EVENT CATEGORIES

ART 

Through July 3

Take It Right Back: Works by Paula Doepfner

In her graphic and sculptural pieces, Berlin-based artist Paula Doepfner works with natural shapes, materials and products such as flowers and ice, alongside iron and glass, as material ways of conveying stories, processes, feelings and utopias.

Goethe-Institut

July 7 to Sept. 11

Miguel Salom: Ictum Olim III: Ambrotypes and Tintypes

Miquel Salom’s exhibited works resulted from decades of applied photographic research and visits to the United States to observe, firsthand, original works by photography pioneers. Selected portraits and landscapes use wet collodion, an early form of photographic emulsion.

OAS Art Museum of the Americas

July 12 to Aug. 28

Definition of Color

Colombian-born, New York-based mixed-media artist Andés Hoyos primarily works with objects that have been discarded or left behind by others. His hope is that by giving these objects new life he helps to start a broader discussion about recycling. Viewings are by appointment only; email mrueda@colombiaemb.org to schedule a visit.

Colombian Ambassador’s Residence

Through July 20

Between: Works by Kim Ji Min

This solo exhibition features works by cutting-edge Korean contemporary artist Kim Ji Min that creatively explores the psychology of life in our consumer-driven society. Combining elements of visual, installation, video and found art, Kim’s work explores the contradictions inherent in our modern consumer society by repurposing mass quantities of common product labels into striking composite images of nature — an exquisite juxtaposition of industrialized material and organic form. The title “Between” refers to the indeterminate space between our highly labeled social reality and our idealized structure of life.

Korean Cultural Center

Through July 26

Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns

This first comprehensive exhibition to examine the history of metalpoint — the art of drawing with a metal stylus on a specially prepared ground — presents some 90 drawings from the late Middle Ages to the present, from the collections of the British Museum, the National Gallery of Art and other major museums in the United States and Europe.

National Gallery of Art

Through July 26

In Light of the Past: Twenty-Five Years of Photography at the National Gallery of Art

Highlighting exquisite 19th-century works and turn-of-the-century pictorialist photographs; exceptional examples of international modernism from the 1920s and 1930s and seminal mid-20th-century American photography; as well as photographs exploring new directions in color and conceptual art from the 1960s and 1970s, the exhibition demonstrates the richness of the National Gallery’s photography collection.

National Gallery of Art

Through July 26

Travels in the Imagination

The personal, poetic and playful work of Visvaldis Ziediņš — a Latvian artist who lived and worked during the Soviet era but was not discovered until 2009, two years after his death — changes the perception of the nature of Latvian art during the Soviet era, and refutes the commonly held idea that Latvia did not produce non-conformist art.

AU Museum at Katzen Arts Center

Through Aug. 2

From the Library: Florentine Publishing in the Renaissance

This exhibition presents a variety of books from the late 15th through the early 17th century and explores the development of publishing related to the artistic and scholarly community in Florence.

National Gallery of Art

Through Aug. 5

War & Art: Destruction and Protection of Italian Cultural Heritage during World War I

This photographic exhibition illustrates the Italian people’s struggle to protect their cultural patrimony from the ravages of war. A century later, the images not only document early preservation efforts, but have become works of art in their own right, reminding us of the enduring struggle to save the highest expressions of the human spirit from the degradations and savagery of war.

Woodrow Wilson House

Through Aug. 9

Jacob Lawrence: Struggle … From the History of the American People

Produced between 1954 and 1956, Jacob Lawrence’s “Struggle … From the History of the American People” portrays scenes from American history, chronicling events from the Revolutionary War through the great westward expansion of 1817.

The Phillips Collection

Through Aug. 16

Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibition

In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, this exhibit will showcase 20 artifacts collected from the debris of the bombings, six large folding screens that depict the horrors of the bombings and a collection of drawings by Japanese children created two years after the war ended.

AU Museum at Katzen Arts Center

Through Aug. 23

Ships, Clocks & Stars: The Quest for Longitude

To mark the 300th anniversary of the passing of the Longitude Act in 1714, this landmark exhibition tells the extraordinary story of the race to determine longitude (east-west position) at sea, helping to solve the problem of navigation and saving seafarers from terrible fates including shipwreck and starvation.

Folger Shakespeare Library

Through Aug. 30

Hot to Cold: An Odyssey of Architectural Adaptation

On the heels of its summer blockbuster “BIG Maze,” the international design firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) returns to take visitors from the hottest to the coldest parts of our planet and explore how BIG’s design solutions are shaped by their cultural and climatic contexts. More than 60 three-dimensional models will be suspended at the second-floor balconies of the museum’s historic Great Hall in an unprecedented use of this public space.

