Diplomat Special Section
In the June 2013 Issue
Toying with War
Levinthal's Images Humanize Conflict Through Action Figures
by Michael Coleman
Union Army Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman famously declared that "war is hell," but for almost as long as armed conflict has existed, there have been figurines, or toy soldiers, that depict war as noble and courageous — glamorous, even.
A compelling and unusual exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art explores these disparate notions of war through the use of antique and modern-day toy soldiers and other props. "David Levinthal: War Games" is a vivid study of the acclaimed New York photographer's surprising — and sometimes shocking — ability to explore the boundaries between simulated reality and historical truth.
Levinthal's earliest work in this medium, titled "Hitler Moves East," dates to 1972, as the Vietnam War was coming to an end. As a young student at the Yale School of Art, Levinthal met Garry Trudeau, who went on to fame as the creator of the popular comic strip "Doonesbury." The two young art students collaborated on a book that documented the infamous and rarely photographed Nazi invasion of Russia, known in history books as Operation Barbarossa. Using a classic written document of the account that included no photographs (also called "Hitler Moves East"), the men painstakingly recreated the military movements of the epic conflict using traditional plastic toy soldiers, others small materials and cameras.
In the May 2013 Issue
Trusty Travel Companion
New Cultural Tourism Chief Ready to Take Flight with Passport DC
by Stephanie Kanowitz
Steven Shulman returned to Washington, D.C., in part so he could travel the world. The new executive director of Cultural Tourism DC kicks off his tenure with the organization's sixth annual Passport DC celebration, a month-long series of international programming in May that includes dozens of embassy open houses.
"One of my great disappointments was that I was in Hollywood when this incredible event was going on, and I loved the international aspect of Washington," Shulman said, referring to the city in Florida where he spent the past six years improving culture as president of the Greater Hollywood Arts Foundation Inc. "It's really thrilling to not only be leading the organization that presents it, but to be here and be participating throughout the month."
Shulman isn't new to Cultural Tourism DC, an independent nonprofit coalition of more than 230 organizations aimed at promoting the District's arts, culture and heritage. Between 2001 and 2007, he served on its board of directors and executive committee.
In the April 2013 Issue
Built by Design
First-Ever Festival Showcases Innovation of Industrial Design
by Stephanie Kanowitz
Have you ever considered why a doorknob is shaped a certain way or why drawers open in only one direction? Douglas Burton thinks you should. That's why he curated the first-ever Washington, DC International Design Festival highlighting achievements in contemporary industrial design.
"I think many people don't know what industrial design is," said Burton, co-owner of Apartment Zero, a Washington-based design studio, retail space and gallery that helps industrial designers worldwide showcase their works and concepts through collaborations with area embassies, museums and universities. "When I heard the words 'industrial design,' I thought of something that was made in industry, something that was made out of metal or glass, but it encompasses so many of the things we use and touch and see every single day."
Industrial design applies to everything from toothbrushes to cars. It combines science and aesthetics to improve these everyday products and entice people to use, keep and admire them.
In the March 2013 Issue
Italy's Charm Offensive
Yearlong Cultural Festival Showcases All Country Has to Offer
by Sean Lyngaas
Rome has declared 2013 to be "The Year of Italian Culture," but its embassy in Washington understands that simply coining the phrase will not give the year cultural imprimatur among Americans. So the Italian Embassy is busy coordinating a cultural charm offensive that is unfolding across the United States, from art exhibitions in Boston to robotics demonstrations in San Francisco.
The Italian term for this charm offensive is sistema paese, roughly translated as "the country as a whole," or "the country seen systematically." It is the belief that Italian culture should be presented holistically rather than in isolation. The goal is to showcase the breadth of the culture, from Michelangelo to modern science. "The idea is not to have a single, specific event, but events as a trampoline for cooperation," between the United States and Italy, Antonio Bartoli, head of the Italian Embassy's cultural office, told The Washington Diplomat recently.
Just two years ago, the Italians had a similar cultural blitz in honor of the 150th anniversary of the country's unification (also see "Venetian Views: Canaletto and Company Capture Landmark City on the Water" and "Philip Guston: A 'Roma' Retreat at the Phillips Collection" in the April 2011 issue of The Diplomat). But that initiative was more nostalgic, highlighting Renaissance art and other things one reflexively associates with Italian culture.
