EVENT CATEGORIES
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ART
Through Jan. 5
El Tendedero / The Clothesline Project
Mexico City-based artist Mónica Mayer transforms the clothesline, a traditionally feminine object, into a tool designed to engage the community and facilitate a dialogue around women’s experience with violence, including topics such as sexual harassment, domestic violence, and trafficking.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Through Jan. 7
84th Annual Exhibition of Fine Art in Miniature
Strathmore’s Mansion bursts with an enormous collection of more than 750 miniature artworks for the 84th Annual Exhibition of Fine Art in Miniature. This annual showcase of tiny treasures, some as small as a fingernail, features 292 artists from 11 countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Malta and Australia.
Music Center at Strathmore
Through Jan. 7
Bosch to Bloemaert: Early Netherlandish Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Founded in the 19th century, Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen possesses one of the world’s finest collections of 15th- and 16th-century Netherlandish drawings. “Bosch to Bloemaert” offers American audiences an exceptional opportunity to see a selection of 100 master drawings from this collection. The exhibition presents a beautiful and remarkably comprehensive overview of the period, encompassing nearly all media and types of drawings of the time.
National Gallery of Art
Through Jan. 7
GLOW
Nine local, regional and international artists, including Joachim Sługocki and Katarzyna Malejka from Poland, will show commissioned light-artworks juxtaposed against the backdrop of Georgetown’s historic environs during the fourth edition of the Georgetown “GLOW” exhibition. For information, visit www.georgetownglowdc.com.
Washington Harbour
Through Jan. 7
Renoir and Friends: Luncheon of the Boating Party
This special exhibition will focus on The Phillips Collection’s celebrated “Luncheon of the Boating Party” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the diverse circle of friends who inspired it. The first exhibition to focus on this singular masterwork in more than 20 years, it is comprised of more than 40 carefully chosen works — paintings, drawings, pastels, watercolors and photographs from public and private collections around the world — that reveal the story of “Luncheon of the Boating Party” and the artists and patrons who were instrumental in its creator’s success.
The Phillips Collection
Through Jan. 7
Scraps: Fashion, Textiles and Creative Reuse
Textile and apparel manufacturing is one of the most polluting industries in the world. This exhibition explores the work of innovative designers taking a lead in sustainability and reducing waste in the design process.
The George Washington University Textile Museum
Through Jan. 12
Changing Landscapes: Janelle Lynch and Pedro David
Landscapes are constantly shifting, marking points across the lengthy timeline of evolutionary changes and, more recently, changes caused by human-induced technological and economic impact. Today, these landscapes inform our subjectivities, reflecting our present through the past’s mirror, as evoked by photographs by Janelle Lynch and Pedro David. The notion of the “settler” and the concept of the landscape as a romantic convention are present in Lynch’s photographic series made in México City, where the “settler” becomes a corpse dumped into a mass grave. Meanwhile, for the last 13 years, David has been photographing transgenic eucalyptus that are replacing natural forests throughout Latin America.
OAS Art Museum of the Americas
Through Jan. 15
Architecture of an Asylum: St. Elizabeths 1852-2017
Established by Congress in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane, St. Elizabeths is widely considered a pioneering psychiatric facility. The hospital is a prime example of the “Kirkbride Plan” for mental health hospitals, which promised to help patients with a specialized architecture and landscape. This exhibition traces St. Elizabeths’ evolution over time, reflecting shifting theories about how to care for the mentally ill, as well as the later reconfiguration of the campus as a federal workplace and a mixed-use urban development.
National Building Museum
Through Jan. 15
Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt
Cats’ personalities have made them internet stars today. In ancient Egypt, cats were associated with divinities, as revealed in “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt.” Cat coffins and representations of the cat-headed goddess Bastet are among the extraordinary objects that reveal felines’ critical role in ancient Egyptian religious, social and political life.
