Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

We took our friend Charlotte with us to the Hirshorn for a short, sweet trip down on the Mall.  It’s always a nice addition to a day.  Doesn’t take long to walk through, and you always feel ~illuminated~ after leaving.  While the architecture and gardens outside are a marvel of themselves, the real mind-bender is the art inside.  The basement contains some floor to ceiling art, as well as some really interesting multimedia videos that focus around “New Media” – music, communication, and video – and the role it plays in 21st century society.  Some real deep stuff.  What is really cool about the Hirshorn is that these contemporary artists have a say in how their art is curated and displayed, and the exhibitions, not just the art itself, are a form of artistic expression in themselves.  It’s worth a trip!! And make sure to check out the Dolcezza gelato for a yummy snack on a hot day…

 

Renwick Gallery

The Renwick is dope.  Nothing else to say.

LOL

Just kidding.  The Renwick has really hit the nail on the head with its past few exhibits.  “Wonder” basically made social media history with thousands of instagram and facebook posts of the incredible colors and installations in the main hall.  The Renwick has “done it again” with “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man.”  It was truly incredible to learn about the history of this epic desert festival and see the artifacts that inspired the installations in the museum.  With multimedia displays, our words and pictures cannot do justice to how cool the exhibition is.  They are all really interactive and mind-blowing, not to mention how much they will pimp out your VSCO feed!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Don’t walk, RUN down to the Renwick, what LBJ called the country’s “gallery of arts, craft and design.”

BTW, #NoSpectators has set up 6 outdoor sculptures downtown…go see if you can find them! They reside in the triangle formed by Penn Ave and K St.

American Indian Museum

After a long morning at the Air and Space Museum, we headed to the American Indian Museum right next door. Our stomachs were growling, so we went straight to the to the Mitsitam Cafe, located on the ground level of the museum. “Mitsitam,” which means “Let’s Eat!” in the Native language of the Delaware and Piscataway peoples, has been voted best Smithsonian Museum restaurant and features indigenous cuisines found in five regions of the Americas: the Great Plains, Mesoamerica, the Northern Woodlands, the Northwest Coast, and South America. After surveying all of our options, Talia and I opted for tlayudas, and we were not disappointed! Native to Mesoamerica, tlayuda consists of a large, thin, partially toasted tortilla covered with a spread of refried beans, a type of meat (usually pork), and then toppings of your choice, such as: lettuce, avocado, cheese, and salsa. Nom nom nom…

We were sad to see that many of the museum’s other visitors had settled for a more typical American fare: a grilled chicken sandwich or a burger.

Air and Space Museum

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We are back! After a brief hiatus from blog writing, we have resumed this SUPER FUN work in order to let you all know what we have been doing! What seems like weeks and weeks ago, we visited the Air and Space Museum down on the Mall.  We had both been to this museum many times, many years ago, as children, and we were greeted by exactly that as we entered the huge building on Independence Ave.  LOTS and LOTS of kids….having fun!  The museum does a great job of engaging all types of people – sciencey people, artsy people, touristy people, and kiddies!

Some memorable exhibits are “How Things Fly” sponsored by Boeing, Pioneers of Flight, and Artist Soldiers.  “How Things Fly” seems directly to have come out of our childhood, with interactive stations demonstrating gravity, lift, and how airplanes work.  While I didn’t really understand all the text or information, it was still fun to do the little science experiments and all the parents in the room seemed relieved to have a break from wrangling their kiddos.  Pioneers of Flight was a cool timeline of the history of famous flights, going all the way back to a model of the first ever hot air balloon, which was developed by the Montgolfier brothers and sponsored by Marie Antoinette in 1783 Paris! (guess who wrote this post ;-)) The exhibit also included one of Amelia Earhart’s planes!  My favorite exhibit in the museum was actually one developed in conjunction with the American History Museum, “Artist Soldiers.”  All about artistic expression in WWI, it correlated perfectly with Ms. Salata’s “War and Lit” class!

Of course, a visit to the Air and Space Museum is not complete without going into one of the simulators! We opted to do the one of the interactive flight simulators, and Erica COMPLETELY FAILED at piloting our plane.  I think we would have crashed if the software didn’t prevent that…but it was super fun!

If you wanna go relive your childhood experiences, go check out the Air and Space Museum! Go on the weekday if possible to avoid massive lines and huge crowds of kids.