Spring Arts Preview

The Washington Post just published their Spring Arts Preview Guide. There is so much to see and enjoy but  here are the ones I think are most interesting:

• Pride of Place: Dutch Citycsapes of the Golden Age, National Gallery of Art, through May 3.

• Bookends: Book as Art, Torpedo Factory, through Feb 22.

• Detour: Architecture and Design Along 18 National Tourist Routes in Norway, National Building Museum, through Oct 10.

• On the Origin of Species (After Darwin) — celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, National Academy of Sciences, through April 23. As a postscript, this is a fascinating article about happenstance, a purchase of a cabinet (of curiosities) by Robert Heggestad that led to Alfred Russell Wallace, contemporary of Darwin and may have been on the forefront of his theory. Well, I can’t help be reminded of our casart coverings logo…What a find this was.

•Space Unlimited. Work by artists whose photography, painting, video and sculptural installation incorporate space as the central component. Art Museum of the Americas, February 20 – April 12.

• 1934: A New Deal for Artists — fifty-six paintings from the federal Public Works of Art Program. Smithsonian American Art Museum, February 27 – Jan 3, 2010.

• Treasures from the Gallery’s Attic — vintage 19th century – 20th century photographs from Paris, Rome, Pompeii, Venice, Scotland, and New Orleans and more, at the Kathleen Ewing Gallery. March 6 – April 30th.

• Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes. New works by the artist and architect of the Vietnam Memorial, Corcoran Gallery of Art, March 14 –  July 12

Finally, here are two exhibits/events, not on the preview list, that I thought might be worthwhile:

1) S-Curve by Anish Kapoor in entrance of the Sackler Museum, Perspectives exhibit on view through March 1. I really like the reflective quality of this piece. It’s happy like the hall of mirrors in a fair as one’s image is warped in the reflection and it also reminds me of sophisticated jewelry.

2) Engineering Family Day, February 21 at the National Building Museum. Although I have much older kids, I am intrigued by the engineering aspect of this event, because I think my 20 year old college student owes his engineering studies to legos. The Building Museum is one of my favorite spaces, so the two in combination really seems appealing for young families — especially the chance do the Atlas rope ascender in the Great Hall, as featured in the Bouncing off Walls article in the Washington Post.