Ballyhoo! at the National Portrait Gallery

If you haven't been yet, I suggest a quick trip down to Chinatown to check out this exhibit.
Not only doi you get the Poster as Portraiture exhibit, NPG still has the Recognize! hip-hop exhibit on the walls. There are some great images there - portraits of artists like Mos Def, Kanye West, Pharrell, and Common - most of them while they're on stage and beautifully lost in the music they're creating.
There are also two rooms of Kehinde Wiley's work. Two rooms may seem like a lot, but if you've ever seen one of his paintings, you understand why he needs two rooms. His work is larger than life; he takes African American men and places them in these baroque, splendiferous settings - very baronial in style.

How does hip-hop and one of the Smithsonian branches fit into this blog, you might ask.
Well, tonight I gave a brief lecture on Dog Day Afternoon, which I'll be posting more about later.
The lecture and film series there is one in a long list of hidden film gems here in DC - a secret stash of opportunities to see great films - classics, foreign films, the best in new work - all at area museums.
For a film geek, this town is even better than New York.