Folio from a Falnama (ca.1550s-1560s). Image courtesy of the Sackler gallery.

ED. NOTE: Please be aware that, due to Smithsonian Institution Internet outages scheduled for this weekend, some of the links given below may not be functional on Saturday, November 21 and Sunday November 22. Please visit our companion site goSmithsonian.com for updates on Smithsonian events and exhibitions.

Friday, November 20: Reel Portraits: Films by John Ford

In conjunction with the exhibition, Faces of the Frontier, the National Portrait Gallery is showing several films by legendary director John Ford. Tonight, it is “Fort Apache” starring John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple (sans tap shoes and Mr. Bojangles) in a thinly veiled account of Custer’s last stand. A conversation with Frank H. Goodyear III, curator of the exhibition Faces of the Frontier, follows the screening. Free. Portrait Gallery, 7:00 PM.

Saturday, November 21: Facing History: Be the Artist

David Eichenberg’s painting, The Duchess of Toledo, was selected as a finalist in this year’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition and, like many works of art, one has to wonder what was going through the artist’s head when they begin to create a work of art. This afternoon, come on out to the National Portrait Gallery for a guided tour of the show and then create your own piece based on Eichenberg’s ideas. For persons aged 10-14 with adult. This event is free, but registration is required. Please call 202-633-8501 to reserve your spot today. This event repeats today at 3:30 for persons aged 5-10. Portrait Gallery, 12:00-2:00 PM.

ImaginAsia: Predicting Your Future

Cootie catchers are a popular means of fortune telling, but their accuracy is somewhat suspect. When in doubt, consult the Book of Falnama—sort of a big honkin’ cootie catcher that commoners and royalty in Turkey and Iran used during the 16th and 17th centuries to consult when they needed advice about the future. Kick off the afternoon by touring the new exhibit Falnama: The Book of Omens and learn about the auspicious meanings behind the images and symbols and then go back into the classroom where you can create an amulet for protection and posterity. Free. Freer, 2:00 PM.

For more information on events and exhibitions at the Smithsonian museums, check our companion website, goSmithsonian.com, the official visitor’s guide to the Smithsonian.

Shuttle astronauts used this trainer to practice the difficult task of replacing the Power Control Unit, the electrical nerve center of the Hubble Space Telescope, on a 2002 servicing mission. Photo by Eric Long

This week, the National Air and Space Museum unveiled the first phase of its new permanent exhibit about human spaceflight, “Moving Beyond Earth.”

The gallery focuses on the shuttle and space-station era and includes items that were just recently doing their jobs in space, like the Hubble’s Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement, or COSTAR. That piece, which was a corrective optics package that worked in conjunction with the Hubble telescope’s mirror, came back to Earth this past May during the last servicing mission.

The artifacts in this space have a very different feel than the traditional, historical objects in other galleries. In fact, NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld, who was on hand for the opening celebrations, noted the absurdity of even calling them artifacts. Just a few years ago, Grunsfeld was using the HST Power Control Unit Trainer, another new artifact now on display, to practice for his missions—he went on three.

“We were very short on artifacts because all the artifacts from the shuttle era were still in use,” said Valerie Neal, curator of the new hall. Neal refers to the current gallery as a “footprint for the fully built-out space” that will be completed in the next two years.

The star at the museum these day is another Hubble instrument, the piano-sized Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, or WFPC2, which also on view in an adjacent hall.The WFPC2 was installed on the Hubble in 1993 to correct the telescopes blurred images. Averting near disaster for the program.

When Hubble first went up, it was called an American disgrace, says Edward Weiler, who was the chief scientist on the Hubble Telescope for nearly 20 years. The WFPC2, he says, “turned Hubble into a great American comeback story.”  The instruments might be the objects on display in the museum, but Grunsfeld says there’s more to the story than just the artifacts. “It wasn’t the instruments that saved Hubble,” he says. “People saved Hubble.

The WFPC2 was the first instrument to demonstrate the unique capability of astronomical imaging from space. Photo by Eric Long.

History buffs will no doubt head for the star artifacts, but younger visitors are likely to head for the screens. The hall is chock-full of games and play stations. Visitors can sit at a control panel and make decisions on NASA missions as if they were seated in a real life Mission Control. Another interactive demonstrates decision making for all sorts of things like planning new components to the space station, budgeting health fitness, food stores and living condition staples. And still another invites visitors to discover a compatible career for them in space, no matter their interest, by answering questions such as their favorite subject in school and what their preferred super hero power would be. (Two of my top jobs were librarian and educator.)

