Virtual American Art Programs at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery in Washington DC
We have moved our public programming online! Enjoy American Art programs from the safety of home. Please note all programs are offered exclusively online with no in-person option. Registration is required via Eventbrite.
Programs are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.
February 2021 Programs
Converse with a Conservator: More than Meets the Eye
Wednesday, February 3, 5:30 p.m. ET
What happens when an object’s attribution or date is called into question? Hear how conservators use innovative research and scientific analysis to identify the materials and methods used to create an artwork to answer this question. Graduate objects conservation intern Sarah Montonchaikul reveals how this information is used alongside art history to shed light on the identification and attribution of artworks. In this engaging online conversation, examine a mysterious unidentified Byzantine-looking necklace that may not be exactly what it seems.
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required via Eventbrite
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/converse-conservator-more-meets-eye-february-3-2021
Viewfinder Virtual Film Series: Joan Jonas and the Inner Worlds of Video
Thursday, February 4, 5:30 p.m. ET
Join us for an engaging virtual screening and conversation with groundbreaking artist Joan Jonas. View Left Side Right Side (8:50 min, 1972) and?Vertical Roll (19:38 min, 1972), two of Jonas’s most iconic videos from the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Then enjoy a lively post-screening conversation with Jonas and curators Saisha Grayson (SAAM) and Charlotte Ickes (NPG). Learn more about how artists construct, inhabit, and internalize space using the video camera and Jonas’s five-decade-plus career, creating some of contemporary art’s most important video, performance, and installation artworks. This program is part of Viewfinder: Women’s Film and Video from the Smithsonian, a monthly virtual film screening and conversation series sponsored by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, Because of Her Story. This first sequence of selected works reflects on interiority—a particularly timely topic during this global pandemic. Visit WomensHistory.si.edu for more information about upcoming events in this film screening series.
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required via Zoom
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/viewfinder-virtual-film-series-joan-jonas-and-inner-worlds-video-february-4-2021
Art Signs Online: An Artful Conversation in ASL
Thursday, February 11, 5:30 p.m. ET
Curious about American art? Join us for a 30-minute virtual conversation about selected works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection, presented in American Sign Language (ASL) with voice interpretation for participants who are deaf or partially deaf.
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required via Eventbrite
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/art-signs-online-artful-conversation-asl-february-11-2021
Renwick Invitational 2020 Virtual Workshop with Timothy Horn
Thursday, February 11, 7 p.m. ET
Join Timothy Horn, an artist whose work is featured in the exhibition Forces of Nature: Renwick Invitational 2020, for a virtual workshop and make your own dazzling embellished creation. Learn how Horn creates his large-scale adornments that combine decorative arts, science, and history, and then make your own objects—from brooches and glasses to bejeweled phone cases. A materials kit, including beads, floral wire, and jewelry pliers, is available for purchase for an additional fee. In order to receive a materials kit in time for the program, participants must register and purchase their kit by Friday, January 22. Registration without purchasing a materials kit is available up to 24 hours before the program. Space is limited.
The Smithsonian Women’s Committee Endowment provided generous funding for Forces of Nature: Renwick Invitational 2020 public programs.
$15 program registration only, $30 program registration, and materials kit.
Location: Online
Tickets: $15-$30; Registration required via Eventbrite
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/renwick-invitational-2020-virtual-workshop-timothy-horn-february-11-2021
Lunar New Year Virtual Celebration
Saturday, February 13, 10 a.m. ET
Ring in the Year of the Ox! Celebrate the Lunar New Year online with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Chinese Cultural Institute, and the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China. Enjoy streamed performances, including traditional Chinese acrobatics and an “awakening the lion” ceremony. Visit our SAAM Family Zone online for crafts, coloring pages, and other Lunar New Year activities.
This program is part of Lunar New Year DC, organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required via Eventbrite
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/lunar-new-year-virtual-celebration-february-13-2021
See Me Online at SAAM
Wednesday, February 17, 2 p.m. ET
Join us for a virtual program designed for art lovers with mild to moderate dementia and their care partners. Enjoy an opportunity to discuss and engage with artworks from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection.
