Reports of the Museums and Research Institutes 



23 



acquisitions for the year were several that kept the museum 

 collection current with recent examples of contemporary art: 

 Luc Tuymans's Passe-Parto/it. 1998, an oil painting; Juliao 

 Sarmento's Licking the Milk Off Her Finger, 1998, a rare sculp- 

 ture by this artist included as part of his '"Directions" show; 

 Charles Simonds's Rock Flower. 1986, a clay sculpture; 

 Katharina Fritsch's Display Stand with Madonnas, 1987—89, a 

 sculpture; and Stereoscope, 1999, a film with several related 

 drawings by William Kentridge. 



The Hirshhorn's large solo shows during the year featured 

 two American painters of the same generation — one realist 

 and one abstract — each of whom holds a significant position 

 of influence in contemporary art. "Chuck Close," on tour 

 from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was 

 launched on October 15 with a filled-to-capacity lecture by 

 the artist, a depicter of monumental faces who has gained a 

 wide following among the general public and art world. Re- 

 ceiving wide recognition in the Washington press, the Close 

 show also brought attention to a wheelchair-bound artist 

 whose partial paralysis since 1988 has not stopped him from 

 continuing to develop a distinctly engaging style of demate- 

 rializing rectangles that come to life as giant faces — and 

 penetrating character studies — when viewed from afar. The 

 Close show was followed by "Brice Marden, Work of the 

 1990s: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints," touring from the 

 Dallas Museum of Art, which opened on May 27. Marden's 

 sensuous and colorful linear abstractions, which show the in- 

 fluence of Jackson Pollock as well as aspects of East Asian 

 art, encompasses calligraphic "Cold Mountain" and other 

 evocative images that stand as testament to the dynamic per- 

 sistence of abstraction today. Although representing nearly 

 opposite ends of painting's spectrum, the exhibitions gener- 

 ated strong followings and solid attendance. 



Reflecting a general trend at the Smithsonian, the breadth 

 and focus of education programs expanded. Department 

 head Linda Powell's staff introduced a "Young Artist" pro- 

 gram for school groups, "Art Explorers" workshops for 

 adults, the "Improv Art" on-site family workshop, a series of 

 gallery tours by Washington area artists, and a "Poetry 

 Slam" competition for local poets held outdoors on the 

 Plaza. As with last year, the public participated in writers' 

 workshops, workshops for teachers, meet-the-artist gallery 

 talks for exhibitions, First Friday gallery talks by staff, and 

 New Voices gallery talks by local graduate students in art 

 history. Art Night on the Mall, a four-museum program of 

 late Thursday hours during summer, again combined per- 

 formances of Latin music outdoors with free films and 

 gallery talks and tours. 



"Directions" shows this year, showcasing new visions by 

 two important emerging artists from abroad, featured a suite 

 of just-completed narrative figures by Portuguese painter 

 Juliao Sarmento (b. 1948), opening February 3 with a pre- 

 view attended by Portuguese Ambassador Fernando 

 Guimaraes, and Noli Me Tangere, 1998, a two-sided, floor-to- 

 ceiling video projection of a colossal figure by British artist 

 Sam Taylor- Wood, the first solo show in an American mu- 

 seum for this young internationally known British artist. 



National Air and Space Museum 

 Donald S. Lopez, Acting Director 



Fiscal Year 1999 brought many changes to the National Air 

 and Space Museum. Most significantly, on July 13, 1999, 

 Admiral Donald D. Engen, who had been director of the 

 museum since July 1, 1996, was killed in a motorized glider 

 accident. Donald S. Lopez, deputy director of the museum, 

 was named acting director. Three months after Admiral En- 

 gen's death, his dream of an aviation and space center at 

 Washington Dulles International Airport was given a 

 tremendous boost when Steven F. Udvar-Hazy pledged $60 

 million toward the project. It was the single largest cash gift 

 in the Smithsonian's 154-year history. 



During the fiscal year, the museum celebrated several his- 

 toric events. On October 29, 1998, when STS 95 was 

 launched with former senator John Glenn on board, the Mu- 

 seum set up several HDTV monitors allowing hundreds of 

 visitors to watch the event live via the newest broadcast 

 technology. The museum also hosted a series of events to cel- 

 ebrate the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 1 1 Moon landing. 



In fiscal year 1999, the total number of visitors to the 

 museum since its July 1976 opening exceeded 200,000,000. 

 Renovation of the building continued, with emphasis on 

 minimizing disruption to museum visitors. 



Significant acquisitions to the museum included the 

 20,000-pound Spacelab module. On Octobet 3, 1998, it ar- 

 rived for storage at Washington Dulles International 

 Airport, where it will remain until it goes on display at the 

 Dulles center. The gondola of Breitling Orbiter 3, which 

 completed the first nonstop balloon flight around the world, 

 went on display in the museum's Milestones of Flight gallery 

 in September 1999. 



The museum received a "Save America's Treasures" grant (a 

 joint congressionally funded program of the White House 

 Millennium Council and the National Historic Trust) to pre- 

 serve "threatened objects of the Apollo era." A special 

 environmentally controlled storage facility was constructed at 

 the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Fa- 

 cility, and wotk was begun to stabilize all of the flown lunar 

 spacesuits in the national collection and to research and pub- 

 lish authoritative guidelines for their safe storage and display. 

 These guidelines will also form the basis for spacesuit storage 

 and display at the new center at Dulles. The balance of the 

 Save America's Treasures grant is being earmarked to support 

 the restoration of the giant Saturn V rocket located at the 

 NASA-Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. 



During fiscal year 1999, the site design for the new cen- 

 ter at Dulles was completed. The site work will be provided 

 by the Commonwealth of Vitginia as a contribution to the 

 project. 



Collections and Research 



The three scholarly divisions at the National Air and Space 

 Museum, the Division of Aeronautics, the Division of Space 