The museum’s director Jack Dailey says this gallery has more interactives than any other place in the museum. “We have long had a desire to add more interactives to stimulate and inspire the younger generation,” he said. “The first thing a young person looks for is the screen. They find it and immediately go to it and start touching it.”

Installation artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Photo courtesy of Wolfgang Volz/LAIF/Redux

The artist Jeanne-Claude passed away last night at a New York hospital of a brain aneurysm, according to the Associated Press. She was 74.

Jeanne-Claude, also known as Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, was born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1935. She was the wife and life-long partner of the artist Christo, and their world-famous installations have delighted a generation of followers.

The pair’s 1972-1976 epic project, Running Fence—which the Smithsonian American Art Museum calls “the most lyrical and spectacular” of the artists’ works—was a white fabric and steel-pole fence that ran 24.5 miles long and stood 18 feet high. The fence ran across the properties of 59 ranchers in Sonoma and Marin Counties north of San Francisco. While the fence was just a fleeting installation that stood for a mere two weeks, its memory and its impact is still writ large across the landscape of American artistic endeavors.

Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-1976. Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Recently, in a Q&A with Smithsonian magazine’s Anika Gupta, Jeanne-Claude related the difficulty of coaxing all of the land owners into participating in the project. “I was standing in this kitchen and the rancher kept saying to me, ‘The fence has no purpose.’ So I told him, ‘A work of art needs no purpose, it is beautiful.’”

Coming next April 2 and running through September 26, the Smithsonian American Art Museum will present the exhibition, “Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76. A Documentation Exhibition.” The exhibition features all of the documentation by the artists—drawings, collages, photographs, film and other components—for the Running Fence project. According to the museum, the project required 18 public hearings, three sessions in the Superior Court of California and the first environmental impact report ever done for a work of art.

Detail of Robert Rauschenberg's Rabbit Chow (1977). Image courtesy of the American Art Museum.

When you walk into any given Smithsonian museum, you are at the total mercy of the curators, who, due to space constraints, can only present a teensy smattering of all the cool stuff available at their disposal at any given time. And believe me, there’s nothing more disappointing than going to a museum only to find that the one object that you absolutely HAD to see is no longer on view. For those of you unable to make it out to DC—and those who want to dive deeper into the Smithsonian’s riches—there is a handy new tool that allows you to search for things across the entire Smithsonian Institution archives (or at least, the chunks of it that have been digitized). From popular topics—like dinosaurs and airplanes—to more esoteric ones—like rabbit chow—there’s something for everybody. So come cruise the Smithsonian’s eclectic collections online at the Collections Search Center.

Image courtesy of Flickr user alykat.

Coloration: a nice, warm, earthy tone. Texture: crispy on the outside, flaky on the inside. And the only mouth I need to worry about is my own. Indeed, the catfish po’ boy sandwich is pretty darn close to perfection when it comes to a catfish encounter.

A twig catfish and eggs. Image courtesy of the National Zoo

That said, it is my deepest pleasure to announce that the National Zoo is welcoming a brood of baby twig catfish, which hatched on November 12. Twig catfish are—as the name implies—stick like in shape and color and are native to the Amazon. They are also masters of disguise and hide under dead leaves and stick debris, making them very difficult to spot on the fly—even scientists are unsure of this species’ population in the wild.

Earlier this month, a female twig catfish at the National Zoo laid a layer of 30 to60 eggs, which were then protected by the male. Once the young (also known as “fry”—seriously, no joke) hatch, they need constant care and supervision—and a steady supply of algae so that they can grow and mature. But don’t expect to see the catfish kiddies on public display–only non-breeding animals are on view to the public at a tank in Amazonia’s field station exhibit. However, you can get the general idea from the following above photo:

And no, this blogger does not have a sense of bad taste developed enough to consider turning these noble creatures into deep fried sandwich goodness. Frankly, they don’t have enough body to make a good sandwich. Fish sticks on the other hand…

Artist John Foote's depiction of a young Horne as Adalgisa in Bellini’s “Norma.” Photo courtesy of the NPG.

