Visual Arts

Richard Selden • May 7, 2015

Wrapping up Georgetown Media Group’s spring round of Cultural Leadership breakfasts, Dr. Steven Knapp, president of the George Washington University since 2007, will speak the morning of May 7 at the George Town Club about the university’s expanding activity in the arts, exemplified by the bringing of the Textile Museum and the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design into the GW fold. Until recently, the District’s largest institution of higher education had not positioned itself as a leader in the arts.

Dr. Knapp will speak at 8:30 a.m. and a light breakfast will be served. Admission costs $15. For more details and to RSVP, contact Richard Selden at richard@georgetowner.com.

Ari Post • April 23, 2015

Our ideas of folk art are strangely and inherently conflicting. By nature, American folk art is that made by people who, through means of economy, location and a number of imposing and typically limiting factors of their lives, have managed to avoid contamination by the otherwise universally epidemic tradition of the Western canon.

Over the past century, these have almost invariably been black Americans living in small, rural isolation. Their art is intrinsic, pure, seemingly born from some chaste and chasmic human urge to create and communicate through ritualistic vessels. There is a fascinating and undeniably refreshing sparkle to this work, both alien and deeply familiar, which deciphers what we already know through wholly unique lenses.

Our rote and stressful world is born anew, like hearing a mundane story told by a child who must stretch the boundaries of their limited logic and experience to piece together their understanding of how things work. (In one great example, a little girl who just took off on her first plane ride turns to the man sitting beside her and asks, “When do we get smaller?”)

The way folk artists interpret people, architecture, nature, composition, is unaffected by the infinite textbook methodologies of these principles, as typically applied in contemporary practice. There is a defiant quality – however unintentional on the part of these artists – in simply proving that one can reflect on the world around them through art without any of the pseudo-philosophical toolkits and mechanisms the rest of us cling to like lifeboats.

I was taught to stand before “R. Mutt” with the sober reverence and resolute awe of the direly religious before the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And I do just that. Now, that does not mean I’ve ever given time to actually face the question of why I do that. (Maybe I should, but that’s another issue altogether.) In the “art world” we all love to scoff at, the “Emperor is naked” fable ends not with throngs of disabused and enlightened townsfolk, but with a bunch of very smart, slightly bored aristocrats telling you to shut up and play along.

But can I observe folk art with an even-handed deference, without some degree of bemused condescension? More important, is it even possible for me to accept it on its own terms? The problem is this: as soon as this work and these artists are subjected to our reliable systems of cultural governance, they become permanently and inalterably defiled. To expose these artists to the public – and worse, to the relentless burrowing scrutiny of scholarly excavation – is to uproot and plow over the wild, billowing prairie grasses of their creative vantage. Once they are introduced to this new environment, their amplified professional awareness obliterates the rustic immaculacy of their id.

Think of it another way: When Europeans introduced rifles to Native Americans, they could not conceivably avoid using this tool and the advancements it afforded them. Or perhaps more appropriately, once we introduced them to our germs and diseases, there was no way they would not get sick.

This delicate navigation is a systemic concern of anthropological efforts today. How can we preserve the purity of small native cultures while also allowing observational access to the curious colossus of global society? In the arena of American folk art, the discovery of a small subset of self-taught, southern black artists from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia was a remarkable phenomenon in the 1970s. In 1982, here in Washington, the Corcoran Gallery of Art presented “Black Folk Art in America: 1930 –1980,” the first exhibition and publication documenting these previously unknown artists like Sister Gertrude Morgan, David Butler, Bill Traylor and William Edmundson (all of them worth poking around for online).

And then we have the crazy magic of Mingering Mike, whose exhibit and catalog at the Smithsonian American Art Museum is wondrous, unprecedented and seems to occupy an almost unimaginable crossroads in American art: both deeply resonant within the unmediated freeform heritage of folk art, and rooted entirely in popular culture. It brings together both sides of these hitherto mutually exclusive worlds, like a native flower long thought extinct found blooming in the cankered brickwork of a downtown alleyway.

