Opens Thursday: Winter Work by Anice Hoachlander at ArtHub609

Rhythm, light, and shadow: These are the three main motifs featured in fine art photographer Anice Hoachlander’s work. Hoachlander centers a wide variety of natural life and human creation in her art—from the geometry of modern architecture to the way Spanish Moss dances in the warm breeze of the Carolinas. Hoachlander has an eye for the naturally occurring patterns in both organic life and inorganic matter. The mystery beneath the surface of Mother Nature’s beauty allures and enamors Hoachlander, who takes inspiration from the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the natural world around her. For more than 30 years, her work as an architectural photographer in the D.C. area has focused on “macro capture and structural abstraction … in design concepts of the natural and built environment.” Passion drives her work, and it is evident in her art. With Winter Work, a new exhibit at ArtHub609, we get a chance to tee the world through Hoachlander’s eyes. The exhibition opens with an artist talk, light fare, and cocktails. For those looking for incentive to buy, 5 percent of the proceeds will be donated to the Washington Architectural Foundation. Winter Work opening night starts at 6 p.m. on Oct. 10 at ArtHub609, 609 H St. NE. arthub609.com. Free. —Meg Richards

Friday Through Sunday: Atlanta Fine Print Art Fair

The Atlanta Fine Print Art Fair, whose second annual event amassed major attention and success this past August, is coming to D.C. The first U.S. print fair to showcase exclusively Black artists, the event pays homage to industry masters—legends in their own rights—while also giving a platform of exposure to new artists. Hosted by Black Art In America and taking place at Eaton Hotel, the three-day event is being put on in collaboration with the 2024 March on Washington Film Festival, which kicked off last Sunday and runs through Sunday. The first stop on the fair’s national tour will feature works by D.C.-area artists such as Percy Martin, Lou Stovall, Ed McCluney, James L. Wells, Sam Gilliam, and David Driskell. Additionally, contemporary print artists newer to the scene, including Jamaal Barber, Traci Mims, and Steve Prince, will be featured. While the prints vary greatly in style, emotion, and inspiration, many pieces carry similar themes, such as cultural commentaries on the African American experience, celebrating community, and most importantly, telling stories. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with artists directly through a scheduled art talk on Saturday at 2 p.m. The D.C. Edition of the Atlanta Fine Print Art Fair runs Oct. 11 through 13 at the Eaton Hotel, 1201 K St. NW. blackartinamerica.com. Free. —Meg Richards

Saturday: DCPL Chess Tournament at MLK Library

The first documented chess tournament was held in London in 1851, but the game’s history stretches back centuries prior. Most historians agree that an early version was developed in India, around the fifth or sixth century. After being filtered through the vibrant cultures of the Medieval Islamic world and Renaissance Europe, the game arrived at the London tournament in a form that would be familiar to Garry Kasparov or the AlphaZero AI. Washington, D.C., has its own thriving chess scene, and last summer, D.C. Public Library associate Dubian Ade decided to bring that scene together for a friendly competition at MLK branch. “I learned that there were chess clubs at the other branch libraries,” Ade tells City Paper. “They were all kind of doing their own thing. And my idea was, why don’t we all come together?” In 2023, 57 competitors took part in the tournament, resulting in big wins for representatives of the Cleveland Park Library, the Benning Road Library, and especially for the Parklands-Turner Library in Congress Heights. This year’s tournament, which is being held at MLK Library on National Chess Day, will feature divisions for beginner, intermediate, and advanced players. Winners from each division will be honored as D.C. Public Library Chess Champions! There will also be tables manned by different chess organizations from throughout the community so attendees and competitors can find all the info they need to get involved in the local chess scene. Whether you’re an eager-eyed beginner or a salty ronin looking to humble last year’s champs, this is your chance to get involved with a community of gamer strategists who uphold a centuries-spanning tradition. The DCPL Chess Tournament starts at 1 p.m. on Oct. 12 at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW. dclibrary.libnet.info. Free. —Will Lennon

