March 10, 2022 | 5:30 pm
5:30pm ET
National Portrait Gallery curator Dorothy Moss will lead an in-person tour of her major exhibition on the poignant work of the artist Hung Liu, who sadly passed away from cancer just a few weeks before the show opened. Dr. Moss will provide an overview of the exhibition currently on view at the National Portrait Gallery, and share additional insights into her close working relationship with the artist.
Please note that this program will pivot to a virtual event if Covid restrictions prevent an in-person tour. Registrants will be notified of any change in advance.
This program is open to ArtTable members and their guests only. Not a member? Join today!
Admission
- ArtTable Members – $10
- Members may bring a guest for an additional $15
Please review before registering:
Covid-19 Guidelines
Please note that by registering for this event you consent to have your contact information shared with ArtTable to be used in the event that contact tracing is needed.
Visitors ages two and older are required to wear a face covering during their visit. Face coverings may be removed while eating or drinking in designated spaces.
Face coverings should fit properly, covering the nose, mouth and chin with no large gaps on the outside of the face, and they should have a minimum of two layers. Face shields are not permitted as a substitute for a face covering but may be worn over a face covering or mask. Bandanas, single-ply gaiters and face coverings or masks with an exhalation valve are not permitted.
Accessibility
The National Portrait Gallery offers a variety of free programs and services to make the museum accessible to all.
- Service dogs are welcome. The SI follows the U.S. Department of Justice’s ADA requirements for service dogs. The dog must be trained to assist a person with a disability. Visitors are not allowed to bring emotional support animals into Smithsonian museums.
- Wheelchairs/Mobility Devices:Arriving and Parking
All visitors will be directed to enter and exit through the entrance at 8th and G Streets NW.
Getting Around in the Museum
Elevators serve all areas of the building. All restrooms and water fountains are wheelchair accessible. Family/companion care restrooms are located on the first and second floors near the F Street elevators.
Wheelchairs are available for your comfort. To borrow one, ask the security officer stationed at the G Street entrance.
Limited metered parking is available on the streets around the museum. Red Top meters are reserved for drivers with disabled parking placards. For more information about the Red Top Meter Program, check the District Department of Transportation website.
ADA parking spaces are available, for a charge, at nearby parking garages. View the map of their locations.
Visitors using the MetroAccess paratransit service should tell the driver to go to 800 G Street, or to G and 8th Street.
- Visitors Who are Blind or have Low Vision:Navigate the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum with Aira - a free app that connects you with sighted agents who provide verbal descriptions on demand. This subscription service is free when visiting the museums and connected to our Wi-Fi. To learn more, download the Aira app.
Audio Portrait Descriptions
The Portrait Gallery has developed audio descriptions of select portraits from our permanent collection. Designed for people who are blind or have low vision, these descriptions use precise, evocative language to convey the visual appearance of art, and are equally valuable for sighted visitors seeking closer observation. The descriptions can be accessed on the Audio Portrait Descriptions page or on the SmARTify app.
To get the app:
Download the app from the Apple or Android store
Open the app and tap on the “Explore” icon
Find the National Portrait Gallery and scroll to “Trending Tours”
Select “Visual Description tour of select portraits in America’s Presidents” - Visitors with Developmental and Sensory Disabilities: The Portrait Gallery is, on average, a relatively quiet museum. Nevertheless, it can get busy at certain times. If you or your family member are sensitive to noise, consider bringing noise cancelling headphones. There are usually quiet areas throughout building to take a break. The following resources will help you plan for an enjoyable visit:Visiting the National Portrait Gallery – A Social Story [PDF]
Things to Remember – A Social Story [PDF]
If you have any further questions after reading this page, please contact Visitor Services at 202-633-8300 or email: [email protected]
Getting There
ArtTable is a 501.c.3 organization. All programs are non-refundable.
About Dorothy Moss
Dorothy Moss, PhD is a curator of painting and sculpture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG). Her recent projects include the exhibition and book Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands (Yale University Press, 2021) and The Obama Portraits (Princeton University Press, 2020). In 2015, Moss initiated IDENTIFY, the NPG’s first performance art series featuring internally recognized artists, including Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, James Luna, and Jeffrey Gibson. Her upcoming exhibitions are One Life: Maya Lin (September 2022) and Kinship, with curators Leslie Ureña, Robyn Asleson, and Taína Caragol (October 2022).
About the exhibition
Hung Liu (1948–2021) was a contemporary Chinese-born American artist, whose multilayered paintings established new frameworks for understanding portraiture in relation to time, memory, and history. Often sourcing her subjects from photographs, Liu elevated overlooked individuals by amplifying the stories of those who have historically been invisible or unheard. Having lived through war, political revolution, exile, and displacement, she offered a complex picture of an Asian Pacific American experience. Her portraits speak powerfully to those seeking a better life, in the United States and elsewhere. Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands will be the first major exhibition of the artist’s work on the East Coast. This is also the first time that a museum will focus on Liu’s portraiture.
