Contact Us
Media Contact:
Rebecca Basu
202-885-5950
basu@american.edu
February
Gallery Talk: Art and the Demands of Memory
February 7, 3–4:00 p.m.
Exhibit: Art and the Demands of Memory: Works by Second Generation Holocaust Survivors
Join the conversation between this group of Jewish artists whose practices have been indelibly marked by relatives who experienced the Holocaust firsthand. This mixed-media exhibition deals with ways in which art is shaped by memories of traumatic experiences. Artists will share their personal stories as they affirm the relevance of the “past” for the world as we’ve found it, as well as the one we are shaping for future generations.
Speakers: Artists – Trudy Babchak, Michael Steiner Borek, Coos Hamburger, Micheline Klagsbrun, Kitty Klaidman, Dalya Luttwak, Miriam Mörsel Nathan, Margot Neuhaus, Chaya Schapiro, Mindy Weisel
Moderator: Aneta Georgievska-Shine, Curator
Gallery Talk: The New Thing Panel Discussion with Topper Carew
February 10, 2-3:00 p.m.
Exhibit: New Perspective on The New Thing: A Photography Exhibition Documenting DC’s Revolutionary Community Arts Center, 1966-1972
Hear how an arts community was authentically built in 1960’s Adams Morgan! Topper Carew’s New Thing Art and Architecture Center evolved into a multi-disciplinary organization hosting concerts, workshops, and classes for area youth. Within the exhibition, you’ll catch a glimpse of famous blues and jazz musicians, as well as soul and rock personalities, such as Stevie Wonder, The Soul Searchers, and Mance Lipscomb (to name a few). Organized by Jackson-Reed High School’s Digital Media Academy in conjunction with their student organization The Community Coalition for Change.
Speakers: Colin “Topper” Carew, Founder of The New Thing; Joel Jacobsen, Photographer; Tom Zetterstrom Photographer; Samir Meghelli, Senior Curator, Smithsonian Anacostia Museum; and students from Jackson-Reed High School.
Special Event: Spring 2024 Opening Reception
February 10, 6-9:00 p.m.
Come celebrate our seven new spring ’24 exhibitions! Mix and mingle with many of this season’s artists and curators … arrive early for light refreshments!
Museum Activity: Exercises for the Quiet Eye
February 11, 2–3:00 p.m.
Exhibit: Dana Hart-Stone: Kaleidoscope
Open yourself to the moment where you fully see the art in front of you. Works of art engage us through senses, intellect and emotion; in rich, complex, rewarding, and inconclusive ways. These exercises encourage patient reflection while avoiding the premature rush to interpret what we see. Using our exhibition Dana Hart-Stone: Kaleidoscope, you can try out some of these techniques. The goal is a fresh, personal, interactive connection to works of art, free of outside expectations about what a viewer should be “figuring out.”
Activity Leader: Annie V.F. Storr, Art Historian and Educator — originator of Exercises for the Quiet Eye.
Gallery Talk: Dana Hart-Stone: Kaleidoscope
February 15, 2–3:00 p.m.
Exhibit: Dana Hart-Stone: Kaleidoscope
Meet Montana-born artist Dana Hart-Stone! Learn how his artwork draws you in with mesmerizing mandalas and tapestries, and then pulls you closer with nostalgic narratives of small-town America composed of thousands of vintage sepia-toned photographs.
Speaker: Dana Hart-Stone, Artist
Moderator: Brian Gross, Curator
Gallery Talk: Billy Pappas, Gerrit Dou,
and "Refined Minuteness"
February 17, 2:00–3:00 p.m.
Exhibit: A Drawing Like No Other
Based on a Richard Avedon photo from 1957, Billy Pappas’s incredibly detailed pencil drawing of screen icon Marilyn Monroe took him over nine years (working seven days a week, 16 hours a day) to produce. Join Professor David G. Stork as he presents a highly illustrated lecture on Pappas' drawing and its place in art and art history, including the paintings of the master Gerrit Dou of the Dutch Golden Age. Stork is widely considered a pioneer in the application of computer vision and artificial intelligence in the history and interpretation of fine art paintings and drawings, a subject he teaches at Stanford University.
