Things To Do In D.C. When You’re Here For The Women’s March

Rothko Red Ming Dynasty Exhibit (Screencap via The Freer Sackler Museums of Asian Art)

Art

Art may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about D.C., but it should. Downtown and surrounding areas are full of public and private galleries and museums. You could spend a month here and still not see it all.

Here are some highlights in and close to the city that you shouldn’t miss when you’re here for the Women’s March on Washington.

Ellington School

The Duke Ellington School For The Arts educates smart and talented students in 9th through 12th grade in a dual curriculum of general studies and the arts. It’s part of the District of Columbia Public School System and is supported by public-private partnerships. The beautiful building contains a full-sized theater. And best of all, the halls are full of artwork, in all types of media, from the school’s students. Dave Chappelle is among its more well-known graduates.

Torpedo Factory

You can find the Torpedo Factory Art Center short distance outside the city, in Alexandria, Virginia. This place is amazing. It’s a series of galleries that also houses 82 artists actively creating painting, ceramics, photography, jewelry, stained glass, fiber, printmaking, sculpture and more. You can talk to the artists about their work and if you love it, you can buy it. You’ll go home with a beautiful piece and it will have all the more meaning because you have a personal connection with the artist. And yes, the building really used to be a torpedo factory.

The Torpedo Factory Associates Gallery (Screencap via The Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA)

Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery is located in Penn Quarter, right near the Chinatown arch. You can see portraits of all America’s First Ladies, and photographs of the icons of Women’s Suffrage. The Portrait Gallery will be closed to the public at 2:30 p.m. January 18 for an Inaugural event.

The Sackler

The Freer and Sackler are two linked museums that house the Smithsonian’s collection of Asian art. The Freer Gallery of Art is unfortunately closed for renovations, but you can view the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Current exhibits include:

• Peacock Room REMIX: Darren Waterston’s Filthy Lucre
• Feast Your Eyes: A Taste for Luxury in Ancient Iran
• Sky Blue: Color in Ceramics of the Islamic World
• Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan
• Red: Ming Dynasty/Mark Rothko
• Xu Bing: Monkeys Grasp for the Moon

The Renwick

What may be the quirkiest Smithsonian museum is the Renwick Gallery. It’s “dedicated to exhibiting American contemporary crafts and decorative arts from the 19th to the 21st centuries.”

"The museum’s home is a National Historic Landmark, the first built expressly as an art museum in the United States, and is named in honor of its architect, James Renwick, Jr. It has been a branch of the Smithsonian since 1972. The Renwick exhibits the most exciting works by artists exploring traditional and innovative approaches to making, emphasizing craft as an approach to living differently in the modern world. Collections, special exhibitions, and scholarship highlight how extraordinary handmade objects have shaped the American experience and continue to impact our lives."

Here’s a time-lapse video of the installation of In The Midnight Garden by Jennifer Angus, part of the current multi-artist exhibition, WONDER.

Definitely an appropriate theme for the Women’s March weekend, don’t you say?