Freer and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Through Jan. 15
Imaginary World of The Nutcracker
ARTECHOUSE reimagines the all-time favorite winter tradition, “The Nutcracker,” with projections, interactive experiences and augmented reality elements — inspired by the original story and powered by the latest digital technology.
ARTECHOUSE
Jan. 19 to July 8
Hung Liu in Print
This spotlight exhibition features 16 prints and a tapestry by painter and printmaker Hung Liu that invites viewers to explore the relationship between Liu’s multi-layered paintings and the palpable, physical qualities of her works on paper. Her multifaceted body of work probes the human condition and confronts issues of culture, identity and personal and national history.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Through Jan. 21
Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today
This landmark exhibition of abstract paintings, sculptures and works on paper by 21 black women artists places the visual vocabularies of these artists in context with one another and within the larger history of abstraction. This exhibition celebrates those under-recognized artists who have been marginalized, and argues for their continuing contribution to the history and iconography of abstraction in the United States.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Through Jan. 21
Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry
This landmark exhibition examines the artistic exchanges among Johannes Vermeer and his contemporaries from 1650 to 1675, when they reached the height of their technical ability and mastery of depictions of domestic life. The exhibition brings together some 65 works by Vermeer and his fellow painters of the Dutch Golden Age, including Gerard ter Borch, Gerrit Dou, Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu, Frans van Mieris, Caspar Netscher and Jan Steen. Juxtaposing paintings related by theme, composition, and technique, the exhibition explores how these artists inspired, rivaled, surpassed and pushed each other to greater artistic achievement.
National Gallery of Art
Through Jan. 24
Two Reflections: Korean and American Artists Confront Humanity and Nature
“Two Reflections” draws thematic connections and contrasts between the visual languages of artists Don Kimes and Suh Yongsun, each of whom portrays a common sense of anguish brought about by different fundamental and inescapable forces in life: nature and humanity. While Kimes’s work reflects on recovering his creative life in the wake of a natural disaster, Suh explores the universal struggle of individuals to live in just harmony with society.
Korean Cultural Institute
Jan. 25 to May 5
A Dark and Scandalous Rockfall
This collaborative installation by Perla Krauze and Barbara Liotta, artists from both sides of the Mexico-United States border, incorporates material and metaphorical qualities of stone to evoke landscape and classical sculpture. The title of the exhibit is drawn from the poem “Dry Rain” by Mexican poet Pedro Serrano, which begins: “At times the poem is a collapse/ a slow and painful landslide/ a dark and scandalous rockfall.” Given the current state of U.S.-Mexico relations, this exhibition presents a healing gesture, recognizing our shared history.
Mexican Cultural Institute
Through Jan. 26
Canadians by Bryan Adams
in celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary, the Embassy of Canada displays a collection of photographs by Grammy-winning music legend Bryan Adams. The exhibition features 29 portraits of Canadian icons, including: Céline Dion, KD Lang, Michael J. Fox, Margaret Atwood, Robbie Robertson, The Weeknd, Wayne Gretzky, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau.
Embassy of Canada
Through Jan. 26
German Jazz
Very few music genres have been – and continue to be – formed through such a turbulent history as that of jazz. Deeply rooted in the Afro-American blues and ragtime scene of New Orleans, jazz transformed and redefined itself in the 1920s, spreading like musical wildfire worldwide as a messenger of a new esthetic. It quickly gained a foothold in Germany, where it became the soundtrack for the roaring ’20s Berlin.
Goethe-Institut
Through Jan. 28
Murder Is Her Hobby: Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
This fascinating exhibition explores the surprising intersection between craft and forensic science. Frances Glessner Lee (1878-1962) crafted her extraordinary “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death” — exquisitely detailed miniature crime scenes — to train homicide investigators to “convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.” These dollhouse-sized dioramas, created in the first half of the 20th century and still used in forensic training today, were the equivalent of virtual reality in their time and helped to revolutionize the emerging field of forensic science. They also tell the story of how a woman co-opted traditionally feminine crafts to advance a male-dominated field and establish herself as one of its leading voices.
