When Art Becomes Yoga

What happens when we enter into an art room? I am not just talking about a gallery in a museum where there are various works on the walls, but rather a room that in itself becomes the work. A room in which when we enter, time seems to stop, all of our senses are expanded to their edge, and we take a minute to reflect. How do we get this meditative experience from art?

There are a couple of spaces like this in the Phillips: the Rothko Room and the Laib Wax Room. Maybe it is because of my roots in yoga, but these meditative spaces continue to be my favorite to frequent. I still remember the first time I stepped into each of them. Somehow, everything became clear to me, yet nothing made sense. This feeling never goes away, no matter how many times I enter and exit. Part of me feels trapped in this time and space, yet I am perfectly comfortable being there. I feel so comfortable because the art supports me. As I slowly drift into my own thoughts, the art is a crutch that remains a constant focal point for what I am experiencing.

These spaces achieve this in a different way:

Rothko provides a variety of images to rest the eyes on, allowing the viewer the ability to take a closer look inward. In yoga instructor terms, this is called “holding the space,” when a teacher creates a safe space for participants to relax fully.

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The Rothko Room at The Phillips Collection. Photo: Benjamin Resine

Laib does the meditation for you. When one enters his room, the surrounding hue of gold and sweet but subtle smell of wax mutes your senses, and your thoughts soon follow. This creates a buzz of relaxation and meditation that makes the space so pleasing.

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The Laib Wax Room at The Phillips Collection

This experience looks different to every visitor. Just like every yogi needs and takes something different from the practice, each visitor is in need of something different when they come to these rooms. They allow for viewers to engage with art in a way that is deeply personal and that is just as beautiful as the art itself.

Britta Galanis, Marketing & Communications Intern

15 Most Viewed Phillips Artworks in 2016

We took a look at which of our permanent collection artwork web pages were visited most often during 2016; here’s the top 15 pieces!

15. Pablo Picasso’s The Blue Room (1901)

picasso_blue-room

Pablo Picasso, The Blue Room, 1901. Oil on canvas, 19 7/8 x 24 1/4 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1927 © 2015 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Aritsts Rights Society (ARS), New York

14. Honoré Daumier’s The Uprising (1848 or later)

Honoré Daumier, The Uprising, between 1848 and 1879. Oil on canvas, 34 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired 1925

Honoré Daumier, The Uprising, between 1848 and 1879. Oil on canvas, 34 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired 1925

13. Milton Avery’s Girl Writing (1941)

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Milton Avery, Girl Writing, 1941. Oil on canvas, 48 x 31 3/4 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1943 © 2008 Milton Avery Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

12. Jacob Lawrence’s Panel No. 1: During world war I there was a great migration north by southern African Americans. (1940-41), from The Migration Series

lawrence blog

Jacob Lawrence, Panel no. 1: During World War I there was a great migration north by southern African Americans., 1940–41, Casein tempera on hardboard, 12 x 18 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1942

11. Mark Rothko’s Green and Maroon (1953)

rothko_green-and-maroon

Mark Rothko, Green and Maroon, 1953. Oil on canvas, 91 1/8 x 54 7/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1957 © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

10. Henri Matisse’s Interior with Egyptian Curtain (1948)

matisse_interior-with-egyptian-curtain

Henri Matisse, Interior with Egyptian Curtain, 1948. Oil on canvas, 45 3/4 x 35 1/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1950 © 2017 Succession H. Matisse/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

9. Vincent van Gogh’s Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles (1888)

van-gogh-entrance-to-the-public-gardens-in-arles-1888

Vincent van Gogh, Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles, 1888. Oil on canvas, 28 1/2 x 35 3/4 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1930

8. Vincent van Gogh’s The Road Menders (1889)

Vincent van Gogh, The Road Menders, 1889. Oil on canvas, 29 x 36 1/2 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired 1949.

Vincent van Gogh, The Road Menders, 1889. Oil on canvas, 29 x 36 1/2 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired 1949

7. Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas’s Dancers at the Barre (c. 1900)

Degas_dancers at the barre

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, Dancers at the Barre, ca. 1900. Oil on canvas, 51 1/4 x 38 1/2 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1944

6. Pierre Bonnard’s The Open Window (1921)

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Pierre Bonnard, The Open Window, 1921. Oil on canvas, 46 1/2 x 37 3/4 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. Acquired 1930 © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

5. Paul Cézanne’s The Garden at Les Lauves (c. 1906)

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Paul Cézanne, The Garden at Les Lauves (Le Jardin des Lauves), ca. 1906. Oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 31 7/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1955.

