Driskell and Friends: Reacquaint Yourself With Black American Art History
David C. Driskell’s story started in Eatonton, Georgia, where he came of age during the Jim Crow era, but when it ended in 2020—he died at age 88 from complications related to COVID—he was a distinguished professor emeritus who served as chair of the University of Maryland’s art department. Driskell earned a bachelor’s degree in…
What Happens After the Paint Dries? The Thought and Upkeep Behind Outdoor Public Art
On a cloudy, dewy morning at the Congressional Cemetery, unleashed dogs and their human companions roam freely as a man crouches between gravestones and inspects one of his 150 mirror sculptures. In March, D.C.-based artist Tommy Bobo installed the first commissioned public art for the cemetery, featuring mirrors staked into the ground at about shin…
Undesign the Redline Explores the Racist Housing Policies that Shaped Upper Northwest
Do you know the story of how the land for Fort Reno Park and Alice Deal Junior High School (now Deal Middle School) was allocated? The land originally housed the Reno community, a majority-Black section of Ward 3. But in the 1930s, D.C. used eminent domain to forcibly remove almost 400 families living in the…
Brothers, Vibrant Colors, and a Shared Abstraction: Two Reasons to Visit Touchstone Gallery
Making artful aerial photographs of despoiled landscapes is hardly a pathbreaking artistic genre, but damned if Tom McMurray’s color-saturated images of scarred mining landscapes in the sprawling Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia aren’t gorgeous—guiltily so. McMurray is based in Boulder, Colorado, but he was part of a team of photographers and filmmakers who…
Homme Gallery Opens Its Third Location Inside Union Station
Commuters traveling through Union Station are about to experience something new. Currently known for its slate of fast food offerings and a handful of shops, it is one of the busiest train stations in the country and it’s about to be the home of D.C.’s third Homme Gallery location. The grand opening takes place on…