Lectures on American Art

The Art of Contemporary Jewelry:
Symposium on April 12

April 10, 2008

Claus Bury, German, born 1946, Ring, 1970, Gold and perspex acrylic, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase with funds provided by the Mary Kathryn Lynch Kurtz Charitable Lead Trust, 2002.3661, © Claus Bury "Don't call...


Laurie Anderson Here: Welcome to Andy's World

March 14, 2008

EyeLevel had a chance to catch up with performance artist (that's short for singer, composer, poet, filmmaker, inventor of unusual instruments, instrumentalist, and photographer) Laurie Anderson ahead of her scheduled talk on March 15 at 4:30 pm in the McEvoy...


John Alexander in Conversation

February 12, 2008

John Alexander, La Casa de los Locos, 1991, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Larson. © John Alexander Texas-born John Alexander, whose thirty-year retrospective fills the main galleries at SAAM, lived up to his introduction by...


Pop Goes the Artist: James Rosenquist at SAAM

December 3, 2007

Interesting what happens when an artist speaks about his/her life and work: you get to see the other side of the canvas. As part of the Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art, James Rosenquist, an artist on the Pop...


Benjamin Forgey Lecture This Wednesday

September 18, 2007

I grew up in D.C. and have always been fascinated by the architecture here. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes a muddle, and always written about by Benjamin Forgey in the Washington Post. Forgey kicks off this year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in...


The Media Arts, conclusion

June 28, 2007

Still from Douglas Gordon's 24 Hour Psycho The most significant lesson in John Hanhardt's last lecture on new media art concerned historical revisionism. Hanhardt professes that contemporary video artists—the subject of his fourth and final installment—worked with unexpected sources in...


The Media Arts, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Film Art

May 31, 2007

Still of Maya Deren from her film Meshes of the Afternoon For a moment I felt an intense flashback to my college days: I walked into the auditorium, took my seat, and was handed a five-page handout listing slides and...


Media Arts Lectures at SAAM Start Tomorrow

May 14, 2007

Nam June Paik; Zen for TV; 1963, 1976 version; manipulated vintage television and components; 19 x 22 1/2 x 18 in.; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Gift of Byungseol and Dolores An; 2006.20 Tuesday, May 15, John Hanhardt, SAAM's new Senior...


Round-Table Discussion with Christenberry, Bates, Saar, and Beck

April 19, 2007

William Christenberry, Alabama Wall I, 1985, metal and tempera on wood, 45 3/8 x 50 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1986.8 Tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., Chief Curator Eleanor Harvey hosts a discussion with artists William Christenberry, David...


American Art in a Global Context
SAAM Symposium Live

September 28, 2006

American Art in a Global Context: An International Symposium has just started, and we're Webcasting live from our Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. We'll have a permanent link to today's Webcast on the site tomorrow morning, and Friday's and Saturday's events...


Christenberry on the Landscape

September 21, 2006

Signs, near Greensboro, Alabama Bill Christenberry's Southern accent is immediately apparent when he talks; so, too, after listening to him for a few minutes, is that unmistakable Southern charm. He skips lightly past his own professional training (he received an...


Safire's Spreadsheet

March 24, 2006

A grammar maven and self-described “vituperative right-wing scandalmonger,” former New York Times opinion columnist William Safire is not your typical arts advocate. But Safire wants you to rethink not only the politics of art but art itself, according to Philip...


Three Lectures: Roberta Smith

February 13, 2006

Roberta Smith, art critic for the New York Times Second in a three-part series about fall lectures in Washington, D.C. The first lecture (Glenn Lowry) can be found here. Roberta Smith, art critic for the New York Times, spoke on...


Three Lectures: Glenn Lowry

December 8, 2005

The Museum of Modern Art, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi. Entrance at 53rd Street. © 2005 Timothy Hursley First in a three-part series about fall lectures in Washington, DC. Glenn Lowry, the director of MoMA, spoke at the Hirshhorn in late...