posted 05-22-2008 12:15 AM               

NASA's 50th Inspires Smithsonian Traveling Art Exhibit

A traveling art exhibition featuring 73 works by some of America's leading artists has been organized by the Smithsonian Institution to honor NASA's 50th birthday.

"NASA | ART 50 Years of Exploration" contains almost a half-century of artwork from such luminaries as Annie Leibovitz, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, Doug and Mike Starn, Nam June Paik and William Wegman. Drawn from the collections of NASA and the National Air and Space Museum, the exhibit includes drawings, photographs, sculpture and other media. These works, both illustrative and abstract, depict private and personal moments, triumphs and tragedies from NASA's first five decades.

"Through the NASA Art Program, artists have been given an inside glimpse into the missions and programs which make up the space agency," said Bert Ulrich, the program's curator at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Through their imaginations, artists have shared an entirely new interpretation of the NASA story with the public.

"NASA | ART" will open Oct. 25 at the Art League of Bonita Springs in Bonita Springs, Fla. The exhibition will remain there until Jan. 19, 2009, then travel to 10 other museums through 2011. The show was put together by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, in cooperation with the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

The works featured in the exhibit date from the start of the NASA Art Program in 1962, when Administrator James E. Webb asked painters, musicians and conceptual artists to illustrate and interpret the space agency's missions. A companion book to the exhibit, "NASA | ART 50 Years of Exploration," will be published in fall 2008 by Harry N. Abrams.

The National Air and Space Museum, composed of the flagship building on the National Mall in Washington and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., is home to the world's finest collection of artifacts of flight. The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington for more than 50 years through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history.

posted 05-24-2011 11:22 AM               

NASA Art Exhibit Opens At National Air And Space Museum

You don't have to be a rocket scientist or an astronaut to work for NASA. Engineers, pilots, physicists, astrobiologists, and, yes, artists, too, have helped further the mission of the space agency.

In 1962, NASA administrator James E. Webb invited a group of artists to illustrate and interpret the agency's missions and projects. Artists, participating in the NASA art program, many of them renowned, have been documenting the extraordinary adventure of spaceflight ever since. Granted special access to historic moments, they have offered their perspectives on what they have witnessed.

NASA | ART: 50 Years of Exploration, on view from May 28 to Oct. 9 at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, features works by artists as diverse as Annie Leibovitz, Alexander Calder, Nam June Paik, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and William Wegman. The exhibition includes drawings, photographs, sculpture and other art forms and media from the collections of NASA and the National Air and Space Museum. The more than 70 works, ranging from the illustrative to the abstract, present a different view of NASA than the one in history books or on news shows.

Several of the artists have captured the faces and personalities of the men and women who have flown in space. Other members of the team, scientists, engineers, technicians, managers and thousands of others who made the space program possible, also are portrayed.

Bunkers, gantries, radio dishes and the towering Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, attracted other program artists, some of whom were struck by the co-existence of the space-age architecture of the Cape with the beaches, swamps, birds, and animals that surround the facility.

The exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and NASA in cooperation with the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The museum, located at Sixth Street and Independence Avenue SW, is open daily from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). Admission is free.