Wednesday Artist: At the Movies

You can't get popcorn at Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian American Art Museum but you can attend the movies there—and they're free!

The museum's popular "Movies at SAAM!" program gets underway just days from now with three film showings deserving a spot on your calendars. 

★ Saturday, September 10, 4:30 p.m. ~ The life of Taos, New Mexico, arts patron, social activist, salon hostess, and writer Mabel Dodge Luhan, whose influence extended to painter Georgia O'Keeffe, writer D.H. Lawrence, and photographer Ansel Adams, among others, is recreated on screen in Mark Gordon's documentary Awakening in Taos (2015). Following the Washington, D.C., premiere of the film at SAAM, producers Katie Peters and Pat Hall join director Gordon for an audience Q&A. The film is 63-minutes long.

Mabel Dodge Luhan House (Taos, New Mexico)

"Mabel Dodge Luhan & Company: American Moderns and the West" (Traveling Exhibition)

Awakening in Taos on FaceBook

★ Saturday, October 1, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. ~ In his 95-minute 3-D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010), Werner Herzog documented scientists as they explored France's Chauvet Cave, site of some of the world's oldest (30,000 - 33,000 years) figurative paintings. Chauvet has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Here are scenes from the film:

Chauvet Cave | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Caverne du Pont D'Arc Website

Chauvet Caves of Southern France on FaceBook

★ Saturday, October 15, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. ~ A performance-based documentary directed by Demetria Royals, the 85-minute film Conjure Women (1995) features four female African-American artists who seek to fully embrace and celebrate their African heritage: choreographer Anita Gonzalez, performance artist, playwright, and teacher Robbie McCauley, photographer Carrie Mae Weems, and vocalist and composer Cassandra Wilson. The showing of the film, which has been aired nationally on PBS, is part of the celebration of the opening on the Mall of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. This past April it was part of the MooreWomenArtists Film Festival.

Conjure Women at Films By and About Women

All seating in SAAM's McEvoy Auditorium is first come, first served; no tickets are required.