14 



Annals of the Smithsonian Institution 2000 



2000, said she intended to show the "link between visual im- 

 agery and personal and historical identity." A national tour of 

 "Reflections in Black" began in August 2000. 



The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum showcased 

 the creative vitality of contemporary design in Design Cul- 

 ture Now, the first National Design Triennial. Art in America 

 praised the exhibition for drawing attention to "things, both 

 grand and small, that we customarily overlook," such as the 

 sole of the Nike Air Jordan XIII shoe, a prototype mobile 

 computing and communication appliance, and a skateboard. 

 More than 70,000 visitors enjoyed Design Culture Now dur- 

 ing its five-month showing. Some 15,000 participated in 

 programs for adults and young people, including a sold-out 

 conference to hear leading designers on current design issues. 

 The catalogue, published by the museum with Princeton 

 Architectural Press, had sold more than 7,000 copies by Sep- 

 tember 2000. 



No one knows how music sounded when performed in 

 China 2,500 years ago, but visitors to the Arthur M. Sackler 

 Gallery's "Music in the Age of Confucius" invited visitors to 

 imagine the possibilities. The exhibition presented the 

 largest, best-preserved group of ancient musical instruments 

 ever discovered — bells, chime stones, zithers, flutes, drums, 

 and panpipes from the fifth century B.C. Most were on loan 

 from the Hubei Provincial Museum in central China. Cellist 

 Yo-Yo Ma narrated the audio tour and gave a free public per- 

 formance with Wu Man and the Music from China ensemble. 



Combined attendance at the Smithsonian American Art 

 Museum (formerly known as the National Museum of Ameri- 

 can Art) and the National Portrait Gallery rose by 80 percent 

 during October, November, and December 1999, just before 

 the historic Patent Office Building closed for major renova- 

 tion. An active schedule of traveling exhibitions is keeping the 

 two museums in the public eye until they reopen in 2004. 



The Portrait Gallery prepared to launch "Portrait of a Na- 

 tion," a four-exhibition series that is sending 250 treasures on 

 the road in the United States, Europe, and Japan from Octo- 

 ber 2000 until 2004. "Portraits oi the Presidents from the 

 National Portrait Gallery," the first exhibition, features presi- 

 dential likenesses from the gallery's most famous collection, 

 ranging from Rembrandt Peak's "porthole" portrait of George 

 Washington to Chuck Close's iris print of Bill Clinton. 



The American Art Museum's "Treasures to Go" is criss- 

 crossing the United States to 70 cities, stimulating wide 

 enthusiasm for American art with eight thematic exhibitions 

 from the collection. Promotional activities developed in part- 

 nership with Principal Financial Group include a syndicated 

 television special, Time magazine advertorials, an educational 

 video, a Web site, teacher resources, and four souvenir books 

 republished with Watson-Guptill. Nearly 150,000 people 

 had seen the exhibitions by the end of the fiscal year. 



Twenty works of art from one of the West's most com- 

 prehensive collections of Chinese calligraphy of the late eigh- 

 teenth to the late twentieth centuries were shown at the Freer 

 Gallery of Art in "Brushing the Past: Later Chinese Calligra- 

 phy from the Gift of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth." This recent 

 gift encompasses the major trends and most of the important 

 calligraphers of the last 200 years. The Freer now has one of 



the largest collections of Chinese calligtaphy in the United 

 States, and it is the only museum with such an extensive col- 

 lection from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 



"A Concrete Vision: Oshogbo Art in the 1960s" at the 

 National Museum of African Art chronicled the at tistic 

 ttansformation in a Yoruba town in western Nigeria where 

 visual, literary, and performance artists drew on traditional 

 ideas to conceive new artistic forms. Adebisi Akanji, one of 

 the movement's founders, created large openwork concrete 

 screens showing everyday subjects. Four screens were on 

 view in the exhibition, along with a description of their ex- 

 tensive conservation treatment. 



Living Latino cultural traditions attracted enthusiastic 

 exhibition audiences this year. The making and veneration 

 of santos — carved and colorfully painted wooden figures of 

 saints — is a Hispanic American cultural legacy from the ear- 

 liest Spanish colonial days. "Santos: Substance and Soul," a 

 traveling exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Center for 

 Materials Research and Education in cooperation with the 

 Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives, considered dis- 

 tinctive santos-making techniques and materials of Puerto 

 Rico and New Mexico. The Center for Latino Initiatives' 

 bilingual exhibition "Ritmos de Identidad/Rhythms of Iden- 

 tity" explored rhythm and percussion in Afro-Caribbean 

 music through the work of the eminent Cuban musicologist 

 Fernando Ortiz. 



Drawn from the treasures of the national collections, 

 permanent exhibitions are at the heart of Smithsonian muse- 

 ums. In a museum-wide collaborative effort, the National 

 Museum of American History, Behring Center spent much 

 of the year preparing "The American Presidency: A Glorious 

 Burden" for a November 15, 2000, opening. More than 900 

 objects from the museum's unpatalleled collection of presi- 

 dential artifacts — the largest of its kind in the nation — were 

 chosen to tell the story. Interactive experiences, videos, 

 teacher resources, a Web site, and a yearlong series of public 

 programs enhance the experience. 



The National Museum of Natural History's new 6,500- 

 square-foot exhibition hall, "African Voices," offers a 

 dynamic view of the African continent. Voices of African 

 people are coupled with objects from the collection, photo- 

 graphs, film, video, and sound to tell vivid stories of Africa's 

 history, influence, and continuing relevance. The African ele- 

 phant in the Museum of Natural History's rotunda, long a 

 favorite of Smithsonian visitors, has a new habitat — a realis- 

 tic landscape created by fabricators from the Smithsonian 

 Office of Exhibits Central's Modelmaking and Fabrication 

 Units. The diotama is remarkable for its realism, from the 

 individual butterflies to the dusty contoured surface that 

 evokes the African savanna. 



Private Support Brings Pandas 

 to the Zoo 



Knowledge of giant panda biology, behavior, and conserva- 

 tion has advanced considerably in the past 25 years, in part 



