Public Impact 



Compelling Exhibitions 



Engaging visitors with real things 

 and intriguing ideas 



People came to Smithsonian museums and the Zoo in 

 greater numbers in 2000 — 34 million visits in all — and 

 they had an incredible array of exhibitions to choose from. 

 At one end of the National Mall, visitors flocked to the 

 National Museum of American History, Behring Center for 

 a live, close-up look at the delicate work of preserving the 

 Star-Spangled Banner. Next door, the remarkable tale of the 

 Vikings unfolded at the National Museum of Natural His- 

 tory. Across the Mall, in the historic Arts and Industries 

 Building, the fascinating, 500-year-old Latino cultural 

 tradition of santos was on display, along with a popular exhi- 

 bition of African American photographers' work. 



Exhibitions like these — the three-dimensional stories that 

 make a museum visit memorable — are a vital connecting 

 point between people and the Smithsonian. The Institution 

 is dedicated to creating exhibitions of the highest quality 

 that invite visitors to rethink familiar concepts, imagine new 

 possibilities, and consider the continuity of cultures. Here 

 are some examples from fiscal year 2000. 



Attendance rose by nearly 20 percent at the National 

 Museum of American History, Behring Center, with the 

 Star-Spangled Banner conservation laboratory and exhibition 

 attracting nearly half of the museum's visits. "Fast Attacks 

 and Boomers: Submarines in the Cold War," another draw- 

 ing card, revealed fascinating facts about the role of 

 submarines in American Cold War strategy. The piano has 

 always delighted music lovers, so the museum's exhibition 

 "Piano 300: Celebrating Three Centuries of People and 

 Pianos" was a natural success while it was on view in the S. 

 Dillon Ripley Center's International Gallery. Capitalizing on a 

 perfect performance opportunity, Smithsonian Productions 

 and Maryland Public Television produced the 90-minute tele- 



vision special "Piano Grand! A Smithsonian Celebration," 

 hosted by Billy Joel and featuring Dave Brubeck, Jerry Lee 

 Lewis, and other renowned pianists. Their name conjures up 

 visions of fearsome marauders, but the Vikings were also 

 boat builders, traders, pioneers of parliamentary govern- 

 ment, and the first Europeans to reach North America. 

 On the 1, oooth anniversary of the Vikings' landing, the 

 National Museum of Natural History examined their histor- 

 ical impact in "Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga." This 

 traveling exhibition, an official project of the White House 

 Millennium Council, highlighted new archaeological re- 

 search and involved cooperation with museums from around 

 the world. Public response was positive: Museum attendance 

 rose, and the 43,000-volume first printing of the companion 

 book, published by Smithsonian Institution Press, was so pop- 

 ular that it sold out before the exhibition closed in August. 

 "Vikings" is now on a two-year tour. 



"Provocative, intriguing, sometimes perplexing, but never 

 dull" was the Washington Post's view of the Hirshhorn Mu- 

 seum and Sculpture Garden's 25th anniversary exhibition, 

 "Regarding Beauty: A View of the Late Twentieth Century." 

 Curators Neal Benezra and Olga Viso chose more than 90 

 works by well-known and emerging artists to show how an 

 age-old concept has been probed and reassessed since i960. 

 Later in the year, "Dali's Optical Illusions" attracted one of 

 the highest attendance levels in the Hirshhorn 's history: an 

 average of 2,500 visitors a day from April 19 through June 

 18. Visit totals for May 2000 — 154,200 — were almost dou- 

 ble what they were for May 1999. 



The looking-glass of "Reflections in Black: A History of 

 Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present" revealed not just 

 images, but the powerful story of African American life. This 

 critically acclaimed exhibition, organized by the Anacostia 

 Museum and Center for African American History and Cul- 

 ture, took visitors on a visual odyssey from slavery through the 

 present. Curator Deborah Willis, who was awarded a presti- 

 gious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in June 



