The National Women’s History Museum has been celebrating the contributions of American women for 12 years. So far, Congress hasn’t been in on the party.

Since its inception in 1996, the NWHM has existed solely online, collecting Mall-friendly exhibits on “Rights for Women,” “American Women in the Olympics,” and “Women Spies” on the Web at nwhm.org. But despite years-long efforts to lobby Congress for a spot near the Smithsonians, the museum has yet to secure a physical site. Though the Senate passed a 2005 bill by unanimous consent to lease a location adjacent to the Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Ave. to the museum, the House of Representatives failed to act on the bill. Check out DCist’s history of the issue here.

Now, NWHM is again lobbying Congress for a physical home—this time at 12^th St. & Independence Ave NW. NWHM President Joan Wages says a physical museum focusing specifically on women will help balance the District’s male-centric historical record. “If you look around the nation’s capital, we have 219 statues in the Capitol Building, and only nine of them are of women,” says Wages. “The National Museum of American History only had two exhibits focused on women prior to their renovation, one of which was a ‘First Ladies’ exhibit that focused on dresses.”

Adds Wages, “We have museums in Washington that recognize postage stamps, and victims of the Holocaust, and Native Americans. Women’s achievements and contributions to our country should be honored in the most important place in our capital.” The new legislation, House Resolution 6548, was introduced on July 17 by New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

I was at the Udvar-Hazy Center yesterday when I realized the peril of insult inflation. You know, how someone who a decade ago would be merely an asshole is now automatically a douchebag. Because when you see the real thing up close, words fail.

SO, walking into the Space Hanger, I am behind a young couple. She is in denim cutoffs and a white shirt; he is dressed in long shorts, a green T-shirt with Kevin Garnett’s name and number on the back, and a baseball hat.

They pass one of the many Lucite donation boxes in the museum, you know the ones that imply that museums are partnerships between us the museumgoers and the institutions themselves. They stop. Why, somebody’s donation is protruding ever so slightly from the slot! At first I think he’s just trying to push it down so he can make his own donation, but no: He’s fishing it out. And sticking it in his pocket. And then his girlfriend is rubbing his back and saying, “Yay!” and he’s grinning like all his Christmases just came at once.

Douchebag may be worth less than the dollar, but I’m thinking maggot still works in this case.

Photo by roboppy

I just spotted workers putting finishing touches on DC’s newest shticky museum, the National Museum of Crime & Punishment, which opens May 23 on 7th and F streets NW. A brief perusal of the museum’s website leads me to believe the exhibits will not probe any of the moral murkiness in the history of crime. The museum is a project of John Walsh, of America’s Most Wanted, and looks pretty focused on the classic good guy-bad guy stories. I do have to say I can’t wait to take the promised lie detector test. They also have fun items I do not wish to try out: an electric chair, a gas chamber and a $17.95 ticket price. Crossing my fingers for a press preview.

Turns out history’s most disappointing Washington Bullet/Wizard not named Kwame Brown is something of a historian himself: Chris Webber collects African-American artifacts.

And apparently Webber doesn’t carry the selfishness he ALWAYS displayed on the court here when he’s off it. Webber has loaned two pieces from his collection to Decatur House for an exhibition titled “The Half Had Not Been Told Me: African Americans on Lafayette Square(1795-1965).”

The items are: a letter Frederick Douglass signed on “United States Marshal’s Office” stationary and something called a carte-de-visite from Douglass from 1870.

Starting today, CWebb’s FDoug wares, and the rest of the exhibit, will be available for viewing Mondays through Saturdays, 10am to 5pm and Sundays, noon to 4pm,  through March 1, 2009.

Don’t wait long. If Webber’s artifacts are anything like their owner, they’ll become very hard to find as the end of the exhibit nears.

Modern Art Notes is reporting that the National Gallery of Art is in talks to acquire the neighboring Federal Trade Commission building. Details here.

Officials from the Corcoran Gallery of Art have confirmed the resignation of Christina DePaul, the dean of the Corcoran College of Art + Design since 2002. Corcoran Director of Media Relations Kristin Guiter said that DePaul will retain her title as dean through August 2008 but that Kirk Pillow, vice dean, will direct college functions. CCA+D will not be appointing an interim dean.

According to Guiter, DePaul will work for the next four months on a research project that will “focus on opportunities for the Corcoran to expand internationally in the art and design research field.” The Corcoran did not specify where, but a safe bet may be the Middle East, where there’s plenty of precedent set by art academies and institutions. Corcoran Dubai? Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts in Qatar might serve as a model.

During DePaul’s tenure, overall enrollment at the school increased, and the CCA+D received license to offer its first graduate program; the school now confers master’s degrees in interior design, art education, and the history of decorative arts. The 2006 acquisition of the Randall School property in Southwest, which will host equipment-intensive classes in ceramics and sculpture, promises to expand college enrollment capacity further.

DePaul’s responsibilities increased with the arrival of Corcoran director Paul Greenhalgh, who rolled museum-sponsored education activities into the college’s mission. Greenhalgh and DePaul have brought some school functions into the museum’s exhibitions—tapping students and classes for exhibition design, for example. But the museum’s first show under Greenhalgh’s tenure (”Modernism: Designing a New World”) caused a flap among students, when DePaul announced, on the last day of the fall 2006 academic semester, that the massive exhibition would absorb space traditionally reserved for the senior thesis show. The show was relocated to the College Gallery, now called Gallery 1, off the New York Avenue entrance to the school. The museum, which was preparing “Modernism,” was closed. Senior-thesis shows at the Corcoran serve as a high-profile opportunity for undergraduate students to publicly display their work, often for the first time.

DePaul, who is also an accomplished sculptor, has received a large art commission, according to Guiter, which will occupy her time. So after she leaves, what’s the Corcoran going to do with DePaul’s studio? Current and former students alike whisper about the space—a complex as vast as it is deep underground. Situated somewhere among the tunnels connecting the Corc to the White House, of course.

For the last 11 years, the Washington Project for the Arts has operated under the umbrella of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. That will no longer be the case as of the end of 2007.

The WPA and Corcoran announced their split in a press release. “The success and strength of the WPA\C today is due in large part the support and guidance provided by the Corcoran over the past 10 years. Today the WPA\C is on strong footing and has gained a reputation as a vibrant, dynamic, and authentic leader in contemporary arts in the greater D.C. area. Our efforts will only grow stronger in our new position as an independent organization,” WPA\C advisory board chair Jennifer Motruk Loy said in the release.

The WPA has maintained a base of operations at the Corcoran, but it plans to relocate to new offices in Dupont Circle. “We are excited at the prospect of being back in the community of artists and audiences that we’ve worked so hard to develop,” WPA director Kim Ward said in the release.