While visual art events may be few and far between this week, the Dance DC Festival asks you to bring it.

October is National Arts and Humanities Month: what better way to celebrate than by visiting one of the many museum exhibits and displays opening this month. Read on to fill your calendar.

Josef Albers’s “Homage to the Square: Glow,” 1966, from the Hirshhorn’s collection >> This Saturday, the National Museum of American History celebrates Black History Month with a Family Day Celebration. Activities include book signings, sit-ins, a musical program and a genealogy project. 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. >> On Feb. 11, the Hirshhorn presents Josef Albers: Innovation and Inspiration. Expect Albers’ signature geometric patterns and optical illusions pulled from the museum’s collection along with…

“9 Lives of Catriona Fraser”, Mixed Media on Paper, Courtesy Fraser Gallery >> Part art exhibit, part scavenger hunt, Flashpoint Gallery opens Andrew Wodzianski: House. On Thursday, see Wodzianski’s paintings of imagery from the 1959 horror film House on Haunted Hill and enter a scavenger hunt for a chance to win a painting from the gallery. 6 to 8 p.m. >> For even more Wodzianski, try Fraser Gallery during the Bethesda Art Work, for…

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) , Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd White (Mrs. Henry White), 1883, oil on canvas, Gift of John Campbell White, 49.4 >> The Hirshhorn brings us two interesting and sure to be popular events this July. For the beginning of the month, learn what a curator and a critic thought of the Venice Biennale at In Conversation: Kristen Hileman and Blake Gopnik on Art in the Present. July 9, 7 p.m. At the…

Image by Walter Meayers Edwards. Courtesy Kodachrome Culture from the National Geographic Museum >> The Phillips Collection opens Paint Made Flesh June 20. This survey of figurative painting since the 1950s brings together 43 provocative works from private collections and museums around the world. The exhibit includes work by Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning, Alice Neal, Lucian Freud, Eric Fischl, and Julian Schnabel. $12. >> During the post-World War II boom years,…

Photograph of Galen Clark in front of “Grizzly Giant,” a massive sequoia tree, Mariposa Grove, CA, from the “BIG!” exhibit. The area’s museums take March by the tail and offer up some celebrations, comics, costumes and cheese. Yup, cheese. >> The National Archives turns 75 this month, and celebrates by opening their exhibition, BIG!. Marvel at the 13-foot scroll of the Articles of Confederation (never before displayed unrolled) and a 13-by-13-foot map of the…

One hundred and fifty artists present their vision for worker’s rights, the green economy, the reform of health care, and celebrate the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama in Manifest Hope. The exhibit contains brilliant artwork laden with hope and high expectations in a strong showing of eclectic work based on the three themes. There is almost an overwhelming number of Obama images in the show. One would think that with our desensitization to buzzwords “change”…

Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey by Robert Frank. Copyright © 2009 National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Whether past or soon to be present, the area’s museums have your Presidential fix covered. So take a gander and soak in the history. >> The National Gallery of Art opens two exhibits on American photography on January 18. Looking In: Robert Frank’s “The Americans” presents all 83 photographs from Frank’s photography book which is heralded as…

Keli by Katy Grannan, on view at National Portrait Gallery. Collection of the artist, courtesy Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York City; Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Salon 94, New York City © Katy Grannan Washington’s museums are atwitter with the season, offering many holiday themed events great for visiting family and friends in among other non-holiday themed exhibits. >> We missed this opening in November, so stay tuned for our review of Portraiture Now:…