To start with, a well-deserved congratulations to DC area artist Renee Stout, the 2010 winner of the High Museum of Art's David C. Driskell Prize, which recognizes Stout's original and important contribution to African-American art. Stout's show "Renee Stout: The House of Chance and Mischief" opens Saturday, September 11, 2010 with a public reception from 6:30 - 8:30PM at Hemphill.

Also a warm welcome to Dafna Steinberg, who is the new gallery director at the Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center. Their next show is an exhibition of works on paper by artist Miriam Mörsel Nathan. The exhibition, curated by Steven Cushner, will be on display from September 15 through December 17, 2010, with an opening reception from 6:00 to 8:00 pm on September 14.

Working from pre-World War II photographs, "Mörsel Nathan searches for details of family members, most of whom she has known only through photographs and stories. In working with these images, she creates hauntingly beautiful and provocative works. By piecing together fragments of information collected from family documents, notes on photographs and oral histories, Mörsel Nathan’s work reveals an elusive story of personal history and ascribed memory, acknowledging what she does not know about the people in these images."

Mörsel Nathan explains, “Only after completing these pieces was it clear to me that my way of working–making it difficult to see the images–was very much a part of the story. That’s how it is with memory, even an inherited one. It can be hard to retrieve. It is often non-linear. It can be vague or unclear or incomplete or hidden.”

The exhibition includes a series of multi-colored monotypes and screen prints based on a photograph of her aunt Greta; a wedding series of her Uncle Josef’s wedding, complemented by a video chronicling the original images from the wedding; and her version of a pre-war “family album.”

Curator Cushner says, “Miriam Mörsel Nathan has been able to take her particular experience and transform it into a language that speaks to all of us. This is the magic of all good art–to create a bridge that can connect the personal and private, with the universal and communal.” The three-month exhibition will be accompanied by myriad of special programming, including panel discussions, film screenings, literary, musical and theatrical events.

Elsewhere, dissident artists from former brutal Communist dictatorship in East Germany who endured repression, exile and even prison for the sake of free expression will mark the 20th Anniversary of German reunification by participating in a compelling arts and education program sponsored by Breakthrough Art Organization at Edison Place Gallery in Washington September 19 –October 8. The exhibit is curated by Helen Frederick, Professor of Art at George Mason University, and is free to the public.

"Breakthrough! – Twenty Years After German Unification – Critical Perspectives of Berlin Artists" will feature the works and highlight the experiences of 10 painters, photographers and sculptors from former East Germany, many of whom will be in Washington for various educational programs at George Mason University and for celebrations marking the actual date of reunification, October 3.

Looking a bit further ahead (and just announced) the Hirshhorn Museum’s "Guillermo Kuitca: Everything, Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008," will be on view Oct. 21-Jan. 16, 2011, and will present over 45 canvases and 25 works on paper, spanning the Argentinean artist's career.

"Part of the Hirshhorn's commitment to international contemporary art has always been a focus on the artists of Latin America," said Kerry Brougher, the museum's deputy director and chief curator. "The Hirshhorn acquired its first work by Kuitca back in 1995, when he was still an emerging figure, and we have watched his reputation continue to grow ever since. We are pleased to have co-organized this retrospective and to be able to present the full spectrum of this insightful artist's work in Washington, and we look forward to the upcoming year featuring exhibitions with some of the most influential Latin American artists of our time."

The exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of the artist's work in the United States in more than 10 years and is co-organized by the Hirshhorn, Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y., and Miami Art Museum in Miami, Fla.

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