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The Art of Burning Man: From the Desert to DC

Evening Program with Tour

2 sessions, from August 7 ​to August 10, 2018​
Code: 1L0205
Tickets
$60
Package Member
$90
Package Non-Member

The 2 programs included in this series are:

Evening Program
August 7, 2018 - ​6:45 p.m. ​to 8:15 p.m. ET​
Session details

For the exhibition No Spectators, the Renwick Gallery fills the complete museum—and some of the neighborhood streets—with the explosively fantastic experimental art spawned in the Nevada desert at Burning Man. Join Stephanie Stebich, director of the American Art Museum, for an overview of the exhibition, as well as insights from her own experience at Burning Man 2017. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Evening Program with Tour
August 10, ​2018 - 10:00 a.m., ​to September 10, ​2018 - 11:00 a.m. ET​
Session details

Includes Tour: For the exhibition No Spectators, the Renwick Gallery fills the complete museum—and some of the neighborhood streets—with the explosively fantastic experimental art spawned in the Nevada desert at Burning Man. Join Stephanie Stebich, director of the American Art Museum, for an overview of the exhibition, as well as insights from her own experience at Burning Man 2017. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

This program has different options:

Each year in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, a city of more than 75,000 people rises out of the dust for a single week. During that time, enormous experimental art installations are erected, many of which are ritually burned to the ground. The thriving temporary metropolis known as Burning Man is as much a movement as an annual event, and remains one of the most influential phenomenon in contemporary American art and culture.

An exhibition at the Renwick Gallery, No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man, brings the large-scale, participatory work from this desert gathering to Washington for the first time. The exhibition takes over the entire Renwick building, bringing alive the maker culture and creative spirit of the event. Immersive room-sized installations, costumes, jewelry, and ephemera transport visitors to the famed “Playa,” and photographs and archival materials from the Nevada Museum of Art trace Burning Man’s growth and its bohemian roots.

Join Stephanie Stebich, the Margaret and Terry Stent director of the American Art Museum, as she provides an overview of the exhibition, as well as insights from her own experience at Burning Man in 2017.  

In conjunction with the exhibition, a collaboration with the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District (BID) titled No Spectators: Beyond the Renwick fills Washington’s central business area with six outdoor sculptures from Burning Man. The partnership marks the first in which the Renwick has featured artworks in the streets and parks in the surrounding neighborhood.

A separate walking tour on August 10 will explore the installations, led by the Golden Triangle BID’s public space curator.

Note: The August 7 program will be held at McEvoy Auditorium at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, while the August 10 tour will meet outside the Renwick Gallery entrance on Pennsylvania Ave. at 17th St., NW.

World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1/2 credit

Photo caption: Shrumen Lumen (detail) by Foldhaus, at the Renwick Gallery (Smithsonian American Art Museum/Ron Blunt)