Stroll through the main hall of the National Portrait Gallery this winter, and you are likely to see Shephard Fairey’s  already iconic “Hope” poster of President Barack Obama, followed by the very simple and powerful depiction of the late senator Ted Kennedy. And then there is the museum’s newest addition to this gallery of America’s who’s-who, a 1971 portrait of opera singer Marilyn Horne. “The painting serves as a biography of Ms. Horne,” says curator of painting and sculpture Brandon Fortune, “and allows us to tell the story of American opera in the twentieth century.”

Marilyn Horne is celebrated as one of the most remarkable voices of the 20th century. Her five-decade career as a vocalist began when she was just four years old when she sang at a rally for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Horne went on to study music at the University of Southern California and launched her professional career in 1954 as the singing voice for Dorothy Dandridge’s in the film Carmen Jones, a modern reworking of the Bizet opera Carmen. Horne later went on to forge a career as an opera singer, tackling roles in Norma, Semiramide and Anna Bolena.

Last Thursday, the 75-year-old mezzo-soprano arrived at the museum to make the donation. The portrait’s portrayal of the young Horne with long, dark, brunette hair, smooth, light skin and sparkling eyes, which Horne described as “in the bloom of my youth,” complemented the opera star’s now graying hair, her full, happy grin and her still sparkling eyes.

The work was created by artist John Foote in 1971 to honor Horne’s debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Adalgisa in Bellini’s Norma. Foote attended Boston University before moving to Florence to study art. The artist was also present at the dedication, and the pair posed for numerous photos for the public, standing beside the creation that brought them both such obvious pride.

NPG’s director Martin Sullivan thanked the legendary team of artist and muse, expressing the honor it was to now have “this historical American gem” a part of the collection. Horne assured him that it was her honor in a genuine sing-song voice. As the dedication ended and the crowd of people, of which Horne described as “her family by choice,” snapped their last photos, Horne looked at her portrait with satisfaction for the last time, her only request before departing was, “please keep me among Obama and Kennedy.”

Linda Nochlin will speak at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Wednesday, November 18 at 7PM. The portrait of her and her late husband, Richard Pommer is by Philip Pearlstein. Photo is by Shandor Hassan.

Linda Nochlin, the Lila Acheson Wallace Professor of Modern Art at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, pioneered the study of women and art with her groundbreaking 1971 essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Considered the foremost scholar of feminist art history, she has authored numerous publications, including Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays (1988) and Representing Women (1999). Nochlin recently spoke with Abby Callard.

Almost 40 years ago, you wrote about the lack of great female artists. How about now? I think things have changed. I think the idea of greatness has changed as a result of that article and other work in the field of art history. I don’t think there’s a single standard of greatness anymore. Many more women have entered into the realm of great artists. I still think it’s a very good paper, and I still think it’s illuminating to people who know nothing about art or women in art even though circumstance may have changed and it also sheds light on other areas of achievement and expertise, not just women. And other groups, racial groups, national groups that have been cashed out. And the whole point is to show that none of this is genetic, in-built, natural etc. it’s all part of a complex social and institutional organization.

Where did the idea for your article come from? I had come back from a year abroad to teach at Vassar, and some friends told me about the feminist movement. It was 1969. There’d been student revolutions. But there hadn’t been a feminist revolution. Back home there was the Red Stockings newsletter and Off Our Backs. A lot of stuff was happening, so I immediately changed my seminar at Vassar to “Women in Art” and I divided it into two parts: “Women Artists” and “The Representation of Women.” And it was one of the greatest classes I’ve ever taught. Students demanded to make not just two reports, but three or four. We made the most amazing discoveries. At graduation that year, a gallery owner said to me, “You know Linda, I’d love to show women artists, but why are there no great women artists?” That just started me ticking. I went and did research. And I just kept thinking about that, and writing, and writing, and writing. I read very specific lives of artists. One thing just lead to another, like a creative discovery. Almost like scientists must feel when they find some new way of looking at the universe. I was looking at the world differently. I’d always been a very political person. But this was different. I still think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.

What is the difference between a good, respectable artist and a great artist? I guess a kind of uniqueness and impact on the field itself. I would pick the figure of Cezanne. This is an artist who not only was brilliant and interesting but changed the course of art, changed what we think of as beauty, changed what we thought about the relationship between paint and the canvas. Whatever we mean by great, he was it. Everyone would say Michelangelo. He’s not one that I particularly like, but I can recognize his talent.

