Fusion 2015 Social Programme

Fusion 2015 attendees will have the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, comprising an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people throughout three centuries. The Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum that showcased the best craft objects and decorative arts from the 19th century to the present, is closed for renovation. The building housing the Renwick Gallery is located steps from the White House in the heart of historic federal Washington. The Second Empire-style building, a National Historic Landmark, was designed by architect James Renwick Jr. in 1859 and opened as a museum in 1874. It became the home of the museum’s craft and decorative arts program in 1972. The current renovation, the first comprehensive restoration of the building in 40 years, will provide completely renewed infrastructure, enhanced historic features and other upgrades that will make the Renwick Gallery a 21st-century destination attraction.Another reason to arrive just after the conference’s last session on Wednesday is the National Portrait Gallery, which preserves the wonderful diversity of individuals who have left—and are leaving—their mark on the U.S. life and culture. Through the visual and performing arts, the collections celebrate leaders such as George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr., artists such as Mary Cassatt and George Gershwin, activists such as Sequoyah and Rosa Parks, and icons of pop culture such as Babe Ruth and Marilyn Monroe. They museum also features “conversation about America,” a permanent exhibition on view in a series of 17 galleries and alcoves chronologically arranged to take the visitor from the days of contact between Native Americans and European explorers through the struggles of independence to the Gilded Age. Major figures from Pocahontas to Chief Joseph, Alexander Hamilton to Henry Clay, and Nathaniel Hawthorne to Harriet Beecher Stowe are be among those included. Three of the galleries are devoted exclusively to the Civil War, examining this conflict in depth. A group of modern photographic prints produced from Mathew Brady’s original negatives complement the exhibition. Highlights from the Gallery’s remarkable collection of daguerreotypes, the earliest practical form of photography, are on view in “American Origins,” making the National Portrait Gallery the first major museum to create a permanent exhibition space for daguerreotype portraits of historically significant Americans.