Sunday, May 23, 2010

In Which I Go to Washington DC, Having Been Invited to a Special Event at an Institution That Shall Remain Nameless

It has been a long time since a train-car self portrait has been shared!


I was one of the young photograph conservators invited to participate in an event designed to bring together young photograph conservators and young photo-historians. The even involved discussing three early (think 1850-ish) landscape photographers and then looking at examples of their work - negative and prints. Because this event was hosted by a Major Institution in Washington DC, we were able to visit several Other Major Institutions, always looking at works by the three selected photographers.

The Major Institution required that we all sign something stating that we would not use its name in any media. Hence the vagueness.

I went to DC the day before the scheduled photographic fun to enjoy the city and to catch up with some college friends. And it was a beautiful day.


Scenes from the National Gallery Sculpture Garden.
























My favorite piece in the garden. I can't remember who the artist is, and I kind of don't really care. It was so awesome and shiny.















A little tiny (relatively) spider, by Louise Bourgeois (who made the giant spider outside the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa). The Canadian Spider is much more impressive.


I also went into a few museums (American History, Natural History) and walked most of the mall. My goal was to visit the Reflecting Pool - unfortunately there was no water present to reflect, just a few dirty shallow puddles. Which makes me wonder: Is the Reflecting Pool always a crushing disappointment?

And why must the paths always be covered in little bits of rock? To be like Paris? To ensure that people walk slow, pausing every ten minutes to dump the little rocks out of their shoes?


Some Smithsonian.


The West Building of the National Gallery: I love this picture. I didn't photograph the East Building, which was designed by I M Pei.


Post museum-visiting and mall-walking, I met up with the above mentioned college friends, R and F. And we went to a Sushi Go-Round. Love it.

4 comments:

pke said...

oh oh! that looks like a Roxy Paine sculpture, that you like...

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={6267CA47-491B-4776-A468-0673F8362B0F}

Jessica said...

You are right! Roxy Paine it is!

Kristal said...

sorry,but it looks like a horrible mess, not a spider.... as art work,it sucks!

Jessica said...

The photograph of the spider sculpture makes it difficult to read as a work: there is too much pattern going on in the background (leave, garden, etc). The spider, "Maman" outside the National Gallery of Canada is, I feel, a much better example of that group of Louise Bourgeois' work. It also looks more like a spider - if indeed being clearly representational is vital to being a successful work.