Making a Mural For The Phillips

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Experiment Station

Artist Piniang (Ibrahima Niang) on day one of the five day mural painting process. Note the smaller-scale diagram of the finished mural at bottom left; the artists used a grid system to transfer an outline onto the wall. All photos courtesy The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

Four mural artists completed an original work on the back courtyard wall of The Phillips Collection in late October. Muhsana Ali, Fodé Camara, Viyé Diba, and Piniang (Ibrahima Niang) were part of a larger group of painters that created a mural at the US Embassy in Dakar in May 2014. The Senegalese artists traveled here as part of a cultural exchange organized by the State Department’s ART in Embassies program. Huge thanks to generous supporters Toni A. Ritzenberg, Millennium Arts Salon, CulturalDC, International Arts and Artists, and the Cameroon American Council.

Hard at work on days one and two of painting.

About halfway done on day 3!

Lots of paint from Farrow & Ball.

The completed mural.

The artists in front of their completed work. Left to right: Fodé Camara, Muhsana Ali, Viyé Diba, and Piniang (Ibrahima Niang)

Introducing Our New Look

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Experiment Station

We’re excited to unveil a fresh new look for The Phillips Collection! The museum’s new visual identity pays homage to our rich legacy while keeping an eye toward the future and the promise it holds. We feel this aesthetic better illustrates our values, goals, and strengths as a curious, connected, and personal institution. Here’s a little bit about the process:

THE DESIGN FIRM
The Phillips worked with the St. Louis-based, award-winning creative firm TOKY Branding + Design for a year to develop its new visual identity.

THE LOGO
The new logo reflects the ahistorical nature of our collection and renowned exhibition style. The vertical lines emulate our commitment to connectedness—to creating visual conversations between works on paper, paintings, and sculpture—and to encouraging personal experiences with visual arts of different centuries and different countries, as well as a diverse array of music.

The logo draws its color palette from some of the museum’s most well-known masterpieces

THE COLOR PALETTE
Duncan Phillips was fascinated by bold color, and we wanted to reflect this love in our new visual identity. The new logo’s palette draws 15 individual colors from some the museum’s most well-known masterworks, including Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party, Rothko’s Orange and Red on Red, and Jacob Lawrence’s The Migration Series, Panel No. 1.

THE (PIVOTAL) TIMING
This new identity is unveiled just as the Phillips prepares to celebrate several milestones in our history, such as the 5th anniversary of the Intersections contemporary art program (2015), the 75th year of the museum’s Sunday Concerts series (2015-2016 season), and The Phillips Collection’s Centennial Celebration (2021).

Pedro Lasch’s Abstract Nationalism / National Abstraction: Part 6

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Experiment Station

On October 27 artist Pedro Lasch premiered his work Abstract Nationalism/National Abstraction: Anthems for Four Voices at The Phillips Collection as part of the International Forum Weekend in Washington. In this audio-visual performance, national anthems of specific countries are sung in the language of the country listed alphabetically after it in the World Almanac.

In a six part blog series, Curatorial Intern Lauren Reuter asks the artist about this work and how it fits into the Phillips, art, and politics. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4, and Part 5 here.

Exploring themes of nationality and diplomacy during the International Forum Weekend will undoubtedly engender discussions on art and politics. What do you see as the relationship between the two? Do you see a tension, a playfulness, both?

To me, that’s very much tied in the title of the work. The title is a provocation. I’m bonding two words that we don’t like to see in relation to each other: abstraction and nationalism. As long as there has been art, there have been debates about whether it should be political or not. But whenever you speak of abstraction in art, there have been strong tendencies to assume that art must be separate from politics.

The Phillips shows a lot of this type of artwork—Rothko being the most famous example. In Rothko’s generation, many artists were blacklisted, very politically active. But in their work, you don’t see direct politics. They actually wanted that separation. The way I see that relationship between nationalism and abstraction is that it forces people to think, “Wait, isn’t abstract art also political? And aren’t some of the forms of nationalism also art?”

Performance of Pedro Lasch’s Abstract Nationalism / National Abstraction at The Phillips Collection

A few years after the occupation of Iraq in 2003, they tried to institute a new flag to eliminate the handwriting that had been put on it during Saddam Hussein’s reign. There was a national competition, and a contemporary Iraqi artist won. The artist chose the colors blue, white, and green. It was a nice half moon, a beautiful design—a very abstract representation of the Kurdish, the Suni, the Shi’ite. People were outraged: “You’re crazy! Our colors are red, white, and black with the green star. Those are the Arab Union colors, you can’t mess with that. The only other country in the region with white and blue is Israel.” Politically and from a national standpoint, it was a fiasco, all because of the choice of color. But if you say, “Who’s afraid of red, yellow, and blue in a Barnett Newmann painting?” It’s just this big colorfield painting with three colors. It’s a flag! Visually speaking, the two are not that far from each other. We just like to pretend that they are. The language of high modernism is deeply indebted to national symbols and vice versa. It’s not by chance that Jasper John’s most famous artwork is the US flag. Some will say the two should never mix, and some will say the two are always mixed and its nonsense to say they aren’t. I enjoy the pluralism and the huge range of artistic practices.