Visitors to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival had many purposes for attending and different reactions to Wednesday’s opening ceremonies at the Arts and Industries Building.
The festival, held at the National Mall through Monday, July 4 and re-starting July 7 through July 10, this year is a cultural event dedicated to preserving and showcasing the traditions of Basque, a small region straddling southern France and northern Spain.
“The festival’s only just started and I am already impressed with the outcome, and I love how many people have showed up,” said media director James Mayer. “Hopefully everyone enjoys this experience since a lot of work has been put into this festival.”
The sights are no exaggeration either–pieces of jewelry and miniature sculptures were in the gift shop, wide banners hung from the stands outside and hundreds of people in colorful clothing walked everywhere.
But, not everyone was as impressed.
Suzanne Wellington,57,
A traditional Mexican folk artist at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Opening Ceremonies Wednesday, June 29.
said while she could see the work put into the event, she didn’t get the same flare she was looking for from a cultural festival.
Despite a few negative responses, the majority of attendees said they truly enjoyed their time spent at the festival, and that they couldn’t wait to see what’s in store next year.
The opening ceremony of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall commenced Wednesday to celebrate both Basque culture and the sounds of California.
The Folklife Festival showcases each year cultural identity from the featured locations including art, food, dance, clothing and games.
Jacob Jaureguy, 21, and Sebastian Caldoron, 22, are both from Spain’s Basque region but now reside in California and perform in Basque dance group called Gauden Bat. Both men explained t
Traditional Mexican dancers at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Opening Ceremonies on Wednesday, June 29. Photo by Lauren Markwart.
hat many people from that northeastern part of Spain who move to the United States choose the West Coast as their home. They feel it is important for them to inform others about their culture through the performing arts.
“The basis of this is to get our name out there and show what we are about,” Jaureguy said.
Tradition is a major component of Basque culture. The people of the region have great pride in their language that predates both Spanish and French. Dancing in Basque has deep cultural roots and it is a, “mix between Irish and Ballet– but not at all,” Caldoron said.
The dancers also felt it was important to share their culture due to their country’s unique political situation.
Basque is a region officially described as an “autonomous” community sandwiched between Spain and France– both countries claim part of the region.
“At one point we were our own independent kingdom, but Spain took over and gave part of us to France,” Caldoron said.
Halfway around the world lies another culture featured in the Folklife Festival: California, and specifically, its music scene.
A music group from Southern California came to the festival to perform their traditional Mexican religious dance that has survived in the United States.
Diego Solano, 27, explained that when the Spanish came to his ancestors’ town of Santiago, in the Juxtlahuaca district in Southern Mexico, the foreigners did not understand their religion.
“When they came over to civilize everyone they turned our god to a devil,” said Solano, who held a devil mask as he spoke in the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries building.
The men perform their religious dance called the “Dance of the Devil” as they dress in colorful costumes with masks made by Alex Vasquez, 28, an active member in the group who was born in Tecomaxtlahuaca, a town in Southern Mexico.
Similar to Basque culture, traditions are very important to the people of Mexico who have come to live in California. Vasquez has made decorative masks his whole life with his father. Each mask takes about two weeks to create due to the attention each one needs. The masks are made in vibrant hues of reds and oranges and have horns poking out of the top.
Regions are chosen for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival to, “show and honor all of the different cultures that have immigrated here,” said Caldoron.
Tourists on the National Mall on Monday acknowledged the potential for the National Museum of African American History and Culture to broaden understanding of black culture as the building nears completion, but many were unaware of the museum’s construction before they arrived.
When asked about the site, reaction to the building and its future was overwhelmingly positive.
The museum will “help us understand what people of color have gone through,” said Michael Wolf, 51, a white man from Minnesota. It will educate us “so that we don’t repeat stupid things like slavery.”
Construction began in 2012 and is expected to be completed in 2016 according to the Smithsonian website.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture under construction at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue on the National Mall.
Although the reaction to the museum was overwhelmingly positive, many white tourists were uncomfortable talking about the museum in the wake of a year in which racial tensions have flared. Many who agreed to be interviewed declined to comment once told the subject of the story.
Those who did share their opinions agreed the museum would help people appreciate the role blacks have played in American history.
The museum will highlight African American “achievements and accomplishments that have made the United States great,” said Wolf, who was touring the World War II memorial.
Stacey Jones, 46, a black woman from Houston, Texas said the museum will “help people see the contributions that African Americans have made to our society.”
The construction of the museum is a milestone for African Americans, and President Barack Obama weighed in on that significance during a groundbreaking ceremony in 2012.
