Must-see installations

Think you’ve seen it all? Think again. Here are eye-opening objects to ponder, culled from the D.C. area’s art scene. Vote for your favorites, and recommend others we might have missed.

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Part of the Phillips Collection's photography show "Left Behind," Darren Almond's "Six Months Later" is actually 1,440 separate photos, taken at one-minute intervals over the course of 24 hours. Although it depicts a corner of the artist's studio, the subtly changing light puts it in the tradition of color field painting. It's also a way of visualizing the passage of time.

Michael O'Sullivan /

This panel of 24 photos from Almond's "Six Months Later," each one barely larger than a postage stamp, represents one hour. Look closely and you'll see a digital flip clock on the wall, counting down the minutes.

The Phillips Collection

Beth Lipman's "Bancketje (Banquet)," on view at the Renwick Gallery, represents the aftermath of a decadent dinner party, rendered in glass. Inspired by a 17th-century Dutch still life painting, Lipman's elaborate installation is a critique of excess, and includes glass mice and squirrels scampering among the debris.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Fabricated by a team of 16 artisans, "Bancketje (Banquet)" includes more than 400 individual pieces of glass, some of which appear to be falling off the table. Don't worry, though. They're glued down. As for the broken bowl and lobster on the floor, they're meant to be there.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

From a distance, Woojin Chang's monumental "-scape" seems to depict a weather-beaten rock formation silhouetted against the sky. Look more closely and you'll see that the "rocks" in this 29-foot-wide digital print, on view at Conner Contemporary, are made up of tiny people. The recent art school graduate estimates that there are about 100,000 individual figures.

Woojin Chang/Conner Contemporary Art

To create this landscape of tiny figures, Chang drew about three dozen human forms on letter-size sheets of paper, then scanned them into his computer and scaled them down to about a half an inch.

Woojin Chang/Conner Contemporary Art

It gives new meaning to the term "orange crate." Step inside Samuel Scharf's "Self Portrait," an 8-by-8-foot orange-lined booth on view at the Arlington Arts Center, and you might be filled with joy, fear or loathing. It's not a portrait of the artist, but of your own emotions in response to pure color.

Michael O'Sullivan

Artist Samuel Scharf strikes the pose of Rodin's "Thinker" inside his interactive sculpture whose entire interior is painted a bright orange. The paint company calls it "Southwest Magic." Scharf says his work is all about awareness.

Lee Stalsworth/Fine Art Through Photography LLC

A visitor to the exhibition "Artists in Dialogue 2" checks out Henrique Oliveira's “Xilonoma Chamusquius," which seems to be bursting through the wall of the National Museum of African Art.

Glenn Virgin

Created with fire, Sandile Zulu's "Large Colon (y) Brownprint -- a histopathological case" (seen here in detail) is showing alongside the work of Oliveira as part of "Artists in Dialogue 2." The work of both artists, on view at the National Museum of African Art, harnesses destructive energy to create something beautuful.

Franko Khoury/National Museum of African Art

Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House, which is open to the public at Woodlawn Plantation, features the architect's signature cut-out windows.

Ron Blunt

Space inside this Usonian-style house, which was designed to fit the average American lifestyle, is tight by today's standards. The bedrooms and kitchen are tiny. But the common areas, like this living room, are more expansive.

Ron Blunt

All 13 of photographer Hiroshi Sugimot's seascapes, on view in a darkened gallery at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden as part of “Fragments in Time and Space,” can be taken in at once, like a string of pearls.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Sugimoto’s “Caribbean Sea, Jamaica” is one of 13 black-and-white seascapes by the Japanese artist that are owned by the museum. Rather than pictures documenting a particular place, the artist considers them to be meditations on eternity.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

At the National Gallery of Art, Nam June Paik's "One Candle, Candle Projection" is the centerpiece of a chapel-like installation of three spiritual-themed video works. Multiplied and magnified by video projection, a single lit candle is at its heart.

Nam June Paik Studios

Paik's "Standing Buddha with Outstreched Hand" features a statue of the Buddha seemingly watching itself on a stack of television monitors.

Nam June Paik Studios

The face of supermodel Kate Moss, shown without makeup and with disheveled hair, takes on monumental proportions in this striking portrait by artist Chuck Close. On view in the National Portrait Gallery's "Capital Portraits" show, it's a nearly nine-foot-tall tapestry, woven on a high-tech loom from a daguerreotype original.

Chuck Close

"Kate" looks like a black-and-white picture, but look again. The supermodel's face is rendered in a compex weave of subtly colored threads.

Michael O'Sullivan

If you've been to the Freer Gallery's famous Peacock Room in recent years, you'll remember it for its longterm display of 81 pieces of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. Recently re-installed with 254 ceramic objects from all over Asia, and in a variety of hues, the iconic Victorian dining room is worth a return visit.

Neil Greentree

Ceramic works from not just China, but also from Japan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran and Korea, are on view in "The Peacock Room Comes to America," which replicates the way the room looked when Charles Lang Freer moved it from London to his home in Detrroit. Iridescent blues, greens, reds, purples and yellows are on display.

