Galleries
Friday, February 16, 2007; 9:16 PM
At the Swiss Embassy, Architectural Glimpses
You haven't been inside the sleek Steven Holl-designed Swiss ambassador's house yet? Well, your chance to enter its charcoal-colored walls has come: An exhibition by Swiss artist Marc Monteleone, himself an architecture freak, will serve as your excuse. The home's reception and dining areas -- all rectilinear lines and smooth wood paneling, including the furniture -- house Monteleone's acrylics on paper capturing glimpses of the Victorian cornices and glass curtain walls of downtown Washington's streetscape. Also on view, a series of abstractions that reduce those same forms to pure geometry.
"Marc Monteleone: Urban Landscapes and Architectural Abstracts" at the Swiss Residence, Embassy of Switzerland, 2900 Cathedral Ave. NW, Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-5 p.m., 202-745-7928, to Feb. 28. http:/
Ashbaugh: Art Is in the Genes
Back in the early 1990s, New York painter Dennis Ashbaugh made some well-known paintings based on genetic code, several of which are on view in a surprising show installed in the halls of the National Academy of Sciences. Don't assume these gene portraits resemble the spiral ladders of school science texts, though. These are massive, gorgeous canvases with a palpable sense of motion; fuzzy rectangles skip across their richly stained surfaces. A 9 1/2 -foot-tall fuchsia canvas opens this remarkable selection, all the more remarkable hanging in such unassuming quarters.
Dennis Ashbaugh at the National Academy of Sciences, 2100 C St. NW, Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., 202-334-2436, to May 10. http:/
Colby Caldwell at Hemphill: Nature Waxes Unnatural
In his landscape and portrait photographs on view at Hemphill, Colby Caldwell adeptly transforms natural phenomena into ever so slightly unnatural images. The icy pink horizon of "after nature (42)" recalls the19th-century seascapes of Martin Johnson Heade while flirting with the artificial palette of a digital age. As ever, Caldwell's textured surfaces -- he waxes them -- skirt the lines between painting and print. In a rear room, vintage footage of a family member's hunting trip screens macabre scenes. The effect is romantic noir.
Colby Caldwell at Hemphill Fine Arts, 1515 14th St. NW, Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., 202-234-5601, to Feb. 24. http:/
From a Small Country, a Pair of Big Impressions
Liechtenstein. The postage stamp-sized principality lodged between Austria and Switzerland hardly screams "arts scene." Yet a two-person show hosted by the Goethe-Institut suggests a lively population of at least two. Of particular interest: Beate Frommelt's intriguing series of 50 "drawings" done with string sewn into Japanese paper. Meditations on the Greek god of sleep, Frommelt's pictures depict sleeping faces traced in tightly sewn lines. Loose, bunched threads punctuate the air around each face, suggesting dream worlds beyond our view. Barbara Buehler's rich color pictures of mosques in Indonesia are seductively photographed, hinting that there's some artistic colonialism at work here, too."
"Liechtenstein Contemporary" at the Goethe-Institut, 812 Seventh St. NW, Monday-Thursday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday 9 am.-3 p.m., 202-289-1200, to Feb. 28. http:/
Figures Haunted by History
This curious show is premised on group psychoanalysis. Artist Wolf Werdigier interviewed Americans -- blacks and whites, in groups and one-on-one -- to unearth the lingering traumas of slavery. Then he painted pictures. A bit like analysis, the resulting images teeter between the recognizable and the unknowable. His gesture-heavy, expressionist paintings flirt with abstraction; certain passages devolve into pure brush-stroke. A gallery handout details the stories behind each work but its text is overwrought. Concentrate instead on Werdigier's haunting figures.
Wolf Werdigier at the Embassy of Austria, 3524 International Ct. NW, Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., 202-895-6714, to March 29. http:/
Shadowy Structures With a Somber Past
Sherry Zvares Sanabria lavishes attention on shadow and color in her spare, realist renditions of the interiors and exteriors of former slave quarters. Her steely blue and gray palette dominates the many interior views; their icy calm invites extended looking. Still, she's at her best with exterior elevations of simple wood and brick structures, some dilapidated, which she paints head-on. Their flatness suggests an interest in surface and adds welcome complication to paintings that might otherwise come off as realism retreads.
Sherry Zvares Sanabria at the Athenaeum Gallery, 201 Prince St., Alexandria, Wednesday-Friday 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 1 p.m.-5 p.m., 703-548-0035, to March 3. http:/
