D.C. FilmFest, a cooperative venture thar continued to help 

 galvanize a growing local film community and bridge the 

 fields of contemporary art and film. 



The death of Willem de Kooning on March 19 marked the 

 passing of one of America's most influential 20th-century 

 painters and brought renewed attention to the Hirshhorn 

 Museum's comprehensive collection of his works. In addition 

 to numerous mentions in the print media and a local news 

 report taped at the Hirshhorn, the "News Hour with Jim 

 Lehrer," as an appreciation, ran a five-minute live interview 

 with Dr. Judith Zilczet, Curator of Paintings. Zilczer orga- 

 nized an exhibition of 50 key works by de Kooning from the 

 museum's collection — a 90th birthday homage — that was 

 seen during 1993—94 in Washington, Barcelona, Houston, 

 Boston, and Atlanta. 



The Hirshhorn's six curators continued to visit galleries 

 and studios, serve on panels, consult art periodicals, and pur- 

 sue scholarly research to keep abreast of contemporary art. 

 Neal Benezra, Assistant Director for Art and Public Programs, 

 was one of 3 Americans invited to join an international panel 

 of 33 art experts whose mission was to propose 99 artists for 

 "Movements in Time," a large-scale exhibition to mark the 

 millennium in Bonn, Germany. Also this year Benezra and 

 Assistant Curator Olga Viso, who had collaborated on the 

 1996 exhibition "Distemper: Dissonant Themes in the Art of 

 the 1990s," began work on their second joint show, to mark 

 the Hirshhorn's 25th-anniversary in 1999. The exhibition, 

 expected to travel to at least one European venue, will be 

 titled "Regarding Beauty: Perspectives on Art Since 1950." 



National Air and Space Museum 



Donald D. Engen. Director 



In 1997 the National Air and Space Museum enjoyed its 

 highest attendance of the decade, with nearly 9.2 million 

 visitors. Significant progress was made toward making the 

 Dulles Center a realiry and achieving our goal of opening the 

 building by the end of 2003. This facility will provide the 

 museum with space to house and restore its collection of 

 airplanes and spacecraft. 



Collections and Research 



The Aeronautics Division continues to pursue a broad range 

 of programs in research and publications. This year will mark 

 the tenth anniversary of the History of Aviation series, edited 

 by curator Von Hardesty. The two latest books in the series 

 are Space and the American Imagination, by Howard McCurdy 

 and Stalin's Aviation Gulag, written by L.L. Kerber and edited 

 and translated by Von Hardesty. Recently, as reflected in the 

 McCurdy book, the series has inaugurated a new list of titles 

 related to space history. 



In preparation for the upcoming centennial of the Wright 

 brothers' historic first flights in 1903, the Aeronautics 

 Division of the National Air and Space Museum is planning 

 and working on a number of projects on the Wright brothers. 

 This past year, curatot Peter Jakab made significant progress 

 on an edited volume of the Wright brothers' own published 

 writings. Although the Wright's personal letters, diaries, and 

 technical notebooks have been available in published form for 

 many years, the numerous articles and technical papers that 

 they published during their lives have never been compiled. 

 Most of these writings by the famous brothets are in obscure, 

 defunct, or hard-to-find journals and magazines. Jakab's 

 volume, which will be published by the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion Press in 1999, will assemble these valuable materials in 

 annotated form for the first time. 



Curator Michael Neufeld shared the 1997 Dexter Prize, 

 given by the Society of the History of Technology, for his 

 book The Rocket and the Reich. Curator Rick Leyes has com- 

 pleted his wotk on the history of small gas-turbo jet engines. 



Members of the Space History Division pursued research on 

 a variety of topics ranging from the early career of rocket 

 pioneer Robert Goddard to the history of Soviet space suits. 



In May 1997 the museum opened "Space Race," a major 

 exhibition that traced fifty years of international competition 

 and, more recently, cooperation between the United States 

 and the former Soviet Union. The exhibit was curated by the 

 members of the Space History Division and designed and 

 executed by the Exhibits division. It consists of five sections: 

 Military Origins of the Space Race, Secret Eyes in Space, 

 Racing to the Moon, Exploring the Moon, and A Permanent 

 Presence in Space. It contained a stunning and unique array of 

 artifacts. These included a full-scale mock-up of the Hubble 

 Space Telescope, a Soviet Merkur spacecraft, and a camera 

 identical to those used in the first U.S. reconnaissance satel- 

 lite. As part of the opening of "Space Race," the Museum 

 hosted a symposium on the history of the Corona satellite 

 reconnaissance program. 



Complementing "Space Race" is a new IMAX film, Mission 

 to Mir, which also premiered in May 1997. Featuring U.S. 

 astronauts Norman Thagard and Shannon Lucid and their cos- 

 monaut companions, the film depicts the human aspects of 

 the joint U.S. -Russian space missions and takes viewers into 

 the snug interior of the Mir space station. 



The Space History Division and the Center for Earth and 

 Planetary Studies (CEPS) developed a unit in the "Where 

 Next, Columbus?" exhibition consisting of two monitors to 

 display data from the Mars Pathfinder mission. The monitors 

 are updated daily so that museum visitors can view the latest 

 Mars images and rover "movies" from Pathfinder. 



Center for Earth and Planetary Studies staff developed a 

 new display for the Venus area of NASM's Exploring the 

 Planets Gallery. This upgrade used new Magellan radar images 

 of the surface and a variety of more recent geologic interpreta- 

 tions to better inform gallery visitors about the nature of 

 "Earth's sister planet." 



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