“I want visitors to appreciate this museum not just as a record of tragedy, but as a celebration of life,” Obama said according to a transcript of the groundbreaking ceremony posted to the White House website.
On the Mall this week, tourists said they hope the museum will provide education and connect races.
“A better outlook at the other people,” said Marco Middleton, 25, a black man from Georgia about his hope for the museum.
It will “help us not compete against one another,” Middleton said.
The museum’s website reflects Middleton’s opinion, describing the museum as “a place that transcends the boundaries of race and culture that divide us.”
“It is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, art, history, and culture,” according to the Smithsonian website.
Different ethnicities will be able to understand black culture, Jones said.
“People will see things from our point of view,” Jones continued. “History textbooks are from a white perspective.”
Exhibits will focus on slavery, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement, among others, according to the museum’s website. The collection is being formed.
Some people are blind to real history, said Pamela Clerk, 51, who is black.She hopes it will help younger generations learn.
The museum will have student workshops to offer that perspective that Jones said cannot be found in schools.
Student workshops at the museum “are a resource for youth (ages 10-18) in which themes in American history are illuminated through the lens of African American experiences,” according to the museum’s website.
That’s good news to Clerk.
“We have a great history and we’re great people,” Clerk said.
WASHINGTON–An overly-confident, extroverted poet and a timid, war-torn artist found a similar passion for mystical literature that flourished into one artistic relationship. Ten years after the death of 80-year-old Jess Collins, an artist, an art exhibit opens that gives a closer and detailed look into their relationship in the early 1950s called “An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, & Their Circle.” This exhibit was open to all at the American University Museum at Katzen Arts Center on Wednesday. “We predominantly focus on international, political-oriented and local art,” said Lucy Crowley, a senior administrative and marketing assistant at the museum. This exhibit has made its way through the nation and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. Collins and Robert Duncan, a poet, collaborated to make art based on postmodernism, a late-20th-century style in the arts representing the departure from modernism. Duncan commonly used high-colored crayons and Collins made collages and called them “pastes-ups.” The main themes of Collins’ artwork were chemistry, alchemy, the occult, and male beauty. However, their library had works of Greek myths, Victorian fairy tales and the tarot and Paracelsus, according to the New York Times. Their love for literature translated into their works, despite some different themes. Their artistic style may have been different, but they often showcased their relationship through their artwork. After meeting, they lived together in a house in San Francisco. This can be seen in Jess’ “The Enamord Mage, Translation #6” that’s based off of Duncan’s The Ballad of the Enamord Mage, a love poem about Collins. Their collaborative art changed the creative vision of the upcoming generation of writers and artists. “I had never seen so many materials used,” Genevieve Stegner-Freitag, 20-year-old art major, said about the artwork. To find out more about the Katzen Arts Center, call (202)-885-1300.
WASHINGTON–A photograph of SpaghettiOs hangs against the wall.
Paintings of bare women, one smoking a cigarette, line a nearby hallway.
A portrait of a cowboy, made of colors and oils, is framed and hung.
These are just some of the many works on display this summer in sixth temporary exhibits at the Katzen Arts Center on the campus of American University in Washington D.C. The works are all on loan and contribute to the museum’s international, local and political messages, according to Lucy Crowley, an administrative and marketing assistant at the museum.
“You can take pictures and even small videos,” Crowley said.
A picture of SpeghettiOs stands out in the local art exhibit at the Katzen Arts Center. Photo by Will Amari.
The local art exhibition is a donation from the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund, a 13-year-old organization that gives grants to artists within 150 miles of Washington, D.C.
In order to be eligible to receive a grant, an artist must be at least 40 years and must write an essay on why it would advance their lives as an artist, according to the Bader Fund website. Donations are given out every year, with minimum grants awarded of $15,000.
The exhibit opened on June 14 and closes Aug. 17. Artists include Aaron Brown, Hadieh Shafie and Rik Freeman, all of whom are long-time painters still trying to master their craft.
“My favorite piece is this one,” said Maia Plesent, a 20-year-old who works at the museum. She pointed at one of the works done by Emily Piccirillo. It is a photograph of what looks like the branches of trees.
“All of it so strange and interesting,” Piccirillo said.
Genevieve Stegner-Freitag, 20, is a gallery attendant at the Katzen Arts Center and she feels that it is a great idea to promote artists in the local metropolitan area.
“It is a way of expressing your individual personality, who you are,” Stegner-Freitag said. “It’s fun.”
To find out more about the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund, visit the website.
Summer museum hours are 11 a.m to 4 p.m. Located at 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20016
Jason Horowitz’s “SpaghettiOs with Sliced Franks.” Photo by Will Amari.