Speakers: David Stork, Scientist, Author, Educator; Billy Pappas, Artist
Moderator: Gary Vikan, Curator
March
Sold Out!
Museum Activity: Film Screening: A Pocketful of Miracles: A Tale of Two Siblings
March 3, 4:00 p.m.
Location: Abramson Family Recital Hall
Exhibit: Art and the Demands of Memory: Works by Second Generation Holocaust Survivors
Listed as one of the Best Films of 2023 by The Washington Post, watch this inspirational documentary from Aviva Kempner which explores the story of her mother and uncle’s incredible survival during World War II. From their idyllic Jewish childhood in Poland, they share how they survived their wartime experiences, the elation of their reunion in Berlin, and finally their inspiring lives after liberation as artist Helen Ciesla Covensky and businessman/philanthropist David Chase. A discussion of the film will immediately follow.
Note: The screening will take place in the Abramson Family Recital Hall in the Katzen Arts Center (directly across the lobby from the AU Museum)
Speakers: Aviva Kempner, Director
Micheline Klagsbrun, Dalya Luttwak, Miriam Mörsel Nathan, Artists
Sponsored by Dr. Adam Schwartz and Brandywine Dental Team
Gallery Talk: The Tree Around the Corner
March 16, 2-3:00 p.m.
Exhibit: The Tree Around the Corner
Meet artist Barbara Kerne and join her and her curator for a retrospective tour of the artist’s spiritual connection to nature, reminding viewers of its fragility and our duty to protect it. Her large-scale paintings and woodcut prints, with their deep recessions into the distance, create powerful images that force the visitor into densely hued landscapes. Once here, you are enveloped into a magical, fantastical, and playful reinterpretation of the natural world.
Speaker: Barbara Kerne, Artist
Moderator: Vivienne M. Lassman, Curator
Limited Run Exhibitions Close
March 17
Last day to see
Gallery Talk: The Human Flood
March 23, 2-3:00 p.m. | Exhibit: The Human Flood
Why would anyone flee their home, community, culture, land, everything they know and all they love? Because they must. Millions of people have already been displaced by the effects of climate change which will only increase as more land is made uninhabitable by flooding, fire, excessive heat, and drought. Join the artists and curator of this immersive installation that puts the human consequences of climate change on display. The combination of two- and three-dimensional works by Ellyn Weiss and Sondra N. Arkin evoke a sense of urgency on a personal and global scale.
Speakers: Ellyn Weiss, Artist and Sondra N. Arkin, Artist
Moderator: Laura Roulet, Curator
April / May
Special Event: Mid-Season Exhibitions Reception
April 6, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
As the weather warms with the promise of spring, two new exhibitions join this season’s offerings. Looking for the Light, featuring paintings by long-time CBS journalist Bob Schieffer, and the American University Master of Fine Arts student thesis exhibition. Let’s welcome their arrival! Light refreshments while they last.
Gallery Talk: The Human Flood Panel Discussion
April 25, 2-3:00 p.m. | Exhibit: The Human Flood
Join us for this lively panel discussion, featuring two area experts, as we discuss the human consequences of climate change. Millions of people have already been displaced by the effects of climate change which will only increase as more land is made uninhabitable by flooding, fire, excessive heat, and drought. The Human flood, an immersive mixed-media art installation, puts these consequences on display while evoking a sense of urgency on a personal and global scale.
Speaker: Brenda Ekwurzel, PhD, Director of Climate Science, Union of Concerned Scientists and Chitra Kumar, Managing Director of the Climate and Energy Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
Moderator: Ellyn Weiss, Artist
Spring '24 Exhibitions Close
May 19, 4:00
Last chance to view our sensational spring shows!
Event Contacts
Patricia Edwine-Poku
ppoku@american.edu