Which female artists have crossed that barrier? Louise Bourgeois for one. She’s one of the most famous and sought after women in the world. Cindy Sherman. Looking back, Eva Hesse certainly made an enormous impact on the field of sculpture. In photography we could point to a lot of women artists. I could go on and on. Video and performance art has been contributed to enormously by female artists. I think there are realms of art like video and performance, which are important now, where women really are great artists.

What about painting? I hate to use that word even. Mary Cassatt. Let’s see, who else? Georgia O’Keeffe. In fact, one might say that she is one of the most famous painters in the world. Helen Frankenthaler is a major figure.

You’re credited with inventing the field of feminist art history. Where do you see the field going? I think it is becoming different. I think there’s a new generation of new feminists in the field of art history that are making it different. There are also women coming from other parts of the world. They are extending the notion of what is art. I think that’s a real interesting problem nowadays. Certain kinds of performances, certain kinds of installations, certain kinds of actions that were not included within the field of art are now being included, and women are practicing within those fields. So I think it’s both things. I think it’s both geographic, if you want to put it that way, and conceptual in terms of what is art. Expanding the borders of what art may be.

But you’re interested in more than female artists. I am. Very much so. I’m interested in 19th century art in general and particularly Gustave Courbet, whom I’ve written a book on. He was the subject of my dissertation. I’m interested in impressionism, post-impressionism. I’m interested in 20th century art, and I’m very interested in contemporary art and in criticism. I’ve recently taught classes on artists as writers. I’m interested in the relationship between word and image. But I’m very interested in the art of the 20th and 21st century and what’s going on today.

So what is going on today? I think there’s kind of a leaning toward a more open field just as I said about women artists from other geographic spots in the world and from creating within an enlarged area of art practice. I think that’s true universally; it’s not just true of women. I think criticism, there are a few trends, if you want to put it that way. Then I think there are people who are developing new theoretical bases for the discussion of art. And I think among some of the younger grad students I know there are people who are asking if there aren’t other ways of doing art history. More unconventional ways. Ways not so much tied to traditional, scholarly art historical practice but perhaps leave more room open for poetic thought, or personal ways of dealing with art or just opening up the field to other kinds of discourse, other kinds of writing practices let’s say.

Examples? Well, first of all, bringing one’s own emotions and feeling into the discussion. But I don’t mean in a sloppy way, not just pouring. But making it a part of the discourse. Another way is introducing gender into the discussion as I did. I did a long piece in a catalog once about Courbet’s studio where I suggested reversing the cast of characters. Making it into a woman’s painting where all the men became the nudes and the women became the dominant figures in the painting and so on. So I think there are imaginative ways of interpreting art that can be used in bringing enlightenment. The Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art presents Linda Nochlin, Wednesday, November 18 at 7 PM. Free tickets are required for this event and are available beginning at 6 PM in the museum’s G Street Lobby. Limit two tickets per person; no seat-holding please. Auditorium doors open at 6:30 p.m. and close promptly at 7 p.m. Reception follows.

View live Webcast of Linda Nochlin’s lecture here.

One of the four elegant crested tinamou chicks that was hatched at the National Zoo in late October. The four chicks are the Zoo's first ever successful birth of the species. Photo by Mehgan Murphy.

The stork has delivered some awfully cute new packages to the National Zoo.

For the first time ever, four elegant crested tinamou chicks were born at the National Zoo in late October. For just the second time ever, a pygmy falcon chick hatched.

The elegant crested tinamou chicks’ mother arrived at the Zoo just five months ago to join the chicks’ father. In this species, the female lays the olive green eggs, but the male is left to protect and care for them. Zoo staff report the male tinamou has done a fine fathering job so far. The birds are native to Chile and Argentina and prefer dry savannahs and open woodlands. While hunting them for food and sport is popular, their population remains stable in the wild.

This pygmy falcon was born a few weeks ago with no feathers. See how the chick has grown at the National Zoo. Photo by Mehgan Murphy.

The second pygmy falcon to be hatched at the  National Zoo arrived on October 20. The little guy is still pretty dependent—pygmy falcons are born weighing only 5 grams and are unable to see or regulate their own temperature. But this chick is growing fast; Zoo staff estimate that it’ll be flying in a couple of days. To keep the chick strong, it is being fed a varied diet of anoles, pinky mice, crickets, fuzzy mice, hairless mice, meal worms and natural balance meat cubes and recieves daily supplemental feedings. This can be difficult because the chick’s parents become very aggressive during the feedings.

