Question #4

Question #3

Ingrid Thurler da Silva
Attache for the Brazilian Embassy
Washington, D.C.

Question #2

Min. Alexandre Porto
Minister for the Brazilian Embassy
Washington, D.C.

What would you ask the artists?

Darias Jonker
Second Secretary for the South African Embassy
Washington, D.C.

On Monday, July 25, 2011 the museum began posting videos from those we posed the question, "What would you ask ther artists?? Hear what they had to say.

DC school kids meet with Henrique and Sandile. How fun!

The doors are open!

It looks so calm and lovely in the gallery you'd never know how hectic the past few days have been!  Between the calls for apocolyptic weather and our final dash to the finish line, there hasn't been enough time to post.  It is pretty amazing to compare what you see today to Thursday in the gallery, however.  Last Thursday, Sandile positioned his "Spinal Diagnosis - a regenerate case no. 2."  The platform was finally in place, the green primer covered with a lustrous white and Kevin Etherton, who heads our Installations, wheeled the art in.

 Sandile then carefully moved each piece of the sculpture onto the platform, in a row, considered them all, measured and got them into place with the help of our photographer, Franko Khoury.  When not holding a measuring tape, Franko documented the process for the record.

Friday saw the long awaited installation of Xilonoma Chamusquius, Henrique's massive installation made in Brazil specifically for this installaiton.  Each piece is remarkably heavy and required multiple hands to lift.  Once the first two elemnets were placed, we discovered it couldn't hang flush to the wall due to a phone jack that needed to be expediently removed. 

 Next, we got the lower two pieces positioned -- and Henrique and I drove folks nuts saying "just a smidge more to the right."  It took 5 people to lif it off the table and spot it as it was handed up to guys on ladders in position to screw it into position.  The problem is, it took about three tries to get it into position!



The weekend was spent plastering the pieces into place and attending to every other final detail.  The artists even found time to appear on the "Sounds of Brazil" sunday night on 89.3FM.  Monday they put in the final details -- charcoal smudges in the case of Hnerique, to complete the illusion of shadows in his sculptural works.  Students also came from MICA (Maryland Institute School of Art) and University of Maryland and asked great questions.  Despite the dire predictions for the weather, we managed to open today, on time and the press comes tomorrow so stay tuned as the word gets out!

January 28, 2011

Here, Sandile gets pretty in-depth as he explains the piece Spinal Diagnosis--a regenerate case no. 2. He goes on to say that it is one of his favorites.