The story starts with Dori Hada – a local DJ by night, a criminal investigator by day – who was digging through crates of records at a D.C. flea market. There he unknowingly stumbled into the elaborate world of Mingering Mike, a soul superstar of the 1960s and 1970s who released an astonishing fifty albums and at least as many singles in just ten years. But Hadar had never heard of him, and he realized why on closer inspection: every album in the crate, as well as the records themselves, were made of cardboard. Each package was intricately crafted, complete with gatefold interiors, extensive liner notes, and grooves drawn onto the “vinyl.” Some albums were even covered in shrinkwrap, as if purchased at real record stores.

Hadar put his detective skills to work and soon found himself at the door of Mingering Mike. Their friendship blossomed and Mike revealed the story of his life and the mythology of his many albums, hit singles and movie soundtracks.

A solitary boy raised by his brothers, sisters and cousins, Mike lost himself in a world of his own imaginary superstardom, basing songs and albums on his and his family’s experiences. Early teenage songs obsessed with love and heartache soon gave way to social themes surrounding the turbulent era of civil rights protests and political upheaval – brought even closer to home when Mike himself went underground, dodging the government for ten years after going AWOL from basic training.

In “Mingering Mike’s Supersonic Greatest Hits,” on view through Aug. 2, Hadar recounts the heartfelt story of Mike’s life and collects the best of his albums and 45s.

Mingering Mike, like folk artists, uses biblical and cultural imagery as subjects for his work. But Mike operated on an even deeper level of imaginative force, finding his inspiration in his own lyrics, his own song titles, his own obsessions. Mike shares another fundamental principal with other folk artists among this visual tradition: he is often teaching or commenting on moral and spiritual issues. In a way, public instruction is not so different from what Mingering Mike is doing, in his own miniaturized and eccentric domain. It is this impulse to communicate what he has learned, and what he feels about the power of visual art to express, that links him not only to other black visionary artists of his own and earlier generations, but to the very mainstream of American art.

For more information visit www.AmericanArt.si.edu [gallery ids="102021,134931,134930,134928,134926" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • April 21, 2015

Kim Sajet is shy.

All right, she’s not shy. Not at all.

The new (relatively, since 2013) director of what was frequently referred to as the venerable National Portrait Gallery looks, moves, talks and thinks as if she’s been freshly minted, in the moment, and looking ahead and not too much behind. She demonstrated these qualities vividly as the guest speaker at the Georgetown Media Group’s Cultural Leadership Breakfast at the George Town Club April 9.

Sajet, a striking blonde presence, is not the type to stand statically behind a podium (if there had been a podium). Personable and direct, funny with a self-deprecating sense of humor, Sajet proved to be rangy in both the way she managed to get to the heart of portraiture as art (and a pioneering art form of immediacy), and her role as chief embracer and explainer of an institution which, she said, she was surprised to be asked to head. She’s a gifted, natural storyteller, an emphasizer, a pacer and an embracer of the world of now and the next day.

Nothing stodgy here. Born in Nigeria to Dutch parents, raised in Australia, a mother (two young sons, ages 20 and 17 ), Sajet is bound to be an adept multi-tasker. Her credentials are diverse and impeccable—president and CEO of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania from 2007 to 2013, former senior vice president and deputy director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, curator and director of two Australian museums, a master’s degree in art history from Bryn Mawr College and one in business administration at Melbourne University Business School, arts leadership training at the Harvard Business School, the Getty and National Arts Strategies. That’s more than enough to give her resume arts gravitas and reason enough to get the job offer for heading the National Portrait Gallery. “Plus, I speak three languages, all of them with an accent.”

But wait, there’s more. She has a bottomless well of enthusiasm enriched by thoughtfulness, a love of challenge, a willingness to not only elicit and entertain new ideas, but to have a few herself.

The idea for an American portrait gallery came from the example set by the British who’ve had their own National Portrait Gallery since 1856.

“The British can be so annoying that way,” she quipped. “They have so many kings and queens and royals, it’s kind of irritating. But we do have Katy Perry with a tiara—and nothing befits a woman more than a tiara. But she’s here because of her accomplishments—how many millions of records?”