All the new arrivals are on display at the zoo, but the pygmy falcon spends most of its time in the nest, so visitors have to be stealthy to catch a peek.

A 1:5 scale model of the support systems module of the Hubble Space Telescope. Image courtesy of the Air and Space Museum.

Monday, November 16: Free Admission to Wild Ocean 3D for Recycled Cell Phones

Do the environment a favor and part with your old cell phone in an ecologically friendly way—and catch a movie in return. From now until November 22, visitors who present a cell phone for recycling at the theater’s box offices will receive one free admission to Wild Ocean 3D—a new IMAX experience that explores the effects of global warming on ecosystems off the coast KwaZulu-Natal Coast in South Africa. Natural History Museum.

Tuesday, November 17: The Significance of the Hubble Space Telescope

One of the Hubble Space Telescope’s cameras, WFPC2, is now in the Smithsonian’s collections and on display. To celebrate this recent acquisition, come on out to the Air and Space Museum for an evening of astrological activities. At 5:30 PM, get into the stargazing groove at the new Public Observatory. At 7:30 PM, meet astronaut John Grunsfeld, Ph.D. who participated in five NASA space missions. At 8:00 PM, Grunsfeld will discuss the significance of Hubble. A book signing will follow. This event is free, but tickets are required. To reserve your spot, go online and fill out the Ticket Request Form, or call 202-633-2398. Air and Space Museum, 5:30 PM

Wednesday, November 18: National Geography Awareness Week

Celebrate National Geography Week at the Air and Space Museum! Think your knowledge of outer space technology is up to snuff? Come participate in the Geography from Space contest and enjoy programs and demonstrations that the whole family can enjoy. Free. Air and Space Museum, 10:00 AM-3:00 PM

Thursday, November 19: When Art Worked

FDR’s New Deal Programs were a big deal for out of work artists. Under the employ of the US government, filmmakers, painters, photographers, landscape designers, architects and composers plied their craft and created stunning works of art that reflected America during the Great Depression. This evening, historian Roger Kennedy is on deck to discuss this landmark mobilization of artists. A book signing will follow the lecture. Free. American Art Museum, 7:00 PM

Friday, November 20: Reel Portraits: Films by John Ford

In conjunction with the exhibition Faces of the Frontier, the National Portrait Gallery is showing several films by legendary director John Ford. Tonight, it is Fort Apache starring John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple (sans tap shoes and Mr. Bojangles) in a thinly veiled account of Custer’s last stand. A conversation with Frank H. Goodyear III, curator of the exhibition Faces of the Frontier, follows the screening. Free. Portrait Gallery, 7:00 PM.

For more information on events and exhibitions at the Smithsonian museums, check our companion website, goSmithsonian.com, the official visitor’s guide to the Smithsonian.

Portrait of an American Indian (ca. 1900). Artist unknown. Image courtesy of the American Art Museum.

Friday, November 13: Vice Adm. Donald D. Engen Flight Jacket Night: A Conversation with Alan Bean

On November 19th, 1969, Alan Bean became the fourth man to set foot on the Moon during the second lunar landing as the Apollo 12 lunar module pilot. After a distinguished career at NASA, he retired in 1981 to pursue painting and public speaking—and both of those talents will be on display this evening at the Air and Space Museum. Alan Bean will discuss his life and career and be available for book signings. And don’t forget to explore the galleries of his otherworldly artwork in the companion exhibit, Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, First Artist on Another World. Air and Space Museum, 8:00 PM.

Saturday, November 14: American Indian Heritage Month Two-Day Family Program: From Deer to Dance

Come celebrate American Indian Heritage Month with a two-day festival chock-full of family fun at the American Indian Museum. From 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, enjoy Native culture, music, dance and art; and learn how Native Americans turn the hides or skins of animals into the beautiful dresses or regalia worn during traditional ceremonies and powwows. At 12:00 noon, swing by to see—and participate in—a social dance led by the White Oak Singers. Free. This event repeats on November 15. American Indian Museum, 10:00 AM-3:00 PM.

