LOCAL LIFE

Visual Arts
Upcoming art exhibits focus on photography

JOEY DiGUGLIELMO
Friday, August 22, 2008

Museums and galleries, which generally showcase traveling exhibitions for a few months, frequently change the type of art they exhibit — paintings replace photography and retrospectives by well-known artists are often followed by more innovative shows. 

With a summer art scene that focused on painting (“Diebenkorn in New Mexico” at the Phillips Collection) and cinema (“The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image” at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden), the fall is all about photography, with a range of subjects and artists coming to local walls. Also on tap — A trip to Pompeii, Native American “kings” and Chinese landscape painting.

The Corcoran Gallery of Art opens “Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power,” a special exhibition designed to coincide with the presidential election, on Sept. 13. Avedon, a noted American portrait and fashion photographer, snapped pictures of numerous political leaders and other powerful figures during a more than five decade career.

Organized by Paul Roth, curator of photography and media arts, the more than 200 works on display are arranged chronologically and present a narrative about power and politics in the U.S. From George Wallace to Bob Dylan, Avedon’s photos are concerned with history, celebrity and culture. Runs through Jan. 25 at the Corcoran, 500 17th St., N.W. For more information, visit www.corcoran.org.

Another compelling photography show with a different angle is “Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photo-graphy,” opening at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on Oct. 17. The exhibition, which features photography from two generations of artists whose work has impacted our understanding of gender and identity, includes 70 works by 18 artists. It begins with photographs by artists Eleanor Antin and Cindy Sherman, who appeared in their own work in the 1980s, and bisexual Nan Goldin and Sally Mann, who critiqued the roles that women inhabit in their search for one that fits. Artists Anna Gaskell, lesbian Catherine Opie and Nikki S. Lee documented post-feminist life in the late 1990s. Runs through Jan. 25 at the museum, 1250 New York Ave., N.W. For more information, visit www.nmwa.org.

Richard Avedon’s ‘Bob Dylan, musician, Central Park, New York, February 10, 1965’ is on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art beginning in September. (Photo courtesy the Richard Avedon Foundation)

Women in photography also appear at the National Portrait Gallery, for the show “Women in our Time: Twentieth Century Photographs,” which opens Oct. 10. Drawn from the gallery’s collection, the show will feature notable women from the fields of politics, arts, sports, music, science and more. Subjects include Billie Holiday, Althea Gibson, Amelia Earhart, lesbian Gertrude Stein, while photographers are just as well known — Edward Steichen, Philippe Halsman and Lotte Jacobi, among others, snapped the works on display. Runs through Feb. 1 at the gallery, 8th and F Sts., NW. For more info, visit www.npg.si.edu.

Work by Ansel Adams appears at both the National Gallery of Art, in “Oceans, Rivers and Skies: Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, and Alfred Stieglitz,” which opens on Oct. 12, and at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where “Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities” opens Sept. 26. “Natural Affinities” includes approximately 40 paintings and 50 photographs, and examines how O’Keeffe and Adams captured the natural beauty of landscapes by drawing attention to color. The American Art Museum is located at 8th and F Sts., N.W. For more information, visit www.americanart.si.edu.

The most ambitious fall schedule belongs to the National Gallery of Art, which is running three shows in addition to “Oceans, Rivers and Skies.”

“Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples,” which opens Oct. 19, features sculpture, paintings and mosaics from first century BC Naples. The area drew emperors and other important Romans, while also attracting a crowd of artists and writers, who recorded the leisurely activities that occurred there. Also on tap at the National Gallery: “George de Forest Brush: The Indian Paintings,” opens Sept. 14 and “Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered” opens on Oct. 26. The Gallery is located on Constitution Ave. between 3rd and 7th Sts., NW. For more information, visit www.nga.gov.

Also of note:

Anna Gaskell’s ‘untitled #6 (wonder)’ is on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts as part of ‘Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography,’ opening in October. (Photo courtesy the museum)

“Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Over The River, a Work in Progress” includes more than 150 photographs, collages, drawings and maps that document the artists’ work suspending fabric panels over the Arkansas River in Colorado. Opens Oct. 23 at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. For more information, visit www.phillipscollection.org.

The Freer Gallery of Art opens “Guests of the Hills: Travelers in Chinese Landscape Painting” Saturday, with 700 years of Chinese landscape art, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery opens “Garden and Cosmos: the Royal Paintings of Jodhpur,” a collection of 61 paintings and a royal tent, on Oct. 11. The Galleries are located at Jefferson Drive and 12th St., S.W. For more information: www.asia.si.edu.

“The Panza Collection and Ways of Seeing: Giuseppe and Giovanna Panza” opens Oct. 23 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Independence Ave. and 7th St., S.W.

national | local | world | arts | classifieds | real estate | about us

© 2009 | A Window Media LLC Publication | Privacy Policy