Sajat noted that the NPG, renovated and sparkling as part of the Reynolds Center with the Smithsonian American Art Museum downtown, is about accomplishment, about “people who have had an impact on history and our own lives.” “But,” she said, “it is a living thing, about living human beings, that’s what a portrait is. We are pursuing portraiture in real time, as well as the presidents, the first ladies (we are backfilling there), scientists, artists, athletes and so on.”

But to her it isn’t just about categories of achievement, but about human beings who made decisions in their lives on their way to becoming who they were.

“You look at people like Albert Einstein or Lance Armstrong, and they made decisions that led them to become who they are,” she said. “When you look at their portraits that’s what you think about .”

“We are different from other galleries and museums—we deal in persons and personalities as well as art. Art matters, but the person being portrayed matters, too.”

“We all come to art in different ways, and when we see portraits we see ourselves. I remember when I was thirteen , a young girl, and I saw an Edward Hopper painting, one of those diners, and there were sundry people in it. Young men, lost people, a lady of the night, and in the middle of all that was a clown, and he was so terribly sad, and I thought, immediately, that’s, me, that’s how I feel, exactly, it’s my life.”

And during the courses of that story, she gave a perfectly audacious and exaggerated physical portrait of her young adolescent self.

“To me it’s amazing what happens when people encounter portraits and how full of opportunity the process is,” she said. “It crosses generations—here’s a father telling a son all about Lucille Ball or George Carlin, or the teen talking about a contemporary singer.”

Technology, she says, draws people into museums and “that’s a good thing.” She adds, “People today have so many digital images at their fingertips, in the computer, the pads, the phones.”

She recognizes and talks with humor about the constant scrutiny the NPG is under, including on a recent portrait of President Bill Clinton which apparently has the shadowy presence of a blue dress recalling sex and scandal.

“You have no idea what it’s like to part of the Smithsonian Institution and what that means in terms of scrutiny, how much attention and feedback you get today as well. I check the social media all the time, how we’re seen or mentioned on Yelp,” she said.

She sees this sometimes maze-like place, with its holdings and collections, its videos and portraiture contests—“An Asian girl had done a portrait—because she noticed she was eating almost nothing but rice—a self-portrait made entirely out of rice”—as a kind of fun house full of ideas about how people see themselves, are seen by others, and remembered. And there’s room almost for everybody. “I’m interested in the concept of outsiders, of a different kind of categories, including more women, more minorities, we’re working now on an exhibition about members of today’s American military and the wars they haves fought,” Sajet explains.

The popular and very focused “One Life” series will include Dolores Huerta, who stood side-by-side with Caesar Chavez in his battles for migrant workers

She fairly bursts with ideas and stories. When you listen to her, the notion of the National Portrait Gallery as a somewhat stodgy record of triumphant lives of leading men begins to fade. “I noticed,” she said, “that the exhibition on Elvis Presley was our most popular.”

She talks about the academic rigor of the writing and labels that go with the portraits. She talks about possibilities—“We are a national institution, but we should also include the international.”

The world is clearly changing, and it appears the National Portrait Gallery isn’t so much adapting as pushing to the forefront.

And it’s Kim Sajet, chief ringmaster and pied piper, who’s leading the way, with an accent. [gallery ids="102049,134684" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • March 26, 2015

Wolf Trap Foundation announced its first group of over 50 offerings for summer 2015 at the Filene Center in Vienna, Virginia, on the grounds of Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.

Pop, rock, country, opera and classical, international music and dance groups and some things that go beyond category get their due.

Here’s an early sampling of what’s on tap this summer: You can go from pop-rock chanteuse Sheryl Crow in May to jazz legend Diana Krall in July, country stars Little Big Town in August, and classic rocker Santana, also in August.

There is no taste that’s unaccounted for. Wolf Trap will welcome “Weird Al” Yankovic, comic performer David Sedaris, the Cuban flavors of the Buena Vista Social Club, Frank Sinatra Jr., the brother-sister duo of Julianne and Derek Hough in “Move” and the National Symphony Orchestra – in residence at Wolf Trap – accompanying a screening of “Star Trek,” where you can say goodbye to the late Leonard Nimoy, aka Mr. Spock.