Sunday, November 15: Sesame Street’s 40th Birthday Party

That’s right—Sesame Street hits the big 4-0 this year and the Discovery Theater is throwing a birthday party with Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Zoe, and Prairie Dawn, along with Muppeteers Kevin Clash, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, and Fran Brill, join Sesame Street executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente and Sonia Manzano (‘Maria’) to talk about the show’s 40 years of fun and learning. They share clips from the first season in 1969 and scenes from new episodes. Also, don’t forget to swing by the American History Museum where you can see Kermit the Frog, who was a regular on the show and check out Abby Callard’s piece on Sesame Street around the world. Tickets are required for this event. Prices and additional information are available through Smithsonian Associates. Discovery Theater, 1:30 PM.

This photograph of two giant pandas by Juan Carlos Munoz is this year's winner in the Endangered Species category in the Nature's Best Photography competition. Image courtesy of the Natural History Museum.

Nature’s Best Photography is a magazine that has encouraged conservation and stewardship of the natural world by way of its world-renowned photography competition. Every year, the magazine receives about 25,000 entries that highlight natures beauty and a small selection of them—including winners in the contest’s 19 categories—will be featured in a large-format photography exhibition hosted by the National Museum of Natural History from November 12, 2009 through May 2, 2010.

(Don’t forget about Smithsonian magazine’s photo competition. You have until December 2, 2009 to enter your photos into one of five categories (the Natural World being one of them). Finalists, and the commencement of the 8th photo contest, will be announced in March 2010.)

In the meantime, be sure to check out a gallery of photographs from the Nature’s Best competition and be sure to visit the Natural History Museum to catch the exhibition.

Work is underway at the Arts and Industries Building, closed to the public since 2004. Photograph by Brendan McCabe

I remember well the first day I came to work at Smithsonian magazine 24 years ago. The offices then were located in the Arts and Industries Building, or the A&I, our affectionate acronym for that grand, red-bricked 19th-century exhibition palace. I climbed the wrought-iron steps to my third-floor corner office. With dozens of nook and crannies, the building is a far more democratic place than today’s boxy glass and concrete monoliths, so even plebes like me got corner offices. I was literally working in the attic of the “Nation’s Attic” and it was every bit as romantic as you could imagine. After all, what famous 19th-century writer didn’t repair to an aerie-type chamber to make a mark with glorious prose? I was a young, impressionable editor back then.

Recently on a cold and overcast November day, photo editor Brendan McCabe and I met up with the Smithsonian’s project manager for the building, Christopher B. Lethbridge, and we were treated to an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of the enormous Romanesque-style edifice, now shuttered to the public since 2004.

I was feeling a tad bit annoyed with the weather because Lethbridge had promised that the interior of the empty building was especially lovely to see when the sunlight came through the windows at the top of the rotunda and would lend us some graceful lighting for good photography. But Lethbridge wasn’t bothered at all. The overcast day would do nothing to hinder the light, he assured me, having in mind the building’s original visionary architect, the German-born Adolph Cluss. The building, Cluss had promised, would deliver “a well-calculated and pleasing admission of light.” (See a photo gallery of McCabe’s photographs.)

The occasion for our visit came on the heels of  recent evidences that the building was at last receiving its due. For some time now, staff around the Smithsonian have sadly shaken their heads at the notion that one of the Institution’s finest and most historic buildings was closed for repairs, and that no funds had been found to begin the necessary process.  Some time in early October, however, with little fanfare, signs went up at the front and in the back of the building announcing that construction was underway with moneys garnered from the American Recovery and Investment Act.  Next, scaffolding was assembled at places outside the building. A crane appeared at the building’s west door. And a statue of one of the Smithsonian’s former secretaries, Spencer Baird, was safely encased in a plywood box.

“What we’re doing now is,” Lethbridge explained, “repairing the exterior of the building, replacing all the windows and clearing out all of the inappropriate construction that’s happened over the past one hundred years.” In fact, a $25 million dollar appropriation this summer from the stimulus package, part of which went to the Arts and Industries Building project, “got the ball rolling,” said Lethbridge. The entire restoration and renovation will likely cost $200 million and could take until the year 2014.

The story of the A&I begins in the early days of our young, earnest nation, in a time when it was vying for status among the world’s nations. Nations of stature had glorious buildings and palaces that housed museums and exhibitions that touted the forward thinking arts and industries of the era. The British had the new Crystal Palace.  In Munich, the Glass Palace had been built in 1854. And in Paris, too, plans were underway to build an exposition building. But the capital city of the United States, was still struggling to define itself, constructing its meager government buildings in the muddy swamps along the Potomac. What the young nation needed was a modern, public space for exhibitions.

