Name of Trip: National Gallery of Art, East Wing, Washington, DC
Date: Sunday, February 19, 2017
Time: 11:00 a.m. (at NGA), (or carpool at 10:00 a.m.)
Location/Address: You can either carpool (see below) or meet at 11:00 a.m. at:
National Gallery of Art, East Wing
4th & Constitution Ave NW
Washington, DC
Phone: (202) 737-4215 / http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/visit.html
Street parking is free on Sunday, or take Metro to Archives–Navy Memorial–Penn Quarter on the Green and Yellow lines. (driving directions below)
We will meet inside by the main entrance to the East Wing. This is the modern building, entrance is on 4th Street NW. The building opens on Sunday at 11:00 a.m.
http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/visit/getting-here.html
Carpool Location/Time: Depart the Giant parking lot at 8750 Arliss St., Silver Spring, at 10:00 a.m. Map of Carpool Location
Multiverse_light_sculpture_-_HDR – Photo by Northside777
Leaders: Gene Luttenberg and Andrew Rein
Cost: No admission charge to the NGA. Did I mention street parking is free on Sunday?
Field trips are free for members, and $10 for non-members, payable in advance at our Thursday meetings, or at the trip site.
Overview:
Come with us to visit the newly renovated East Wing of the NGA. This is a super fun building to explore with lots of interesting art and spaces.
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. The Gallery’s collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture,
Photo by Selena N. B. H.
medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.
The Gallery’s campus includes the original neoclassical West Building designed by John Russell Pope, which is linked underground to the modern East Building, designed by I. M. Pei, and the 6.1-acre Sculpture Garden. The Gallery often presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art. It is one of the largest museums in North America.
The East Building houses the Gallery’s growing collection of modern and contemporary art. A just-completed renovation adds 12,250 square feet of new exhibition space within the existing footprint of the building, including two soaring tower galleries and a rooftop terrace for outdoor sculpture that overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue. The number of works on view from the collection has increased from 350 to 500.
In the galleries, a reimagined installation of the collection integrates new acquisitions from the Corcoran Collection and recent gifts from various patron, artists, and others. The inclusion of photography, works on paper, and media arts in addition to painting and sculpture tells a more expansive story of modern art. Chronological, stylistic, and thematic arrangements provide new and thought-provoking juxtapositions.
In addition, we could visit a special photography exhibit:
Photography Reinvented: The Collection of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker
The collection brings together works of critically important artists who have changed the course of photography through their experimentation and conceptual scope. In celebration of a pledged gift of 33 photographs from this important collection and the reopening of the East Building galleries, seminal works by Thomas Demand, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Jeff Wall, among others, will be on view. Especially rich in holdings of work by photographers of the famed Düsseldorf School, among them Struth, Candida Höfer, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Ruff, the collection also includes examples by photographers exploring the nature of the medium itself, such as Demand, Cindy Sherman, and Vik Muniz.
East Building, Upper Level – West Bridge
‘HahnCock’ by Katharina Fritsch – Photo by Ron Cogswell
Ideas on lunch:
There are several places inside the museum, we can all vote on a selection at the site. One easy choice is Cascade Café, in the basement of the East Wing. http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/visit/cafes/cascade-cafe.html.html
See a photo of cafe: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3463/3855048547_533e36e212.jpg
Driving directions to 2nd St. NW for street parking From Google Maps, but you can park at any meter location for free on Sunday.
- South on New Hampshire Ave
- Turn left onto North Capitol St NW
- Turn left onto Hawaii Ave NE
- Continue onto Clermont Dr NE
- Continue onto North Capitol St NW
- Keep left to stay on North Capitol St NW
- Turn right onto Louisiana Ave NW
- Use the right lane to turn slightly right onto Constitution Ave NW
- Turn right onto 2nd St NW
- Park anywhere legal on 2nd St.
- Most street parking with meters is free on Sunday, but read the signs