National Building Museum

Through Sept. 7

Watch This! Revelations in Media Art

This exhibit of pioneering and contemporary artworks that trace the evolution of a continuously emerging medium celebrates artists who are engaged in a creative revolution — one shaped as much by developments in science and technology as by style or medium.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Through Sept. 13

American Moments: Photographs from the Phillips Collection

In celebration of recent major gifts, the Phillips presents for the first time a major photography exhibition drawn exclusively from the museum’s permanent collection. The exhibit showcases more than 140 photographs that capture the changing landscape of America after World War I, with more than 30 renowned artists represented and many works new to the collection.

The Phillips Collection

Through Sept. 13

Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria

This retrospective showcases the work of noted Nigerian photographer Chief S.O. Alonge, the first indigenous photographer of the Royal Court of Benin, in conjunction with royal arts from the Benin kingdom. The collection of historic photographs was captured on Kodak glass-plate negatives and documents more than 50 years of the ritual, pageantry and regalia of the obas (kings), their wives and retainers.

National Museum of African Art

Through Sept. 13

The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art

In the decades since 1990, the concepts of time and memory have been frequently explored by photographers who seek not simply to reflect the world but to illuminate how photography constructs our understanding of it. This exhibition explores the work of 26 contemporary artists who investigate the complex and resonant relationship of photography to time, memory and history.

National Gallery of Art

Through Sept. 13

Organic Matters – Women to Watch 2015 / Super Natural

Historically, women artists were encouraged by society to take the natural world as their subject. Rather than narrative art, which was thought to require invention and imagination beyond women’s capabilities, subjects such as botanical drawings, still-life paintings and images of animals seemed to require merely the power of observation. Turning this archaic paradigm upside down, these featured contemporary artists actively redefine the relationship of women, nature and art by investigating the natural world — to fanciful and sometimes frightful effect.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Through Sept. 13

Super Natural

Rather than merely document beauty, artists in “Super Natural” engage with nature as a space for exploration and invention. Historical painters and naturalists focused on the singularity or strangeness of plant and animal specimens, sometimes adding narrative details and imagined settings.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Through Sept. 20

Shirin Neshat: Facing History

This major exhibition of works by Iranian-born, New York-based video artist, photographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat is the first to place Neshat’s work in the context of the history of modern Iran, a significant influence on her career.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Through Sept. 27

Waterweavers: The River in Contemporary Colombian Visual and Material Culture

The confluence of the image of the river and the act of weaving is present both metaphorically and literally across contemporary practices in Colombia. Using the river as a conceptual device to explore the intersections in Colombian culture today between design, craft and art, “Waterweavers” investigates the intricate ways in which culture and nature can intertwine across disciplines.

OAS Art Museum of the Americas

Through Oct. 4

Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-94) was among the most critically noted impressionist artists during the height of their activity in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Some 45 paintings from the period when Caillebotte was fully engaged with the impressionist movement will provide a focused understanding of the provocative character and complexity of his artistic contributions.

National Gallery of Art

Through Oct. 4

Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael

The first monographic exhibition on Dutch painter Wtewael will showcase his international mannerist style and remarkable technical ability through some 45 complex biblical and mythological narratives, as well as portraits and genre scenes.

National Gallery of Art

Through Oct. 4

Recent Acquisitions of Italian Renaissance Prints: Ideas Made Flesh

Prints played a pivotal role in the development and transmission of Italian Renaissance style. But because many of these 16th-century prints reproduce the designs of other artists, they have often been undervalued. This exhibition presents some two dozen, reflecting the principal styles and numerous major masters of the period.

National Gallery of Art

Through Oct. 31

Celebrating 25 Years of the MCI Silver on Silver: William Spratling, An American in Taxco

Adventurer, writer, collector, illustrator, architect, designer, entrepreneur and businessman are just a few words that have been used to describe William Spratling, a person who undoubtedly had much to do with Taxco’s transformation from Mexican small town to center of design. Granted to the Museo Franz Mayer for a 10-year loan in 2012, this exhibition shows the trajectory of Spratling’s vision for design as tool of not only aesthetics, but also one of social transformation. In four parts covering different themes, silver pieces, including jewelry and documents, seek to show Spratling as a designer committed to his context and his community.

Mexican Cultural Institute

Through Nov. 1

The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists

This dramatic multimedia exhibition reveals the ongoing global relevance of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic as part of a shared intellectual heritage and includes original commissions and renowned works of art by approximately 40 of the most dynamic contemporary artists from 19 African nations and the diaspora.