Meanwhile, the Smithsonian story had already begun after a wealthy, but untitled, British scientist died without heir in 1829 and left his substantial wealth to the United States for the founding at Washington of an “Institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge” (among men, the will actually said, but we’re pretty sure he meant women, too).

At first, James Smithson’s money and how to spend it twisted the early Smithsonian officers up in knots. Throughout the mid-1800s, debate was ongoing. Should the Smithsonian be a scientific venture, a library, a museum? The Castle building was the first Smithsonian building to take shape. It was completed in 1855. Some of the historic stuff that comes from nation building was housed in that post-Norman construct, but the Smithsonian’s officials back then resisted efforts to make the place a museum. Then, when a 1865 fire damaged the Castle and much of what was in it, Congress began to think seriously about what the Smithsonian should be and where to house some of the things the country was collecting. The Smithsonian needed another building, Congress decided, that would house a museum.

A proponent of the museum vision was the Smithsonian associate secretary Spencer Baird. He would eventually become the Smithsonian’s second secretary in 1878. And it was on Baird’s watch that the brand new Arts and Industries Building was built between 1879 and 1881. The building made its first public debut as the site of the Inaugural reception for President James Garfield on March 4, 1881.

Another important figure in our A&I story is chief architect Cluss, who had settle in the United States after his native Germany’s failed revolution in 1848. (Cluss was also tight with Karl Marx and Friedrick Engle, but that’s yet another story.)  The German architect was a genius when it came to large, public buildings. He built market places and churches and became one of Washington’s most sought-after architects of the time.

The stencils in the rotunda will be restored to their original Moorish, Greek and Byzantine designs. Photograph by Brendan McCabe

And it was to Cluss that we owed a great debt to for that harmonious, soft light that was making the interior of the cavernous building an easy shot for Brendan’s camera on the day of our tour (left). Indeed, as Brendan and I walked through the building with Lethbridge, we wandered through the warren of offices and ill-advised, extraneous additions that had grown up inside the A&I over the last hundred years and we saw numerous impressions in the walls where grand arched windows had been covered or removed. The originial building did not have any electricity, Lethbridge pointed out and was not installed in the A&I until two years later in 1883.

The building stands ready for its pending renovation. All of its historic, stone, tile and terrazo floors have been carefully covered with foam padding and plywood. The balustrades and ornamental railings each are housed in custom-made plywood cabinetry designed to safeguard them. On the walls in the rotunda, the ersatz decorative stencils, recreated in the 1970s, have been gently scraped at places to reveal the originals underneath that were based on Moorish, Greek and Byzantine designs.

Lethbridge and his team have studied the building, combing through original documentation from its inception and throughout all of its  subsequent uses and periods and have determined to restore the building to the era of its “Primary Period of Significance,” as they call it, the years between 1881 and 1902.  The building will bask in the natural light after all of the original site lines are restored, which should make it worthy of the coveted green building status of Gold, if not Platinum, LEED certification.

As we walked around the outside of the building, a team of masonry restoration contractors were atop a crane and raising themselves up above the west door and gently using wet sponges to carefully wipe away the years of wear and tear off of the painted brickwork. We all stood admiring their industry, when our reverie was interrupted by a passerby, another Smithsonian staffer.  “They should have torn it down, Chris,” she chided Lethbridge with a smile.

A crestfallen Lethbridge replied, “No, I’ve read reports of the times, they meant for the building to last until the time of their grandchildren.”

Clearly the A&I is in good hands, the Smithsonian’s first museum building is likely going to be around for another generation.

London-born, Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare's work is on view at the African Art Museum. Photo by Charlotte Player

The past is prologue. And in the hands of the 47-year-old Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, history makes for rich fodder in the iconography of his sumptuous sculptural tableaux, curious films, richly imbued paintings and dramatic photographs.

Twenty-one of Shonibare’s works are on view in the recently opened retrospective, “Yinka Shonibare MBE” at the National Museum of African Art. Shonibare, who is based in London, is most acclaimed for his ironic and sometimes erotic assemblages of beautifully attired, but headless mannequins. Decked out in the brightly patterned African cloths, known as Dutch Wax fabrics, the headless figures incongruently sport the styles and fashions of 19th-century Europe. It’s a deliciously playful multiculturalism that could only come from an individual who grew up in Africa, but was educated in Great Britain.

