Spring Must See Museums

Did you know Washington, DC has been ranked the top museum destination in the entire world? This spring we host a number of can’t-miss blockbuster exhibitions, sure to boost any springtime getaway.

Ai Weiwei: According to What?
Through February 2013
One of China’s most prolific and provocative artists, Ai Weiwei is known for offering insights into the interrelations between art, society and individual experience. The Hirshhorn hosts this major survey of his work, which includes examples from the broad spectrum of his artistic practice, from sculpture, photography and video to site-specific architectural installations, and aims to reveal the rich and varied contexts that he has continuously interwoven.
http://hirshhorn.si.edu
Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard
Through May 6
Known primarily as painters and printmakers, a group of post-impressionist artists experimented with photography using a hand-held Kodak with surprising, inventive results. The exhibition, with many previously unseen works, includes about 200 photographs, 40 paintings and 60 works on paper that explore the inspiration afforded by the new medium in such subjects as domestic interiors, city streets, nudes and portraiture.
www.phillipscollection.org
MathAlive!
Through June 3
Learn how math makes fun activities come to life. Visitors young and old can ride snowboards in 4-D, design and play their own video games, capture their images in 360 degrees, jump into a fractal dance party, design a custom skateboard, operate simulations of NASA's latest robotics, test their bridge-building skills and design the infrastructure for an ecologically sustainable city.
http://www.si.edu/Exhibitions/Details/MathAlive-4731
Titanic: 100 Year Obsession
Through July 8
100 years later, the wreck of the Titanic remains one of the defining tragedies in history—and an ongoing source of fascination for many. National Geographic was the first to unveil images of the wreck discovered by National Geographic explorer Robert Ballard in 1985. Take a new look, from its historic beginnings to the latest research, at the ship that has captured the world’s imagination since it sank on April 15, 1912. Explore an intricately detailed 18-foot model of the ship, a floor interactive and touch table, props from the 1997 film, including a full size lifeboat, historical photographs of the ship and passengers, and the latest imagery by National Geographic explorer James Cameron of the wreck on the ocean floor.
http://events.nationalgeographic.com/events/exhibits/2012/03/29/titanic/
Hokusai
Through July 29, 2012
Freer Gallery of Art founder Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919) first discovered the great Japanese artist Hokusai (1760–1849) through his woodblock prints. Beginning in 1898, Freer turned to collecting Hokusai's paintings, and by 1907 he had gathered a collection that remains unrivaled in its holdings of original Hokusai paintings and drawings. The exhibition features a magnificent pair of six-panel folding screens of Mount Fuji, on display January 28–July 29, and is followed by an installation of paintings and drawings (Feb. 18-June 24), featuring such highlights as Boy Viewing Mount Fuji and three masterworks of Hokusai's last years, Thunder God, Fisherman, and Woodcutter. In the Sackler, Hokusai's most famous series of woodblock prints, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, goes on view March 24–June 17 as part of the museums' celebration of Japan Spring.
www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/future.asp
Goryeo Buddhist Paintings: A Closer Look
Through Aug. 5
Now numbering less than 150 worldwide, Buddhist paintings created during the late Goryeo dynasty in Korea illustrate hopes for peace and good fortune in this world and for salvation in the afterlife. The exhibition presents three rare, 14th century icons from the Freer and Sackler collections that never before have been displayed together.
www.asia.si.edu
Samurai: The Warrior Transformed
Through Sept. 3
In the Western imagination, “samurai” often conjures up warriors, swords, and armor. Rarely do the words “diplomat” and “cultural ambassador” enter the conversation. However these roles are equally important in understanding the legacy of the samurai as a cultural symbol. In a uniquely Washington look at the storied Japanese warriors, this exhibition presents the transformation of the samurai. They went from being a feudal military class dominating Japanese history from 1185–1867 to serving as a vehicle for building bridges with the West.