4. The Laib Wax Room (2013)

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The Laib Wax Room. Photo: Lee Stalsworth

3. The Rothko Room

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The Rothko Room at The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. Photo © Robert Lautman

2. Jacob Lawrence’s The Migration Series (1941)

Visitors looking at Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series (1941) at The Phillips Collection. Photo: Max Hirshfeld

Visitors with Jacob Lawrence’s The Migration Series (1941) at The Phillips Collection. Photo: Max Hirshfeld

1. Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party (between 1880 and 1881)

August Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-1881.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, between 1880 and 1881. Oil on canvas, 51 1/4 x 69 1/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1923

STAFF SHOW 2016: ANNA E. KAMINSKI

In this series, Education Specialist for Public Programs Emily Bray highlights participants in the 2016 James McLaughlin Memorial Staff Show, on view through September 19, 2016.

Anna E. Kaminski, "code"

Anna E. Kaminski, “code”

Anna E. Kaminski

Anna E. Kaminski, Photo: Rhiannon Newman

Anna E. Kaminski, Photo: Rhiannon Newman

Tell us about yourself and your work.

As an artist and activist, my work stages elaborate scenes to create political narratives. Having started in photojournalism in the midst of the Iraq War, politics, religion, and human rights are central themes in my work. I work in the realm of photography, sculpture, installation, and performance. Through curating environments that have often lived at the intersection of photography and installation, I work specifically to make audiences uncomfortable and provide a space for questioning and contemplation about our collective roles on the political stage and within the capitalist spectacle.

My work aims to question the realities we know and complacencies we accept.  I have been involved in the activist community through organizations like CODEPINK, occupy, women against military madness, and worked in the realm of homelessness and housing at DC area shelters and policy organizations. These experiences deeply inform my work.  I am currently working on a long-term project re-envisioning power politics, issues of anonymity, and complacency in Washington, D.C. and also creating new work about drone warfare. Currently, I am one of the twelve individuals in the inaugural class at the S&R Foundation Fillmore Studios program for emerging artists in Washington, DC.

What do you do at The Phillips Collection? Are there any unique/interesting parts about your job that most people might not know about?

I just recently started at The Phillips Collection as a part-time Sales Associate in the gift shop. After working with various non-profits, I am so happy to finally be working in the realm of the arts again. I am so grateful to be working in a place that values artistic contributions and with some really creative and knowledgeable people.

Who is your favorite artist in the collection?

For many reasons I would have to say Georgia O’Keeffe. Her strength, independence, and resilience as a woman artist is something I deeply admire as a feminist. I think her work helped pave the way for women like myself in the arts. Ironically, I also value the work of Alfred Stieglitz, someone who broke O’Keeffe’s heart and I think provided so much emotion that is seen clearly in her work. Also perhaps more than certain images, I value his contributions to photography and determination in shaping it into a recognized art form.

What is your favorite gallery or space within The Phillips Collection?

My favorite space in the museum is the Laib Wax Room by Wolfgang Laib. For me, it is evocative of so much and can and does provide a symbolic core of the museum. For bees, the production of wax is essential to sustaining their colonies. I find strong parallels between the human need to produce and consume culture to sustain ourselves and a bee’s need to produce and consume honey. The single light bulb, an invention that has become such a marked symbol of the beginning of the modern era, illuminating the vibrant yellow wax, also illuminates the museums’ role as a cultural producer.

What would you like people to know about your artwork on view in the 2016 Staff Show (or your work in general)?

The three photographs hanging in the 2016 Staff Show are part of a larger series of six photographs shot with a 35 mm camera as an experiment for a performance piece that has yet to be performed.  The work draws inspiration from Post-humanism and meditates on technology’s complacency in the erasure of the human. Inspired by the binary code making up photographs from predator and killer drones as well as the binary code making up images of women in pornography, this series seeks to merge the themes of women under erasure as well as technology’s capacity to swiftly disappear us.

The 2016 James McLaughlin Memorial Staff Show is on view August 14 through September 19, 2016.