Howard Kaplan

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.

Patterson Sims and Richard Estes talk about Estes work now on exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The weather in American Art's Lincoln Gallery has gotten a bit cloudier, thanks to the addition of April Gornik's 1992 painting, Virga. Its dramatic swirls of cumulus that dip like a crow's wing over troubled water depict a storm brewing on the horizon. The painting is a recent gift to the museum from James F. Dicke II, the sponsor of the museum's annual lecture in contemporary art that bears his name.

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

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.

Teresita Fernández's Nocturnal (Horizon Line), installed in the third floor galleries of American Art, strikes the viewer for both its beauty and its weight, as this piece is made of mined graphite. But in the artist's hands, the dense mineral becomes a canvas, and her work blooms into an homage to the beauty and mystery of evening, much the same as James McNeill Whistler's tonalist works and ethereal Nocturnes of the late 19th century, examined the beauty and poetry of twilight and the hours that followed.

This is the twelfth 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.