Monday: Larry Wilmore at the Birchmere

Next to hosting the Oscars, headlining the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is the most thankless job a stand-up comedian could take on. Larry Wilmore, who headlined the WHCD in 2016 during Barack Obama’s last year as president, forged head on during his 22 minute-long set taking out various news outlets including CNN (“I haven’t watched CNN in a long time. I used to watch it when it was a news network”), MSNBC (“Now stands for Missing a Significant Number of Black Correspondents”) and reporters (“Alleged journalist Don Lemon everybody!” In response, Lemon promptly flipped Wilmore the bird.) “You can’t really please anybody,” Wilmore tells City Paper of the WHCD gig. “If you please the people in the room, you’re probably not going to please the people at home. I did the opposite. I kind of pleased the people at home, but I did not please the people in the room.” But the Correspondents’ dinner is a mere blip in Wilmore’s career. His mile-long IMDB page is a staggering list of writing, acting, and producing credits along with a who’s who of collaborations including co-creating The PJs with Eddie Murphy, Insecure with Issa Rae, and Grown-ish with Kenya Barris. When Quinta Brunson, who appeared on Wilmore’s The Nightly Show, which ran on Comedy Central from 2015-16, won the 2022 Emmy for Best Writing for a Comedy Series for Abbott Elementary, she gave Wilmore a shout out for “teaching me to write television as well as he did.” “It was so emotional,” admits Wilmore, as he mimes someone cartoon crying. “You don’t expect something like that to be emotional.” Now, Wilmore is returning to his stand-up roots, launching his An Evening with Larry Wilmore: Comedy, Magic and ‘Merica tour, which stops at the Birchmere on Oct. 14. But don’t expect any takedowns at this show. “It’s more of a fun magic show with some commentary in it,” says Wilmore, whose magic isn’t the illusion based pull a rabbit out of a hat kind, but more “mind twisting type of stuff.” “I was into magic when I was a kid,” says Wilmore. “So even when I write jokes, I’ve always written them where the punchline is almost like a magic trick—something you didn’t see coming that is like a surprise, but it makes sense too.” An Evening with Larry Wilmore: Comedy, Magic and ‘Merica starts at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 14 at The Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. birchmere.com. $35. —Christina Smart

And a few reminders from our Fall Arts Guide:

Tuesday: We the People of the United States … Establish Justice at Folger

The opening reading of Folger’s O.B. Hardison Poetry Series with Claudia Rankine and  Muse Found in a Colonized Body author Yesenia Montill. The event starts at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 15 at Folger Library, 201 E Capitol St. SE.

Tuesday: Larry June’s Howard Homecoming Concert at the Howard

Bay Area wordsmith Larry June brings his unrivaled energy and positive attitude to Howard University’s Homecoming festivities. The show starts at 8 p.m. on Oct. 15 at the Howard, 620 T St. NW.

Wednesday: NMWA NIGHTS at the National Museum of Women in the Arts

There’s nothing more thrilling to me than an after-hours museum event—they indulge the childhood fantasies  developed from reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, while also serving a speakeasy-esque element of drinking somewhere you’re normally not supposed to. Nobody does this better than NMWA Nights. The event starts at 5:30 p.m. at NMWA, 1250 New York Ave. NW.

Don’t forget to sign up for City Lights, our twice-weekly guide to the best arts and nightlife delivered from our writers straight to your inbox every Thursday and Sunday.

Friday: Yesterday & Today: DC Does Dischord Release Party at the Black Cat

D.C.-based label For the Love of Records is putting on a show to celebrate the release of their new compilation album. Entitled Yesterday & Today: DC Does Dischord, the LP is a tribute to the area’s hardcore punk heritage by some of the DMV’s most exciting artists. In case you’re new in town: Part of the reason D.C. occupies such a prominent place in punk history is Dischord Records. Started by former members of the band Teen Idles in the early ’80s, Dischord was initially run out of bassist Ian MacKaye’s parents’ house in Arlington. At Dischord, record sleeves were glued together by hand, and DIY was simultaneously a necessity and a quasi-religion. The label exploded into prominence with the founding of MacKaye’s next band Minor Threat, which released their first album in 1981. Inspired by another D.C. band, Bad Brains, Minor Threat are perhaps as iconic to D.C. as the Clash are to London and Black Flag are to Los Angeles. But Minor Threat and other Dischord bands were different beasts entirely, punk boiled down to its austere core, virulently opposed to all “rock ’n’ roll bullshit” as Dischord band Government Issue once put it. Thanks to the scene centered around Dischord, the District became a hive of iconoclastic experimentation. D.C. hardcore became a genre unto itself, and later Fugazi (a sort of Dischord supergroup composed of members from Deadline, One Last Wish, and Minor Threat) blended punk with reggae and funk to establish post-hardcore. Dischord bands like Beefeater and Embrace have even been credited as progenitors of “emo,” though that genre’s genealogy remains hotly debated. It’s no wonder For the Love of Records had to pull from such a variety of styles to properly pay tribute. On Yesterday & Today, a project conceptualized and organized by Celebration Summer bassist Greg Raelson, you’ve got everything from throwback punk in the vein of the Jam (Dot Dash) and hyper-caffeinated pop punk (Brace Face) to hardcore (Supreme Commander) and hip-hop (Breezy Supreme). Celebration Summer have a track on there too. When talking about his own music, local rapper Breezy Supreme practically sounds like he could be a Dischord artist straight out of the summer of 1985. “Everybody wants to be a trap rapper and talk about the same stuff as the next person,” Breezy said in an interview with Hip-Hop Junction. “I want to be myself and stand out and not sound like everybody else just to fit in.” The release party will, of course, include performances from many of the aforementioned acts. It’s all ages, and the proceeds will go to We Are Family D.C., a grassroots organization that provides services and advocacy to underserved seniors. Yesterday & Today: DC Does Dischord release party starts at 7 p.m. on July 5 at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com. $20. —Will Lennon

