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Beyond the Beaker
On view: "Evolving Identities in the Genetic Age," a temporary exhibition shown by appointment, showcases photographs by Ariel Ruiz i Altaba. The Geneva stem cell research professor's portraits go beyond skin deep. We're talking genetic code, DNA sequencing ladders, fingerprints, test tube samples and human tissue. Images of babies, tots and adults are layered with human silhouettes, neural synapses, gray matter and skeletal X-rays. From "Birth" (pictured on cover) to "Oblivion," these collaged apparitions remind us we are works in progress.
Curator's sound bite: "The images ask us to examine how we identify ourselves and classify others," says JD Talasek, who, with a background in photography and museum studies, has curated the NAS spaces for 2 1/2 years.
  "Ganzania" by Amy Lamb is part of NAS's permanent collection. (Amy Lamb.) |
Through Oct. 15. 500 Fifth St. NW. Free (bring photo I.D.). 202-334-2436. http:/
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Just off the Mall, this science pantheon houses two spaces adorned with artful interpretations of geology, ecology, astronomy, botany and anatomy. As you enter, don't miss the wall of digital prints by eco-collaborators Susan Middleton and David Liittschwager. In this permanent display, the pair magnify rarely glimpsed and disappearing Hawaiian natural wonders, such as the post-pupa "Koa Bug" (pictured on cover). Many of these native bugs were unintended victims of a 1960s biocontrol effort intended to target the "pestiferous" green stink bug.
On view: "Supernatural," an exhibition of Thierry Feuz's contemporary botanical abstractions, lights up the halls of the Rotunda Gallery. These paintings magnify flowers and other flora to such a degree that they morph into surreal fantasy worlds -- such as in "Psychotropical Ocean," (top right) aglow with plant matter posing as sea creatures.
"The organic paintings are close-ups," Feuz writes in the exhibition catalog, suggesting it's as if "you have entered into a landscape and the details of a strange, humid, wet, and dangerous life have become visible."
The intimate Upstairs Gallery features the exhibition "Toroids and Plaids." Robert Straight's painted toroids -- coiling geometric patterns for which primary numbers are used to determine form and color placement -- evoke op-art pinwheels and sea-breezy summer quilts as in "P-377" (center left).
Curator's sound bite: "Visual artists are able to build bridges between seemingly disparate subjects such as the cosmos and the microscopic," says Talasek.
"Supernatural" through Nov. 3; "Toroids and Plaids" through Oct. 13. 2100 C St. NW. Free (bring photo I.D.). 202-334-2436. http:/
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
Within Building 38 on the National Institutes of Health's Bethesda campus is the world's largest medical library -- filled with a historic collection that's eclectic and vast.
On view: You don't have to be a "CSI" fan to dig the exhibition "Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body." Centuries of turning body parts into evidence are compressed into one exhibit that showcases everything from vintage medical illustrations to multimedia work, complemented by hands-on components. (No, not at the autopsy table, but you can play police sketch artist with the fun Faces software.)
Images such as the 1940 "Fingerprint diagram" (pictured on cover) reveal the medical world's age-old embrace of graphics. Arty artifacts include the miniature "Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death." Designed in the 1940s and '50s by patron saint of the forensic arts Frances Glessner Lee, the diorama-dramas are based on real crime scenes: In the pink "Bathroom crime scene," a widow was found dead after tenants complained of an odor.
Curator's sound bite: "Death is difficult to look at, yet it commands us to look," says Michael Sappol, author of "A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America" and a curator-historian at the library for eight years.
Through February 2008. 8600 Rockville Pike, Building 38, Bethesda. Free (bring photo I.D.). 301-594-1947. http:/
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE
The historic Walter Reed campus houses a fascinating repository of visual, visceral medical artifacts, many of which double as art.
On view: Ripped straight from the editorial pages, "Cartoonists Take Up Smoking" features some 55 artful jabs at cigarettes and "chronic recipients" of tobacco industry largesse. The surgeon general's report, big-money lawsuit settlements and the District's smoking ban are among issues that fired up the cartoonists' creativity. One wit's frame assured the litigation settlement "is for the children" -- the lawyers' children. Another depicts Joe Camel after years of smoking: "Joe Camel: The Later Years" (left) by Signe Wilkinson ran Feb. 28, 1994, in the Philadelphia Daily News.
Some smoking-related newspaper headlines, artifacts and advertisements round out the show. Viewers of a certain age will go nostalgic over Philip Morris's 1968 Virginia Slims launch that burned the slogan "You've come a long way, baby" into the minds of the masses. A Nov. 25, 1946, Life magazine ad (a detail is pictured on the cover) claims: "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette"). This show is cool without a capital K.
Curator's sound bite: "Art is a way to attract visitors who never thought to visit a medical museum," says Adrianne Noe, director since 1995. "Then when they're captivated, they discover the linkages between art and healing."
Through Feb. 28. 6900 Georgia Ave. NW. Free (bring photo I.D.). 202-782-2200. http:/