In the February 2013 Issue
Chills and Thrills
Kennedy Center Expects Warm Reception for Nordic Cool
by Stephanie Kanowitz
This year, the Kennedy Center is going north for the winter with Nordic Cool 2013, its first festival devoted to Nordic culture. The event boasts dozens of theater and dance performances, concerts, art and history exhibits, food tastings and films with the purpose of increasing awareness about this distinct region in Europe.
"This festival encompasses an experience for all the senses," said Danish Ambassador Peter Taksøe. "Over the course of a month you will see, hear, smell and feel all good things Nordic."
Past festivals of this scale at the Kennedy Center have highlighted China, India and the Arab world. Nordic Cool runs from Feb. 19 to March 17 and will include more than 700 artists from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden as well as Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Áland Islands — a part of the world not well known here, said Alicia Adams, festival curator and vice president of international programming and dance at the Kennedy Center.
In the January 2013 Issue
Shifting Sands
'Roads' Digs Up Wide-Ranging History of Ancient Arabia
by Gail Sullivan
Artifacts unearthed from the shifting sands of the Arabian desert in the past 40 years have radically transformed our understanding of this ancient region. Some 300 objects now on display at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery illuminate Saudi Arabia's pre-Islamic heritage and its rise to prominence as a cultural and religious center.
Organized in conjunction with the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, "Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" features objects, some dating as far back as 7,000 years ago, from more than 10 archeological sites throughout the Arabian Peninsula. The exhibit opened in the summer of 2010 at the Louvre in Paris and traveled to Barcelona, St. Petersburg and Berlin before making its American debut at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery.
The exhibit is organized geographically and historically in three parts, which chronicle the cross-cultural exchange of ancient trade routes, the rise of Islam as seen in the pilgrimage trails that led to Mecca, and finally the unification of the modern Saudi kingdom in 1932.
In the December 2012 Issue
Spain's New Space
Iberian Avant-Garde Finds Home in New Cultural Center
by Audrey Hoffer
A Beaux-Arts mansion sits majestically on the corner of 16th Street, the city's Embassy Row of the early 19th century and today's direct thoroughfare to the White House.
This former residence of the ambassador of Spain and now the Spanish Cultural Center is hosting two photography exhibits from renowned and emerging artists of the Iberian countries — Spain, Portugal, Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.
Presented as part of FotoWeekDC 2012, an annual citywide photography festival now in its fourth year, the exhibits mark the official launch of the building's transformation to a cultural space.
In the November 2012 Issue
Abstract Evolution
Dane Taps His Inner Geologist to Evolve Artistically
by Michael Coleman
If a visitor to the Phillips Collection was unaware of Per Kirkeby's formal training as a geologist, they might find clues simply by viewing the gallery's comprehensive new exhibition of the acclaimed Danish artist's work.
Earthen vitality infuses many of the 26 paintings and 11 sculptures featured in "Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture," the first major exhibition of Kirkeby's art in the United States. The viewing experience at the Phillips is sometimes akin to tripping around an abstract forest splashed with autumnal rusts, icy blues and sunny yellow hues. The artist, who is still creating, seems deeply interested in time, space and the relationship of natural objects to each other and to human beings. The cycle of life is threaded throughout his art, which he says is constantly in flux, like science itself.
In the October 2012 Issue
Wanderers with Aim
'Nomads and Networks' Traces Sophisticated Unsettled Society
by Gail Sullivan
At the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, transient and well-connected denizens of the District can meet their ancient counterparts: the nomadic tribes of Iron Age Kazakhstan.
"Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan" is the first U.S. exhibition devoted entirely to the nomadic culture of ancient Kazakhstan. It includes more than 150 recently excavated objects of gold, horn, precious gems and organic materials from the eighth to third centuries BC.
The term "nomad" implies a lack of direction, or even arrested development. It's a word you might use to describe a kid bumming around Europe after college instead of applying to grad school, or the friend who always seems to be trading one job or city for another.
In the September 2012 Issue
Complex Creatures
Dutch Artist Captures and Humanizes Inner Lives of Animals
by Gail Sullivan
Resolute, conflicted, expectant, discerning, resigned. These aren't words often used to describe animals. A dog is "good" or "bad." A puppy is "playful," and a steed "noble." Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas defies conventional vocabulary; her formal portraits of animals suggest a more complex inner life, inviting viewers to reconsider the relationship between mankind and animals.
From the stray dogs of Palermo, Italy, to search and recovery dogs of 9/11, Dumas has photographed animals in various contexts and in countries around the world. She typically works in series, creating portraits of groups of animals characterized by their utility, social function or relationship to people.