The Wolf Trap Opera lineup is Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” a concert opera performance of Verdi’s “Aida,” Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” and John Corigliano’s “The Ghosts of Versailles.”

Gary Tischler • March 19, 2015

If you’re one of those people who drop by occasionally by plan, or just come as a tourist, the Kennedy Center often offers surprises of the sort that are both dazzling and a little dizzying.

That was the case on a cold and wet night when the center opened “Iberian Suite: global arts remix,” another one in a series of international festivals held yearly by the folks at the center, displaying to often wondrous effect the arts, culture, music, fashion, food, theater and dance arts of a particular region or country.

“Iberian Suite” is a vast, nearly month-long festival of the arts and many other things, focusing on the world-wide cultural offerings of Spain and Portugal, and how, Iberian explorers and artists had affected and influenced the rest of the world including the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, but had been in turn influenced by other cultures including those they encountered in their explorations.

If you just happened by on opening night or were there for the festival opening at the Eisenhower Theater, you could be forgiven if you ended up a little disoriented and pleased all at the same time. Right there in the nearly full length of the Hall of States, you were confronted with a spectacular fashion exhibition that told the story through a very cool display showing how the blue porcelain trade influenced fashion to this day, with works by Portuguese, Brazilian and Spanish designers.

While casual visitors as well as ticket-holders gawked at the mannequins decked out in 50 shades of blue, Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter greeted guests for a 400-people, sit-down dinner who were also attending the opening performance. Tourists mingled more or less with black tie Spanish and Portuguese officials and diplomats, mixed in with critics, a senator (Tim Kaine, Democrat from Virginia) and media types. The former King of Spain – the dignified, regal and tall Juan Carlos – was also in attendance at the performance.

The performance itself was one of those events that is designed to make you salivate for the whole ball of festival wax. The evening also gave you sense of the powerful palate of Iberian visuals (a big exhibition of Pablo Picasso ceramics has been installed upstairs) and performance arts.

There were national and international treasures on stages, complete with a narrated story, film and video clips (including a to-be-treasured video of cello master Pablo Casals in concert at the White House watched over by Jack and Jackie Kennedy). Casals’s widow, Marta Casals Istomin, was in attendance.

Casals was present, with remembered honor, and a performance by the intense international cellist, Amit Pellet, holding and playing Casals’s very own cello, was like a living artifact.

Iberian styles of music and performers and singers were on hand, conducting a highlight lesson in range. There was the powerfully emotive Mexican legend Eugenia Leon—dubbed the soul of Mexico—who sang with great passion and a kind of supernatural royalty. Fado, Portugal’s brand of soul music, was exemplified by Carminho (aka Carmo Rebelo de Andrade), who was a sleek onstage presence, sliding easily between the deeper aspects of Fado into pop.

Periodically, you heard the voices and saw videos of the imagery of writers and poets—the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Jorge Armado of “Donna Flora and Her Two Husbands” fame and others. The language and the voices rose rich as a memory of landscapes locked securely in the mind.

Groupo Corpo, a vivid, tony and relentlessly beautiful and energetic dance troupe from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais wowed the audience with a perpetual motion dance coat of many colors.

If you wanted a historic moment, you got one when it was announced that the Spanish dancer Angel Corella, a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater, a native of Madrid and now the artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, would be retiring and making his last public appearance. It was a little hard to believe that the 40-year-old Corella was ready to be retired or retiring—he and his beautiful sister Carmen Corella dance with power and grace, spinning, springing across the stage. That was some moment, with a little boy delivering flowers to both.

The finale offered everyone who had performed a chance to sing together, gathered around like a bouquet that launched into “The Impossible Dream,” from “Man of La Mancha,” an eternal Broadway hit show about the great Spanish literary giant Miguel Cervantes and his creation Don Quixote.

It was a Kennedy Center night, the rhythms of the world, moving musically and physically back and forth from Portugal and Spain around the world and back again. In the hall earlier, designers and women in sleek black patron dresses mingled among the blue dresses, taking selfies. Rumor has it that the King of Spain did, too.

