Washington, DC may not be Dubai, but we are the nation’s capital and an emerging competitive art center.
We have The Smithsonian Institution’s 18 (free!) museums and initiatives, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (international modern and contemporary art), the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and the National Museum of African Art, as well as a host of other art-ish opportunities throughout, including the newly refurbished National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum. The National Gallery of Art houses one of the finest collections in the world illustrating major achievements in painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and works on paper from the Middle Ages to the present. A host of other opportunities await within the capital city’s walls, just waiting to be discovered.
In claiming we’re competitive, we’re plugging the first Modern and Contemporary art fair, artDC and the 14th Street Corridor, home to high-calibre Contemporary galleries. 14th Street is our “Chelsea” – kind of, if you squint and it’s dark outside – but the area is changing, quickly. Unlike the struggles between our neighbors on The Hill, the leaders of our fine art community are pulling together and progressively changing the market here.
On a personal note, we are new to “blogging” so it might be a little rough at first, we’re going to update at least once a week, probably Tuesday and we will be covering a large range of subjects: interviews with local collectors, advice on navigating art fairs, art market economics, information on emerging regional artists and commentary on DC taste-makers.
Please feel free to comment with inquiries, suggestions, funny DC anecdotes (please nothing political) or general witty banter, all to which we will be sure to reply – we’re off to the Corcoran Modernism preview…
Tags: 14th Street Corridor, artDC, Corcoran, DC, Lauren Gentile, Smithsonian, Specullector, Washington, washington DC
