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Category: Art and Design

Ian Cheng: Live Simulation

Erin Rushing
March 14, 2016
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Ian Cheng
Photograph of Ian Cheng from Natt & Dag.

This post was written by Tim Cannon, intern in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library.

Suspended Animation, which opened on February 10 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, features work by six contemporary artists working with digitally generated images. Among these artists is Ian Cheng, a New York-based artist who worked for George Lucas’ visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, before earning an MFA at Columbia University. His work is typically based on computer simulations, often lacking a fixed duration or narrative, so that the action unfolds more or less spontaneously, according to an algorithm rather than a plan. Cheng’s live simulation (his term for the programs he makes) Emissary in the Squat of the Gods, will appear in the exhibition.

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Spiral: Discussing the Role of African American Artists in the Civil Rights Movement

Alexandra Reigle
February 26, 2016
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Cover of the Spiral exhibition catalogue
Cover of the Spiral exhibition catalogue

We are always finding great materials in our Art and Artists Files at the American Art and Portrait Gallery Library and we’re excited it to share it with the public. In our mission to provide greater access to our ephemera files, we are working on adding our corporate files to the Art and Artist Files database. The corporate files contain ephemera (catalogues, pamphlets, exhibition invitations. etc.) produced for group exhibitions by galleries, museums, and other institutions. This of course is a long process, requiring a lot of review of materials in the folders, but it has been a great way to rediscover items that we didn’t know we had!

 

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Art and Artist Files Reveal Surrealist Jewels Designed by Salvador Dalí

Sofia Silva
February 5, 2016
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The brilliant sparkle of a diamond, the saturated blood-red of a ruby, and the rich deep blue of a sapphire become the building blocks of one of Salvador Dalí’s lesser known artistic enterprises: jewelry design. The renowned Catalonian artist, most famous for his mind-bending Surrealist paintings of dream worlds and for his eccentricity as a self-proclaimed “genius,” began to design his jewelry collection in 1941 and continued the artistic project until 1970.

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#ColorOurCollections Coloring Event

Erin Rushing
January 29, 2016
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Color in a New Light coloring pages_Page_1From Feburary 1-5, 2016 the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) is encouraging cultural institutions and crayon enthusiasts to join together for #ColorOurCollections. Institutions such as NYAM, the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Smithsonian Libraries will provide inspiration and coloring sheets for artists of all ages to fill in. Colorers can share their creations on social media by tagging the organization and using the hashtag #ColorOurCollections.

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A funny thing happened on the way to my internship: What I accidentally learned in my first week as an AA/PG intern

Anne Evenhaugen
January 25, 2016
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Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here

This post was written by American Art/Portrait Gallery (AA/PG) Library intern Sharon Wolff. Sharon is an MSIS grad student at SUNY at Albany in New York, and came down to DC to intern with the AA/PG from the end of December through most of January. She primarily worked on cataloging the Art and Artist Files while she was there, along with the upcoming Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here exhibit.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I was accepted as an intern for the Smithsonian AA/PG Library in DC, but I certainly could not have predicted that I would accompany Anne Evenhaugen to George Mason University to pick up artists’ books and prints for an exhibition on my second day. I wasn’t even sure what an artist’s book was, so the whole trip was a great learning opportunity for me!

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Explore “Color in a New Light” on Periscope & Twitter

Erin Rushing
January 19, 2016
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At the end of the month, the Smithsonian Libraries will open Color in a New Light, a new exhibition highlighting the role of color in our lives, from science to fashion and everything in between.  Even if you’re not able to visit the show in person in the National Museum of Natural History ,  we invite you to join us as we explore color through several interactive social media events.

 

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