In the August 2012 Issue
Trailblazing Trio
‘Modern American Genius’ Showcased at Three Museums
by Suzanne Kurtz
Three popular art museums around D.C. are collaborating on a three-artist retrospective that celebrates the achievements of the "Modern American Genius."
Throughout the summer, the cutting-edge contributions to the art world of Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns and Barnett Newman will be on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection and the National Gallery of Art, respectively. Each museum will be hosting an exhibition dedicated to a seminal body of work from one of these major trailblazers, each of whom helped to elevate the stature of modern American art on the international stage.
In the July 2012 Issue
Maya Unearthed
Mexican Institute Eschews Doomsday Predictions for Real Relics
by Michael Coleman
When conversations turn to the ancient Mayans of Mexico these days, they often center on the alleged demise of civilization when the Mayan calendar runs out in December 2012.
Thankfully, the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington has given us something a bit more substantial — and certainly less stressful — to ponder than Mayan doomsday scenarios. "Hina/Jaina: On the Threshold of the Mayan Underworld (600-900 AD)" showcases a rich array of Mayan figurines excavated from burial sites on the man-made island of Jaina, a vital ritual and religious site off the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.
The exhibition features more than 50 small-scale "Jaina style" figurines that represent Mayan religious themes, cosmology and elements of society.
In the June 2012 Issue
Revolutionary Miró
Joan Miró's Multifaceted Art Reflected Turbulent World
by Gary Tischler
The life and work of the great Spanish artist Joan Miró (1893-1983) is almost swamped in every artistic "ism" of the 20th century — surrealism, magical realism, cubism, primitivism, expressionism, Fauvism, to name a few.
Yet the Barcelona-born painter, sculptor and ceramicist insisted he was a "self-taught amateur" to express his contempt for convention, constantly experimenting and innovating in what he famously described as an "assassination of painting" to upend the establishment.
"Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape," the new and comprehensive exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, alongside a smaller exhibition at the Kreeger Museum, showcase Miró's most fundamental and important "ism": his humanism.
In the May 2012 Issue
Renewed Passport
Passport DC Still Opening Doors — And Not Just to Embassies
by Stephanie Kanowitz
Passport DC is not just about embassies anymore. Although the open house tours remain the highlight of the month-long cultural celebration, its popularity has helped Passport expand beyond its first iteration to include museum exhibits, street festivals and children's activities. Still, the original goal is far from forgotten with record participation from about 70 of Washington's 170 embassies.
In addition, the wide-ranging culture that is showcased is anything but formulaic.
"There's this really fun juxtaposition of what we think about as international oftentimes being traditional or folk, but what we see with all of this is a lot of the exhibits and concerts and so forth are bringing forward very contemporary art and new trends and new activities," said Linda Donavan Harper, executive director of Cultural Tourism DC, which puts together Passport DC. "You shouldn't think about it as what a country has been, but what a country is becoming or doing now as well."
In the April 2012 Issue
Unmasking a Society
'A Thousand and One Faces' Profiles Mexican Expression
by Michael Coleman
In the realm of Washington embassies and art, few places have as much fun as the Mexican Cultural Institute.
Housed in a magnificent mansion with a spiral staircase, soaring ceilings and intricate tile and murals, the institute routinely puts on fascinating cultural events from cooking demonstrations to concerts to seminars.
A high-tone exhibition that showcased the lowbrow work of Mexican street artists a few years back was brilliantly whimsical. The institute's recent partnership with National Geographic to showcase 50 years of the magazine's Mexican photography mesmerized viewers and made us want to jump on the first plane headed south of the border.
In the March 2012 Issue
Cherry Centennial
Festival Celebrates 100th Year of Bridge-Building Pink Blossoms
by Stephanie Kanowitz
Although temperatures have been spring-like for months, officially the season is almost here, bringing the coveted annual National Cherry Blossom Festival with it — and this year's popular pink extravaganza will really be bursting with pride.
That's because 2012 marks the centennial of Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki's gift of 3,000 cherry trees to Washington. Running March 20 to April 27, the festival celebrates not only the enduring legacy of that gift, but Japanese culture as well. To that end, as the tiny pink blossoms flourish around the D.C. metro region, so too will various art exhibits and events commemorating their 100th bloom in our area. Here is a look at four of them.