Richard Selden •

Three special exhibitions in 2015 will mark the 25th anniversary of the National Gallery of Art’s photography collection. Two will open May 3: “In Light of the Past: 25 Years of Photography at the National Gallery of Art” (through July 26) and “The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Acquired with the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund” (through Sept. 7).

The third, which will open Nov. 1 and run through Feb. 28, 2016, is titled “Celebrating Photography at the National Gallery of Art: Recent Gifts.” Displaying works donated to the museum in honor of the anniversary, it is likely to include gifts that have yet to be made.

Though the collection was launched in 1949 with a spectacular gift – Georgia O’Keeffe’s donation of the “Key Set,” more than 1,600 photographs by her late husband, legendary photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz – the National Gallery began to actively collect photography in 1990.

The collection has expanded under curator Sarah Greenough to nearly 14,000 American and European photographs from 1839 to the present. Photographs are fragile and deteriorate when exposed to light. Most of the collection has never been exhibited and the works that have been exhibited have been on view only briefly.

Curated by Greenough and assistant curator Andrea Nelson, the exhibition of contemporary photographs will include works exploring the complexity of time, memory and history, by photographers including Sally Mann (b. 1951), Vera Lutter (b. 1960), Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948), Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953) and Sophie Calle (b. 1953).

Richard Selden • March 11, 2015

IN – Textile Museum

After nearly 90 years in Kalorama, the Textile Museum will open March 21 in a new Foggy Bottom facility as the George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum. The largest exhibition in the museum’s history, “Unraveling Identity: Our Textiles, Our Stories,” will display more than 1,000 pieces through Aug. 24. On the grand opening weekend, there will be free activities at the new museum, 701 21st St. NW, as well as a textile symposium on Saturday at the School of Media and Public Affairs, 805 21st St. NW.

The design, by Hartman-Cox Architects, links a new 35,000-square-foot structure with the former university police headquarters, Woodhull House, which will become the home of a collection of Washingtoniana – rare maps, drawings, documents and correspondence – donated to the university by Albert H. Small in 2011. The director of the two museums, also an associate professor of Museum Studies, is John Wetenhall, a historian of modern art who got his Ph.D. at Stanford and was executive director of the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Fla., among others.

The origins of the Textile Museum were similar to those of the nearby Phillips Collection. It opened in 1925 in the S Street mansion of George Hewitt Myers (a collector of what were then known as Oriental rugs) and grew to be one of the major collections of non-Western textiles in the United States. The struggling museum was taken over by George Washington University a few years after a plan to open an annex in Penn Quarter was canceled in 2008. The university is also building a conservation and resource center on its Loudoun County, Va., campus.

OUT – Franklin School

On Feb. 9, Mayor Muriel Bowser abruptly announced the de-selection of the Institute for Contemporary Expression as the developer, with Anthony Lanier’s East Banc, of the landmark Franklin School at 13th and K Streets NW. A new Request for Qualifications, due March 23, has been issued, with a Request for Proposals to follow in the fall.

ICE’s plan to create a space for the presentation of cutting-edge art, especially large installation and multimedia works – along with education programs, a bookstore and a restaurant by José Andrés – was chosen by then Mayor Vincent Gray’s administration in February 2014. The building, designed in 1865 by Adolph Cluss, the architect of the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, became vacant when it ceased to be a homeless shelter in 2008. Several plans since then for its reuse went nowhere.

Collector Dani Levinas, executive director of ICE, has said that he was not consulted and his plan is solid. (Cost estimates vary from Levinas’s $13.2 million to more than $20 million.) It is not known if ICE will respond to the RFQ. In the meantime, there have been calls for revisiting the decision, with a letter circulating asking the mayor to “Please take this moment of public appeal to bring this matter back before the City Council.”

