Arts & Society

Mary Bird • September 21, 2012

In conjunction with Eat Local First, a campaign to make locally-grown food more accessible to the D.C. community, on July 16 Ris restaurant hosted a happy hour reception celebrating women leading the local food movement. Three finalists vying for a $1,000 award spoke of their initiatives. Lauren Biel and Sarah Bernardi of DC Greens, which promotes school gardens, won the prize. Mitch Berliner, co-founder of Central Farm Markets, generously donated $500 to runners up Allison Sosna of PINES and MicroGreens and to Kathryn Warnes and Lisa Jordan of Taste of Place. [gallery ids="100920,129161,129154,129142,129150" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

The weather may have been steamy but so was the gala vibe as Ambassador of the Czech Republic Petr Gandalovi? welcomed guests on July 19 for a “Red Carpet DC” event showcasing work by photographer Patrick Ryan and insider comments from legendary movie critic Arch Campbell. The evening was a prelude to Mutual Inspirations Festival 2012—Miloš Forman celebrating the accomplishments of the transatlantic film industry. Arch shared stories of waiting for stars to arrive, and Patrick hailed his own work as “a fun gig.” There was lots of glam. [gallery ids="100921,129198,129192,129157,129186,129166,129181,129174" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co. (DTSB), the Washington area’s premier modern dance company, celebrated its 20th anniversary season at a summer “friendraiser” on July 10 at Mie N Yu Venetian Bar on M Street. Among those in attendance were board members and donors, members of the Dance Giving Circle which is providing financial support to the company, government officials, dancers and other friends of the nonprofit dance company [gallery ids="100922,129217,129188,129210,129197,129205" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

The American News Women’s Club celebrated 80 great years as members and guests gathered
at the National Press Club to “Roast & Toast” CNN’s chief political correspondent and
anchor of “State of the Union” Candy Crowley. Host Kimberly Dozier of AP led Dana Bash,
Molly Boyle, Governor Bill Richardson and Judy Woodruff in a hilarious roast of Candy,
culminating with the presentation of the ANWC Award for Excellence in Journalism — the
“Why? What?” Sculpture: a tribute to inquiring minds, created by noted sculptor Lolo Sarnoff.
The annual gala funds scholarships to outstanding young women majoring in journalism. [gallery ids="102465,120836,120844,120856,120828,120850,120862" nav="thumbs"]

Alexis Williams •

Who said museums are a no-play zone? The National Building Museum’s interactive miniature golf course exhibit features a one-of-a-kind, 12-hole course that people of all ages are welcome to play on.

Designed by some of the D.C. area’s most innovative architects and construction firms, such as Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Hargrove Inc., and District Design, the indoor mini-golf course debuted on July 4 and will stay open until Sept. 3. With mini-golf history facts highlighted on the museum walls, the exhibit allows visitors to learn about the game while playing on the designers’ challenging courses.

For $5 per round or $3 per round with purchase of the full-price museum exhibition admission ticket, the mini-golf course is a nice afternoon get-away for families, co-workers or friends. Visit www.nbm.org for more information, or call 202 272 2448. [gallery ids="100898,128282,128270,128275" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

At the Ronald Reagan Building, June 22, the American Cancer Society collaborated with Cure by Design, a fashion show event celebrating cancer survivors. The Cure by Design DC 2012 celebrated the survivorship of 40 persons with fashion. Walking down the runway, the true stars of the evening were dressed in spectacular designer outfits done by Barbara Bates, Sondra Falk and Luis Machicao. For more information on the event and any future events, check out the charity’s twitter @curebydesign. For more fashion photos of the event, visit www.jasondixson.com/American-Cancer-Society-Cure. [gallery ids="100897,128268" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

NBA all-star MVP Kevin Durant returned home to Washington D.C. after a heartbreaking loss in the NBA finals. The D.C.-native sipped Moët Rose Imperial with his entourage a celebrity hot-spot Eden last night. The 23 year old enjoyed a cigar with his friends until he left the club just after 2 a.m. Talk about a fun way of coping!

Mary Bird •

On June 28, VIPs from the technology
and philanthropic worlds converged on Rick
Rickertsen’s Georgetown home (the former carriage
home for Mary Todd Lincoln) to celebrate
Microstrategy’s chairman and CEO Michael
Saylor upon publication of his book, “The Mobile
Wave.” Guests sipped cocktails in the gardens
and then gathered indoors from the sweltering
heat to hear Saylor wax poetic on the future of
technology and education. Guests included Jack
Davies, Jim and Michael Kimsey, Carol Joynt
and Bill Dean. [gallery ids="102464,120860,120870,120852,120865" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post •

The American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead was a keen observer of the riches of modern city life. She spoke of a city as a center “Where any day in any year there may be a fresh encounter with a new talent, a keen mind or a gifted specialist. This is essential to the life of a country.”

“To play this role,” she noted, “a city must have a soul — a university, a great art or music school, a cathedral or a great mosque or temple, a great laboratory or scientific center, as well as … libraries and museums and galleries …”

Scrolling through Mead’s list of highest urban attributes, Washington hits all the marks. We have the schools, the religious and scientific institutions. We are awash in great museums and historic libraries.

