National Portrait Gallery to Present IDENTIFY Exhibit, 10/17

By: Oct. 15, 2015
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IDENTIFY pulls back the curtain of time to acknowledge those who are missing from the museum's historical collections. Wealth, class, race and gender often determined who could have a portrait made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This series pushes the boundaries of portraiture through performance art. Each artist critiques American portraiture and institutional history by making visible a body or bodies that historically have been forgotten.

Martha McDonald is known for her work featuring handcrafted costumes and objects that are activated through the singing, making and ultimately the undoing of her handwork. Her commissioned performance Hospital Hymn: Elegy for Lost Soldiers creates a portrait of the Old Patent Office Building during the Civil War, when the building served as a hospital for wounded soldiers. Conjuring the memory of dying soldiers in the building, she dynamically reinvents the Great Hall as a hospital. McDonald's performance is presented as a companion piece to the exhibition "Dark Fields of the Republic: Alexander Gardner Photographs, 1859-1872."

Doors open at 12:30; this special performance begins at 1 p.m. and ends at 1:40 p.m.Limited seating; all others must stand. No late arrivals, no early departures.



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