National Museum of African Art

Through Dec. 31

Ingénue to Icon: 70 Years of Fashion

The first exhibition at Hillwood to present Marjorie Post’s full range of style, “Ingénue to Icon” will examine how Post’s lifelong passion for objects that were exceptionally beautiful and impeccably constructed extended to her taste for clothing

Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens

Through Jan. 2

Peacock Room Remix: Darren Waterston’s Filthy Lucre

“Peacock Room REMIX” centers on “Filthy Lucre,” an immersive interior by painter Darren Waterston who reinterprets James McNeill Whistler’s famed Peacock Room as a resplendent ruin, an aesthetic space that is literally overburdened by its own excesses — of materials, history, and creativity. Like “Filthy Lucre” and the original Peacock Room, this exhibition invites viewers to consider the complex relationships among art, money and the passage of time.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Through Jan. 3

Bold and Beautiful: Rinpa in Japanese Art

The modern term Rinpa (Rimpa) describes a remarkable group of Japanese artists who created striking images for paintings, ceramics, textiles and lacquerware.

Freer Gallery of Art

Through Jan. 3

Enigmas: The Art of Bada Shanren (1626-1705)

Born a prince of the Ming imperial house, Bada Shanren (1626–1705) lived a storied life, remaking himself as a secluded Buddhist monk and, later, as a professional painter and calligrapher. Featured in this exhibition are examples of his most daring and idiosyncratic works, demonstrating his unique visual vocabulary.

Freer Gallery of Art

DANCE

Wed., July 1, 7:30 p.m.

Indian Performing Arts Promotions Presents: Amazing Odisha

The Odisha Society of America presents a multifaceted program of classical Indian dance and music to showcase the rich history, artistic excellence and unique culture of the peoples from the eastern Indian state of Odisha. Tickets are $50.

Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Tue., July 14, 8:30 p.m.

National Ballet of China: The Peony Pavilion

Fusing classical Western ballet with traditional Chinese dance, this spellbinding performance by the National Ballet of China tells the story of star-crossed lovers through luscious costumes and poetic staging. Tickets are $20 to $65.

Wolf Trap Filene Center

DISCUSSIONS

Wed., July 8, 6:30 p.m.

Finding Shared Values for U.S. Foreign Policy

Highlighting the importance late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye placed on bipartisanship and moral courage, the first annual Daniel K. Inouye Distinguished Lecture Series will address shared values in U.S. foreign policy with two former secretaries of state, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, speaking while Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent with NBC News, moderates.

Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson Building

Mon., July 13, 6:45 p.m.

Dumplings: A Global Wrap and Savory Culinary History

You may know them as pierogis or wontons. They’re baozi in China, nikuman in Japan and salapao in Thailand. From North and South America to Europe, Africa and Asia, the dumpling — by any name — has become synonymous with comfort food. Food expert Barbara Gallani explores the contrast between the dumpling as everyday meal and special-occasion food and how this simple dish has inspired songs, poems and even monuments. Following the lecture, sample dumplings from around the world from local restaurants, including Mari Vanna, Osteria Morini and The Source. Tickets are $42; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

S. Dillon Ripley Center

Thu., July 16, 6:30 p.m.

In the Shadow of Power and Light: Experiences and Lessons from Fukushima

Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant lies a mere 40 miles from D.C., the same distance between Fukushima Prefecture’s capital city and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where three of six reactor cores melted down after the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami. This panel discussion investigates how we deal with nuclear crisis and how we can transfer and apply the insights we have gained from the disaster in Fukushima to nuclear power plants in the U.S.

Goethe-Institut

Thu., July 23, 6:45 p.m.

Turkish Delights: In Search of Unique Destinations

Gobeklitepe. Catalhoyuk. Land of the Fairy Chimneys. Ephesus. These names evoke destinations mysterious, hidden, far away. But if you are ready to take the path less traveled, why not begin that journey in Turkey? The country is studded with secret places to discover, says Serif Yenen, who explores these destinations and more in a lecture followed by a reception. Tickets are $42; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

S. Dillon Ripley Center

Sat., July 25, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Anatolia: A Turkish Odyssey

Anatolia’s colorful history has left a windfall of cultural riches — ancient ruins, ornate Byzantine churches, supremely elegant mosques, and splendid Ottoman palaces. In this illustrated seminar, Serif Yenen highlights the history and splendor of ancient Turkey by way of some of its hidden gems. Tickets are $130; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

S. Dillon Ripley Center

Mon., July 27, 6:45 p.m.

Bringing the Etruscans Into View

The words “mysterious” or “enigmatic” always seem linked to any mention of the Etruscans, a people who lived in the region of Tuscany in the first millennium B.C. Although influenced in some ways by the Greeks and later integrated into the Roman state, the Etruscans have a style that is all their own and, according to art historian Renee Gondek, we can learn much about their daily practices from the artifacts and structures that have been recovered. Tickets are $42; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

S. Dillon Ripley Center

FESTIVALS

July 1 to 5

Smithsonian Folklife Festival

The theme of the 2015 Smithsonian Folklife Festival — an international exposition of living cultural heritage produced annually outdoors on the National Mall — is “Perú: Pachamama,” exploring the country’s stunning vertical landscape that integrates a diversity of ecosystems and cultures. Visitors to the Peru Festival program will experience these unique connections through cooking and craft demonstrations, music and dance performances, moderated discussions, ritual and celebratory processions, and other participatory activities.

