Weekend Art Roundup

Tonight gay artist Isaac Julien is giving a talk at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Julien has a piece, Fantôme Créole, a four-screen investigation of character, cinema, and landscape, on display as part of the new Realisms show. I saw Realisms yesterday, and while initially worried that I wouldn’t like the show as much as Dreams, the first part of the two part exhibition, I’m happy to say that it’s just as substantial, thought-provoking and beautiful as the first part. Free tickets will be distributed at 6:15 p.m. and the talk is at 7 p.m.

Friday night is Hirshhorn After Hours, where you can see Realisms while under the influence of alcohol. This isn’t the best time to really see the show, but AH is always a good time.

Also Friday night is the weekly jazz in the sculpture garden event at the National Gallery. Is there a better summer evening combination than jazz, pretty sculptures (I’m partial to Calder’s Cheval Rouge), and sangria?

On Sunday, the National Gallery opens Martin Puryear, a retrospective of the D.C.-born sculptor’s work. Puryear works with wood, tar and found objects to create large-scale sculptures that raise questions about space and nature.

After I saw the Puryear show, I swung by On the Beach, a show of Richard Misrach’s photographs. They’re beautiful, (and make me want to book a trip somewhere tropical immediately,) but Misrach shot them right after September 11, and their lack of atmosphere and sky make them fairly eerie.

The Phillips Collection also opens two new shows, Diebenkorn in New Mexico and Brett Weston, both of which I’m going to see tomorrow and can tell you more about next week.