WASHINGTON–“The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund: Second Act” is spending the summer at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, continuing the work of its founders to reveal hidden talent in local artists.
Established in 2001 in accordance with Virginia Bader’s will, the Bader Fund provides a minimum of one grant annually to visual artists of at least age 40 living within a 150 mile radius of Washington, D.C. “Second Act” gives the public another look at the art produced by grantees over the past 13 years.
Maia Plesent, a gallery attendant, believes that the fund benefits artists’ development.
“The money goes towards the artists to expand their repertoire and explore new mediums,” Plesent said. “So I think it’s a great way to allow artists to learn and improve their art.”
The exhibit offers a variety of artwork, something that Plesent said makes it interesting.
“I enjoy how different everything is, there’s so many different mediums, so many different types of art in this exhibit,” Plesent said.
Rik Freeman is a narrative painter whose oil on canvas painting Samba na Praia is travelling with “Second Act.”His art falls on the Bader Fund’s unique spectrum due to its ability to tell stories, a skill which Freeman picked up as a child in Athens, Georgia.
Yukiro Yamaguchi’s “Energy,” made of hand-cast resin and stainless steel wire. Photo by Melanie Pincus.
“I would ‘overhear’ grown folks’ conversations and feel their emotions, read a book, listen to music, and there’s a movie going on in my head,” Freeman wrote on his website. “This fueled my artistic style as a narrative painter.”
Stories like Freeman’s can be beneficial in applying for a Bader Fund grant, a process requiring artists to provide a detailed resume and a 1,000-word proposal outlining what receiving a grant would mean for their lives and work as an artist. This process ensures that selected artists’ “ability to concentrate on their art would be enhanced by receiving a grant,” according to the Bader Fund’s website.
Olivia Whitener, 17, and a participant in a summer program at AU, was unaware of the “Second Act” exhibit at Katzen, but doesn’t think that the fund’s efforts to recognize older artists are necessarily optimum.
“These people should be established,” Whitener said.
However, she still appreciates some benefits of acknowledging a different age group.
“People often support younger artists,” Whitener said. “It’s encouraging people out of the norm.”
To find out more about the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, call 202-885-1300, or visit the museum at 4400 Massachusetts Ave. N.W.
WASHINGTON—Splatters of paint, hardware formed in unconventional ways, a message hidden within metal.
These are what consist of BK Adams’ latest exhibit, Mynd Alive, on display this summer at the Katzen Arts Center on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C.
In his artist statement about his works, which are outside in the sculpture garden at Katzen, Adams says, “I present to you Mynd Alive Sculptural Exhibition. Each sculpture tells its own story as do WE…Enjoy.”
In a piece titled “Ladder Me,” Adams forms a chair and places it high on a pole, almost like it’s the grand prize.
A paint splatted chair sits high upon a pole in BK Adams’ sculpture, “Ladder Me.” Photo by Courtney Allen.
In Adams’ writing about “Ladder Me,” the overall message of the sculpture is that before you relax in life, more important things should get done first. Adams’ sculptures speak volumes of color, spirit and individuality.
A message of self-empowerment is displayed in Adams’ “Where Do I Belong.” Similar to “Ladder Me,” the sculpture is of a chair placed high on a stand.
Next to the picture of “Where Do I Belong” in a booklet of his work found at the Katzen Arts Center, Adams’ writes, “If U want 2 B a Teacher, Shoot 4 a PRINCIPAL. If U want 2 B a Lawyer, Shoot 4 a JUDGE. If u wanna B SOMEBODY, shoot 4 YOURSELF.”
A work by BK Adams on display at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. Photo by Courtney Allen.
Adams, a Washington, D.C.-based artist born in 1972, is self taught. He takes experiences from earlier years to mold his artwork.
According to his biography, located on Adams’ website, “Adams considers himself a Thinker, foremost. It is important to the artist that all of his work has meaning—that it shares a story.”
His works are among six visiting exhibits at the museum this summer, according to Lucy Crowley, an administrative and marketing assistant at the museum.
To find more information about BK Adams, visit his website.
WASHINGTON—At first glance it appears to be any ordinary elevator. But it’s actually a work of art.
The ceiling of the elevator is covered with a photo of a plane in flight.
A similar story is told in the emergency stairwell. It appears to be nothing special, but it, too, is a work of art. Walking down the staircase, Alberto Gaitán’s media exhibition is heard but not seen.
Brink and Boundary is a unique artwork exhibition showing at the Katzen Arts Center on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C. All of the different pieces in the exhibition possess multisensory features that set them apart from more traditional forms of art.
