Cultural Tourism DC Calendar

The Hill Center Galleries presents its 2019 Regional Juried Exhibition. The work of more than 80 artists was chosen by juror Caitlin Berry, Fine Arts Dealer and Director at Hemphill Fine Arts in Washington, DC. The juried exhibition runs from January 10 to March 3.

HOURS

M–Th: 8am – 8pm
F: 8am – 6pm
Sa: 9am – 5pm
Su: 10am – 5 pm

When caravans transported commodities to the Mediterranean world and Indian subcontinent, cities along trade routes like Timna (in today’s Yemen) became known for artistic production. Fine alabaster figures, impressive metal work, and funerary busts became hallmark’s of Yemen’s ancient cultural traditions. Long-distance trade with the Greeks, Romans, and Persians introduced artistic and cultural traditions to ancient Arabia. A Glimpse of Ancient Yemen highlights a selection of objects excavated from the region by the pioneer archaeologist Wendell Phillips and his team in 1950 and 1951. See this exhibit on display at the Freer|Sackler until August 2019.

Trained in traditional Indian and Persian miniature painting, Pakistani-American artist Ambreen Butt reimagines the genre to feature contemporary female protagonists and political subject matter. Her content tackles global issues of oppression and the role of art as social commentary. This exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts explores Butt’s art through her range of techniques, including drawing, stitching, staining, etching, and gluing. This exhibit is on display though April 14, 2019.

On view December 7, 2018–April 14, 2019

Purchase your tickets to the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA). Visit NMWA’s exhibitions and collection pages to see what is on view.

Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for visitors 65 and over and students, and free for NMWA members and youth 18 years and younger.

We are proud to offer our newest, affordable sightseeing option – AUDIO TOURS.  Can’t make one of our guided tours?  Well, we have recorded some of our best tour guides giving their tours and put them on a GPS enabled app.  We’ve also included downloadable PDF maps of each walk, so that you don’t need to have GPS maps running with the app (save your battery).

1. Download our free app on (iTunes) or (Android)
2. Download any audio tour (Free – $1.99/each)
3. Enjoy the tour 

Even if you don’t download any tours, you will still have access to valuable information on sightseeing, eating and playing in the Washington, D.C.

Available Tours:

• Arlington National Cemetery
• Historic Georgetown
• Georgetown University

The Smithsonian American Art Museum present the first major retrospective on an artist born into slavery with this fascinating look into the work of Bill Traylor. Born in Alabama in 1853, Traylor lived through enslavement, the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and the Great Migration. He painted and drew striking pieces that covered a gamut of subjects, from the political to the racial to the powerful, delivering a stunning interpretation of African American life. You’ll be able to view 155 of Traylor’s most important paintings and drawings in this exhibit.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2018 – MARCH 17, 2019

Charline Von Heyl, one of the most revered contemporary painters, receives her largest U.S. museum survey yet. Snake Eyes will feature more than 30 large-scale paintings by Von Heyl, showing her incredible influence on the modern art landscape. Her inventive style incorporates a range of influences, from literature to pop culture to metaphysics. Prepare to see truly unique works from one of the most visionary artists of our time.

10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. | Free admission
Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, 7th Street & Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20560

This exhibit is on display Nov. 8 – Jan. 27, 2019

A form of printing in the 16th century, chiaroscuro woodcuts were made using a technique that involved the successive printing of multiple wood blocks. Designs by leading artists such as Raphael and Titian were interpreted and distributed. However, a shroud of mystery still surrounds the process, from the creation of the pieces to their sequencing to their necessity. This exhibit, which will feature new research and interpretations, attempts to erase the mystery surrounding this historical phenomenon in printmaking.

Oct. 14 – Jan. 20, 2019

There are many other bus tours currently running. Be sure to read our comparison post on Washington, D.C. bus tours to help you navigate all the different bus tour options available to you, from open-top double-deckers to small group sprinter vans, from day trips to night tours. We cover it all and provide you with the insight necessary to choose what is best for you.

Movie theaters are where our culture’s dreams and desires have been projected since the arrival of nickelodeons, providing an enchanting portal into a world where moviegoers could escape their everyday lives. Yet many historic theaters have not escaped the impact of social and technological change, nor the abandonment that has diminished our aging cities. Baltimore, thriving at the dawn of the cinema age, has been home to more than 240 theaters since its first Nickelodeon opened in 1905. Only a handful still function as theaters, but many survive in some form—ghosts on the gritty main streets of Charm City.

NOVEMBER 17, 2018 – OCTOBER 14, 2019

When photography arrived in Japan in the mid-nineteenth century, traditional woodblock printmakers were forced to adapt their craft to keep pace with the new medium. In the decades that followed, major upheavals—a new system of government, a devastating earthquake, and the onset of world war—continued to influence Japanese prints. This exhibition explores Japanese artists’ reactions to the challenges of modernity from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. It first examines the collapse of the traditional woodblock-printmaking industry in the face of the printing press and photography. Then, it traces the medium’s resurrection as an art form, through which printmakers recorded scenes of their changing country in striking new ways. Complemented by Japan Modern: Photography from the Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck Collection

On display September 7, 2018 — February 3, 2019

John Lennon’s boyhood stamp album—including 565 stamps on more than 150 pages is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum. The exhibition coincides with the U.S. Postal Service’s issuance of the John Lennon Forever stamp, honoring the legendary singer and songwriter. The stamp is part of the USPS’ Music Icons series.

