not engage with his nation’s history, but in 1968 he made the massive, 40-foot tall painting Westwall inspired by a line of forts and tank that German forces built in Northern France during World War I. In conjunction with exhibits of Lüpertz’ work, which we reviewed here, the Phillips hosts Azam Ahmed, the New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central American and the Caribbean, who will lead a discussion of about constructing and destroying walls.
August 17, 2017, 6:30 p.m. at The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st Street NW. $12 (included in museum admission price.)
Polly Morgan, Receiver, 2009; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Ilene Gutman
GALLERY TALK: REVIVAL @ NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS
In addition to a tour of Fierce Women (August 6) The National Museum of Women in the Arts invites you to “snuggle up to otherworldly sculptures” with a lunchtime tour of the group show Revival, which features work by Louise Bourgeois, Polly Morgan, and other women sculptors and photographers “whose arresting aesthetics and intense subject matter spur the viewer into a transcendent encounter with the art object.”
August 16, 2017 at 12 noon at The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave NW. Meet by the 2nd-floor elevators. Free.
(Garin Baker)
GARIN BAKER: 28 BLOCKS @ PENN CENTER BUILDING
Muralist Garin Baker will work with local professionals, area resident,s and high school students on a 65-foot high by 165-foot long work that depicts the creation of the Lincoln Memorial statue, which was shaped by Georgia marble and carved by a family of Italian immigrant sculptors from the South Bronx. Baker hopes that the mural, which will be visible from New York Avenue, will be a “welcome sign” for commuters as they approach the nation’s capital.
August 7—August 17 from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. at 326 R St. NE.
Jean-Paul Riopelle, Large Triptych 1964 (Hirshhorn)
CONSERVATORS AT WORK @ HIRSHHORN
A contemporary of such artists as such as Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, and André Breton, Canadian artist Jean-Paul Riopelle created this impressive 1964 triptych, but the work is in need of some TLC. For a week in August, the Hirshhorn invites visitors behind the scenes to see staff clean and conserve the work, preparing it for travel by stabilizing the paintings, a delicate process in which Riopelle’s thick, heavy swaths of paint are carefully secured to the canvas.
August 7-11 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Hirshhorn’s third floor galleries. Free.
