SAAM Stories

There are just a few weeks left to see the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition features work by 72 leading modern and contemporary artists, several of whom can be heard in our audio podcast series along with scholars from across the Smithsonian.

Can you tell me more about Three-Way Portrait of Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and Unidentified Native American? What is the history of this type of artwork?

My favorite new story comes from the writings of poet Naomi Shihab Nye and her prose piece, "Museum," from her collection, Honeybee.

Mousetrap, one of the patent models now in American Art's collection.

Curatorial assistant Florencia Bazzano-Nelson recaps Latino Art Now! Nuestra América: Expanding Perspectives in American Art, a conference held on November 7-9, 2013 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, on view at American Art until March 2, 2014, the program fostered dynamic exchanges along multiple axes of inquiry.

Though relatively new as a medium, the brief history of video games already includes several generations of both games and gamers. The rapid evolution of technology and the enormous cultural reach of video games have set the stage for a new genre in media art.

What do a southern Baptist minister, a professional boxer, and a vaudeville gymnast have in common? They are all folk artists in the American Art Museum's collection. But what is folk art?

Eye Level, with the help of former intern Becky Harlan, had a chance to speak with photographer Muriel Hasbun about her artistic roots and her current process. Her work appears in the current exhibition, A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum as well as Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art.

Debrah Dunner, curatorial assistant at our Renwick Gallery, interviewed basket collectors Martha Ware and Steve Cole about A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets at the Renwick Gallery. The show is up for six more days, through December 8, 2013.

Remember when LOVE was all the rage, as opposed to social media's lukewarm, one-size-fits-all, "Like"? Robert Indiana's iconic Pop image from 1970 seemed to sum up the era in its message as well as its delivery: bright colors and strong graphics.

Last weekend, the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened up its doors and its data to a group of enthusiastic hackers. We were looking for help re-imagining the digital interpretation in the museum's visible storage facility, the Luce Foundation Center for American Art.

Time magazine art critic Richard Lacayo spoke the other evening on the work and lives of aging artists as the second speaker in this year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art.

Kathleen Joyce, intern in American Art's Research and Scholars Center, recaps our symposium American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora made possible by the Terra Foundation for American Art. The symposium took place on October 4-5, 2013. If you missed it, view the webcast of the entire event.

Katie Crooks coordinates the quarterly craft program Handi-hour at the American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery. The Renwick Gallery will close for renovation in December, so we thought now was a good time to catch up with Katie about the popular program and find out what will happen to it while the Renwick is closed.

Next up in our Luce Local Artist Talk series, presented with CulturalDC, is choreographer and dancer Sarah Ewing. Ewing, who hails from Australia, is currently a Resident Artist at D.C.'s CityDance and performs regularly across Washington. She stopped by the Luce Foundation Center over the summer to answer a few questions from this dance enthusiast (who sadly has two left feet).

Michelle Sullivan is a second-year graduate fellow in Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and spent this summer at the Lunder Conservation Center. She recently treated this untitled work by Jorge Soto Sánchez for the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, which will open on October 25, 2013.

In a video podcast, curator E. Carmen Ramos explains that the mid-twentieth century was an important period in Latino art. At this time, Latino artists were attending art schools in this country and were beginning to contest their marginalized position within American society.

Debrah Dunner, curatorial assistant at our Renwick Gallery, interviewed Nicholas Bell, The Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator of American Craft and Decorative Art, about A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets at the Renwick Gallery through December 8, 2013.