Yinka Shonibare was born in England in 1962 to Nigerian parents, who returned to Nigeria when the boy was 2 years old. At the age of 17, Shonibare traveled to London to be schooled at the Byam Shaw School of Art.  At the age of 19, Shonibare suffered a devastating viral illness that left him partially paralyzed. But his disability has hardly impeded his meteoric rise to international renown. His stats include an honorable mention at the Venice Biennale; the celebrated Turner Prize; and recognition among the collections of  Art Institute of Chicago, the Walker Art Center, the Tate Modern and the Smithsonian’s African Art Museum.

In the 2003 "Scramble for Africa," a group of headless European heads of state carve up the continent of Africa. Photo courtesy of the artist.

If one were to study History 101 with the artist Yinka Shonibare as professor, the syllabus would be crammed with references on the French Revolution, European aristocracy, the Age of Enlightenment and African colonialism. Professor Shonibare’s history, however, is peppered with weird contemporary flourishes. One of the female mannequins wears an African fabric, but the symbol of the fashion house of Chanel can be detected among the richly intricate and colorful patterns.

The artist, says visiting curator Rachel Kent, is making “political and social commentary cloaked in aesthetics.” What she means by that is that when the curtain is pulled back, “it’s not so pretty.” Kent is a  curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Sydney, Australia, where the Shonibare show first originated.

Indeed, a headless dandy tries to sip water from a drinking fountain (Headless Man Trying to Drink, 2005), but can’t for the obvious reason that the figure lacks a mouth. The work clearly references the world’s growing thirst for clean water in the face of shortages, drought and climatic shifts.

In another, 14 headless heads of state huddle around a Victorian-era conference table. The work is called Scramble for Africa, 2003, and it depicts the 1884-85 formalized division of the African continent among European and world powers. The headless—and witless!—statesmen barter for what Belgian’s villainous King Leopold II called “a slice of this magnificent cake.”

And in yet another, which Kent describes as  “really saucy” (and which museum officials had to carefully construct behind a wall built for discretionary reasons) is an erotic, sexual romp. The figures have all lost their heads and are engaged in an assortment of naughty trysts. Gallantry and Criminal Conversation, 2002, depicts the European Grand Tour, the coming of age journey that the young elites and socialites of the 19th century took to the fashionable European capitals of the time, Venice, Paris and Rome. Here’s a hint: adultery back then was called “criminal conversation.”

Professor Shonibare’s history lesson engages the viewer in all of the inherent contradictions and complexities of our times and times past. It references the oddly bizarre 19th-century globalization of the brightly colored Dutch wax fabrics that originated in Indonesia, but were produced in Europe, and yet embraced by the cultures of West Africa and now have become a source of African identity and national pride. Shonibare’s multiculturalism—he says that he dreams in two languages, English and Yoruba, his native Nigerian tongue—coupled with his wry humor and his sardonic commentary turn history upside down and inside out. It’s a show that is both fun and funny, and a little frightening, too.

Or, as the show’s curator Karen Milbourne says, “it seduces you with irony and beauty.”

See a photo gallery of Shonibare’s works.

“Yinka Shonibare MBE” is on view through March 7, 2010, at the National Museum of African Art. The exhibition marks a two-year celebration at the museum of the 50-year anniversary of Nigeria’s independence. “Nigeria: Then, Now and Forever,” is a series of exhibitions, public programs and special events showcasing the arts, culture and people of Nigeria.

The National Mall is on a short list of places that may be photographed by the Google Trike. Photo courtesy of flickr user yufujamar.

At the end of last month, the ATM blog initiated a campaign to have the Google Trike come to the National Mall. Google had invited the public to nominate trails, university campuses, theme parks and zoos, pedestrian malls and landmarks—basically, anywhere with pedestrian paths, as opposed to roads—as places to be photographed for inclusion in Google Maps’ Street View.

Well, I’m happy to report that the National Mall has made Google’s short list of finalists! Three to six finalists have been selected for each category. (Local readers—the Capital Crescent Trail, in D.C. and Maryland, made the cut.) Check them out here, and vote! We want to see the trike in our neighborhood!