Capitol Fourth

Did you see me on television tonight?

We were at the Capitol Fourth concert tonight on the west steps of the Capitol. which was broadcast live on PBS. There was a great big "jumbotron" screen over the stage which showed the audience the television feed, and there were a lot of shots of the Capitol and close-ups of the fountain level, which is where we were sitting. They said that there were over 400,000 people on the Mall tonight.



We almost didn't go tonight. About 5:30, when we were planning to go to the Mall, there was a major thunderstorm that pounded through town. There're a lot of tree branches and stuff down and we had a brief period of BB sized hail. The Park Police had to herd all of the people on the Mall at that time into tents and into various Smithsonian museums to get them out of the rain, high winds, and lightening. The storm was fairly short, though, and the sun came out pretty quickly, so we Metroed on down to the Mall.

The entire Mall was in a "security area," so we had to have our bags inspected and go through a magnetometer before we were admitted. The entire two miles of the Mall was packed with all kinds of fair-like tents and activities, but we had to go down to the Capitol where the concert was going to be. After pulling some strings to get into the secured area in front of the stage and on the Capitol steps, we found our spot. They were giving away little American flags to everyone.



The concert featured the National Symphony Orchestra Pops and the Choral Arts Society of Washington with Erich Kunzel on the podium. They had a lot of special guest entertainers. Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) was the host and he did some song and dance numbers with some uncredited dancers. A teen pop singer called JoJo sang the national anthem. Vanessa Williams sang that Pocahontas song everybody sings, then she was joined by the puppet Elmo. Elmo "sang" with Vanessa and then did a couple of songs of his own and he was on way too long, but I suppose they were trying to appeal to the little kids in the audience. Michael Bolton showed up next to sing a Frank Sinatra song and another song in the style of Ray Charles (and he was on too long, too!). He was followed by a country singer called Jo Dee Medina.


Cuba Gooding was there to present a lifetime achievement award to Stevie Wonder. After the award, Stevie Wonder sang four or five songs that ultimately were punctuated by the fireworks display being shot off down on the other side of the Washington Monument.



There were two problems with going to the Capitol Fourth concert to see the fireworks. First, that big Jumbotron screen blocked the view of a lot of the fireworks. Second, we were so far away from the fireworks launch point (the reflecting pool by the Lincoln Memorial where they did the launching is between one and two miles away) that they didn't seem as spectacular as they should have. I think I actually had a better view of the fireworks last year when we watched from my apartment building rooftop. It was still nice to be where we were, though.

Once Stevie Wonder got done playing (I don't know what was planned, but I had the distinct impression that he played longer than scheduled and the fireworks weren't supposed to have started during his performance), the National Symphony came back and did the Tchaikovsky "1812 Overture" with the assistance of an Army group of state trumpeters and they had a battery of cannons behind the stage that shot at the appropriate times.

Leaving the Capitol area after the show was challenging. There were thousands and thousands of people trying to cram themselves into the subways. In fact, we saw a line for the Archives station that came out of the station and wound around out to the sidewalk and down about a block. Rather than deal with all that mess, we just walked home. It's a long walk (about two-plus miles), but it just seemed easier.

And, thus was our Fourth. What did you do?

Museum modern art

When you consider that the Smithsonian has the Hirschhorn Museum, which is devoted to modern art and sculpture, and the National Gallery of Art has an entire building devoted to modern art, I find it interesting that the Smithsonian American Art Museum has such a substantial collection of modern art. How do they decide what goes here and what goes in the Hirschhorn?

Anyway, modern art is always provocative. Some people like modern art because of the bright colors or the wild designs. There are those who like modernism because it makes the viewer think. Some like the "issues" portrayed by different artists. Many art lovers like the modern idiom because of multi-media projects and installations (not to mention performance art!). Others just like art that doesn't really look like anything.

I don't want to pass judgment or indicate any "favorites." These are just some of the works that caught my eye yesterday.

Modern art is no longer just the Cubists or the Abstract Expressionists, though Expressionism is certainly well-represented at the museum. While they have quite a number of these, here are two of the painting they have by mid-20th century painters Jackson Pollack and Willem de Koonig, who are considered prime exemplars of the style.



Today, though, many Expressionist painters are more interested in realism and a rather industrial approach to art, as you can see from this acryllic tryptich of sorts.



Modern artists are no longer limited to just paint. Here is a wall-sized art work that qualifies as a "multi-media" installation. I've photographed it for you both from the front and from the side so you can see the three-dimensionality of the piece.


Sometimes the three-dimensionality of modern art is much more pronounced. We saw several instances of large, hollow heads which had been cast and painted to look like real heads, then suspended from the ceiling so that they floated in the air.



The new collection is also surprisingly current, with art from the 21st century, including this large portrait of actor Christopher Reeve done shortly before his death in 2004 (incidentally, his wheelchair and Superman costume are both in the Smithsonian's collection at another museum).



Of course, what would a modern art museum be without something shocking? They have a whole room devoted to the photographic portraiture of controversial artist Andres Serrano, who famously received the ire of Senator Jesse Helms back in 1989 because of his photograph entitled Piss Christ, which depicted a crucifix submerged in a jar of the artist's urine. I was disapointed, though, that neither Piss Christ nor Madonna and Child II, his other highly controversial work, appeared in his room.