David Roffman • February 26, 2015

Nominations for this year’s Oscars are among the strongest in many a year. The films up for the golden statuette are almost all movies that will stand the test of time. I’ve seen them all except for “Into the Woods” and “Boyhood,” neither of which has played at any theater in Gulf Shores, Alabama. And if they do play here, I won’t go see them. I refuse to see any movie with Meryl Streep (“Into the Woods”). I am boycotting all of her movies after her pathetic performance with Tommy Lee Jones a couple of years ago in “Hope Springs.” By the way, I won’t go see any movie in which Samuel L. Jackson has a role (overacting always, never varying in his acting, and he’ll take any role, any time). So, “The Kingsmen” is already off my 2015 list of movies to see.

Back to the Oscars, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 7 p.m., Feb. 22, Hollywood, Calif., to air live on ABC. “Boyhood.” It sounds like one big crashing bore of a movie. I know, I know. It has already won its fair share of awards, but this is one of those movies that 10 years from now people will still be saying, “How the f—–g hell did this ever win an Oscar?” Don’t believe me? Check back with me in ten years.

For my money, the best films of 2014 are these: “Birdman,” “The Imitation Game,” “American Sniper” and “The Theory of Everything.” “Birdman” or “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” is a black comedy-drama that tells the story of an actor (Michael Keaton) — famous for portraying an iconic superhero — as he struggles to mount a Broadway play. In the days leading up to opening night, he battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career and himself. I think the movie itself will win Best Film, Edward Norton Best Supporting Actor and Michael Keaton will earn the Best Actor award. But will it win Best Film?

Of all the movies this past year, I was most moved by Clint Eastwood’s brilliant anti-war movie “American Sniper.” And Georgetown University graduate Bradley Cooper gives a strong performance as Chris Kyle, the soldier who was highly decorated for his four tours of duty in Iraq, only to be killed back home in Texas by a deranged veteran of the same war. If Michael Keaton doesn’t win Best Actor, then Bradley Cooper certainly deserves the award. “American Sniper” is the only movie of all the contenders that I’ve seen twice.

By the way, “American Sniper” is the largest grossing film of 2014. But there have only been four box-office champs that won best picture in the past 30 years. “Rain Man” (1988), “Forrest Gump” (1994), “Titanic” (1997) and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003). So, top grossing films do not necessarily fulfill the main criteria for Best Picture. That is why I am worried a film like “Boyhood” might win Best Film. Who has seen this movie?

I’d like to slow down here from the break-neck pace of this column and ask this question about the Oscars: How the hell did Peter O’Toole not win an academy award for Best Actor for his performance in “Lawrence of Arabia”? The Oscars has a big shadow hanging over it ever since this slight.

“The Theory of Everything” is the romantic story between physicist Stephen Hawking and his wife. The lead actors are brilliant. Eddie Redmayne as Hawking and Felicity Jones as his wife. In any other year, both could win the Best Actor and Actress Awards, but not this year.

Best Actress Oscar will go to Julianne Moore for her stunning performance in “Still Alice.” Best Supporting Actress will be Sienna Miller (“American Sniper”).

If there is a sleeper in all of the nominations, it is Wes Anderson for Best Director (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”). But I just don’t see the academy doing him any justice.

So, there you have my predictions for the 2015 Oscars:

= Best Film: “Birdman”

= Best Actor: Michael Keaton (“Birdman”)

= Best Actress: Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”)

= Best Supporting Actor: Edward Norton (“Birdman”)

= Best Supporting Actress: Sienna Miller (“American Sniper”)

= Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Birdman”)

Ari Post • February 16, 2015

Drinking coffee on a gray morning this past winter, I watched through the window of the cafe as a construction crew tossed a stack of red bricks, one-by-one, from the ground up to a scaffold two stories above. The man at the bottom would toss the brick just so, and his partner, leaning over the railing of the scaffold, would pluck it from the air as it floated momentarily at the peak of its arc and place it gently down beside him. A third man stood guard, keeping pedestrians clear of the narrow strip of sidewalk.

I watched this small production carry out in an irrelevant daze, sipping my coffee and avoiding the moment when I would get up, walk a block to my office and sit at my desk for the next nine hours. It went on like this for ten or fifteen minutes: me bluffing time’s inexorable momentum, and the men in hardhats and reflective neon safety vests making bricks leap from the ground and hover gently before plucking them like grapes from the dark sky.

