1/11-1/18
This week: Find ways to experience wonder, witness how incarcerated photographers reclaimed self-perception, and more.
A New Year Reflection
When settling into a new year, I try to embrace the opportunity to take inventory of my goals, my time, and my hobbies. A guiding question I find myself asking is, how can I live in more alignment with my values? This is where being a consumer of the arts comes in for me, and maybe for you, too.
By engaging with the arts, we have the opportunity to pursue presence, connection, wonder, and expansion on the lens through which we see the world. It is in these moments, where our values and our actions are in congruence, that we get to experience a sense of true authenticity and, in turn, a sense of peace that can only come from this type of alignment.
One side effect of this can be a boost in mental health, which this recent Washington Post article helped bring into focus for me. The article explores the practice of awe, how engaging in the arts is one way to experience it, and how to learn the practice through the National Gallery’s programming.
This year, my wish for our community is that art serves as a guide back to our values, helping us connect more deeply with our authentic selves, offering comfort even when the subject matter is uncomfortable, and inviting us into expressive narratives that are larger than any one of us.
This Week
Opening Reception: James Phillips - The Pattern Plays the Mind [Gallery Opening] January 10, 2-5 PM | Hemphill Artworks | FREE
The pursuit of ancestral heritage is at the core of James Phillips’ art. A Howard University Associate Professor, Phillips draws audiences into both the spiritual and political realm of his work, emphasizing integral parts of African and African-American tradition through iconography and color. His art references African mythology and storytelling, as evidenced in African-American quilting, whose patterns and designs are deeply rooted in Africa. Info
Lecture and Discussion: Albert Barnes: Chemist, Art Collector, Educator [Online Class] January 15, 6-8 PM | Virtual | $50
Albert Barnes was a pioneer among American collectors of modern art, acquiring dozens of works by Renoir, Cezanne, and Picasso. He had firm beliefs about art being a tool for educating people, even those without formal education, and just as firm beliefs about how his collection should be exhibited. This class explores Barnes’s life and ideas in preparation for an upcoming trip to the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, with author Blake Gopnik, who is joining the lecture for a brief Q&A. Whether you’re taking the trip or not, the discussion compares the Barnes to other great private museums, like our very own Phillips Collection, the Frick, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Tickets
Inside Out: Dignity and the Art of Seeing [Exhibition Opening] January 15, 6-8 PM | Eye Street Gallery | FREE
This groundbreaking exhibition shifts the focus, placing power and self-perception in the hands of incarcerated photographers whose images stand as a testament to how art can change lives. Emerging from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ pioneering 1980s “Arts In Prison” initiative, the show brings together never-before-seen works by women photographers in DC Jail with historic images by men in Lorton Prison. Photography became a tool for self-definition and community-building in a vital chapter of prison arts education. RSVP
Peter Campus: There Somewhere [Exhibition Opening] January 17-May 3 | The Phillips Collection | $20
Peter Campus is a seminal figure in the history of new media art and a key creative force in elevating video to a contemporary art form. This exhibition highlights one of his iconic early videos from the late 1970s alongside the debut of four of his latest landscape video works, which he calls the Phillips Quartets. These later pieces, inspired by the serene coastline near his Long Island home, are marked by tranquility and introspection. Visit
MLK Dance Class [Dance Workshop] January 17, 1 PM | Dance Place | Pay What You Can
KanKouran’s dance class provides instruction in West African traditional dance, accompanied by live drums to help participants connect with rhythm and execute movements across the floor. The class welcomes beginner, intermediate, and experienced dancers for this engaging way to honor MLK Day through artistic movement and cultural tradition. Register