Lincoln Schatz's generative portraits of nineteen leading American innovators, known collectively as "Esquire's Portrait of the Twenty-First Century," were created in 2008 on commission from the magazine. The portraits are on view at the National Portrait Gallery, as part of the "Americans Now" exhibition, August 20, 2010 -- July 10, 2011.

German artist Silke Otto-Knapp has had recent solo exhibitions at the Kunstverein München; Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York; The Banff Art Centre, Canada; Modern Art Oxford, UK; Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles; and Tate Britain, London. She has participated in group exhibitions such as Modern Modern at Chelsea Art Museum, New York; Rendez-Vous Nowhere at the Montehermoso Cultural Center, Spain; the 9th Istanbul Biennial; and The Undiscovered Country at the Hammer Museum.

Hear from choreographer Rebecca Davis as she describes her selection of movement for noticing the details of Body in Flight (Delta).

June 29 2011
Painters of the Venetian Renaissance are best known for their monumental altarpieces, narrative and mythological canvases, and intimate works for private devotion. Many of the same masters engaged in the ornamental arts as well, painting panels for integration into beds, chests, musical instruments, and doors. Susannah Rutherglen describes this less familiar genre, traces the fortunes of surviving artifacts, and discusses their themes, styles, and relevance to the history of Italian Renaissance art.

These are among the most celebrated works ever created in Africa and for the first time they have been brought together with other objects from the same era, resulting in a fascinating depiction of Ife. Terra-cotta and brass figures show it to have been a dynamic society where idealized and serene citizens coexisted with their opposites—the diseased, the malformed, the old, and the imprisoned. Trade items illustrate Ife’s ancient prosperity. Its prized glass-beads—worn by royalty—were also exported across north and west Africa.

With Pure Views—a special installation by some of China's most world-renowned contemporary artists (on view April 19-21) as the focal point for the evening, four of the featured artists (Hong Lei, Wang Guangyi, Yue Minjun, Zhou Chunya), along with critic Liu Chun and curator Lu Peng—will gather in a lively panel discussion about art in China today.

May 25, 2011
In Bellini’s great masterpiece, the traditional relationship of figure to setting has been reversed, thus engaging us in a way that transforms our experience of the picture and our understanding of the artist’s creative genius. Keith Christiansen will discuss the impetus behind this transformation and its implications for interpreting the picture’s much-discussed subject. This lecture was made possible by the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation.

Host Graham Beal (DIA Director) provides a snapshot of the history of portraiture, it's incredible scope and diversity, and explains what kinds of things we learn about the sitters and their societies, about the artists themselves, and about the evolution of the genre.