Throughout the centuries, art has depicted the female nude form, whether classical statuary or Botticellian nudes or Rubenesque beauties, and modernists are no different. Here is a modern museum painting entitled Saluting the Female Nude. They're a little too small to see, but in the painting's foreground are some military men saluting the central picture.



There were also the token contemporary nude art works. On the left is a painting of twin nude males in bed. On the right is a glowing wall artwork called "Mom and Dad" made up of little miniature lightbulbs in a combination honoring of both husband and wife and of the pointillism pioneered in the late 19th century by French artist Georges Seurat.


We also saw several examples of how modern art and architecture merge in modern room design.


Some of the modern art can be fun, too. Here's a work saluting the American information superhighway.

Here's a closeup of that big neon map. You'll notice that behind each state are a series of small video monitors. Each monitor shows films loops from movies or newscasts which are appropriate to that particular state. See The Wizard of Oz playing in Kansas and Oklahoma! playing in Oklahoma?

And, finally, here's another crowd pleaser: this wall hanging is a car license plate from every state in the country that has the words that spell out the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.

Museum sculpture

The National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum both have a lot of sculptures in their collections. The Portrait Gallery's things tend to be much more traditional—bronze, marble, etc.—and classical in style, while the things in the American Art Museum tend to be strikingly contemporary and at times even shocking. Here are a few things we found interesting.

Some of the things are what you'd see in most any museum.


Then, when we get to the modern sculptures, things become more stylized and symbolic, rather than literal. Here's a sculpture depicting the arrest of civil rights figure Rosa Parks.



We also see a lot of traditional concepts being re-realized in the modern idiom.



And, of course, there is a lot of "modern" sculpture which is abstract and which can't really be identified or described other than just amorphous figures.



We also found some almost lifelife sculptures made of wax—after all, Madame Toussaud has been doing it for decades, why can't modern artists? Many people walk by this sculpture and think it's a real person.

Museum presidents

The National Portrait Gallery has an official collection of the portraits of every president. The presidential gallery is artfully displayed with not only the official portrait, but other paintings, photographs, and even newsreels. A couple of them I found interesting,

This is Norman Rockwell's portrait of Richard Nixon, and one of the best paintings in the gallery.



Here is one of the alternative portraits of Abraham Lincoln, but I think I actually like this one better than the standard one everybody sees all the time.



Lincoln is also the subject of two historic photographs. The first of these photographs was taken by the renowned photographer Matthew Brady and was often seen in Lincoln's presidential campaign. The second photograph was taken after the Civil War and shortly before Lincoln's death.

Museum furniture

Not all of the art we use is a sculpture or a painting. Some of it is designed to be both beautiful and utilitarian, and fine furniture is one of those art forms. The Smithsonian American Art Museum has a number of examples of fine, early 19th century American furniture. I've always loved this style of furniture, but the better pieces from that era are pretty pricey. Anyway, behind the cut are some pictures of their furniture.


(Yes, the flowers are real!





There is a lot of striking modern furniture in the modern galleries which is actually intended for use.

Grand Opening

After our lunch in Chinatown, Edward, Ryan, and I went to the grand opening of the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which reopened yesterday after an extensive renovation and fund raising campaign which has had the museum closed since the Clinton Administration.

The building is very nice. Everything has fresh coats of paint, polished floors, retiled floors and walls, releaded stained glass, and repaired roof leaks and wall cracks. This structure was originally built in 1836 to serve as headquarters for the U.S. Patent Office. Because of the grand spaces and open areas on the third floor of the building, it has been used for all manner of social events, including President Lincoln's second inaugural ball.



In the renovation, the contractors discovered a lot of the original decor of the building, including tile floors and some stained glass skylights. All of those things have been incorporated into the new remodel of the grand Greek Revival building.

Opening day was a festive occasion. They were giving away ice cream and popsicles on the steps and the Target Corporation, one of the museum's major donors, was giving away fans, tote bags, and little stuffed dogs. Dozens of volunteers dressed in period costumes from throughout the nation's history wandered the hallways, including this "Marilyn Monroe," who was near the gallery where we found one of Andy Warhol's Marilyn paintings.



It's been decades since I've been to the Portrait Gallery, so I can't remember exactly what was what. It seemed to me, though, that a lot of the same layout and floor plan was used for the new museum, just gussied up a bit, especially in the portrait section. The two museums split the building in half, so as the viewer wanders through each of the four floors, half will be American art and half will be portraits.

Now that this museum has reopened, I'm going to have to make the rounds of all the other Smithsonian museums to figure out where stuff is these days. It kind of appears as though the new museum has cannibalized a lot of the other museums, pulling in not only portraits, but famous art pieces which were prominently featured elsewhere and even a number of historic objects such as books, swords, clothing, textiles, and even mechanical fragments.

Pictured at the left are fragments from the spy plane flown by Gary Powers that crashed in the former Soviet Union in 1960, precipitating the "U-2 Crisis." It's an interesting bit of history, but it's neither a portrait nor a piece of "American art," so I don't know why it's here.

In addition, all the George Catlin paintings of Plains Indians in the early 1800s, which were the anchor of the Renwick Gallery, now appear scattered out all over the new Portrait Gallery.

We ran into the Target Dog on the second floor, so Edward and Ryan had to have their picture taken with him. We also ran into a sculpture of three bears, which Edward has (albeit a much smaller size) at his home.

I've a few more interesting pictures from the galleries which I will put up in separate posts.