Renwick Gallery
Through Jan. 28
Posing for the Camera: Gifts from Robert B. Menschel
A selection of some 60 photographs in the National Gallery’s collection made possible by Robert B. Menschel are on view in an exhibition that examines how the act of posing for a portrait changed with the invention of the medium. Featured works come from the early 1840s — just after photography was invented — through the 1990s.
National Gallery of Art
Jan. 28 to May 13
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe
Undoubtedly the greatest Renaissance artist from Estonia, Michel Sittow (c. 1469–1525) was born in Reval (now Tallinn), likely studied in Bruges with Hans Memling and worked at the courts of renowned European royals such as King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. Through some 20 works representing most of Sittow’s small oeuvre, the exhibition will offer an opportunity to examine his art in a broader context.
National Gallery of Art
Jan. 28 to May 13
Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Some 300 works explore three distinct periods in American history when mainstream and outlier artists intersected, ushering in new paradigms based on inclusion, integration and assimilation.
National Gallery of Art
Through Jan. 29
The Box Project: Uncommon Threads
This exhibition explores contemporary fiber artworks commissioned through a challenge to international artists and features pieces by 36 acclaimed international artists, including Richard Tuttle, Cynthia Schira, Gerhardt Knodel, Helena Hernmarck and Gyöngy Laky, among others. It showcases a diverse collection of works that reflect the artists’ creative and ingenious use of fiber to create new works of art.
The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum
Through Jan. 31
DIS/PLACE: Notions of Home in Latin American Photojournalism
“DIS\PLACE” is an invitation to reflect on notions of home through the lens of displacement. Topics include migration, violence, and humanity’s impact on the environment as a direct consequence of displacement. The aim is to “displace” viewers and their senses as they look out at the world as well as inward toward their own perceptions of place and home.
Inter-American Development Bank Cultural Center
Through Feb. 1
Double Look: The Other Latin American Photography
Is it possible to talk about a Latin American documentary photography? Curators Carla Möller and Jose Pablo Concha propose a widening of documentary language exploring the path of active photographers who have achieved critical autonomy to observe their own historical time.
Embassy of Chile
Through Feb. 17
Painting Shakespeare
Discover the paintings collection at the Folger — its stories, its glories and Shakespeare’s power to inspire visual artists. From humble oil sketches to international masterpieces, this exhibition presents kids and adults alike, with a sometimes surprising, and always eye-catching, view of the man and his works.
Folger Shakespeare Library
Through March 4
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: The Utopian Projects
Spanning 1985 through present day, this survey comprises more than 20 of the Kabakovs’ maquettes, whimsical models, for projects realized and unrealized, including monuments, allegorical narratives, architectural structures and commissioned outdoor works. Opening nearly 30 years after the Hirshhorn hosted Ilya Kabakov’s first major U.S. exhibition, these intricate creations invite the viewer into their surreal world in miniature and offer a rare glimpse into the duo’s artistic process.
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Through March 18
Tamayo: The New York Years
Rufino Tamayo’s lushly colored paintings portraying modern Mexican subjects earned him widespread acclaim as an artist who balanced universal themes with a local sensibility. Tamayo (1899-1991) was drawn to New York City in the early 20th century at a time when unparalleled transatlantic and hemispheric cross-cultural exchange was taking place. “Tamayo: The New York Years” is the first exhibition to explore the influences between this major Mexican modernist and the American art world with 41 of his finest artworks.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Through March 25
Palimpsestus: Image and Memory
The 70 artworks on display, produced between 1900 and 2014, include more than 30 artists from 10 different countries drawn from Colección Memoria, as well as a selection of iconic modern and contemporary pieces from OAS permanent art collection. The exhibit surveys the main artistic trends and visual cultures that have developed in Latin America in the second half of the 20th eentury. The term Palimpsest, a capitalistic practice stemming from the scarcity of paper as a good for 15 centuries, is appropriated by the curator to conceptualize the relativity and interrelation of art narratives and aesthetic discourses.