Friday: The Sixth Sense at Congressional Cemetery 

There’s no shortage of outdoor film screenings in the DMV, but not nearly enough in cemeteries. Thankfully, we have one: Cinematery at the Congressional Cemetery. After its 2023 series featuring the films of Tim Burton, the 2024 Cinematery series is somehow even better this year with its Summer of Spirits lineup. Of the four films screening (Beetlejuice played in May, The Haunted Mansion screens in August, and Casper in September), The Sixth Sense is the most appropriate to be seen where you might just see dead people. While the film introduced the world to M. Night Shyamalan and his signature twist endings, it is a flick that’s just as enjoyable when you know the twist. It’s not the easiest sell to convince someone to see a movie that seemingly everyone in the world has seen, but sometimes the setting is just as important as the feature and there’s no better setting to see this movie. Bonus, you too can also see dead people. Kind of. Finally, Independence Day is entirely too loud. Fireworks are a public nuisance. You may want to be in a quiet place watching a quiet film the day after July 4. The Sixth Sense will screen at 8:45 or 9 p.m. on July 5 at the Congressional Cemetery, 1801 E St. SE. congressionalcemetery.org. $10. —Brandon Wetherbee

Opens Saturday: Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage at the Phillips Collection

Intersectionality is more than a buzzword for the Phillips Collection, where the exhibit Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage opens this Saturday, July 6. Organized by the Frist Art Museum in Nashville and described as “monumental,” the exhibition showcases more than 50 pieces across three floors and two buildings. Themes span the human and Black experiences—particularly how history, memory, and beauty are constructed, like collages, in the mind—as evidenced by the exhibit’s strong structure, divided into six sequenced sections: “Fragmentation and Reconstruction,” “Excavating  History and Memory,” “Cultural Hybridity,” “Notions of Beauty and Power,” “Gender Fluidity and Queer Spaces,” and, finally, “Toward Abstraction.” Kat Delmez, curator of Multiplicity and senior curator at the Frist, says in the press release that 21st-century “collage is an arguably understudied and undervalued medium, especially in museum exhibitions.” Seeking to portray the diversity of the Black American experience, the 49 Black American artists whose pieces are on display range from emerging creatives to leaders in the field, including Mark Bradford, Lauren Halsey, Wangechi Mutu, Deborah Roberts, Mickalene Thomas, and Kara Walker. Explaining and exploring collage techniques to visitors is a main goal of Multiplicity, with the first exhibit section and film interviews with 11 of the artists focused on the topic. The Phillips Collection has a number of community programs built out around the exhibit, evincing an all-in dedication to the concept, including artist-led conversations and artist-guided, hands-on collage-making sessions. Multiplicity opens July 6 and runs through September 22 at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St. NW. phillipscollection.org. $10–$20. —Allison R. Shely

Tuesday: Daphne Eckman at Alethia Tanner Park

There has been growing and long-overdue acknowledgment for the artistic merit of the genre of “sad girl indie rock” in recent years, thanks in no small part to the rise of Phoebe Bridgers and boygenius. Locally, our music scene is all the richer for Daphne Eckman’s arrival. Eckman’s music feels ready-made for an outdoor summer concert. It’s emotional without being oppressive, substantive while also melodic, and, most importantly, its composition of country, folk, and rock goes well with sitting on a beach towel and drinking from a plastic cup. The Annapolis-based “professional over-feeler” has opened for Vanessa Carlton and Nancy Wilson of Heart. In January, she and her four-piece band, informally known as “the ladies,” released their first album, Where You Left Me, mixed exquisitely at Sweetfoot Studios in Easton, Maryland. The album is built around “Story” (which Eckman says was inspired in part by Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”), a song about unrequited infatuation. That said, a better starting point is the instantly infectious “Jackson Pollock,” which sounds a bit like the more upbeat work from Laura Stevenson’s catalog. Acolytes of Bridgers, Waxahatchee, and early Angel Olsen are facing no shortage of content these days, but they (we) should still make time to check out Where You Left Me (bonus: that sax riff on “Acupuncture” is pretty sweet) and see Eckman live. If all that’s not enough to sell you, she sometimes encores with a cover of Metric’s “Black Sheep,” the best song from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World … at least according to people with good taste, aka fans of “sad girl indie rock.” Daphne Eckman plays at 6:30 p.m. on June 9 at Alethia Tanner Park, 227 Harry Thomas Way NE. eventbrite.com. Free. —Will Lennon

