DC Artswatch Oct. 11, 2017
By • October 11, 2017 0 443
FREER REOPENS WITH ASIAN FESTIVAL
The Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1050 Independence Ave. SW, will celebrate the dual museum’s reopening this weekend with a free festival called IlluminAsia. Running Saturday, Oct. 14, from 5 p.m. to midnight and Sunday, Oct. 15, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., the event will transform the grounds and the adjacent section of the National Mall with an Asian food market, interactive cooking and art demonstrations and live music by Silkroad Ensemble.
BUNNY MELLON BOOK TALK
Meryl Gordon, author of “Mrs. Astor Regrets” and “The Phantom of Fifth Avenue,” will talk about and sign copies of her new book, “Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend,” on Sunday, Oct. 22, at 3 p.m. at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Avenue. Horticulturalist Rachel Lambert, known as Bunny, the second wife of the late Paul Mellon and his partner in art collecting and philanthropy, died in 2014 at age 103 in Upperville, Virginia.
D.C. ARCHITECTURE SYMPOSIUM
The 12th biennial symposium of the Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, “City and Capital: Building Washington, DC,” will take place on Saturday, Oct. 28, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Catholic University’s School of Architecture and Planning, 620 Michigan Ave. NE. Nine scholars will present their research in three thematic sessions, focusing on the early 19th century, the post-McMillan Plan era and the mid-20th century. Admission is $45.
NEW AFRICAN ART MUSEUM DIRECTOR
Augustus Casely-Hayford, known as Gus, will succeed Johnnetta Cole as director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art on Feb. 5, 2018. Casely-Hayford, who received his doctorate in African history from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, served as director of Africa 05, a festival of African arts at more than 150 venues. He is the author of the companion book for the BBC series “The Lost Kingdoms of Africa,” which he hosted, and of a forthcoming book on Timbuktu and the rise of the Mali Empire.