OAS Art Museum of the Americas
Through Spring 2018
Syria: Please Don’t Forget Us
The Syrian conflict has raged for almost seven years and claimed the lives of more than 500,000 of the country’s citizens. Eleven million people, one-half of Syria’s pre-war population, have fled their homes. The Assad regime is detaining more than 100,000 of its people in secret detention centers where they are starved, tortured, and killed. This exhibition is a powerful testament to not only what the Syrian people have endured, but also their quest to document the crimes, tell their stories and hold their perpetrators accountable.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Through June 24
Jim Chuchu’s Invocations
The museum is the first institution to acquire and display Kenyan multimedia artist Jim Chuchu’s mesmerizing suite of video projections, in which two distinct videos loop in succession and follow the structure of initiation rituals. Surrounded by Chuchu’s pulsing house beats and evocative imagery, viewers are invited to contemplate the separations and releases that shape our individual and collective identities.
National Museum of African Art
Through Aug. 15
Tomb of Christ
Be virtually transported to Jerusalem and discover the fascinating history of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in an immersive 3-D experience unlike anything you’ve seen in a museum before. Groups will be able to virtually visit the church and learn about its storied history and enduring mysteries.
National Geographic
Through Nov. 12, 2018
Mark Bradford: Pickett’s Charge
For his first solo exhibition in D.C., acclaimed artist Mark Bradford debuts a monumental site-specific commission inspired by Paul Philippoteaux’s 1883 cyclorama depicting the Battle of Gettysburg. Covering the curved walls of the Hirshhorn’s Third Level Inner Circle, “Pickett’s Charge” presents 360 degrees of abstracted historical narrative.
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
DANCE
Sun., Jan. 14, 2 p.m.
Dancer of Japan: Grand Master Onoe Kikunojyo
Japanese classical dancer and choreographer Onoe Kikunojyo III returns to the U.S. as the Grand Master (lemoto) of Japan’s prestigious Onoe School of Dance. Tickets are $25 to $100.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
Jan. 30 to Feb. 4
American Ballet Theatre: Whipped Cream – Works by Ratmansky, Millepied and Wheeldon
American Ballet Theatre’s starry roster of dancers is just one of many assets fueling its ever-growing fan base. The company performs a stunning lineup of works, including the D.C. premiere of Ratmansky’s full-length story ballet “Whipped Cream.” Tickets are $49 to $249.
Kennedy Center Opera House
FESTIVALS
Jan. 15 to Feb. 15
2018 Women’s Voices Theater Festival
In its landmark effort to stage a paradigm shift in American theater, the Women’s Voices Theater Festival announces nearly 30 productions, penned by women playwrights and women-led collectives, for the festival’s second iteration. The festival is a unified effort by theaters across Washington, D.C., to highlight the scope of plays being written by women and the range of professional theater being produced in the capital region. For information, visit www.womensvoicestheaterfestival.org.
Various locations
MUSIC
Tue., Jan. 9, 6:45 p.m.
Un Viaje por México with Trio Nova Mundi
“Un Viaje por México (A Trip through Mexico)” features works by three storied Mexican composers — Manuel M. Ponce, Juan Ramírez and María Grever — by Trio Nova Mundi, a dynamic all-women ensemble spanning the Americas in musical training and heritage. To RSVP, visit www.instituteofmexicodc.org.
Mexican Cultural Institute
Wed., Jan. 10, 6 p.m.
Latvian Radio Big Band
The Latvian Radio Big Band will deliver a one-night-only performance where they will bring some of the best Latvian jazz from the past decades, as well as some of their latest projects such as jazz arrangements of Latvian folk songs.