Tuesday: Emily Nussbaum at Politics and Prose 

Emily Nussbaum has been one of the most thoughtful voices on reality television, and TV in general, in the past few decades. Her first book, I Like To Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution, published in 2019, is a must-read for any Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Sopranos fan. Her newest book, the just-published Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV, tackles the less prestigious programming on your television (or computer or phone screen). Her regular work in The New Yorker tends to go viral for good reason. Her May 20 piece, “Is ‘Love Is Blind’ a Toxic Workplace?,” answered the question most every viewer of the extremely popular Netflix series has asked themselves and led to her recent appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air. Nussbaum’s essays and original reporting are both top-notch. Whether she’s writing about the show that helped usher in our current reality such as The Real World or the best of the best scripted programs, she puts an immense amount of thought and consideration into each subject. That goes for the trashy stuff too. Really, there’s no reason the trashy content doesn’t deserve as much thought as the prestige TV that dominated screens during the first decades of this century. Nussbaum is one of the few remaining must-read critics for good reason and if you’ve ever wanted to ask her opinion on your current favorite bingeable show, here’s your best opportunity. Emily Nussbaum speaks at 7 p.m. on July 9 at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. politics-prose.com  Free with first come, first serve seating, copies of the book are $30. —Brandon Wetherbee

Ongoing: Good Sports at Photoworks

More than most types of photography, sports photography relies on luck. Not that good sports photographers can’t perfect their skills to the point where they increase the likelihood of capturing a great image when it presents itself, but this still means their work is dependent on lots of things beyond their control: How close they are to a photogenic play; whether another player gets in the way during the wrong split second; how the light hits at a given hour; what kind of reaction an athlete makes. The exhibit Good Sports at Photoworks is consistently strong, but the photographers surely know that in none of these images were they entirely in control of their destiny. In this exhibit juried by John McDonnell, a recently retired 45-year veteran of the Washington Post’s photography staff, the first place image by Phil Fabrizio captures women’s volleyballers mid-celebration. In this case, no celebration, no photograph. In the third place image, of a rodeo participant trying to control his animal, Ayln Brereton likely would have gotten a worthwhile image just by showing up at the rodeo, but the glorious eruption of mud that almost obscures the subject’s body depends entirely on the rain that doused the ring before the event, while Soufiane Laamine’s image of a surfer under a towering blue wave wouldn’t exist were it not for the precise timing of a primal force of nature. A few other contributors are able to shape their work to a greater degree than others, such as Nicolas Polo, whose rodeo images are notable for their mood, which stems from his wise use of black-and-white film. But the finest work is by second place finisher Elizabeth Billman, who contributed two images, one of football action and the other of a runner racing with a baton. Both are composed with dreamy, relentlessly sideways motion. Used constantly, this approach could become cliche. Here, it enables Billman to stand out from the pack. Good Sports runs through July 21 at Photoworks, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo. Saturdays, 1 to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 7 p.m. glenechophotoworks.org. Free. — Louis Jacobson

Two days after hourly employees at the private, billionaire-owned Glenstone art museum voted to unionize, a member of the leadership team felt compelled to share his thoughts. In particular, Director of Regional Partnerships Paul Tukey had some choice words for the employees “who don’t feel lucky to work here.”

“Glenstone is great because of the vision and generosity of two people,” Tukey wrote in an email addressed to his boss, co-founder and director Emily Wei Rales, as well as the rest of the museum’s staff. “I believe we’re the lucky ones, who work for people who paid us during Covid, who create paid positions that would be filled by volunteers virtually anywhere else, who have taken the high road at every turn in the past week despite truly sad untruths being shared publicly. 

“I hope we get through this and all learn from it,” Tukey added. “And I hope, in the end, that the people who don’t feel lucky to work here no longer do.”

Tukey’s note, sent June 9, echoes the sentiments and tactics from the museum’s leadership, including billionaire co-founders Emily and Mitchell Rales, who worked against employees’ efforts to unionize. After this story originally published, Tukey responded to City Paper’s request for comment saying his email represents his personal point of view after 14 years of working at Glenstone. He also said that, despite the “director” in his title, he does not consider himself a member of the leadership team.

Glenstone management declined to voluntarily recognize the union in early May, prompting an election on June 6 and 7 with the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency dedicated to protecting employees’ rights to unionize and addressing unfair working conditions. In the weeks leading up to the vote, the museum’s leadership launched what one employee calls an “anti-union campaign.”

In May, Wei Rales sent an all-staff email with a set of union “FAQs,” aimed at stirring up opposition to the organizing efforts. One answer suggests that hourly wages at Glenstone have increased at a higher rate than the average annual union-negotiated wage. Another answer highlights the fact that members would be required to pay dues, and yet another suggests that individual employees would lose flexibility in asking for raises, time off, remote work, “and lots of other things everyone takes for granted now.”

“Also keep in mind that the reason unions strike is to bring economic pressure on the employer to agree to the union’s demands,” one answer says. “But of course Glenstone is free to all visitors, and the museum is not dependent on any revenue that comes from being open. In the event of a strike, the real losers would be the public.” 

Elizabeth Shaw, a grounds and visitor services liaison at the museum, tells City Paper via email that the museum’s leadership also hosted a Q&A session where some associates who were not included in the bargaining unit “delivered prepared statements about negative past experiences with unions and expressed fears about how a union would negatively impact what makes Glenstone special.”