By its very nature, the District is a kaleidoscope of history and progression, holding onto our tenets while moving ever into the 21st Century.

And we have galleries. Boy, do we ever. In the heart of this city, encircling Gallery Place and Metro Center amid the glistening glass and steel of arenas, storefronts, apartments and office buildings, art galleries flare against the cultural skyline. Like the Viennese salons of the late 19th Century, there is always someone admiring the artwork worth their weight in conversational gold.

“A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know,” said Mead.

In the galleries listed below, the lifeblood of Mead’s persevering philosophy runs strong, proffering the visual arts as a channel to understanding our history, our surroundings and our collective selves.
Plus, they’re just great venues to see some damn cool stuff. ?

Adamson Gallery

1515 14th Street NW, Suite 202,

www.AdamsonGallery.com

“Wild Things,” the summerlong exhibition at Adamson Gallery, is certainly wild, but don’t go in with the expectation of seeing much in the way of the living. This collection of animal photographs showcase the inhabitants of our oceans and wilderness in a not-so-lifelike light (save the charming Weimaraner portraits of William Wegman). Granted, this is not just an arbitrary portrayal of animals post-mortem. For instance, Martin d’Orgeval’s photograph of an owl is an eerie beakless specimen, perched on a dirty pedestal. This image comes from his project to document the aftermath of a 2008 fire in a 170-year-old taxidermy shop in Paris. The artist photographed everything from singed butterflies to charred bears, offering an interesting observation into the nature of what was — or wasn’t — really destroyed in the fire, while showcasing life’s breathtaking diversity. Other notable artists included in the exhibit include Annie Leibovitz, Jim Dine, Roberto Longo and Roni Horn.

Touchstone Gallery

901 New York Avenue NW,

www.TouchstoneGallery.com

Two simultaneous exhibits at Touchstone Gallery show that traditional practices can still thrive in contemporary art. In his exhibit “Being Affected” (through July 29), Charles St. Charles gives us rows of faces with varied reactions to shared circumstances. The show is influenced by work Charles has done in theater and improvisation, where a satisfying portrayal of reality depends on the actor being affected by the other characters and the environment. Charles skillfully uses color, facial expressions and distortions to reflect the status interplays that result in increasingly crammed physical or psychological spaces.
“A 3D Collage the Adventure” is the work of David Alfuth, a longtime art educator who began this series as a class project for his students. The lesson, which used old prints and engraving, “allowed the students to create a surrealistic situation to present to the viewer,” he writes. “The addition of the 3-dimensional qualities allowed for a world of variety and interest.” The works represent a collective narrative journey, dealing with space, architecture and its effects on human experience: relief sculptures with bizarre and funny titles such as, “They landed on the Moon, planted the flag, and then they left. That is when the party got started;” cubist-like constructions of architectural spaces; and simple, powerful line drawings of architectural elements.

Civilian Art Projects

1019 7th Street NW,

www.CivilianArtProjects.com

Civilian Art Projects has enough to keep patrons busy for a while to come, presenting installations by three acclaimed artists working in a variety of media through July 28. Richard Chartier is a sound artist, considered one of the key figures in the current movement of reductionist electronic sound art, termed “microsound,” or Neo-Modernism. Chartier’s minimalist digital work explores the inter-relationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception and the act of listening itself. In his exhibit “Interior Field,” he transforms the center gallery at Civilian Art into a darkened space where a visitor may relax and focus to this sound composition. A significant portion of this piece utilizes several audio recordings made at the 1905 McMillan Sand Filtration Site in Washington, D.C. during a sudden heavy rainstorm.

Bridget Sue Lambert is exhibiting a photographic series of large-scale prints in which she explores and emphasizes the complicated nature of relationships through the humorously messy rooms of a dollhouse, which she has been working with for the last three years. In them, she has constructed and captured scenes that simulate the emotional and physical clutter that surrounds romantic relationships, as well as a woman’s relationship with herself.

Finally, Shamus Ian Fatzinger presents his show ‘Personal Frontier,’ a series of photographs created from negatives found in a cardboard box belonging to his mother that tell the story of the artist’s childhood, and his family’s move West. What emerges is at once a collection of seminal mid-century American snapshots and a lens into our own grainy, beautiful pasts — weird and sexy, vague and pointed, and somehow very familiar.

Flashpoint Gallery

916 G Street NW,

www.CulturalDC.org

From July 20 to August 18, Flashpoint Gallery will exhibit the work of Interdisciplinary artists Hana Kim and Shana Kim, who join forces to work between the disciplines of architecture and interactive media to create an immersive environmental installation. The show, “Atmospheric Front,” combines pulleys, motors, hand-knit textiles and wires that expand and contract in time with sound and light projections. The texture and movement of the multidimensional piece reference biological and natural systems, which evoke breathing cycles, pulse and emotion. For more information on the process behind their work, visit their blog: AtmosphericFront.wordpress.com.

There will be an opening reception Friday, July 20 from 6 to 8 p.m [gallery ids="100899,128306,128299,128279,128292,128286" nav="thumbs"]