Kennedy Center Millennium Stage
Thu., Jan. 25, 7:30 p.m.
Joel Fan, Piano
Joel Fan is celebrated for his exuberant virtuosity and repertoire that embraces piano classics and inspired discoveries of contemporary and world music. A member of Silk Road Ensemble featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Fan’s latest album focuses on the intersection of music and dance. Tickets are $30.
Music Center at Strathmore
Sun., Jan. 28, 5 p.m.
Kings Singers
In 1968, the original six King’s Singers came together through their shared love of singing and quickly became renowned for their performances and diversity of their music. In 2018, the group looks back over the last 50 years with a program of works from Renaissance polyphony and international folk songs to new commissions. Tickets are $40.
St. John’s Episcopal Church
Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 8 p.m.
International Guitar Night
Four global guitar masters come together to create two exhilarating evenings of entertainment. Germany’s gypsy jazz legend Lulo Reinhardt returns along with Canadian contemporary sensation Calum Graham, Poland’s innovative classical composer/performer Marek Pasieczny and award-winning American guitarist Michael Chapdelaine. Tickets are $27 to $30.
Wolf Trap
THEATER
Through Jan. 7
An American in Paris
“An American in Paris” is the new Tony–winning musical about an American soldier, a mysterious French girl and an indomitable European city, each yearning for a new beginning in the aftermath of war. Please call for ticket information.
Kennedy Center Opera House
Jan. 9 to Feb. 11
The Way of the World
Mae is a sweet-natured woman with just a little baggage: a $600 million inheritance. When her womanizing boyfriend Henry dallies with her protective aunt, both women become the object of scandal — but Henry has a plan to win the heiress back. Tickets are $35 to $79.
Folger Theatre
Jan. 11 to Feb. 4
Guilt
This world premiere by Australian playwright John Shand produced by Scena Theatre draws on the trial of the priest Urbain Grandier for witchcraft in France in 1633-34. It is Shand’s response to witch hunts of all eras (including our own), when scores are settled and innocence becomes no defense. The play also explores the nexus between sexual and religious rapture. Tickets are $30 and $35.
Atlas Performing Arts Center
Jan. 12 to Feb. 18
Sovereignty
Based on the stories of playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Cherokee grandfathers, this world premiere spans 1830s Cherokee Nation (now present-day Georgia) and Andrew Jackson’s presidency to the Cherokee Nation in present-day Oklahoma. It follows a young Cherokee lawyer fighting to restore her nation’s jurisdiction and defend the constitutionality of the 2013 Violence Against Women Act. Tickets are $40 to $90.
Arena Stage
Jan. 16 to Feb. 25
Hamlet
In the wake of his father’s abrupt death, Hamlet returns home from university to find his personal and political world changed as he never imagined it could — his mother remarried, his uncle on the throne and a world seemingly gone insane. When his father’s ghost appears and demands vengeance, the increasingly desperate Danish prince must decide: submit or resist. Accept or avenge. Live or die. Please call for ticket information.
The Shakespeare Theatre
Jan. 17 to Feb. 18
The Trial
A 30-year-old man is going about his day when suddenly, without cause or warning, he is arrested while at work. Two unidentified agents from an unknown agency arrest this man for an unspecified crime. In its retelling of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” Synetic Theater will explore the struggles of “K” and his encounters with the invisible Law and the untouchable Court. Ticket start at $35.
Synetic Theater
Jan. 17 to March 4
The Wolves
Winter indoor soccer. Saturdays. Over quad stretches and squats, a team of young women prepares to defend the Wolves’ undefeated record, their banter spilling from tampons to genocide to the pressures of preparing for their adult lives. With an ear for the bravado and empathy of the teenage years, “The Wolves” explores the violence and teamwork of sports and adolescence, following a pack of 16-year-old girls who turn into warriors on the field. Tickets are $20 to $85.
The Studio Theatre