Emily and Mitchell Rales also FedExed letters to their employees’ homes, encouraging them to vote against unionization, according to the Washington Post. “It is our sincere hope that you give due consideration to voting NO and keeping the Teamsters out of this special place we’ve built together,” the letter, signed by both Emily and Mitchell, says. 

“I think we live in such a deeply capitalistic society that it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s not affecting money, that means it’s not affecting anything at all,’” Shaw says. “But our goal isn’t profit, we’re a nonprofit, so we’re just thinking … what would happen if all of these people didn’t come to work? What wouldn’t get done? The grass wouldn’t get mowed, the windows wouldn’t get cleaned. There’s all of this labor, and striking brings attention to that labor.”

The FAQs, along with yellow pins featuring a heart and the slogan “Glenstone Gives,” were widely distributed throughout the sprawling campus, Shaw says.

“This response points to a concerted anti-union campaign on behalf of Glenstone leadership,” she adds.

Employees at Glenstone officially voted 53 to 27 to form a union last Friday. (Seven votes were not counted because Glenstone management argued the employees were not eligible to participate in the election.) The vote took place about a month after Shaw delivered a letter of intent to unionize to Wei Rales. The letter requested a living wage, health insurance, safe working conditions, transparency, and effective communication.

Glenstone Museum Workers Union, or GMWU, will be affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and now represents 88 of the museum’s workers.

After the election, the museum released a statement saying, “From the very beginning of this process, we have said we respect the right of our associates to decide whether to join a union. The majority have now elected to be represented by Teamsters Local 639, with one out of three voting against being represented by the union. Guided by our core values, we will negotiate in good faith. We recommit ourselves to working in a spirit of direct and meaningful engagement with all our associates, union and non-union alike, to strengthen the entire Glenstone community.”

All of the current and former employees interviewed by City Paper say there were significant upsides to working at Glenstone. They talked about rewarding collaborations between departments and opportunities to help shape young minds while working with student visitors. There’s also the built-in perk of working on a beautiful campus filled with priceless art. Still, some current or former employees would not speak on the record and many expressed general discontent, especially when it comes to communication with management, employee benefits, and staff safety. 

Shaw says that a Glenstone employee handbook required employees to provide a doctor’s note in some circumstances if they called in sick, which could pose a challenge for part-time workers who do not receive health insurance from the museum and might not be able to afford a visit to the doctor.

Employees tell City Paper that in the winter, they were not provided with thick coats as part of their uniforms. And in summer, the museum’s heat policy says that outdoor installations should stay open and staffed unless the temperature hits 105 degrees.

Some employees, however, opposed the union efforts.

Lead housekeeper, Glenda Ruiz, who has worked at the museum for six years, says she did not receive information from members of the bargaining unit about the unionization push until late in the process. 

“Nobody [told] me nothing about that situation,” says Ruiz. “It is not only me, we have 10 people in my department and a lot of people know nothing about that.”

Fredy Sanchez, who works in the museum’s engineering department, says he also lacked information about unionization efforts and opposed the formation of a union. “I don’t know what their problems are 100 percent,” Sanchez says. “Rumors and stuff is they don’t get treated the way they want to get treated.”

***

After breaking off from their father’s real estate development company, Mitchell Rales and his brother Stephen Rales gained notoriety in the 1980s for staging hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of takeovers of companies using mostly borrowed money. A 1985 Forbes profile titled “Raiders in Short Pants” described the pair as “clever youngsters” who “are reapplying their real estate background to the world of manufacturing assets.”

“They look at a machine the way they look at a building: not as something that produces tires or a place to live, but as a source of cash flow to dangle before their bankers,” the article says. They were billionaires by 1999. 

Mitchell refocused the investments of his flagship company Danaher toward life sciences and other STEM-focused businesses in 2016. On a recent podcast appearance, Mitchell said the company “went through this incredible journey of COVID that turbocharged our business.” He is currently worth around $5 billion, according to Forbes.

He became heavily involved in the art world around the time he connected with Emily in 2005. In 2006, the Glenstone Museum Foundation was registered as a nonprofit. But before opening his own museum, Mitchell made millions of dollars worth of donations to a number of arts institutions.

When the museum itself initially opened to visitors (by appointment only and under the constant gaze of a team of guards), one blogger described the Glenstone as “inhospitable and brilliant,” and a “magical, incredible and sinister place.” The museum has since become more approachable. Today, it’s free and open to the public four days per week. Glenstone has received heaps of praise from big shots in the art world. Last year, Evan Beard, executive vice president of art investment firm Masterworks, called the Raleses “a pillar of the Washington art landscape … the top of the totem pole, collector-wise.”

In 2019, the couple dropped $11.7 million on Lee Krasner’s painting, “The Eye Is the First Circle,” smashing the artist’s previous auction record. In 2022, the Glenstone Foundation had $4.4 billion in net assets, including the couple’s recent donation to the museum of $1.9 billion. At those sums, it’s logical for hourly employees to wonder why their demands for benefits such as health care received resistance.