Suddenly they stopped and turned their heads and I followed their gaze to a woman on the edge of the safety perimeter, standing with a small bristly dog at the end of a short leash, rustling her phone out of her pocket and squaring off to steady herself. She held the phone in front of her face, signaled to the crew with a thumbs up and what I can only call a ridiculous grin, and began clicking photographs with excitement as they resumed their small labor. After a moment, she said something, put her phone back into her pocket, readjusted her grip on the leash and tugged her dog away.

There are many ways to observe the world, but the view through a lens is an ever more common filter through which we look at even the smallest and most fleeting of details around us. That woman who photographed the construction team with her phone was so focused on getting the image that she will hardly remember what went on any better than someone who heard the story secondhand.

There are many people today who would consider this trend detrimental to something like social consciousness. But looking at the photographs of Garry Winogrand, it can be considered nothing less than genius.

At the National Gallery through June 8, the self-titled exhibit, “Garry Winogrand,” the first retrospective of the renowned New York photographer in 25 years, features hundreds of photographs and proof sheets that reveal the compulsive, ceaseless physicality of sheer picture-taking profuseness that defined Winogrand as a person, a photographer and an artist.

Even by today’s standards, Winogrand took more pictures than one would almost think was possible in a lifetime. When he died in 1984 at age 56 from bladder cancer, he left behind 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film, 6,500 rolls that had been developed but not contact-printed, and 300 untouched, unedited contact sheets. That is more than a quarter of a million pictures he took that he never even saw.

He was described as a man with ravenous energy and interest in the world, known to literally hurtle through crowds as he photographed. This might explain why so many of his images are fixed in a now trademark tilt—things are usually crooked in a Winogrand photograph, frozen in a restless, startled motion.

He made no distinction between subjects, either. The way he photographed a crippled war veteran or a union rally on the streets of New York is the same way he photographed President Kennedy or Mickey Rooney. Nothing was sacred to him because everything was sacred, and nothing was vulgar because he could find beauty in it all. A ferocious wit, he once quipped, “I don’t know if all the women in the photographs are beautiful, but I do know that the women are beautiful in the photographs.”

He was always taking photographs. His first wife said, “Being married to Garry was like being married to a lens.” As a result his work comes at you like pages of an American encyclopedia caught in a tornado: a pageant winner, the mayor, a sailor, the struggling middle-class family, angry protestors, a tramp, the endless skies of the Southwest, the New England snow blustering over crowded city sidewalks, the ferryboat, the Greyhound bus, the cattle auction, the drunken socialites, the women, a diner, an airport, the smokers, the gamblers, the nuns and priests, the confused children, and a stray pony for good measure.

He took so many photographs, all of them very good, some of them great, and some of them heart-stopping. But I am not sure Winogrand himself would have been interested in the distinction. To pick one photograph as a focus, or even a dozen, would be to single out an image that inadequately represents the power of the artist’s cumulative lifework on display.

This exhibit makes you wish that Winogrand just existed with his camera in every lost moment that ever was because, somehow, he would have made it beautiful. So, the point of the construction worker story is that it is precisely as irrelevant and forgettable as anything, and Winogrand would have done exactly what I saw the woman do: he would have taken the picture, shelved it, and dealt with it some other time, knowing somewhere in his mind that he had recorded that moment. Was it an important photograph? Probably not. But could the photograph be important? Through the lens of Winogrand, it would be a certain possibility.

The content is simply the fabric of our society, which encapsulates everything, from the construction workers, to the overexcited woman with a dog and a phone camera, to the bored man drinking coffee across the street, to every passerby that broke up the scene in between.

And as the view through our own lenses becomes more and more common, it is increasingly clear that Garry Winogrand possessed a rare talent to pluck these moments from the ether, the same way the construction crew snatched the bricks out of the air before they would fall back down to earth and shatter into dust. Although Winogrand would surely scoff at the metaphor.

“Garry Winogrand” is at the National Gallery of Art through June 8. For more information, visit www.nga.gov