In the February 2012 Issue
Otherworldly Snapshot
Ancient Ruins of the Americas Seen in Ethereal New Light
by Dave Seminara
Two years ago, photographer Arthur Drooker was sitting beside the majestic ruins of Saint-Pierre, a city in Martinique that was devastated by a volcano in 1902, waiting for a fickle wind to blow some puffy clouds into the frame of a photo he hoped to take. Drooker was prepared to wait all day to get the shot and when his girlfriend, Ivy, agreed to wait with him, he decided that she was the woman he would marry.
Visitors who venture to see "Lost Worlds: Ruins of the Americas" will experience that labor of love in this stunning collection of haunting, ethereal black-and-white photographs shot with a special infrared camera that helps capture especially dramatic contrast and light.
In the January 2012 Issue
Thought-Provoking '30'
African American Artists Ponder Full Spectrum of American Experience
by Stephanie Kanowitz
Individually, each work in the newest exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art freezes moments of not only African American history but of U.S. history into single modern interpretations. Together, the pieces show how those histories continue to evolve and interact as emerging artists learn from seasoned ones and offer fresh viewpoints on racial, sexual and historical identity in contemporary culture.
"The art history there has not been concluded; it's still being written," Henry Thaggert, chairman of the museum's advisory committee, said of "30 Americans," on display through next February. "That's very, very exciting."
Selected from the Rubell Family Collection, the group of 76 photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures and videos represents the work of 31 of the most influential African American artists of the past 30 years and is linked by a common theme: identity.
In the December 2011 Issue
Quite A Ride
Horse-Human Bond Strengthens American Indian History
by Kaitlin Kovach
Some relationships seem like they have always existed. The one between Native American Indians and horses is among those. But as visitors to the National Museum of the American Indian's newest exhibition, "A Song for the Horse Nation," will discover, that relationship is only about as old as European contact with native tribes.
Despite the animal's origins in the Americas about 40 million years ago, horses had become extinct here because of migrations to Europe and Asia. It wasn't until Christopher Columbus' second voyage to the Americas in 1493, when he left behind a herd of 25 horses, that the animals returned for good.
In the November 2011 Issue
Warhol Makes News
Man Behind '15 Minutes of Fame' Skewers Media That Riveted Him
Michael Coleman
Perhaps no American artist of the 20th century stirred as much passion and ambivalence as Andy Warhol.
To his devotees, Warhol was a visionary who transcended abstract expressionism, offered brilliant artistic commentary on the issues of the day, and made the world of high art more accessible to the masses. To his detractors, Warhol was overrated and derivative, pilfering ideas about pop art from groundbreakers like Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein while convincing the world that his own works said more than they really did.
Regardless of your own view of Warhol, one element of the Pittsburgh native's work is indisputable: He had an uncanny understanding of pop culture and the media and used it to smartly skewer tabloid notions of "news." The guy who coined the now ubiquitous expression that "in the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" was unparalleled in his intelligent exploration of the intersection of media, fame and art.
In the October 2011 Issue
Katzen's Creative Canopy
Hodgepodge of Life, from Subterra Australia to 1940s D.C.
by Gary Tischler
There are times when you go to the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center and what you find are scattered little leaflets containing a bold smattering of ideas for art exhibitions that seemed to have dropped out of the sky and were picked up at random by museum director and curator Jack Rasmussen.
Ever since the Katzen Arts Center arose by Ward Circle, Rasmussen seems to have plunged himself into an almost subversive process of creating and assembling a panoply of exhibitions that don't readily connect to one another, but together make up some of the most fascinating, cutting-edge shows in town. The museum space, three floors plus an outdoor sculpture garden, is ready-made for this kind of eclectic approach, aided with a flood of natural light and an expansive curatorial vision.
In the September 2011 Issue
Delectable Diplomacy
Embassies Cleverly Offer Taste of Culture With Cuisine
by Stephanie Kanowitz
The way to cultural understanding may be through our stomachs. Indeed, Washington's melting pot of foreign embassies stirs up gastronomic opportunities to travel and taste the world without leaving the city's 100-square-mile radius.
"Food is different in that it appeals to all of the senses, including taste and smell, and is a participatory as well as personal experience," said Alejandra de la Paz, director of the Mexican Cultural Institute. "This inclusive, engaging aspect of food works to create bridges of understanding."
That's why more and more embassies are reaching out through their kitchens — spicing up traditional public diplomacy efforts with what's always been a key ingredient in any culture: food. After all, viewing a piece of art or listening to a lecture is one thing; sampling a home-cooked meal or exotic delicacy is quite another. Embassies have realized that showcasing their native cuisines — and tapping into the growing foodie phenomenon across America — is an irresistible and clever strategy to highlight their national cultures.