John Russo, a visiting research professor at Georgetown University focused on labor, has an idea.

“He’s gonna lose power and decision-making,” Russo says. “It’s going to be more jointly made. … These are people with great power, and they don’t want their power diluted.” 

In the week after employees announced their intent to unionize, the museum filed a statement of position with the NLRB, which kicked off discussions between the museum’s leadership—Senior Director of Collections Nora Cafritz and Senior Director of Operations and Planning Martin Lotz, represented by attorneys from the firm Proskauer Rose—and a lawyer for the Teamsters Local 639. 

Proskauer Rose has represented various New York City museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Tenement Museum, and the New Museum, all of which now have unionized staff—a growing trend at museums across the country. Recently formed museum staff unions include those at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum, the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In 2019, a viral Google spreadsheet allowed workers in the arts to post their salaries in order to compare with those of museum officials. In many cases, the differences were stark. 

“[Glenstone is] part of a growing trend,” says Kathy Newman, an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University and the associate editor for arts and labor for the journal Labor. “I think this generation is saying, ‘If I’m not going to be able to take care of myself, I’m not interested in what you have to offer.’ And I really think it’s quite refreshing.” 

Charlie Tirey was a contract worker at the Minneapolis Institute of Art before he was laid off by the museum during COVID lockdowns in 2020. In April of that year, Tirey started working with the Office and Professional Employees International Union to help fold contract workers into an existing union at MIA. He and his peers went through a process similar to what’s been happening at the Glenstone; MIA declined to voluntarily recognize their union membership, and the contract workers voted unanimously to unionize in April of 2022.

“I hope that [at] Glenstone, the staff that are unionizing are having conversations about who can step up to lead,” Tirey says. “I think always planning for the next step is the right way to go about it.” 

Although Glenstone staff’s unionization effort has been successful, the work is far from over. Next the union must form a bargaining committee and draft a contract. Shaw says she wants all members of the new union—including those who voted against unionization efforts—to take a survey on what they feel is important. The goal of the survey is to gauge whether staff are in agreement over their demands.

For her part, Shaw feels lucky to work at Glenstone. “But I also care enough to want more for my colleagues,” she says. “I hope this win helps to foster a culture of mutual appreciation and respect that can serve as a foundation for a strong first contract.”

This story has been updated to include the number of collective bargaining members, Martin Lotz’s title, and with comment from Paul Tukey.

City Lights welcomes you to Pride Month. As per usual you’ll find our regularly scheduled event previews below, but if you’re looking for something a little—or a lot—more queer, check out Blvck Hippie below along with the first half of City Paper’s 2024 Pride Guide. For parade and festival lovers, this is the weekend. You can get all the details for Capital Pride at capitalpride.org.

Friday: Historically Speaking: Alice Randall, My Black Country at NMAAHC

This year has seen a surge in conversation about the various states of Black country music due, in part, to Beyoncé’s showstopping Cowboy Carter album and Shaboozey’s country chart-topper “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” (The Woodbridge native is also featured on Cowboy Carter.) My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future, a new book by professor, songwriter, and author Alice Randall, continues the conversation on the page. In My Black Country, Randall explores the contributions of Black musicians and songwriters to the genre, as well as her own distinct role in this musical and political history: Randall became the first Black woman to cowrite a No. 1 country hit, Trisha Yearwood’s 1995 song “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl).” Randall is both scholar and subject, making for a unique perspective that’s rooted in her work and lived experience. The book centers on the radical joy of recognizing the power of Black influence and creativity on American culture. Alice Randall talks at 7 p.m. on June 7 at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, 1400 Constitution Ave. NW. nmaahc.si.edu. Free. —Serena Zets 

Saturday: Blvck Hippie at Quarry House Tavern

When he was working on The Godfather, producer Robert Evans said he wanted the audience to be so deeply immersed in Italian American culture they could “smell the spaghetti.” Blvck Hippie offer a comparable degree of immersion into indie DIY culture, so much so that, after listening to a few tracks of their 2021 debut LP, If You Feel Alone At Parties, you’ll swear you can smell the warm PBR and stale menthols. This album is not at all concerned with seeming aloof or cool. It’s at times borderline unnerving, like a mental health crisis on a public bus, with desperation bleeding through the cracks in lead singer and creative mastermind Josh Shaw’s voice. But there’s always a purpose, something Shaw is reaching for—and if they don’t quite get there on that track, maybe the futility was the point. The Memphis band’s official mission statement is “tryna show Black kids they can be weird too,” and they pursue this laudable goal with a version of drama kid energy that feels like it’s actually been allowed to grow up on its own terms. Shaw credits Kid Cudi with inspiring them to push their music creatively. “There was this Black dude making a grunge album, playing all the instruments, and being super vulnerable about men’s mental health,” Shaw said in a 2023 interview with Alternative Press. “I want to be everything that Kid Cudi was for me as a kid.” Cudi-inspired iconoclasm combined with a love of Julian Casablancas’ songwriting helps make every Blvck Hippie song feel like a diary entry. The band’s sound has already been compared to everything from Blood Orange to the Violent Femmes, but it’s still evolving. Their new album, Basketball Camp, out June 14, plays like a scaled-up sequel to Parties, a psychological epic that has scope and emotional range rivaling that of Cudi’s Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven. “For so many years I believed nothing gets better,” Shaw says in a spoken-word section of “Try To Stay Lucky,” Basketball Camp’s final track. “I had no idea I could be doing things that, like, actually made me happy.” Blvck Hippie play at 10:30 p.m. on June 8 at Quarry House Tavern, 8401 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring. quarryhousetavern.com. $19.84. —Will Lennon

