SAAM Stories

This one does because it's going outside!

Eyes: they've been called windows to the soul and are often one of the first things we notice when meeting someone new. They can betray our emotions and give us away when we're not being truthful or when we want to hide the truth.

The E-waste Project was inspired by discarded electronic equipment at an e-waste recycling center. Although this piece was assembled by hand, it was designed in a computer-aided drafting program and all the pieces were laser cut. The concept is to create a link between manufactured products and manufactured art. It poses the question, “Does the art lose value if it is made by a machine?”

This blog post is part of a monthly Eye Level feature on our exhibition The Civil War and American Art. Curator Eleanor Harvey talks about many of the important intersections between American art and the Civil War. The exhibition runs through April 28, 2013.

This is the tenth in a series of personal observations about how people experience and explore museums. Take a look at Howard's other blog posts on the subject.

Now that winter has descended on DC after a two year hiatus, it's time to come inside. Tomorrow evening's Handi-hour at our Renwick Gallery features 40 under 40 artist Stacey Lee Webber who joins our team of "craft-tenders"! We'll be making jewelry and other accessories using one of Webber's preferred mediums: pennies. She has pounded and punched hundreds of pennies for this event, and we can't wait to see what you create with them.

Nam June Paik was more than a guy who made sculptural work with televisions. He was a thoughtful, prescient artist who turned ideas about communication on its head in the middle of the twentieth century.

This Sunday, local actor Wyckham Avery will share excerpts from her latest solo project, Just Sing Me a Song, as part of the museum's ongoing series presented with CulturalDC. We recently asked Avery a few questions about the play, its inspiration, and the theater scene in D.C.

Debrah Dunner, curatorial assistant at our Renwick Gallery, interviewed Laurel Roth, a featured artist in the 40 Under 40: Craft Futures exhibition, now on view at the Renwick Gallery through February 3, 2013.

This blog post is part of a series of pieces about our film and media arts initiatives here at American Art. Michael Mansfield, associate curator of film and media art, fills us in on our exhibition Nam June Paik: Global Visionary, which runs through August 11, 2013.

It was love at first sight when I saw American Art's museum staff erect the quirky mix of armature, doilies, and glitter, which artist Nick Cave calls a soundsuit. I am now a Nick Cave junkie.

This is the ninth in a series of personal observations about how people experience and explore museums. Take a look at Howard's other blog posts on the subject.

Curator E. Carmen Ramos and curatorial assistant Florencia Bazzano-Nelson discuss Sophie Rivera's untitled photographic portraits that will be included in our upcoming exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, opening October 25, 2013.

The Civil War and American Art on exhibition at American Art through April 28, 2013, explores the transformative and emotional impact of the war on America through landscape and genre paintings.

Nam June Paik: Global Visionary opens next week on December 13, 2012. The exhibition features key artworks from Paik's career that demonstrate the complexity of his ideas as well as his groundbreaking approach to technology and video.

This blog post is part of a monthly Eye Level feature on our exhibition The Civil War and American Art. Curator Eleanor Harvey talks about many of the important intersections between American art and the Civil War. The exhibition runs through April 28, 2013.

Art handlers' shoes were not removed because a religious convention required it, but because they didn't want their sneakers to mar the fresh paint covering the floor of the exhibition niche. It was a fitting scene for the reinstallation of James Hampton's Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly.

The exhibition Nam June Paik: Global Visionary opens at American Art on December 13, 2012. This is a complicated installation with artworks that involve a mix of old and new technology, robots made from TVs, and even several hundred plants, and staff has been working hard behind-the-scenes to get everything ready.