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Today at Smithsonian: Artist Martin Klimas creates photographs by setting paint on top of a speaker and cranking up the volume. When the paint starts flying, he takes the picture. This is “Time,” by Pink Floyd. Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/artscience/2013/09/the-sounds-of-pink-floyd-daft-punk-and-james-brown-as-expressed-by-flying-paint/#ixzz2gK23Z0EH

today at smithsonian: aboriginal art

Australian Aboriginal art, one of the world’s most vibrant continuing traditions, is now achieving global recognition. Contemporary society has taken a great interest in the art of the Yolngu people, once-obscure hunter-gatherers from Arnhem Land. Yolngu’s varied artistic expressions, include body painting, sand sculptures, painted skulls, hollow log coffins, and art forms that anticipated Western art’s expressionism or performance art. Aboriginal art can only be understood when it is integrated with sequences of action and as performance genres.

today at smithsonian: alexander calder

A new exhibit at National Portrait Gallery: Best known for his abstract mobiles and stabiles, Alexander Calder (1898-1976) was also a prolific portraitist. Throughout his career Calder portrayed entertainment, sports, and art-world figures, including Josephine Baker, Jimmy Durante, Babe Ruth, and Charles Lindbergh, as well as colleagu...es Marion Greenwood, Fernand Léger, and Saul Steinberg, to name a few.

Typically, Calder worked in the unorthodox medium of wire, a flexible linear material, which he shaped into three-dimensional portraits of considerable character and nuance. Suspended from the wall or ceiling, the portraits are free to move; because of this mobility, they seem—like their subjects—to have a life of their own.

today at smithsonian: new tiger

The National Zoo’s great cat program has recently expanded with the arrival of 2 1/2-year-old female Sumatran tiger, Damai, who is now out of quarantine and spending time outside in her exhibit where visitors can see her. The National Zoo plans to bring a male tiger in to breed with Damai later this year, as recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan for Sumatran tigers, which matches animals across the country to ensure genetic diversity in the population.

“Every time we get a new animal, it’s a learning experience for us because each animal is different,” said Leigh Pitsko, a tiger keeper at the Zoo. “We can already tell that Damai is a great tiger. She’s sweet, very calm and curious about everything going on around her. Visitors will really enjoy watching her and learning about her species.”

Damai’s genetics are not well represented among tigers in human care in North America, and she is therefore a highly valued animal within the SSP. The SSP opted to send her to the National Zoo because of its success in breeding Sumatran tigers and other cats, such as cheetahs and lions.

today at smithsonian: art show at NASM

For almost half a century, artists participating in the NASA art program have been documenting the extraordinary adventure of spaceflight in ways that no camera could match. They have enjoyed special access to some epic moments and offered their unique perspectives on what they have witnessed. At NASA’s invitation, artists have captured the faces and personalities of the men and women who have flown in space, and introduced us to the other members of the team as well — the anonymous scientists, engineers, technicians, managers, secretaries, and thousands of others who performed the myriad tasks required to operate a space program. Other artists were attracted by the bunkers, gantries, radio dishes, and the towering Vehicle Assembly Building of the Kennedy Space Center, or were struck by the co-existence of the space-age architecture of the Cape with the beaches, swamps, birds, and animals that surround the space-age facility.

The NASA art collection, shared now by the space agency and the National Air and Space Museum, is far greater than the sum of its parts. It stands as a reminder of pioneering years of the early Space Age and an inspiration for those who will continue our long journey into the universe. The exhibition includes some 70 paintings, drawings, photographs, and pieces of sculpture by such artists as Annie Leibovitz, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, and Jamie Wyeth.
For almost half a century, artists participating in the NASA art program have been documenting the extraordinary adventure of spaceflight in ways that no camera could match. They have enjoyed special access to some epic moments and offered their unique perspectives on what they have witnessed. At NASA’s invitation, artists have captured the faces and personalities of the men and women who have flown in space, and introduced us to the other members of the team as well — the anonymous scientists, engineers, technicians, managers, secretaries, and thousands of others who performed the myriad tasks required to operate a space program. Other artists were attracted by the bunkers, gantries, radio dishes, and the towering Vehicle Assembly Building of the Kennedy Space Center, or were struck by the co-existence of the space-age architecture of the Cape with the beaches, swamps, birds, and animals that surround the space-age facility.

The NASA art collection, shared now by the space agency and the National Air and Space Museum, is far greater than the sum of its parts. It stands as a reminder of pioneering years of the early Space Age and an inspiration for those who will continue our long journey into the universe. The exhibition includes some 70 paintings, drawings, photographs, and pieces of sculpture by such artists as Annie Leibovitz, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, and Jamie Wyeth.