Smithsonian Museum of American Art

Saturday Afternoon, weather warming, trip to the museum. I had originally set off to go to the National Museum of Art so I took I grabbed an Oasis shake from Wisey's and jumped on the Circulator over to 9th St. After walking down 9th though I was passing the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery so decided on a whim to go there instead. Not really sure why as the idea of a Portrait Gallery had never really intrigued me. My tastes in Art typically run from late 19th early 20th century onwards with peaks and valley's along the way. I especially like Surrealism, Cubism, Futurism, Folk Art, Popart, and various printmaking. I actually thought the two museums were just adjacent to each other but infact they share the same building with each floor being roughly split between the two but not directly overlapping forcing the viewer to really experience both. And overall, I am quite happy I did.

I started out a bit disoriented, roaming through the Portrait Gallery American Origins exhibit which was... eh. I wandered out into the interior courtyard to get out and found myself in an amazing enclosed space, full of life. Bistro, musicians, and a Girl Scout fundraiser. I went back in to see the American Experience exhibit which had some cool Lee Friedlanders photos from his series The American Monument. This was a series of over 1000 photos of scultures and monuments in public spaces around the country which were often humorous or sad as he contrasted the monument itself, a memory of something significant, with it's modern surroundings where the monument often seems lost, fogotten, or just out of place.

I continued into the folk art space where there was a pretty wide variety of pieces ranging from the quirky and weird to cool. A couple pieces jumped out for one reason or another but I was not really overwhelmed. I headed upstairs to see the Struggle for Justice, a set of portraits of key figures in the Civil Rights movement. The one that captivated me was the last before I moved on which was a photo MLK.

I was about to skim through the Outwin Boochevar Portrait Competition 2009, but found myself absolutely riveted by the exhibit:

The competition invites artists working in the figurative arts to submit
portraits of people close to them. Submissions were accepted in all visual arts
media, including film, video and digital animation. This exhibition will be
composed of the 49 finalists’ works

I found these pieces powerful in a way that the portraits of famous personalities whose names and accomplishments I am familiar with (or should be familiar with) did not. Some of the techniques were very innovative, including one where the artist took over a thousand pictures of the subject, ripped them all into pieces and then reestablished them into a somewhat surreal (some collage pieces reversing the direction of floor panels or window panes) rendering of the original image.

Next was From FDR to Obama: Presidents on Time which was short but cool, name pretty much speaks for itself but I think seeing these images is interesting in retrospective. We see a snapshot of the prevailing wisdom of a moment, which is often out of step with hindsight. After that I headed towards the Modern art exhibits but was again underwhelmed. I think after spending hours in recent months wandering the expansive collections in Paris and London, the handful of rooms here were not enough to pull me in. Wow that sounds snooty, but facts are facts.

I headed up to the third floor and was taken by the architectural transistion. As you go up in the building from the traditional to the contemporary, the space that the art is held in changes dramatically. The first two levels are in a monumental museum style with plenty of marble and over the top finishes. Nothing garish, but their is crown molding and columns everywhere you look. Entering the third floor, I noticed much cleaner lines, simpler molding, more muted colors. And then heading into the Contemporary art space, the ceiling recedes into a beautiful airy space that feels more like being in a outdoor open space than a museum. I really enjoyed how this all played together with the art itself. As to that, I enjoyed some pieces, nothing really memorable other than a floor to ceiling neon map of the US with television in each state playing some mass media content representing that state (Oklahoma! in Oklahoma, Potato packaging in Idaho).

I quickly headed through the 20th Century Americans exhibit, again underwhelmed, perhaps because I was ready to go. Made a final stop in the Luce foundation wing which was an illustrative exhibit about art storage and preservation I found cool as it reminded me of a Sesame Street piece on manufacturing of something.

This was about three hours in and I was beat so headed home. Fun day all around.