Brink and Boundary also makes use of the Katzen Arts Center’s non-exhibition spaces–ones that are “overlooked and forgotten”–such as the emergency stairwell, the elevator, the entryway, and the barrier surrounding the main entrance.
Located within the entryway of the Katzen Arts Center is an auditory exhibition piece that invites visitors to link to a mobile app on their smartphones.
“You had the dream? You had the dream again?” said a voice from an app.
“Yes I dreamed I was choking and couldn’t breathe,” replied another voice.
Halsey Burgund’s piece entitled “Hotel Dreamy,” does not have a physical side but exists digitally in a smartphone application or in a touchscreen terminal, both of which are only able to be used within Katzen Arts Center.
“Hotel Dreamy” is an auditory piece of art that explores dreams and the ways people interpret their dreams.
Burgund’s piece has a unique form of interactivity. The piece allows users to contribute their dreams–using the smartphone application–and their own meanings behind them. Each visitor to the exhibition has the opportunity to help make the exhibit even more unique.
Away from the entryway and “Hotel Dreamy” is Adam Good’s piece “Untitled.”
Does text taken from a from another document and remixed still hold true meaning?
“Honey this is your blood to take and make and take and make flow,” the words appear on blue stickers stuck to the
glass walls surrounding the main entrance of the Katzen Arts Center.
Using words that were taken from a scholarship piece by Felix Gonzales-Torres, Good explored whether or not context is essential to understanding words. If words are removed from their original context and arranged in a different way do they still retain their original meaning? This is a question Good tries to answer.
Moving inside the museum’s exhibit space, another artist had a different take on the multisensory exhibition.
Hasan Elahi chose to make use of one of Katzen’s elevators to present his piece entitled, “Sky.”
“Sky” makes up the entire ceiling of an elevator in the Katzen Arts Center, and presents the image of a plane in flight against a gray sky.
The empty sky leaves the viewer wondering about the fate of the flight and “turns the elevator into a mobile site for reflection and a charged form of sky-gazing,” according to the promotional brochure for the exhibit.
The last piece of art in Brinks and Boundary has its entrance on the third floor. In his piece, Gaitán presents a seemingly empty staircase with a loud-high-pitched-acoustic noise.
The audio exhibit called, “Untitled,” is a three-story staircase descending from the third-floor to the first.
As the listener enters the stairwell, they are immediately hit by the high-pitched ringing. This, combined with the echo of their footsteps, creates a sensory overload for the listener, forcing them into a state of hyper sensitivity.
This hyper sensitivity helps provide the viewer with a sense of meditative calm and lets them fully take in the exhibit.
For more information on the exhibits at the museum this summer, visit the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center’s website.
WASHINGTON—Pieces of artwork at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center are all special in their own light but some may just have another dimension to them. Literally.
Pieces by Hadieh Shafie
This photo shows both Spike 6 on the left and 26000 pages on the right.
26000 pages view #1
Spike 6 front view
Spike 6 Side view #1
This photo shows how Spike 6 pops out
Spike 6 up-close
This Photo show Spike 6 up close
Photo by Melanie Pincus
The Enamord Mage: Translation #6
Photo by Halle Jefferson.
The Enamord Mage: Translation #6 side view #1
This shows how The Enamord Mage: Translation #6 pops out.
The Enamord Mage: Translation #6 side view #2
This shows how The Enamord Mage: Translation #6 pops out.
Spike 6 side view #3
Two pieces of work by Hadieh Shafie especially stand out because they actually stand out.
Both pieces feature paper handwritten and printed with the word “love” or “passion” in Farsi. The first piece titled “26000” pages was created in 2011 and features colored paper rolled up to make circles of various different sizes, and colors from all across the color spectrum. The piece is part of Shafie’s Katab Series and is owned by Shafie.
The second piece stands out even more than the first. Handcrafted in 2014 the work named “Spike 6” is made out of both acrylic and paper and features the acrylic and paper in a seemingly random arrangement that pops forward toward the center of each circle.
When standing at just the right location, a few steps away from the piece, the work seems to drift closer to the viewer as they focus and stare into the many mesmerizing spikes.
“It feels like it is coming at you,” said Melanie Pincus, 15.
The work is in a private collection.
On the second floor of the building lies a piece of work by Jess, named “The Enamord Mage: Translation #6.”
In the work, a man looks at a book, but when further inspected the painting reveals that it may be more as this painting has been built up in unlikely places such as a glop of paint that intrudes toward the viewer between two books. The piece of art does not have a flat surface and instead is jagged and rough.
“When you back up it is normal but when you get closer it pops out at you,” said Halle Jefferson, 16.