Lennon’s older cousin, Stanley Parkes, inspired the future Beatle’s interest in stamp collecting and gave him the album. Lennon rubbed out Parkes’s name and address on the album’s flyleaf, replacing it with his own signature and the address at Mendips, the home he shared with his aunt Mary (“Mimi”) Smith and her husband George. Already a budding artist, Lennon sketched beards and mustaches in blue ink of the likenesses of Queen Victoria and King George VI on the album’s title page.

Mark Bradford’s new work at the Hirshhorn spans roughly 400 linear feet inside the cutting-edge Smithsonian museum. Pickett’s Charge is a series of eight abstract paintings that depict the final charge of the Battle of Gettysburg, commonly noted as the most important battle of the Civil War. The result is a thought-provoking rumination on how we interpret history and the complexities of war. Bradford’s installation will also suggest issues faced by the American people today.

10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. | Free admission

Kick off the Year of the Boar with nengajo designs from around the world!

Explore Japanese New Year traditions with an exhibition of nearly 160 nengajo, or Japanese New Year’s cards, from the ninth annual JICC Nengajo Contest as well as other Japanese New Year’s related displays. This year’s contest drew artists from several countries, and their artistic submissions featuring the Year of the Boar will be at the JICC for the month of January. Come join us to celebrate the New Year.

The boar is the twelfth symbol in the Japanese zodiac, as the boar placed 12th in the legend of the zodiac calendar. The symbol of the boar often represents “strength” and “honesty”.

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 and many are ritually burned to the ground. The thriving temporary metropolis known as Burning Man is a hotbed of artistic ingenuity, driving innovation through its principles of radical self-expression, decommodification, communal participation, and reverence for the handmade. Both a cultural movement and an annual event, Burning Man remains one of the most influential phenomenons in contemporary American art and culture.

No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man brings the large-scale, participatory work from this desert gathering to the nation’s capital for the first time. The exhibition takes over the entire Renwick Gallery building and surrounding neighborhood, bringing alive the maker culture and creative spirit of this cultural movement.

As part of a series of installations celebrating its golden anniversary, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will present “One Year: 1968, An American Odyssey,” a one-room exhibition that looks back at an extraordinarily important and memorable time in American history. The show relies on some thirty portraits to tell the story of 1968, the year when the Vietnam War reached a turning point, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, and television sets displayed everything from the Olympic Games to the first manned orbit of the moon. Memorably, it was also the year that the Portrait Gallery first opened its doors. The subjects featured in the exhibition continue to resonate in our collective memory. Representations of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon will share the walls with portraits of cultural figures such as Peggy Fleming, Arthur Ashe, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Depictions of other significant personalities, notably the Apollo 8 astronauts, will round out the exhibition.

June 29, 2018 – May 19, 2019

On display until May 27, 2019

In addition to its permanent exhibition on the nation’s airmail service, the Postal Museum has a temporary exhibition, Postmen of the Skies.

In 1918 the first regularly scheduled airmail service began operations. Planes carried mail between Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City. The nation greeted the new service with enthusiasm. Crowds surrounded airfields in all three cities, eager to watch history in action. The nation became more enamored with their postal pilots as the service grew. By September 8, 1920 mail was flying between New York and San Francisco.

The Post Office operated the service until 1927, having begun in 1925 to turn over some routes to private airlines. The new airlines built their businesses on the postal routes, infrastructure and pilots. Over the next decade, airmail contracts financed the fledgling airlines, serving to help build the nation’s commercial aviation industry.

Interested in taking a private walking tour? If you’re flexible with your timing and can book a private tour at the time listed, we can offer a discounted rate! These tours are offered at 10am-12pm or 2pm-4pm or 7pm-9pm.

You can choose either our National Mall tour, Lincoln Assassination or Arlington National Cemetery Walking Tour. We also offer a 7pm private option to take one of evening tours – Ghosts of Georgetown, Haunted Georgetown (Adults Only) or White House at Night (Secrets and Scandals – Adults Only)

No adjustments or customizations, please. If you need a customized tour or different time, please contact us at info@dcbyfoot.com. Any of our tours are available for private bookings but our online booking at this discounted rate is only available for our three most popular tours.

Rate: $195 for up to 10 persons. Groups larger than 10 must contact us first.

BOOK NOW

Tour must be booked at least two days in advance. Last minute tours may be accommodated but must be booked via emailing us to check on availability.

Nov. 1 – April 28, 2019
Innovative Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer will bring the largest interactive technology exhibition to the Hirshhorn in the museum’s history starting Nov. 1. Pulse will take up the entire Second Level, with three major installations using heart-rate sensors to create audiovisual experiences from visitors’ biometric data. Together, the biometric signatures will create spellbinding sequences of soundscapes, lights and animations.