Visiting SAAM...

A friend and I visited the Smithsonian American Art Museum this weekend, and I have to say, it’s definitely a must see if you’re in the DC area. SAAM, which is housed in the old patent office building near Chinatown and the Verizon Center, the third building designed for the new capitol city and a stunning example of Greek-revival architecture, has been under renovation for the last 7 years. The building is still a work in progress with a courtyard shaded by a lattice-work glass canopy set to open to the public sometime next year, but it’s still a sight to see. While the building itself is stunning and there are many incredible exhibits by American artists on display, two pieces have held my attention even a few days later. One, a memorial to a lost wife, I found simply awe inspiring and captivating. The other, a photographic work by William Wegman, is nothing less than a microcosm of human decision making.

Grief by Augustus Saint-Gaudens is a stunning sculpture created by the artist on commission from the writer Henry Adams in memoriam of his wife who committed suicide in 1885. The original stands in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, but the museum holds in its collection one of a few replicas made by the artist. The bronze representation of an asexual, robed figure deep in contemplation quite simply imposes itself upon your mind. I found myself drawn back to it, even after having passed by and moved on down the hall. I could not take my eyes of this overpowering work. The face of the figure is serene, calming…but sexless. It may be male, it may be female, but it really does not matter. It is a calm center to an unsettling mass, and you find your eyes drawn back to it constantly. It is said in the description that Adams requested Saint-Gaudens depict an image of the Buddhist idea of nirvana. Detachment…a calmness in a crazy world. I believe the artist succeeded in depicting just that.

The other piece, which, regrettably, I cannot find an image of online, is entitled “One or Two Spoons, Two or Three Forks.” It’s a curious photo by Wegman of an arrangement of one spoon and two forks with only the handle of a fourth utensil in the field of view. As the title not-so-implicitly states, the identity of that fourth utensil determines the meaning…the way we perceive and think about…the entire photo, yet it remains unknown. Isn’t this life? Isn’t this how it truly is? Meaning is always decided at the margin, at the very edge of what we can know. We constantly go through life ascribing meaning and making decisions based on the assumption of knowledge, but we often forget that we’re working with a vastly limited set of ideas. Those ideas, that knowledge, that truly matters…that will lead us to right decisions and true perceptions…always lies just outside of our field of view. What a curious and wonderful little piece of work by this “Funney/Strange” artist.

So if you’re in DC and looking for a place to step out of the muggy weather and into a wonderful world of imagination and creativity, check out SAAM. These are just two of the many, many wonderful works that stuck with me even a few days later…maybe you’ll find your own.