Dave and I had a good time today enjoying the Cherry Blossom Parade and the Renwick Gallery. We’d heard about the amazing “Wonder” Exhibition at the Renwick Gallery for a while and were finally able to visit it today. The weather was beautiful, so we decided to start our day with the Cherry Blossom Parade followed by the Renwick Gallery visit and finishing with a walk to CityCenterDC.
This year the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade presented by Events DC, ran for 10 blocks along Constitution Avenue, from the National Archives to the Washington Monument. Many marching bands and performers participated in the parade decorated with giant colorful helium balloons and elaborate floats.
We joined the parade spectators on Constitution Avenue near the Federal Triangle Metro station right on time. The parade was just approaching the area. We were lucky finding a decent spot to view the parade and take some pictures. Here are a few of them.
These pink cherry blossom balloons are presented by Events DC, sponsor of the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade.
The Giant Panda float was presented by News Channel 8, our favorite local News channel.
The Cherry Blossom Princesses passed by followed by the Cherry Blossom Queens.
Tamagawa University from Tokyo presented a beautiful performance.
Surprisingly, there were some places like this one, without the crowd.
After the parade and lunch, we walked to the Renwick Gallery. The Renwick Gallery is home to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection of contemporary craft and decorative art. This country’s first art museum has reopened after a two-year, $30 million renovation. They did a great job with the renovation. The 150 year-old building looks awesome. The Renwick Gallery currently presents an opening exhibition titled WONDER, featuring nine major contemporary artists.
It was very crowded, but the “Wonder” exhibition was definitely worth the effort and time. We started with the “Shinding” gallery by Patrick Dougherty. Patrick Dougherty travels the world weaving sticks into amazing architecture. Visitors are allowed to walk inside the art structures.
And we decided not to miss this opportunity – walking inside the composition.
I was impressed with “Plexus A1” composition by Gabriel Dawe. This weaving looks like rays of light, but in reality it is composed from embroidering threads. “Plexus A1” work was inspired by memories of the skies above Mexico City and East Texas.
American artist Leo Villareal designed this LED installation called “Volume” for the museum’s opening exhibition. It hangs above the museum’s Grand Stair. I want to share some interesting information about “Volume” from the “Wonder” brochure handed to us at the entrance to the gallery. “This hardware serves primarily as a vehicle for the visual manifestation of code–an artist-written algorithm employing the binary system of 1s and 0s telling each LED when to turn on or off. This simple command creates lighting sequences that will never repeat exactly as before.”
Art piece named 1.8 by Janet Echelman is hung in the large room upstairs. Here is description of this art from the brochure: “Echelman’s woven sculpture corresponds to a map of the energy released across the Pacific Ocean during the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, one of the most devastating natural disasters in recorded history. The event was so powerful it shifted the earth on its axis and shortened the day, March 11, 2011, by 1.8 millionths of a second, lending this work its title. Waves taller than the 100-foot length of this gallery ravaged the east coast of Japan, reminding us that what is wondrous can equally be dangerous.”
Tara Donovan’s work “Untitled” was created from two tons of index cards stacked upon each other. Donovan gathers up the things we think we know, transforming the familiar into the unrecognizable through overwhelming accumulation.
Artist John Grade modeled his sculpture “Middle Fork” after a 150 year-old hemlock tree in Washington state. This tree wooden piece is created out of a half-million segments of reclaimed cedar. We started viewing “Middle Fork” from one end gazing through the center and then walking around the exhibit.
Maya Lin’s “Folding the Chesapeake” was created with 168,000 glass marbles glued together to create the pattern of the water in an entire room. Lin says she wants to bring awareness to the ecological importance of the waterway as an ecosystem.
A chandelier by American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly hangs in the Renwick’s Octagon Room. It has some resemblance with the glass chandeliers from Atlantis at the Bahamas, but smaller size. Under the chandelier is “The Greek Slave” statue by Hiram Powers.
From the Renwick’s Octagon Room we moved to the next large room with the “Anonymous Donor” artwork created by Chakaia Booker. She used old tires to create her work.
The final room presented “In the Midnight Garden” installation by artist Jennifer Angus. The walls were covered in patterns formed by the skeletons of thousands of brightly colored insects resembling a wall paper.
Here is more information on this art from the brochure: “Yes, the insects are real, and no, she has not altered them in any way except to position their wings and legs. The species in this gallery are not endangered, but in fact are quite abundant, primarily in Malaysia, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea, a corner of the world where Nature seems to play with greater freedom. The pink wash is derived from the cochineal insect living on cacti in Mexico, where it has long been prized as the best source of the color red. By altering the context in which we encounter such species, Angus startles us into recognition of what has always been a part of our world.”
It was truly inspiring to see some of the works there. If in DC, I definitely recommend a visit to the Renwick Gallery.
After the Renwick Gallery, we headed to CityCenterDC located on 10th Street, NW. We passed the beautiful tulip beds in Lafayette Park across from the White House on our way.
More tulips near the National Center for White House History.
CityCenterDC covers more than five city blocks offering high end shopping and various dining options. We wanted to see the Pink Lantern installation, which looked really pretty. I just read @CityCenterDC on Twitter that “with the end of the Cherry Blossom Festival the lantern installation will be coming down Monday 4/18”. So there is a couple days left to take a look at the pink lanterns.
The cherry blossoms are over for this year, but the other trees are blooming now. So beautiful!
I love Spring with its gorgeous blossoming trees!