http://events.nationalgeographic.com/events/exhibits/2012/03/07/samurai/
In Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits from the Harry Warnecke Studio
March 2-Sept. 3
Well before color photographs became commonplace, Harry Warnecke was using a special one-shot camera of his own design to create color images for the New York Daily News. The photographer and his team captured a number of celebrities in eye-popping color for the newspaper’s Sunday News magazine for three decades beginning in the 1930s. This exhibition features 24 celebrity portraits, including Lucille Ball, Jackie Robinson, Babe Didrikson, Gene Autry, Ethel Waters, Generals Eisenhower and Patton, and comedians W. C. Fields and Laurel and Hardy.
www.si.edu/Exhibitions
The Art of Video Games
March 16-Sept. 30
From the early days of elementary video games to the eye-popping, immersive games of today, The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum traces the 40-year evolution of video games. The exhibit, one of the first to look at video games as an artistic medium, will explore the many influences on game designers, and the pervasive presence video games have in the broader popular culture, with new relationships to video art, film and television, educational practices, and professional skill training. The exhibition will feature 80 games through still images and video footage, including hands-on opportunities with Pac-Man, Super Mario Brothers, The Secret of Monkey Island, Myst and Flower.
www.americanart.si.edu
The 5x5 Project
March 20-April 27
5×5, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’s new temporary public art project, has commissioned five highly-experienced and innovative contemporary art curators to select and work with five artists or artist teams to each to develop and present exciting, temporary art works in public spaces throughout the District. The resulting twenty-five projects will activate and enliven publicly accessible spaces and add an ephemeral layer of creativity and artistic expression to neighborhoods across the District during the National Cherry Blossom Festival.
www.the5x5project.com/
Woven Treasures of Japan’s Tawaray Workshop
March 23- Aug. 12
The Textile Museum’s exhibition illuminates the skill and graphical genius of matchless kimonos, screens and opulent silks created by the Tawaraya workshop in Kyoto, a family business that has been producing materials for the royal court for 500 years.
www.textilemuseum.org
Colorful Realm of Living Beings
Mar. 30-April. 29
The National Gallery of Art features one of Japan's most renowned cultural treasures, the 30-scroll set of bird-and-flower paintings by Itō Jakuchū. These extraordinary scrolls are on loan from the Imperial Household and provide a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: not only is it the first time all 30 paintings will be on view in the United States, but it is also the first time any of the works will be seen here after their six year restoration.
www.nga.gov
Titanoboa: Monster Snake
March 30-Jan. 6, 2013
Get up close, if you dare, to the discovery of a 65 million-year-old “monster snake.” Scientists uncovered the remains of Titanoboa, the largest snake in the world, in a Colombian coal mine. Explore a full-scale model of Titanoboa, who at 48 feet long and 2,500 pounds could crush and devour a crocodile! Fossil plants and animals also found at the site reveal the earliest known rainforest—the lost world that followed the demise of the dinosaurs.
http://si.edu/Exhibitions/Details/Titanoboa-Monster-Snake-4820
African American Art in the 20th Century
April 27-Sept. 3
Drawn from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection are 100 artworks -- paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs -- by 43 black artists who explored the African American experience from the Harlem Renaissance through the Civil Rights era and beyond, decades that saw tremendous change in African American life. Included are paintings by Benny Andrews, Jacob Lawrence, and Lois Mailou Jones, and photographs by Roy deCarava, Gordon Parks, Roland Freeman and Marilyn Nance. More than half the artworks are on view at the museum for the first time, and 10 works are recent acquisitions.
www.si.edu/Exhibitions/
Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape
May 6-August 12
In its only U.S. venue, the landmark exhibition comes to the National Gallery of Art this spring. Joan
Miró: The Ladder of Escape examinesthe surrealist artist’s (1893–1983) affection for his native Catalonia and his passionate response to one of the most turbulent periods in European history through 80 paintings, works on paper and sculptures drawn throughout his entire career.
www.nga.gov