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Look again. This pigeon is wearing a colorful, crocheted suit.

Laurel Roth Hope’s animal sculptures use humor to address the serious subject of species extinction. By putting a colorful ensemble on a common species, it masquerades as an extinct North American bird—giving the appearance of biodiversity, even if it can’t be reclaimed in real life.

See “Biodiversity Reclamation Suit: Carolina Parakeet” (2009) now at our Renwick Gallery, which is home to @americanartmuseum‘s collection of contemporary craft and decorative art.

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We love watching Alma Thomas’ Wind and Crepe Myrtle Concerto and White Daisies Rhapsody come to life with the New York Botanical Gardens’ “Impressify” feature. 

Alma Thomas, Wind and Crepe Myrtle Concerto, 1973. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Vincent Melzac.

Alma Thomas, White Daisies Rhapsody, 1973. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Loreine Wuorinen and Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson.

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Name June Paik’s unprecedented bright and active artworks have been mesmerizing visitors for decades. Here are a few of our favorite visitor captures from Instagram of Paik’s Megatron/Matrix and Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii. 

Happy birthday Nam June Paik!

📷 by (top to bottom): @ esd_b , @ darynfrisch, @ rawbie, @ chris.h.aguila, @ beingdave

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“Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body's new membrane of existence.” - Name June Paik, born this day in 1932.

Affectionately known as the “Father of Video Arts,” Nam June Paik boldly used TV as a creative, artistic medium. 

As the television continued to evolve, Paik explored alternate ways the televisions could be used both inside and outside of the institutional frameworks of galleries, museums, and emerging experimental TV labs. Read more about Paik and his use of video art in this article by the Smithsonian Magazine.

Happy Birthday Nam June Paik!

Nam June Paik,  Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, 1995. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist.

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Making “Connections” beyond the Renwick Gallery. 

Astronomers’ spectacular new infrared image of Jupiter looks eerily similar to Alma Thomas’ 1970′s painting, Snoopy Sees Earth Wrapped in Sunset. We think Snoopy may have confused Jupiter for Earth!

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Widely celebrated for his elegant but playful sculptures and his devotion to craft, Puryear’s drawings and prints are less well known, but equally essential to the artist’s studio practice. Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions is the first to draw back the curtain on that practice and offers an unprecedented look into Puryear’s inspirations, methods, and transformative process.  

Martin Puryear, Phrygian, 2012.  Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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“I wanted to focus on bringing in a lot of objects that are both capital-A art and capital-C craft and allow people to traverse those different ideas.” - Nora Atkinson, the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft at the Renwick Gallery 

Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery opens July 1 and remains on view indefinitely.  The Renwick's reinstallation of more than eighty objects from its permanent collection brings together artists working in media as diverse as vinyl, denim, quartz, and glass. Connections does away with the idea that the curator's voice is absolute authority. Instead, the exhibition seeks to link objects by stories and relationships, and presents works that engender ever-evolving associations and interpretations. Read more on Eye Level.

Debra Baxter, Devil Horns Crystal Brass Knuckles (Lefty), 2015

Lino Tagliapietra, Mandara, 2005

Joan Parcher, Graphite Pendulum Pendant, 1994

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“I aspire to make work that resonates at the aesthetic, functional, and experiential levels. I want to make work that has 'soul and sense' where it touches and connects with the soul and spirit.” — Anne Bouie, the upcoming artist from our Luce Artist Talks series.

Hear more about Bouie’s work from the artist herself this Saturday, June 25 at 1:30 pm.

Image: Anne Bouie, Mayan Day Sign Vessels

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Curator's Travel Journal: In Rufino Tamayo's Footsteps

E. Carmen Ramos, curator of Latino Art at SAAM, was recently in Mexico to research her upcoming exhibition on the acclaimed 20th-century Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo’s lengthy residence and production in New York City. This is the sixth and final post Carmen scribed from the road. The exhibition Tamayo: The New York Years will open at SAAM in October 2017. Read more on Eye Level

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SAAM's Summer Film Series About Artists

Xavier J. Barile's 42nd St. Nocturne

What do artists Johannes Vermeer, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Frida Kahlo all have in common? They are all featured in this summer's artist film program at SAAM.

Throughout the summer we will screen 6 films highlighting some of the best art and artists. Whether you're into contemporary graffiti art, or classical Impressionism, there is sure to be a film you will enjoy. 

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Patrick Dougherty installing his work, Shindig, for the WONDER exhibition at the Renwick Gallery.

"Everything you can do with a pencil you can do with a stick," remarked Patrick Dougherty, likening his craft to the art of drawing. "Once these things come out of the woods with the overtones of nature, they become sticks with which to draw." Read more on Eye Level

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 "I tend not to tell people what they’re looking at when they’re in the presence of my work. I trust people’s eyes. I trust their imagination. I trust my work to declare itself to the world,” remarked printmaking and sculpture artist Martin Puryear.

Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions remains on view through September 5.

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Camilo José Vergara, from the series 10828 S. Avalon Blvd., LA 

Buildings and people change, but of course, not in the same ways. Human beings tell the most important stories just by living each day. One glance, one new wrinkle, one new grip of the hand and the story of the photograph changes, and with it our empathy for its subject.

José Vergara's work will be featured in SAAM's exhibition, Down These Mean Streets, opening April 14, 2017.

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Shot of legendary DC band @beautypill playing to a packed Luce Center at last night's #LuceUnplugged. 🎸 Photo by Renata Ocampo. #regram via Instagram

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May's Handi-Hour at the Renwick http://ift.tt/1NwNWCv

For May's Handi-hour you'll start by making your own loom using scrap cardboard from all those Amazon boxes you have lying around. Then string it with yarn to create coasters, mats, or whatever else you can imagine. Fuel your creativity with beers from Churchkey and music by David Andrew Smith. And, if you can't make it, watch the video for instructions and inspiration. This month's Handi-hour is sold out, but keep an eye on the calendar for July's Handi-hour tickets which go on sale July 5th.

May 17, 2016 at 09:50AM

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Is that... the sky? 😎 ☀️🔷 | detail of Alexander Calder, "Tableau Noir (The Blackboard)," 1970 via Instagram 

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Bill Traylor, Untitled (Yellow and Blue House with Figures and Dog)

[Updated October 3, 2018]

Spring of 2016 the Smithsonian American Art Museum acquired several major works by Bill Traylor, an artist who was born into slavery around 1853, and whose life spanned slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Great Migration. These works will join the six already in the museum's collection and will be featured in the first museum retrospective on Traylor's remarkable work, now being organized by Leslie Umberger and scheduled to open in 2018. 

Read more about Bill Traylor and the exhibition, Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor on our website https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/traylor