Posts Tagged ‘art’

Artist Speaking Event: Thursday, October 1

Patten and I sat captivated in the Hirshhorn’s black box theater, as we watched Guido’s “Nummer Acht (#8) everything is going to be alright.” Essentially, it’s a 10-minute video of a gigantic ship cutting through ice, with Guido walking in front of its prow. It’s absolutely mesmerizing. In her thorough review of the film, WaPo’s Jessica Dawson puts it this way:

Both boat and figure move in lockstep. Van der Werve continues forward while the icebreaker keeps pace. The scene appears as if it could go on indefinitely. To suggest just such an endless journey, van der Werve ends the film as suddenly as it began, snapping back to a silent black screen and final credits.

What to make of this? Though the action is minimal, the psychology is intense. The stark image of man pursued by industrial beast glues us to our seats. When will the man fall tragically through the ice? When will he break into a run? Will the ship give up pursuit? As time passes and it becomes clear that, in fact, nothing will happen next, the film turns into a philosophical exercise.

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Guido will be speaking about his film (and other works) at the Hirshhorn Museum this Thursday at 7 p.m., in the third-floor Lerner room. Nummer Acht—a snippet of which I’ve embed below—will be on display through October 11. If you haven’t seen it, get thee to the black box. If you’re like me, you’ll watch the video loop twice.

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Weekend To Do’s

Assuming you don’t have tickets to the sold-out Cake concert on Fri and Sat nights (cupcake included), here are some other ideas for keeping busy this weekend:

* Friday

4 p.m.-1:30 a.m. It’s finally here: The grand opening of Artomatic. This month-long, 9-floor art exhibit-cum-bar/music/dance party opens tonight with about 2,000 artists and a gazillion bands showing off their stuff. We took a sneak peak at the space during Ignite DC—it looked super cool and that was in the early, early stages of set-up. The event is free and is located about 10 steps away from the Navy Yard Metro (green line). This is a must do people!

* Saturday

8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tie-up your tennies for one of 120 free walking tours of the city. The biannual event—Walking Town DC—is hot ticket item in this city. We tried the Dupont tour last year, and gave up after standing on our tip toes behind 200 other people trying to see/hear the tour guide. Your best bet is to reserve a spot online for one of the reservations-required tours, which caps the number of walkers. Many are already “sold out,” so as Patten would say, get to gettin’.

* Sunday

Enough of that free stuff. Sunday offers a few worth-it splurges. Pick the one that fits your budget:

$20 3 p.m. DC Theatre Scene’s review of Crazyface at the Source has me chomping at the bit.

$30 (plus ZipCar) 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sip unlimited samplings of Virginia wines at the Vintage Virginia Wine Festival in Centreville.

$80 5 p.m.-8 p.m. Attend Couchon 555 with the local foodies to watch local chefs slice and dice 200 pounds of pork. Oink, oink! Wine included.

Photo by Rock Creek

Weekend To Do’s

Welcome to the first WTD. Thanks to all the excellent blogs I subscribe to in Google Reader and all the local tweeters I follow, I do a lot of web sifting each week. During the week, you can access all my Google Reader starred items here and all my Twitter updates here; but each Friday, I’ll post WTD, a short list of the most interesting stuff that’s happening over the weekend. Did I miss something wildly exciting? Let me know in the comments of this post.

Friday

• Music: DCist tells us about this weekend’s Women in Jazz Festival. Watch five women jazz pianists compete on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. (Free; Friday, 6 p.m.-7 p.m.)

Saturday

• Art: district, schmistrict notifies us about the Mid City Artists event this weekend. Basically, 19 artists in the Dupont and Logan Circle neighborhoods are opening their homes or studios to show off their work. (Free; Times vary, but most are open from noon-5 p.m. on Sat-Sun.)
  
• Water: About DC mentions a long list of events this weekend, including the Dragon Boat Festival in Georgetown. What’s Dragon boating? This Fox 5 video will expain it. (Free; Races run from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sat., and 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sun.)

Sunday

• Food: WaPo tells us about the 14th Annual Taste of Wheaton. Take a wad of ones, as each bite of eclectic and ethnic food costs $1. (Sun., 11 a.m.-5 p.m.) Or, head to Ballston for Taste of Arlington. Same thing: Entrance is free, but samples aren’t. (noon-5 p.m.)

Photo by: The Eggplant

“Unleash Your Inner Warhol”

For those of us that don’t own PhotoShop and wouldn’t know how to work it even if we did, I found this great site called befunky [via Lifehacker] that will make artwork out of your photos. This is very addicting I tell you—having already spawned this blog post and a new Facebook profile pic. Here’s your ticket if you’re looking for creative ways to make those Valentines….