A photograph of Howard Kaplan on a plane.

Howard Kaplan

Writer

Blog Posts

  • Splash Image - Cloudy, with a Chance of Music
    Cloudy, with a Chance of Music
    The best place to watch afternoon thunderstorms in D.C.? Hands down, it's the third floor of American Art, a special corner in the current exhibition, Watch This! Revelations in Media Art. Cloud Music, created between 1974-1979 by artists Robert Watts, David Berhman, and Bob Diamond is a weather-driven audio/visual installation that reads the sky like it's a musical score.
  • Splash Image - Watch This: Ghosts of New York
    Watch This: Ghosts of New York
    The ghosts, the commuters, the visitors, the stories...they all pass across the screen in Jim Campbell's Grand Central Station #2, a poetic meditation on movement and memory. On view in the exhibition, Watch This: Revelations in Media Art, Campbell's LED-based work features shadows that move across the floor of New York's Grand Central Station.
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    Close Encounters with Nam June Paik
    Russell Connor was an abstract painter, happily minding his own business, when in Boston in 1969, he met media visionary, Nam June Paik. As Connor told us the other night at a program in honor of Paik's birthday.
  • Splash Image - Seeing Things (14): Christo at 80
    Seeing Things (14): Christo at 80
    This is the fourteenth 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. Today, celebrating Christo's 80th birthday and a look at his Running Fence.
  • Splash Image - Artist Talk: Mark Bradford, Artist and Maker
    Artist Talk: Mark Bradford, Artist and Maker
    On Monday, April 20, at 6pm in American Art's McEvoy Auditorium, artist Mark Bradford will be discussing his Amendment series in the third annual James Dicke Contemporary Artist Lecture.
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    Yasuo Kuniyoshi: Bearing the Weight
    Opening today, the exhibition, The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi, looks at the evolution of the artist's work, and is the first comprehensive exhibition about the artist in the U.S. since 1948. It remains on view through August 30, 2015.
  • Splash Image - Mingering Mike is in the House
    Mingering Mike is in the House
    Billed on his website as "the Soul Superstar You've Never Heard Of," Mingering Mike is an enigma, wrapped in faux vinyl, and carefully packaged in cardboard. The artist, who wishes to remain anonymous but for his sobriquet, is a DC native, who, caught up in the sounds and images of his hometown in the 1960s and 1970s, dreamed of joining the ranks of singer-songwriter Marvin Gaye who was transforming the soundscape of the city and the nation.
  • Blog Image 498 - Take the Richard Estes Challenge
    Take the Richard Estes Challenge
    At the museum, some of us have become a bit obsessed not only with the paintings of Richard Estes, but in locating his signature (or name, really) in each of his paintings. Estes usually signs his work, but often in ways that make it nearly impossible to discover.
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    Wing and a Prayer: Birds in Contemporary Art
    Eye Level had a chance to catch up with Joanna Marsh, the James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art at American Art, for a conversation about our current exhibition, The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art, which is currently on view through February 22, 2015.
  • Splash Image - Rescue Me: Kathleen A. Foster on Winslow Homer's The Life Line
    Rescue Me: Kathleen A. Foster on Winslow Homer’s The Life Line 
    Kathleen A. Foster spoke the other evening at the McEvoy Auditorium, the third and final speaker in this year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture in American Art series. Her focused talk concerned Winslow Homer's iconic painting from 1884, The Life Line.
  • Blog Image 499 - Create a World: An Evening with Art Critic Jerry Saltz
    Create a World: An Evening with Art Critic Jerry Saltz
    In an appearance worthy of a TED talk, critic Jerry Saltz delivered a spirited address the other evening at American Art's McEvoy Auditorium, as part of the Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art series.
  • Splash Image - Reflections on the Work of Richard Estes
    Reflections on the Work of Richard Estes
    Patterson Sims and Richard Estes talk about Estes work now on exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
  • Splash Image - Seeing Things (14): Eric Fischl's Tumbling Woman
    Seeing Things (14): Eric Fischl’s Tumbling Woman
    When Eric Fischl inaugurated the Clarice Smith Distinguised Lectures in American Art series recently, he covered a lot of material. Though best-known as a painter, he's worked in a variety of media in his more than forty year career. Ten Breaths: Tumbling Woman II a second sculpture he made in response to the events of 9/11 is currently on view on the third floor of the American Art Museum, and Fischl's remarks are certainly worth noting.
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    James Castle: No Place Like Home
    "Untitled: The Art of James Castle" opens today at American Art and features fifty-four works by the artist that were recently acquired by the museum.
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    Eric Fischl: Painting Stories
    Having titled his recent memoir Bad Boy: My Life on and off the Canvas, Eric Fischl kicked off this season's annual Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art series with a survey of his work, spanning more than forty years.
  • Blog Image 126 - Family Ties: Marc Fasanella on his Father's Painting Family Supper
    Family Ties: Marc Fasanella on his Father’s Painting Family Supper
    On the occasion of the exhibition, Ralph Fasanella: Lest We Forget, marking the artist's one-hundredth birth anniversary, Ralph's son Marc shares his thoughts on his father's iconic painting, Family Supper. Ralph Fasanella: Lest We Forget closes this Sunday, August 3, at American Art.
  • Blog Image 492 - Five Questions (+2) with Stephen Vitiello: Sound Advice
    Five Questions (+2) with Stephen Vitiello: Sound Advice
    In honor of the Nam June Paik birthday celebration, electronic musician and sound artist Stephen Vitiello will speak in American Art's Lincoln Gallery (3rd floor, East Wing) on August 1 at 5:30 p.m. Eye Level had a chance to check in with him and ask him about art, sound, and his interactions with Nam June Paik.
  • Blog Image 495 - Fathers and Sons: Ralph and Marc Fasanella
    Fathers and Sons: Ralph and Marc Fasanella
    In honor of Father's Day and in celebration of the exhibition "Ralph Fasanella: Lest We Forget," Eye Level asked the artist's son, Marc Fasanella, about his father's work, life, and legacy.
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    Our America: Radiante
    With the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art on the road, I found myself missing an old favorite from the exhibit and permanent collection, Radiante, by Olga Albizu.
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    Watching Watch This!
    As part of the museum's new after work series of curator talks focusing on the permanent collection, "Tour the Floor—What to See on Three," Michael Mansfield, curator of film and media arts, spoke to an assembled group on the current iteration of Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image.