June 9: Gary Clark Jr. at Wolf Trap

Once a child prodigy playing guitar in the same Texas clubs where Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan got their start, Gary Clark Jr. spent the last year of his 30s in pandemic lockdown, seeing his world change in radical ways from the Black Lives Matter protests across the country to the insurrection at the Capitol. During that time he worked on his latest album, JPEG RAW, which was finally released on March 22 of this year. As on his previous album, 2019’s This Land, on JPEG RAW Clark confronts some societal ills head-on, but the call to action on the aggressive opener “Maktub” (Arabic for “destiny”) is deeply personal—offering a way to heal in these troubled times by embracing art and rocking out. On JPEG RAW, the Austin native has eased into a wide-ranging style, riffing on sounds from across the American musical continuum with a bevy of guest artists including jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, Appalachian roots artist Valerie June, and Australian alt-pop singer-songwriter Naala. George Clinton appears on “Funk Witch U,” a number that has a deep Prince-like psychedelic swoon, while Stevie Wonder takes the lead on the 1970s-inspired “What About the Children.” The diverse influences and inspirations show that this guitar god is shattering genre conventions and expanding sonically into new territories. In 2019, Clark played a sold-out show at the Anthem, and it was an unforgettable performance. Emerging from a backdrop of smoke and fog, his fire engine red Epiphone Casino slung low on his hip and donning a large suede hat, he opened with his signature song “Bright Lights,” the Texas blues-rock burner that brought him international fame at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads show a decade before. Clark demonstrated an indelible coolness as he commanded the stage with his virtuosic and prodigious playing: Expect nothing less when he plays in support of JPEG RAW this weekend. Gary Clark Jr. plays at 8 p.m. on June 9 at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center, 1551 Wolf Trap Rd., Vienna. wolftrap.org. $45–$109. —Colleen Kennedy

Tuesday: Sheppard at DC9

If summery optimism can be packaged in musical form, Australian indie-pop trio Sheppard have managed to do just that with their latest release, Zora. The writing of this album from this sibling band, however, was done at probably the least optimistic time ever: the pandemic. “We were trying to cheer ourselves up with this album,” lead singer George Sheppard tells City Paper. “We were writing it during COVID. We spent that entire year going, ‘Alright, we’re going to own this. We’re gonna sit there and write and record a song every single month.’ It was a huge challenge for us.” The challenge paid off and Sheppard—which includes George’s sisters Amy and Emma Sheppard—will make that clear on their current tour, which stops at DC9 on June 11. The trio recently relocated from Brisbane to Nashville, but family continues to play a huge part in their work. Zora’s idealistic feeling can be credited to the siblings’ grandmother Zora. “We constantly had her in our thoughts because she’s been through some of the biggest challenges that I could imagine any human going through. She was shipped away from her home [in Croatia] at 18 years old because of a war-torn country. She had seven children with the love of her life, who then passed away from lung cancer when he was 50, leaving her to raise those kids on her own. So she’s been through a lot and at the end of the day, she’s still the happiest person we know…. We wanted to sort of capture that in an album … knowing that there’s always going to be a new dawn.” The 86-year old Zora is also known to get down at Sheppard shows. “She actually pushes the fans to the side,” says bassist Emma. “She’s always at the front in the mosh pit. She loves it and she just sits there crying… Big fans of us know who she is so they allow her to come in and they look after her in the crowd.” Sheppard play at 8 p.m. on June 11 at DC9, 1940 9th St. NW. dc9.club. $15–$55. —Christina Smart

