The White House has been slowing its pace of collecting art for years — even though the collection it still doesn’t reflect the full diversity American artists and movements.

>> Clinton Portis’ performance in last week’s game against the Vikings got him the NFC Offensive Player of the Week award. [Washington Redskins Official Site] >> Pepto Bismal threw up inside the Carville-Matalin home. [DC Metrocentric] >> Hosiery Warehouse finally gets the Cease and Desist order handed down as developers prepare to make way for condos. [City Paper] >> The Hirshhorn Museum’s Chief Curator Kerry Brougher has been appointed acting Director until a permanent…

Living in the Nation’s Capital, with so many free events going on year-round, it might seem silly to spend a princely sum of money for the privilege of becoming a Member of a local arts organization. But there are a number of good reasons to think about becoming a member — maybe you’re interested in a particular subject that’s only shown at a pay-for museum, maybe you’re an artist looking to grab a foothold in…

Over at Modern Art Notes, blogger Tyler Green has the (hilariously named) MANscoop that the National Gallery of Art is in negotiations to expand across the street from its current location on Constitution Avenue into the Federal Trade Commission building. The deal isn’t sealed yet, but Green’s sources sound pretty confident that the museum will be moving over to the space in time for a 2012 opening. MAN has a decent history of the two…

>> Didn’t get a chance to attend one of the Eastern Market benefit happy hours last week? The E Street Austin Grill will donate 33 percent of its food sales after 5 p.m. tonight to the Capitol Hill Community Foundation’s “Eastern Market—Keep It Going” fund. 750 E Street, NW in The Lansburgh. >> !!! (chk, chk, chk) stop by the 9:30 Club in support of their new album Myth Takes. With Canada’s Holy Fuck. $18….

If you are lucky enough to have the President’s Day holiday off work and you manage to wake up before 5 p.m., it may be a good chance to go down to the National Mall and look at some art. The National Gallery of Art’s new exhibit, Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955-1965, takes a focused look at four themes in the artist’s work during an important decade in American art. Johns is one…

A few years ago, Jennifer Tobias, an associate librarian at the Museum of Modern Art, came to my college campus to speak about MoMA’s book collection. She said that the museum kept all the books that artists donated to the collection, and that artists often espoused quite expansive notions of what constitutes a book. One artist, she recalled, even sent in a chair, while another submitted a wooden duck and called it a book. The…

Story and photo by DCist contributor Alexa Steinberg. The creation and recreation of art museums is a tricky enterprise. The Museum of Modern Art’s recent $425 million dollar renovation has been subject to a lot of criticism and its expense has been questioned. The Guggenheim in Bilbao, considered an architectural masterpiece, has, for so large a structure, relatively little wallspace for art, and the art on display is often drowned out by the building’s architecture….

Dude, Where’s My Car? While car theft isn’t a laughing matter, we chuckled for a very brief moment when we heard that Police Chief Charles Ramsey’s car was stolen over the weekend. The AP, via WTOP, reports that the chief’s 1999 Ford Crown Victoria was stolen after being parked near his house by a police officer when Ramsey was out of town. On Ramsey’s way to church Sunday morning, the car was nowhere to be…

As Gothamist and Google reminded us, yesterday was Frank Lloyd Wright’s birthday. The master American architect certainly shaped the way our nation viewed building and our relation with space. It’s too bad that countless other builders hacked up his vision by creating cookie-cutter suburban split-levels and other such throw-away exurban homesteads. One thing this DCist misses about the Midwest is the close proximity to Wright’s architecture. In Washington, we aren’t as fortunate. Corinthian columns and…