FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 13, 2009


Upcoming Exhibitions in Washington, DC

Nov. 5 – Mar. 28, 2010: Directions: John Gerrard
Irish artist John Gerrard uses customized 3-D gaming software to re-imagine landscape art. Inspired by the look, history and politics of the Dust Bowl region, he creates contemplative, vivid scenes of farms and oil fields. For the works in this exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum, Gerrard photographed actual sites from 360 degrees and then simulated cinematic movement around the sites using the computer, complete with shifting, natural lighting effects. hirshhorn.si.edu 

Nov. 6 - July 5, 2010: Portraiture Now: Communities
Painters Rose Frantzen, Jim Torok and Rebecca Westscott explore the contemporary definition of "community" through a series of related portraits of friends, townspeople, or families in this exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. npg.si.edu

Nov. 8 – July 4, 2010: The African Presence in Mexico
This traveling exhibition at the Anacostia Community Museum focuses on the overlooked history of African contributions to Mexican culture from 1519 to the present day. Highlights of the exhibition include “casta” paintings (paintings used to delineate racial categories and the ever-increasing complexity of racial mixture); discussions of African slavery in Mexico and the hero/slave rebel Yanga; and artifacts related to the traditions and popular culture of the Afro-Mexicans. anacostia.si.edu

Nov. 10 – Mar. 7, 2010: Yinka Shonibare MBE
Yinka Shonibare MBE, a mid-career exhibition of the Nigerian-born artist, combines a wide range of media including paintings, sculpture and installation, photography and moving images. The works in this exhibition, on display at the National Museum of African Art, encompass the last 12 years of Shonibare’s career with a focus on recent works juxtaposed with historical works. africa.si.edu

Nov. 10 - May 23, 2010: IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas 
This 20-panel banner exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian focuses on the interactions between African American and Native American people, especially those of blended heritage. It also sheds light on the dynamics of race, community, culture, and creativity and addresses the human desires of being and belonging. With compelling text and powerful graphics, IndiVisible includes accounts of cultural integration and diffusion as well as the struggle to define and preserve identity. nmai.si.edu

Nov.13 – Feb. 15, 2010: Keeping History: Plains Indian Ledger Drawings
This exhibition at the National Museum of American History features ledger drawings, a style of visual history, developed by Native warriors from the Northern and Southern Plains in the late 19th century. This exhibit will feature drawings, from ledger books, by some of the combatants in wars for sovereignty over the Plains, some of them made while their Native makers were imprisoned for their actions in those struggles. americanhistory.si.edu

Nov. 19– Mar. 31, 2010: Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor
The National Geographic Museum will be the final stop for Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardian’s of China’s First Emperor, the largest collection of ancient artifacts to ever travel to the US from China. The exhibition features 15 life-sized terra cotta figures unearthed from the tomb of China’s First Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, who ruled from 221-210 B.C. The exhibition takes visitors inside the First Emperor’s enormous tomb complex, which was guarded by thousands of terra cotta warriors tasked with
protecting him in the afterlife, including archers, soldiers, acrobats and animals. warriorsdc.org 

Nov. 19 – ongoing: Moving Beyond Earth
Moving Beyond Earth is an immersive, permanent exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum that places visitors “in orbit” in the shuttle and space-station era to explore recent human spaceflight. An expansive view of the Earth as viewed from the space station drifts over one gallery wall, while a fly-around tour of the International Space Station fills another wall. Museum-goers can also experience aspects of spaceflight through interactive computer kiosks. nasm.si.edu

Jan. 8 – Aug. 22, 2010: One Life: Echoes of Elvis
To this day, both the historical Elvis Presley and the fantasy-based vision of Elvis are the subject of poetry, literature, music, film and the visual arts by renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, Ralph Wolfe Cowan and Red Grooms. Opening on the 75th anniversary of Elvis’ birth, this exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery features many of these legendary works. npg.si.edu

Jan. 29 – Aug. 8, 2010: Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The third in a series of special installations, this exhibit celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper through exceptional watercolors, pastels and drawings. Rarely seen works from the museum's permanent collection by artists such as Robert Arneson, Jennifer Bartlett, Philip Guston, Luis Jiménez and Wayne Thiebaud are featured in the exhibition. americanart.si.edu

Jan. 30 - Apr. 25, 2010: Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales
Turner to Cézanne presents an outstanding group of paintings from the 19th and early 20th centuries, including masterpieces by Cézanne, Corot, Daumier, Manet, Millet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Turner, and Van Gogh. Featuring nearly 60 works, many of which have rarely been exhibited outside of Wales, the exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art will explore some of the key stylistic innovations that shaped the art of the 19th and early 20th centuries. corcoran.org

Jan. 30 – Apr. 25, 2010: The Corcoran in Context: European Highlights from the William A. Clark Collection
The Corcoran in Context displays Clark’s particular enthusiasm for 19th-century French painting. The exhibition will include works by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, and Edgar Degas. corcoran.org

Jan. 31 - Jul. 31, 2010: From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection
When Chester Dale bequeathed his remarkable collection of paintings to the National Gallery of Art in 1962, it became one of the most important repositories in North America of French art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. nga.gov

Feb. 6 – May 9, 2010: Georgia O’Keefe: Abstraction
This exhibition at The Phillips Collection will feature more than 70 paintings, drawings and watercolors by O'Keeffe, as well as a selection of close-up photographic portraits of O'Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz.  It will focus exclusively on the origins and range of the artist's abstractions over the course of her career, as she developed an abstract vocabulary unlike that of any of her contemporaries. phillipscollection.org

Feb. 12 – May 9, 2010: Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan
Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840–1882) was a photographer for two of the most ambitious geographical surveys of the nineteenth century. He traversed the mountain and desert regions of the western United States between 1867 and 1874 and then brought his photographs back to DC. More than 80 of his works will be on display during this exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. americanart.si.edu