National Mall

MUSIC

Tue., July 7, 7:30 p.m.

Choir Concert: Kinder – Und Jugendakademie Graz

One of the oldest secular Austrian boarding high schools (since 1854), the HIB in Graz with its attached Singing Academy offers its pupils a comprehensive vocal education. On their tours around the world, the young singers from Graz try to build a bridge from the rich Austrian choir tradition to international contemporary music. Admission is free; visit acfdc.org to register.

Embassy of Austria

Thu., July 9, 6 p.m.

PostClassical Ensemble Concert and Screening of ‘The City’

Aaron Copland, born in Brooklyn, both implicitly and explicitly evokes urban landscapes in his “Piano Variations” and “Quiet City” for chamber orchestra, both of which are performed live at this event — followed by a screening of “The City” (1939), with Copland’s most vivid and important film score (as re-recorded by PostClassical Ensemble). Tickets are $12

Phillips Collection

Sat., July 11, 8:15 p.m.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5: Sarah Chang Plays Bruch

The world’s most recognizable classical composition, revered as “splendid beyond all measure” (E.T.A. Hoffmann), provides a dramatic finale to an award-winning international violinist’s performance of Bruch. Tickets are $20 to $58.

Wolf Trap Filene Center

Fri., July 24, 8:15 p.m.

Verdi’s Aida in Concert

Venture into Ancient Egypt with the majestic music of Verdi’s grand opera “Aida,” sung by Metropolitan Opera artists and Wolf Trap Opera alumni Michelle DeYoung, Marjorie Owens, Carl Tanner, and Scott Hendricks. Tickets are $22 to $75.

Wolf Trap Filene Center

Fri., July 31, 5 p.m.

Mark Damisch 40th Anniversary Tour

Mark Damisch, an American concert pianist who began studying organ at the Evanston Conservatory of Music at the age of 4, celebrates 40 years of tours that have taken him to more than 40 countries, including Japan, the Soviet Union, Ukraine, Israel, Egypt, the Netherlands, Africa, China, the Greek Islands, Iceland, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, India and more. Admission is free; visit acfdc.org to register.

Embassy of Austria

THEATER

July 7 to Aug. 2

Let Them Eat Chaos

Famed Chicago troupe the Second City returns to Woolly with its latest uproarious offering, a blast of irreverent sketch comedy and razor-sharp satire that skewer American culture. Tickets are $35 to $100.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Through July 5

Tartuffe

Orgon has fallen under the spell of the pious fraud Tartuffe, at great cost to his family and household in “Tartuffe,” Molière’s crowning achievement and scathing indictment of religious hypocrisy. Tickets are $20 to $110.

Shakespeare Theatre

July 7 to Aug. 16

Once

Theatrically breathtaking, the eight-time 2012 Tony Award–winning musical tells the enchanting tale of a Dublin street musician who’s about to give up on his dream when a beautiful young woman takes a sudden interest in his haunting love songs. Tickets are $65 to $160.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

July 10 to 18

The Ghosts of Versailles

To rewrite history and save Marie Antoinette from the guillotine, the famed playwright of “The Marriage of Figaro” and “The Barber of Seville” stages an opera for the ghost queen that can reverse her fate. Don’t miss this comic opera-within-an-opera in which the ghosts from the Court of Louis XVI tempt life, death, politics, love and destiny. Tickets are $32 to $88.

The Barns at Wolf Trap

July 15 to Aug. 9

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Synetic remounts its playful adaptation of Shakespeare’s timeless comedy with a trademark movement-based visual storytelling. This fantastical, darkly playful game of love, mistaken identity and the supernatural was honored with nine Helen Hayes Award nominations when it was first produced in 2010. Tickets start at $35.

Synetic Theatre

July 18 to 26

Roméo et Juliette

Driven by the unique mission to revitalize the importance of vocal artistry and the singer’s freedom of expression as the sine qua non of the operatic form, Maryland Lyric Opera presents “Roméo et Juliette,” Charles Gounod’s grand opera and the most famous of the operatic treatments of this iconic tragedy by Shakespeare. Tickets are $35 to $100.

University of Maryland

Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts

Through Aug. 16

The Book of Mormon

Hailed by the New York Times as “the best musical of this century,” this outrageous musical comedy follows the misadventures of a mismatched pair of missionaries, sent halfway across the world to spread the Good Word. Tickets are $43 to $250.

Kennedy Center Opera House