SAAM Stories

Most people, if they're going to fall anywhere in the vicinity of paradise, are likely to fall from it. Bill Viola's installation from 2005, The Fall into Paradise shows a couple who seem to have reversed the process and entered their own private Eden.

Today, for our second Visitor's Choice, we spoke with local artist Cory Oberndorfer.

A challenging theme has developed in Jessica Ford's projects at the Lunder Conservation Center: tape! In painting conservation, adhesive tape is not usually encountered during examination or treatment. However, in contemporary art the use of unconventional materials is rarely surprising. At times, tape was applied by painters to frame the edges of paintings or to guide a straight line. Michael Goldberg's Sardines uses a different approach and prominently features adhesive tape as part of the painting's composition.

Spring arrives today! And most people can't wait to shed their layers and bask in the sweet sunlight.

Leigh Pilzer is one of the best and busiest saxophonists in the DC area. She will be part of the Washington Women in Jazz Festival Quintet performing on the Take 5! stage this Thursday, March 20th from 5-8 p.m. in the Kogod Courtyard. This month's concert celebrates Women's History Month with a tribute to Melba Liston.

As a Smithsonian Institution Fellow in Paper Conservation, Im Chan is spending the year in The Lunder Conservation Center's paper conservation lab studying and treating works on paper by William H. Johnson. American Art's collection, which has approximately 800 works on paper by this prolific artist, is an ideal place to study these works.

In 1952 Sara Roby established a foundation to encourage artists creating figurative works, at a time when Abstract Expressionism was the dominant force in the art world in the years following World War II.

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

Katie Crooks coordinates the quarterly craft program Handi-hour at the American Art Museum. Coming up: our next Handi-hour on March 6 will be a nostalgic look back at crafts from our youth. Katie demonstrates what's in store.

Programs Coordinator Alli Jessing spoke with the filmmakers of the upcoming documentary film Rubén Salazar: Man in the Middle, which tells the story of the life and death of prominent Civil Rights-era journalist Rubén Salazar, who was killed by an L.A. County sheriff's deputy in 1970.

On February 19, American Art will host a special screening of the acclaimed documentary short film Inocente. This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, which is on view through March 2, 2014.

Happy Valentine's Day! And to celebrate we've set up a special photobooth in our Kogod Courtyard for that perfect Valentine's Day selfie. Get out of the cold and come on down.

Christopher Kendall, artistic director of the contemporary music ensemble in residence at American Art, the 21st Century Consort, talked with Jo Ann Gillula about the upcoming concert, Tango Amor, Saturday February 15, 2014 at 5 p.m. in American Art's McEvoy Auditorium.

The snow was coming and I was racing around town before my weather sequester began. When I got to the store the parking lot was filled, and cars were backed out onto the street (obviously, everyone's storm timing was in sync).

We are hosting another Luce Unplugged Community Showcase with the Washington City Paper this Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. Local bands The Walking Sticks and Paint Branch will perform and local distillery Bloomery Plantation Distillery will offer free tastings to visitors twenty-one and older.

Here, in the Luce Foundation Center, we are lucky enough to get to know some of our "regulars." We have many kinds: people who sit and do work at our tables, families who regularly do our scavenger hunt, and art enthusiasts who browse the cases, just to name a few.

The civil rights era is resonant in many works featured in Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, which remains on view until March 2, 2014. Several artists in the exhibition came of age during the 1960s and 1970s when the movement thrived and had ripple effects in communities across the United States. Not only did activists and organizers like César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and Antonia Pantoja build on Dr. King's legacy and demand Latino equal rights in the arenas of labor and education, some Latino artists created works and organizations that challenged traditional racial hierarchies that undergirded American society.

During the past year, regular visitors to the American Art Museum might have noticed certain galleries on our second floor were temporarily closed. The reason? Our curators, exhibition team, and collections managers had undertaken the challenge of reinstalling about half of the galleries on the floor.