Spring Arts Preview: Art

Shigeru Mizuki incorporates his manga characters into a 19th-century Japanese painting series.

REALITY WARP
Step into a dream world at the Hirshhorn, where film and video probe the “blurred line between reality and make-believe.” In “The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image,” viewers will walk through a series of black-box theaters where works from Andy Warhol, Kelly Richardson and others explore the stages of consciousness and dreaming.
» Hirshhorn Museum, 1300 Independence Ave. SW, through May 11, free; 202-633-1000. (Smithsonian)

GETTING THERE
Can maps be art? A look at “L(A)ttitutes,” a show at the Washington D.C. Jewish Community Center‘s Bronfman Gallery exploring the Israel/Palestine border proves that, yes, they can — and like all good art, the work leaves viewers with more questions than answers. Ten artists from five countries contribute photographs, frescoes, digitally altered maps and more.
» Bronfman Gallery, 1529 16th St. NW, Feb. 21-June 2, free; 202-777-3208. (Dupont Circle)

THINGS FLOURISHING AND THINGS VANISHING
Isabella Kirkland turns on her naturalist’s eye with “Taxa,” six paintings that render almost 400 plant and animal species in life-size detail. Each painting represents species that have been affected by humans: “Gone” shows 63 species now extinct; “Ascendant” portrays creatures introduced into non-native habitats, often with destructive consequences.
» National Academy of Sciences, 2100 C St. NW, Upstairs Gallery, April 10-Aug. 25, free (photo ID required); 202-334-2436. (Foggy Bottom-GWU)

HERBLOCK’S PEN VS. THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD
Seven decades of political cartoons are collected in “Herblock’s Presidents” at the National Portrait Gallery. This collection of famed local editorial cartoonist Herbert Lawrence Block‘s work features commanders-in-chief from FDR through Bill Clinton — that’s 11 presidents — all drawn with irreverence and brio.
» National Portrait Gallery, 750 9th St. NW, May 2-Nov. 30, free; 202-633-8300. (Gallery Place-Chinatown)

THE ART OF HIP-HOP
The first-ever Smithsonian exhibition to recognize hip-hop’s cultural influence, “Recognize! Hip-Hop and Contemporary Portraiture” explores painting, video and spoken word. And if someone seems to have tagged the NPG, don’t call the scrub squad — murals by local graffiti artists were commissioned for the exhibit.
» Bronfman Gallery, 750 9th St. NW, through Oct. 26, 2008, free; 202-633-8300. (Gallery Place-Chinatown)

TEXTILES AS TEXT
Ghanian sculptor El Anatsui uses found objects to create “cloths” with piercing political messages. In the exhibition “Gawu,” black-and-gold liquor bottle labels become the textiles Europeans traded for gold and slaves, and milk cans stand in for African landfills, since recycling facilities are scarce.
» National Museum of African Art, 950 Independence Ave. SW, March 12-Sept. 2, free; 202-633-4600. (Smithsonian)

OH, YOU PRETTY THINGS
Beyond brooches and bling, you’ll see polyester bracelets and “performance jewelry” at “Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewlery from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection.” The exhibition presents more than 275 works from 1960 to the present to broaden the appreciation of jewelry as not just adornment but also as an art form.
» Renwick Gallery, 1700 Pennsylvania Ave. NW; March 14-July 6, free; 202-633-2850. (Farragut West)

AMERICA THE DIVERSE
For “The American Evolution: A History Through Art,” the Corcoran tosses out the “oldest stuff first, newest stuff at the end” model and arranges its 200-plus American art objects by theme: Money, Land, Politics and so on. Portraits of George Washington rub shoulders with Andy Warhol’s “Mao,” and19th-century landscapes clash with Richard Diebenkorn‘s abstract views of Ocean Park, Calif.
» Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th St. NW, March 1-July 27, 2008, $12; 202-639-1700. (Farragut West)

FEATURE PERFORMANCE
Local painter Lucy Hogg‘s “Floating Faces” “excerpts” faces from famous paintings by Rembrandt, Velazquez, Caravaggio, and others. Stripped of background and other complications, Hogg’s works show a range of emotions far different from the “timeless” (read: lifeless) poses viewers are used to in triumphal portraiture.
» The Gallery at Flashpoint, 916 G St. NW, April 4-May 17, 2008, free; 202-315-1310. (Gallery Place-Chinatown)

MODERN MONSTERS
Manga artist Shigeru Mizuki‘s “The 53 Stations of the Yokaido Road” puns off Utagawa Hiroshige‘s19th-century painting opus, “53 Stations of the Tokaido Road.” Only, instead of kimono-clad women and men with waraji sandals, the figures in these prints are demons, ghosts and goblins lifted from Mizuki’s most popular manga. What results is a giddy parody in which whales walk the earth and hairy monsters lurk under every bridge.
» Japan Information and Culture Center, 1155 21st St. NW, March 5-May 5, free; 202-238-6949.(Foggy Bottom-GWU)

Written by Express contributor Rachel Kaufman
Images courtesy NAS, JICC