Space is limited, and registration is required. Email access@si.edu or call 202.633.2921
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required email access@si.edu or call 202.633.2921
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/see-me-online-saam-february-17-2021
Charles C. Eldredge Prize Virtual Lecture with Linda Kim
Wednesday, February 17, 6:30 p.m. ET
Examine the intersections among art, science, and race with Linda Kim, associate professor of American and modern art history at Drexel University. In this engaging online lecture, Kim discusses her prize-winning book, Race Experts: Sculpture, Anthropology, and the American Public in Malvina Hoffman’s Races of Mankind (2018). Awarded SAAM’s 32nd annual Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art, Kim explores how Malvina Hoffman, an American who studied under the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, was commissioned in 1930 by the Field Museum in Chicago to create the more than 100 life-size bronze sculptures for the museum’s now widely discredited 1933 exhibition Races of Mankind.
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required via Eventbrite
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/charles-c-eldredge-prize-virtual-lecture-linda-kim-february-17-2021
¡Printing the Revolution! Virtual Conversation Series: From Black and Brown Solidarity to Afro-Latinidad
Thursday, February 18, 6:30 p.m. ET
The activist and the cultural dimensions of the civil rights–era fueled solidarity movements between Black and Latinx artists, leaving a visible imprint in the graphic arts that continues to reverberate today. This panel features three artists from ¡Printing the Revolution! who have engaged with these concerns across the decades. Participants include Malaquias Montoya, a prolific strike poster artist whose artwork defines the 1960s social serigraphy movement of the Bay Area. His artwork supports international solidarity, criminal justice reform, and the ongoing struggle for social justice. Favianna Rodriguez, an interdisciplinary artist, cultural strategist, and activist based in Oakland, California. Her art and praxis address migration, gender justice, climate change, racial equity, and sexual freedom. Moses Ros-Suárez, an artist, printmaker, architect, and a member of the Dominican York Proyecto GRAFICA, a collective of Dominican American graphic artists. The panel will be moderated by Kaelyn Rodríguez, assistant professor in art history at Santa Monica College.
This program is the second in a five-part online conversation series that examines Chicanx graphics and how artists have used printmaking to debate larger social causes, reflect on issues of their time, and build community. Hear from artists, scholars, and activists about the Chicanx graphics movement, from civil rights–era prints to today’s digital landscape.
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required via Eventbrite
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/printing-revolution-virtual-conversation-series-black-and-brown-solidarity-afro-latinidad
Art & Me Preservation Family Workshop: Lunar New Year
Saturday, February 20, 10–10:45 a.m. ET
Celebrate the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Ox in this virtual workshop. From toys to tiles, see how artists have been inspired by oxen for generations and how Smithsonian conservators preserve these artworks. Then create your own ox masterpiece to ring in the new year. This hands-on artmaking preservation workshop is designed for children ages three to eight and their caretakers. This program is part of a yearlong series cohosted by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required via Eventbrite
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/art-me-preservation-family-workshop-lunar-new-year-february-20-2021
Podcast Release: Luce Listening Party with Lavender
Friday, February 26
Luce Unplugged has gone digital! Tune in for a conversation with DC dream-pop group Lavender, hosted by Paul Vodra of the podcast Hometown Sounds. Lavender creates polished, guitar-driven pop that feels equally at home on a mixtape or at an electric live show. As friends and bandmates, the musicians of Lavender have flourished with the support of 25 pink flamingos, a synthesizer named Duane, and DC’s local music community. Listen to this series on Hometown Sounds now!
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration not required
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/podcast-release-luce-listening-party-domingues-and-kane-february-26-2021
Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon: Black History Month Edition
Friday, February 26, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. ET
Join the Smithsonian American Art Museum in honoring Black History Month with a Wikipedia edit-a-thon. Learn how to edit and create new Wikipedia articles highlighting the breadth and depth of artworks and the lives of Black artists in America. All levels of technological proficiency welcome.
Location: Online
Tickets: Free; Registration required via Eventbrite
Event Link: https://americanart.si.edu/events/wikipedia-edit-thon-black-history-month-edition-february-26-2021
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For more information on this museum, visit our Smithsonian American Art Museum page.
Event listings are provided by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery
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