My first stop downtown was, as always, the Hirshhorn Museum. I saw this interesting sculpture in the lobby. (Click any picture to see it in a larger size.)
The museum had an exhibit by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei; I could only take photos “for personal use” However, his sculptures of the Chinese zodiac were outside.
Inside the museum, on the ceiling, was a large fabric snake that went a fair distance around the building.
Here are some of the other sculptures in the Hirshhorn. I was very much taken with the next to last one (“Table with two legs on wall”), but had to say “You call this art?” for the last one.
In the basement was an exhibit by an artist named Barbara Kruger.
The cleverest thing I saw was a movie named “The Opening Day” by Antonio Rovaldi. There were two screens at either end of the room. On one screen was a baseball player, and on the other screen some mass-produced ceramics. The baseball player threw the ball, breaking the ceramic. I felt sort of like an idiot moving my head back and forth to follow the non-existent ball, but when I saw other people doing exactly the same thing, I didn’t feel so bad.
On the way over to Union Station for lunch, I saw this flower. Apparently it hasn’t been excessively cold in Washington; today was actually quite nice.
Yes, I know I said in a previous Washington DC trip report that I wasn’t going to do any more pictures of monuments, but they were setting up the stands for the inauguration, so I had to get these pictures of the Capitol building.
After lunch, I passed by a long line of food trucks; these two caught my eye. I also passed by Georgetown University on my way to the American Art Museum, where I saw this monument to Louis Daguerre. In the courtyard of the museum, there’s a “flat fountain”
The museum had an exhibit dedicated to Nam June Paik. No photography allowed there, but there was some of his work on display in other parts of the museum. After seeing that, I wandered around and got these pictures:
I then headed to the Renwick Gallery, passing an interesting building at 11th and G streets. The gallery had an exhibit of craft work by 40 artists under 40 years of age. No photography allowed, but let’s say that most of the work was extremely good, with a couple of so-so and truly awful entries. Here are some pictures from the other parts of the gallery.
These signs caught my eye:
