Fellow Spotlight: Samantha Williams

Posted on December 8, 2022 by Experiment Station

Meet our 2022-23 Fellows. As part of our institutional values and commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, the fellowship program is a comprehensive, yearlong paid program that includes hands-on experience, mentoring, and professional development.

Samantha Williams is the Visitor Experience/Digital Audience Engagement Fellow, and will engage in research and application of online and onsite visitor experience initiatives, including exploring best practices via evaluation and assessment.

Samantha received her Bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder and her Master’s in Computer Science from West Chester University. Before joining the Phillips, Samantha worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator for multiple hospitals and healthcare institutions. Her career interests include researching and understanding the ways in which museum goers interact with the art, space, and institution.

Samantha Williams

Why are you interested in working at a museum?

Inspiration. For me, museum culture is inspirational because it encourages creativity, discovery, and expression. I have always wished to be a part of something that pushes connectivity and progression. Art institutions are a great embodiment of this. Also, I appreciate how the typical museum environment is the antithesis of modern-day work culture, which is often fast-paced, isolating, and overwhelmingly stressful.

What brought you to The Phillips Collection?

Before becoming a fellow at The Phillips Collection, I was a frequent visitor. I enjoyed coming to the Phillips for numerous reasons but the highlight for me was how welcoming the space felt. The Phillips seemed tight-knit and invested in both community and art. I love that about the museum and was thrilled to find that there was space for me to contribute.

Please tell us about the projects that you will be working on during your fellowship. What do you hope to accomplish during your fellowship?

I will be working behind the scenes gathering meaningful data from internal and external sources about what makes The Phillips Collection so great and in what ways it can still improve. One of my main projects is to focus on developing useful information collection tools and establishing successful collection processes. Also, I will be conducting field research to better understand the many ways in which the visitor experience is impacted. My goal and hope are to provide the museum with translational data that can be used to make tangible change.

What is your favorite painting/artist here?

One of my favorite artists at The Phillips Collection is Lou Stovall. The Phillips Collection featured many of his works in a special exhibition. I enjoyed learning about his innovative approach to art via printmaking. Non-traditional and mixed media creation is a favorite of mine when it comes to contemporary art. Stovall’s pieces are phenomenal, touching, and fun to experience.

If you were to describe the Phillips in one word, what would that word be?

Inviting

What is a fun fact about you?

When the mood strikes, I enjoy partaking in local fashion shows as a runway model. I have participated in five fashion weeks along the East coast.

Fellow Spotlight: Xin Zheng

Posted on December 7, 2022 by Experiment Station

Xin Zheng is the Makeba Clay Diversity Fellow, and will support The Phillip Collection’s Institutional History Project. Led by the curatorial and DEAI departments, the Institutional History Project seeks to deepen our knowledge of the museum’s history through socio-cultural, political, and intersectional lens, to critically and consciously engage our past, and address issues of system racism and inequity, as we consider how we will chart a meaningful and relevant future.

Xin is a senior at Georgetown University double majoring in history and art history. Before coming to the Phillips, Xin worked at the Queens Museum in New York and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and is also a member of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative Advisory Board. After graduating from Georgetown, he intends to pursue a PhD in Art History.

Xin Zheng, Georgetown University

Why are you interested in working at a museum?

I am interested in working at a museum because I think museums are important places where culture is not only preserved but also exchanged. As a minority myself, I appreciate that museums are starting to view art as a universal language that has meaning beyond the aesthetics, and I wanted to participate in this bigger movement.

What brought you to The Phillips Collection?

The Phillips Collection came to my attention after Professor Michelle C. Wang of Georgetown University’s Department of Art History shared the opportunity with me. After reading more about The Phillips Collection’s vision for the future, I respect its attempt to rethinking its place in history. I was especially drawn to the Phillips’s commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. I believe the fellowship not only fits my career interests but also my understanding of a museum.

Please tell us about the projects that you will be working on during your fellowship. What do you hope to accomplish during your fellowship?

My fellowship is part of the Institutional History Project. I will focus on exploring The Phillips Collection’s history from the 40s to the 70s. I will look at how the museum has changed internally, its contributions to the museum industry, and its domestic and international impact. Toward the second half of the fellowship, I will also be working on individual artists and looking at their connections with the Phillips. In the end, I hope to find relevant information that would help the museum to recontextualize itself in history through a DEAI lens.

What is your favorite painting in the collection?

I especially enjoy Joan Miró’s The Red Sun.

If you were to describe The Phillips Collection in one word, what would that word be?

I would describe The Phillips Collection as intimate.

What is a fun fact about you?

If the art history path doesn’t work out, I aspire to become a chef.

Abstraction in Action: Highlights from the Collection

Posted on December 2, 2022 by Experiment Station

Marketing and Communications Detail and Museum Assistant Caroline Polich on abstract works in the collection.

Abstract art is a genre of art that doesn’t seek to accurately represent reality, instead using a visual language of shapes, colors, marks, and forms. From Color Field to Cubism, and from Suprematism to De Stijl, this genre encompasses many techniques, approaches, and movements. Abstraction has a long and nuanced history across many cultures, but it received new interest and experienced many new developments starting in the early 20th century in Europe. It has played a pivotal role in art and art history ever since. As a museum of modern and contemporary art, The Phillips Collection has a wide variety of abstract works. Learn more below about several artistic approaches to abstraction, exemplified by three paintings in our permanent collection.

Many artists use abstraction to depict a place in a more profound and multidimensional way. Wassily Kandinsky’s Sketch I for Painting with White Border (Moscow) (1913) uses color, shape, and line to convey the feeling or “emotional sounds” of Moscow. Kandinsky (1866-1944), one of the first Europeans to adopt abstract art, was born in Russia but spent much of his life abroad. In this work, he creates a sense of place through motifs strongly connected to his home country. The three parallel lines in the top left of the composition convey the movement of a troika, a three-horse sled. The undulating brown, black, and white lines on the right, which intersect with a bold white line, represent the legendary figure of St. George on horseback with a lance. Through abstraction, Kandinsky captures the essence of a place, its culture, and his connection to it.

Wassily Kandinsky, Sketch I for Painting with White Border (Moscow), 1913, Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 30 7/8 in., The Phillips Collection, Gift from the estate of Katherine S. Dreier, 1953

For some artists, abstraction is a way to explore new processes and reinterpret traditional mediums. Sam Gilliam (1933-2022) was known for his draped paintings on unstretched canvas, and his improvisational approach to painting, inspired by jazz. Red Petals (1967) is an early example of Gilliam’s unique process, in which he poured paint over unprimed and unstretched canvas, then folded, rolled, and splattered it to create his vibrant and fluid compositions. The work is a balance between control and chance, the artist’s actions and the properties of the mediums (both the paint, the canvas, and how they interact). Red Petals, unlike many of Gilliam’s later works, was re-stretched so it could be hung on a wall like a traditional painting. However, this work still demonstrates how the artist saw canvas as a medium to engage and create with, not just a two-dimensional surface to paint on. Working abstractly allowed Gilliam to reimagine traditional approaches and processes in painting.

Sam Gilliam, "Red Petals" American, 1967, Acrylic on canvas, 88 x 93 in., Acquired 1967.

Sam Gilliam, Red Petals, 1967, Acrylic on canvas, 88 x 93 in., The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1967

Other artists use abstraction to visualize intangible or philosophical ideas. Anil Revri (b. 1956) is an Indian artist born in New Delhi, who lives and works in Washington, DC. Revri’s abstract paintings on handmade paper—two of which are recent acquisitions at the Phillips—draw from a wide range of influences, from the Washington Color School to Eastern philosophy. Geometric Abstraction 3 (2020) uses geometry and repetition to explore ideas of meditation, truth, order, and journeys. Symmetry creates a sense of calm and order within the complex composition of shapes, lines, and marks. The contrasts in value and color—scarlet, white, and gold against a dark background—affect how the eye moves around the composition, a sort of visual and perhaps philosophical journey across the surface of the work.

Anil Revri, Geometric Abstraction 3, Mixed media on handmade paper, 18 x 18 in., The Phillips Collection, Gift of Nuzhat Sultan, 2021

These works by Kandinsky, Gilliam, and Revri are just three examples of how artists can approach abstraction. This genre has opened up new ways of making and thinking about art that are still being explored today. Next time you see an abstract work, think about how it uses elements like color, shape, and line, what traditions it might be reimagining, and what feelings it elicits.

Wassily Kandinsky | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation

Sam Gilliam | Pace Gallery

Anil Revri | Artist’s Website