The Smithsonian Castle and the Hirshorn Museum, Washington, DC

The Smithsonian "Castle" was the first Smithsonian Museum. It doesn't house many exhibits today, but the building and gardens are beautiful.

It was raining, so we didn't get a chance to see the gardens.

My son Colin and daughter-in-law Lindsey - wonderful and long-suffering tour guides.

Inside, it reminds me of the museums of my childhood.

You can see it from the Hirshorn Sculpture Gardens

One of the art museums I visited on my recent trip to Washington, DC, the Hirshhorn Museum (one of the Smithsonian's twenty museums) made a big impression on me. I was excited to see works by many of the cutting-edge contemporary artists I had learned about in school, but had never had the opportunity to see in person.

Part of an exhibit of photographs by Carolee Schneeman

Jean-Paul Riopelle

Large Triptych, 1964

detail

Swiss artist Nicolas Party's Sunrise, Sunset stretches 350 degrees and nearly 400 feet around the museum's third-floor round gallery. Visitors who walk around the ring enter new enveronments in each section, from a mountaintop in cool blues and purples to a waterfall splashing next to peaks in pinks and reds.

http://insider.si.edu/2017/06/vibrant-nicolas-party-landscapes-embellish-hirshhorns-third-floor-circle-gallery/

Michelangelo Pistoletti, Venus of the Rags

Untitled (Big Man), Ron Mueck

Lick and Lather, 1993, 14 self-portrait busts: 7 chocolate and 7 soap, is currently on 

view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. (Photograph by John Bessler, courtesy of the artist)

Calder fish

MyMommy is Beautiful is a very moving audience participation piece by Yoko Ono.

Barbara Kruger's installation Belief+Doubt surrounds you with words...

 "At a moment when ideological certitude and purity seem especially valued, Kruger says she’s “interested in introducing doubt.” Large areas of the installation are devoted to open-ended questions (“WHO IS BEYOND THE LAW? WHO IS FREE TO CHOOSE? WHO SPEAKS? WHO IS SILENT?”), while the section occupying the bookstore explores themes of desire and consumption. At once addressing the individual, the museum, and, symbolically, the country, Kruger’s penetrating examination of the public sphere transforms one of the Hirshhorn’s key public spaces."
 https://hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/barbara-kruger/#detail=/bio/barbara-kruger-beliefdoubt/





The main attraction at the time was a huge installation by Chinese artist and dissonant  Ai Weiwei, who is now out of prison and living in the U.S.

The Plain Version of the Animal That Looks Like a Llama but Is Really an Alpaca - 360 degree wallpaper installation at the Hirshorn Museum by Ai Weiwei. "At first glance, the repeating graphic pattern looks merely decorative, but a closer inspection reveals surveillance cameras, handcuffs, and Twitter bird logos, which allude to Ai Weiwei’s tweets challenging authority." 

  


Excerpts from Ai Weiwei: Trace at Hirshorn
https://hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/ai-weiwei-trace-hirshhorn/#detail=https%3A//hirshhorn.si.edu/bio/ai-weiwei-trace/

"A collaborative artist project, Ai Weiwei: Trace at Hirshhorn features the East Coast debut of the monumental installation Trace, which portrays individuals from around the world whom the artist and various human rights groups consider to be activists, prisoners of conscience, and advocates of free speech. Each of these 176 portraits comprises thousands of plastic LEGO® bricks, assembled by hand and laid out on the floor. The work foregrounds Ai Weiwei’s own experiences of incarceration, interrogation, and surveillance. In 2011, he was detained by the Chinese government for eighty-one days and then prohibited from traveling abroad until 2015..."

"...Like Ai Weiwei, the individuals represented in Trace have been detained, exhiled, or have sought political asylum because of their actions, beliefs, or affiliations. The subjects were chosen by Ai Weiwei and reflect his response to information provided by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, as well as his own independent research..." 

It's pretty impressive that all these are made from legos. It must have taken forever to plan them out!

It was an amazing and thought-provoking exhibit, which made me think about the power of art as social activism. Art can send powerful messages.

I hope you enjoyed my little tour. Next up: The National Gallery, the American Art Museum, and the Renwick!



*Please excuse the weird type sizes and other oddities in this post. Blogger has apparently decided I can't be allowed to decide how large anything can be or where it should be placed. After correcting everything numerous times, I finally gave up and let it be.

The National Botanical Gardens and National Arboretum

We went to the Botanical Gardens primarily to see Corpse Flower, which had already bloomed, but was still pretty impressive. The flower is about 3 - 4 feet tall, and smells like rotting meat. When I was in Sarasota, I saw one that hadn't opened up yet; maybe someday I'll see one in full bloom.

Datura bud

I became fascinated by the different varieties of datura, a plant known for its poisonous and hallucinagenic properties. But I never knew they were so beautiful.

"Datura is a genus of nine species of poisonous vespertine flowering plants belonging to the family Solanaceae. They are commonly known as daturas, but also known as devil's trumpets...They are also sometimes called moonflowers, jimsonweed, devil's weed, hell's bells, thorn-apple, and many more. All species of Datura are poisonous, especially their seeds and flowers."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura

Datura seed pods

This one, which I think is datura innoxia, is huge! For comparison, look at the impatiens flower next to it.

I didn't have time to identify the orchids, but I like these trailing varities.

When we got to the National Arboretum, the indoor exhibits had already closed, but there was still lots to see outside... I think we had an hour before the whole park closed, so there was still much we didn't see - it's 446 acres! I would love to go back again and do some more hiking, and of course, see the indoor exhibits, which include bonsai.

I didn't look up the name of this tree, but my dad always called them smoke trees. We had some in our yard when I was growing up, and I loved them.

These columns used to be part of the Capital. Apparently the revised dome was too heavy for them, so they had to be replaced. You can read about it here.

Corinthian columns, if I remember my art history correctly...

I didn't think there were any azaleas that bloomed this late in the year, but I was wrong. And what a luscious color!



I hope you enjoyed the photos! Next will be the art museums. Expect a long post!




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