City Hall Art Collection Walkthrough

A few days ago I had the opportunity to walk through the new Washington DC City Hall Art Collection at the Wilson Building.

Together with Dr. Jonathan Binstock and Sarah Newman (both Curators of Contemporary Art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art), Kristen Hileman and Anne Ellegood (also both curators at the Hirshhorn Museum), and Kim Ward (Executive Director of the Washington Projects for the Arts/Corcoran), we were given a personal tour of the collection by its curator, Sondra Arkin.

I had never been to the Wilson Building before. I must admit that I have probably walked or driven by it a dozen times in the past without being aware that it's where the District's business as a city take place. The building is very beautiful and recently renovated, and the inside incorporates and marries the original neo-classical appeal with a modern sense of stainless steel and minimalist design in places.

After passing through the excellent security check-in at the front entrance (ID required), Sondra gave us all a copy of the superb catalog that she was able to create in about six weeks.

The Hirshhorn curators and I were astonished that Arkin was able to pull off such a quality catalog, do a huge number of studio visits, curate the exhibition, AND organize the framing, in a handful of weeks.

I am always complaining that DC area museum curators seldom pay attention to district artists, and I think that the major contribution that this collection offers is it lets visitors see the vast array of talent that our capital area has to offer.

One exception to the general rule is a DC area artist who needs little introduction to curators. This is the ubiquitous and hard-working Maggie Michael. One of the first works that we were taken to was "Phantom," a large painting by Michael on the first floor.

I must admit that as we approached the painting I thought that it was a piece by Trawick Prize winner Jiha Moon and said so. That brought me some quizzical looks from the fair Anne Ellegood. But I stuck to my guns and noted that the painting seems to borrow heavily from Moon's visual ideas. The "center" of it appears to be a Jiha Moon on top of a Maggie Michael painting.

Other works which caught some good detailed attention were the photographs by Prescott Moore Lassman, which when associated with the story behind them (the people in one of the first integrated churches in the nation) seemed to merit some extra time. Prescott's skills with the camera in capturing the essence and depth of a moment while making the image burst with attention-grabbing intrigue is what makes his work special.