Michael O'Sullivan

Featured Photo Galleries

A masquerader from the Fantasy carnival band dances on stage on the final day of the carnival at Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain February 21, 2012. Picture taken February 21. REUTERS/Andrea De Silva (TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - Tags: SOCIETY)

Carnival, Nationals spring training, Australian foreign minister resigns and more in the day in photos

News and feature images from around the world.

Danish artist Michael Elmgreen (L) and Norwegian artist Ingar Dragset (R) pose for pictures with British actress Joanna Lumley (C) as their bronze sculpture entitled 'Powerless Structures, Fig.101' is unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in central London, on February 23, 2012. The sculpture, which features a boy on a rocking horse, replaces Yinka Shonibare's artwork of Nelson's Ship In A Bottle. AFP PHOTO / JUSTIN TALLIS (Photo credit should read JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

Eye on entertainment

Joanna Lumley, Corbin Bleu, Jennifer Aniston, Katy Perry, Luke James and other celebrities.

Feb. 15, 2012: French bulldog Baby attends the feeding of wild boar piglets at the Lehnitz animal sanctuary outside Berlin, Germany. Six little pigs have found a new friend in a maternal French bulldog named Baby. The Lehnitz animal sanctuary outside Berlin says Baby took straight to the wild boar piglets when they were brought in Saturday, three days old and shivering from cold. Sanctuary worker Norbert Damm said Wednesday as soon as the furry striped piglets were brought in, Baby ran over and started snuggling them and keeping them warm, even though they're already about her size. He says the piglets' mother was likely killed by a hunter and the litter was found abandoned in a forest. The piglets are being bottlefed right now and should be released to an animal sanctuary when they can feed themselves in about three months.

Animal views

A French bulldog adopts wild boar piglets, a fingernail-size chameleon, frill-necked lizards and more.

This undated image released by Julien's Auctions shows a pair of pearl drop earrings worn by Whitney Houston in the movie The Bodyguard,Warner Bros., 1992.Â This item is part of âHollywood Legendsâ auction scheduled to run on Saturday March 31, 2012 through Sunday April 1st at the Julienâs Auctions gallery in Beverly Hills.Â (AP Photo/Julien's Auctions)

Whitney Houston items up for auction

Items that belonged to or were used by the late pop icon will be sold by Julien’s Auctions in March. Here is a look at those items, plus other celebrity items auctioned by Julien&rsquo...

A reveler with the Mystic Stripers tosses trinkets to the crowds gathered on Royal Street in Mobile, Ala., Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012. The pre-Lenten blowout continues along the Gulf Coast culminating in Fat Tuesday celebrations Feb. 21. Tourism leaders estimate more than a million visitors pour into the Mobile area each Mardi Gras season to watch the festivities. (AP Photo/Mobile Register, G.M. Andrews) MAGS OUT; NO SALES

Mardi Gras around the globe

Revelers around the world celebrate Fat Tuesday, the day before the fasting season of Lent begins.

Kennedy Space Center at 50

The Kennedy Space Center is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s orbital flight.

ATTENTION EDITORS - IMAGE 4 OF 25 FOR PICTURE PACKAGE 'MONGOLIA'S OLYMPIC GYM ' Mongolia's Olympic freestyle 60kg wrestler Mandakhnaran Ganzorig limbers with a partner at a wrestling gym in Ulan Bator, October 27, 2012. While the elite of the sporting world tune up for the London Olympics in world class facilities, other gold medal hopefuls are forced to make do with less salubrious surroundings. In Mongolia, Asian champion Ganzorig trains alongside children playing basketball in an old, tired gym with paint peeling from the walls. Children play on ancient free weight machines, climb ropes and roll around on the floor mimicking their wrestling hero as he warms up for his training session in the corner. Picture taken October 27, 2012 REUTERS/Kieran Doherty (MONGOLIA - Tags: SPORT OLYMPICS)

Olympic dreams, shabby surroundings

While the elite of the sporting world tune up for the London Olympics in world-class facilities, other gold medal hopefuls are forced to make do with less. In Mongolia, Asian champion...

FILE - In this Oct. 13, 2011 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, speaks in Redmond, Wash. To hear some Republican presidential candidates tell it, the president’s pen is a magic wand that can make Obamacare vanish in one day and sweep in cheaper health care, economic growth and lots of jobs in businesses freed from the health care law’s heavy hand. But there is no such fairy dust in Washington. Across the board, the contenders pledge to repeal the overhaul. In doing so, some are more realistic than others about what they can achieve and how fast. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

10 richest U.S. presidents

If Mitt Romney wins the election, it will him the second-wealthiest president in our nation’s history. Here’s a list of the richest presidents, ranked by 24/7 Wall Street...

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Must-see installations

Think you’ve seen it all? Think again. Here are eye-opening objects to ponder, culled from the D.C. area’s art scene. Vote for your favorites, and recommend others we might have missed.

Featured Photo Galleries

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