Image: Hung Liu (American, born China 1948, died California, 2021), Resident Alien, 1988, Oil on canvas; Collection of the San Jose Museum of Art; gift of the Lipman Family Foundation; Dorothy Moss and Hung Liu
Thank you to Shelley Langdale, Curator and Head of Modern Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Art (and ArtTable DC Chapter programs co-chair) and Concetta Duncan, Head of Communications, National Portrait Gallery for organizing this program.
Jody Graf is a curator and writer based in New York. She is an Assistant Curator at MoMA PS1, where she has worked on exhibitions including Greater New York 2021; Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life (2021); Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2020); Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011 (2019); Simone Fattal: Works and Days (2019); and Sue Coe: Graphic Resistance (2018), among others. She curated the 2021 Parsons MFA Thesis show, and has worked as an independent curator on numerous projects. Her writing has been featured in publications including Texte Zur Kunst, Frieze, Mousse, CURA, and The Exhibitionist. She received her BA from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU, and her MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Ruba Katrib is Curator at MoMA PS1. At MoMA PS1 she has curated exhibitions such as Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life (2021), Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991 – 2011 (2019) (co-curated with Peter Eleey), the retrospective of Simone Fattal in 2019, and the solo shows of Edgar Heap of Birds (2019), Karrabing Collective (2019), Fernando Palma Rodríguez, and Julia Phillips (2018). From 2012 – 2018 she was Curator at SculptureCenter in New York where she curated over twenty solo and group exhibitions, including solo shows of the work of Carissa Rodriguez (2018), Kelly Akashi, Sam Anderson, Teresa Burga, Nicola L., Charlotte Prodger (all 2017), Rochelle Goldberg, Aki Sasamoto, Cosima von Bonin (all 2016), Anthea Hamilton, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Magali Reus, Gabriel Sierra, Michael E. Smith, Erika Verzutti (all 2015), David Douard, and Jumana Manna (both 2014). Previously, Katrib was the Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami from 2007 – 2012. Katrib was also co-founder of the residency and exhibition space Threewalls in Chicago, and has also held positions at the Renaissance Society and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, where she currently serves on the Graduate Committee. She was a research advisor for the 2018 Carnegie International and a member of the Advisory Board for Recess, a non-profit artist residency and exhibition space in New York. Katrib co-curated SITE Santa Fe’s 2018 biennial, Casa Tomada, along with José Luis Blondet and Candice Hopkins.
Laurel Garber is Park Family Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is the PMA’s curator of Emma Amos: Color Odyssey, organized by the Georgia Museum of Art. Laurel is also a PhD candidate at Northwestern University, where she is completing a dissertation on the social position of the printer in nineteenth-century France. Laurel has held positions and fellowships at the Art Institute of Chicago, Getty Museum, Clark Art Institute, and Courtauld Gallery. She received an MA at the Courtauld as well as a BA from Cornell University.
Shawnya L. Harris, Ph.D. is the organizing curator for Emma Amos: Color Odyssey, centering on the work of the late feminist artist Emma Amos (1937-2020). Harris is the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art at the Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia. Recently, Harris has been a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership. She earned her doctorate in art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also an alumna of Yale University.
Jodi Throckmorton is the curator of contemporary art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia. Before joining PAFA in fall 2014, she was curator of modern and contemporary art at the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University in Kansas. Prior to that, she was associate curator at the San Jose Museum of Art in California. She organized the exhibition and publications for Rina Banerjee: Make Me a Summary of the World (2018) with Lauren Dickens and Postdate: Photography and Inherited History in India (2015). Her other recent projects include Nick Cave: Rescue (2018), Paul Chan: Pillowsophia (2017), Melt/Carve/Forge: Embodied Sculptures by Cassils (2016), Alyson Shotz: Plane Weave (2016), Bruce Conner: Somebody Else’s Prints (2014), Questions from the Sky: New Work by Hung Liu (2013), Dive Deep: Eric Fischl and the Process of Painting (2013), Ranu Mukherjee: Telling Fortunes (2012), and This Kind of Bird Flies Backward: Paintings by Joan Brown (2011). The major retrospective, Joan Semmel: Skin in the Game is Throckmorton’s most recent exhibition and publication project.
ArtTable member and Philadelphia Chapter Co-Chair Rachel Zimmerman is the Artistic and Executive Director of InLiquid, as well as a photographer. Zimmerman founded InLiquid over 20 years ago to support the careers and creative efforts of visual artists in Philadelphia. Since its inception, InLiquid has had a significant impact on the arts community in Philadelphia and the surrounding region through their work with local artists, collectors, area businesses and institutions, including the City of Philadelphia. Rachel and InLiquid work with individual artists to create over 40 exhibits a year for both public and private spaces, help build corporate and personal collections, and collaborate with a cohort of arts leaders not only to restore the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and the Office of Arts and Culture and the Creative Economy but to make the arts a priority for the city.