Ongoing: It Was Only a Dream exhibition at Hamiltonian Artists

You’ll hardly see a face stepping through Edgar Reyes’ autobiographical walk-through and mixed-media exhibit, located a block away from the U Street Metro station. The Baltimore-based multimedia artist and educator takes attendees through the patched recollection of growing up Chicano in the Washington D.C., area, where he emigrated from Guadalajara, Mexico, at age 5 and had to assimilate to American culture. The memories of his own family and their Mexican and Indigenous roots have blurred over the years, which Reyes attempts to piece together through this 14-piece installation. The puzzle starts at the exhibit’s entrance, where a single 1980 Chevy Silverado rearview mirror hangs on the walls, depicting the blurry landscape that Reyes recalls walking away from when he left Mexico. “That’s the saddest part,” Reyes says. “It’s leaving, saying goodbye.” The memories he’s procured—displayed through an array of prints, woven blankets, sculptures, and Catholic scapulars—are hard to fully contextualize at first glance, but the storyline is tied together the details. On a digitally woven baby blanket, Reyes unites prints that recall cultural aspects of his Chicano identity, including Catholic crosses, red roses, and Mesoamerican Indigenous graphics. Reyes also displays abstract images inspired by archived family photos, where many of the relatives found in these pictures are either too distant to immediately recall or have since died. In some photos, the eyes of cousins and uncles are hidden behind sunglasses or turned to their side. But they are photographed on family farms, hoisting shrines of the Virgen de Guadalupe on their shoulders as a group and taking part in the culture Reyes feels nostalgic for. There are also memories he attempts to recreate through AI-generated images within wooden light boxes. These works raise larger questions, such as the role of masculinity and criminality within Chicano culture, Mexican American beauty standards, and assimilation. It Was Only a Dream: New Works by Edgar Reyes runs through June 22 at Hamiltonian Artists, 1353 U St. NW. An artist-led walkthrough starts at 3 p.m. on June 8. Thursday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and by appointment. hamiltonianartists.org. Free. —Heidi Perez-Moreno

Opens Friday; With a Wine and Chocolate Party Saturday: Ennio at AFI Silver

After graduating from Rome’s Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia with a degree in composition, Ennio Morricone found himself in a condition familiar to many of those who study the creative arts: educated, talented, and broke. He took odd jobs playing trumpet on the street and writing music for comedy shows to make ends meet. When he agreed to perform one such piece of gig-work miscellanea, writing a score for a movie, he had no idea he was about to become an icon of 20th-century pop culture—as evidenced by his choice to be credited under a fake name. After hearing Morricone’s early film work, the Italian director Sergio Leone sought the composer out and introduced him to the films of Akira Kurosawa. The result was the first Leone-Morricone collaboration, a sun-bleached 1964 remake of Kurosawa’s 1961 film, Yojimbo, called A Fistful of Dollars. The operatic style Morricone brought to the score has been copied and riffed off so frequently that it now seems cliche. For the time, it was revolutionary. As Morricone kept working with Leone throughout his trilogy of Dollars-westerns, he became one of the most beloved (and prolific) musicians in pop culture, going on to work with Terrence Malick, Gillo Pontecorvo, Brian De Palma, and John Carpenter. Although Morricone’s work in film sometimes earned him scorn from his contemporaries, other creatives such as composer John Zorn have claimed his music belongs in the same category as J.S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven. Morricone, who died in July 2020, did one of his final scores at age 87 for 2015’s The Hateful Eight. By then his work had been sampled by The Simpsons, The Sopranos, the Ramones, and Metallica. Although he preferred to think of himself as a European composer rather than a Hollywood hired gun (Morricone never made the move to California and always mixed his concert pieces along with his film scores when he presented them live), he eventually came to see his work in film as something other than a way to pay bills. “At first I thought that music applied to cinema was humiliating,” Morricone says in the interview that anchors Ennio, Giuseppe Tornatore‘s new documentary exploring roughly 35 of the 500-plus films he worked on in his six-decade career. “Then, little by little, no.” Ennio opens April 19, but Saturday ticket-holders for the 2 and 5 p.m. screenings are invited to enjoy a wine and chocolate reception presented between showings by the Italian Cultural Society of Washington D.C. at 4 p.m. on April 20 at AFI Silver, 8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring. silver.afi.com. $8–$13. —Will Lennon

Saturday: Being in a Place—Special Screenings at National Gallery of Art

It may be odd to recommend a film or a series based on a venue but if you’ve ever attended a screening at the National Gallery of Art, particularly one without any previous knowledge of the film, you’ll understand why we’re recommending this. Being in a Place is a 2022, 60-minute documentary about Margaret Tait, a Scottish filmmaker who lived from 1918 to 1999 and didn’t get her flowers until the 2000s. The experimental director is still unknown to most and films like this attempt to shine a light on her work. These types of screenings are a great way to expose more people to more artists but what makes it even better is filmmaker Luke Fowler will be present for a post-watching conversation. Whether you like or loathe what you see, you can interrogate the creator. Another reason NGA programming is so excellent? The shorts screened before the main attraction. Saturday’s event features another work of Fowler, his newest from 2023, 9-minute short N’Importe Quoi (for Brunhild) about German composer Brunhild Ferrari. You’re not going to see anything like this even at AFI Silver or Alamo Drafthouse. You’re also not going to find a better price. With a barrier to entry so low, it’s criminal to pass up expanding your film knowledge at programs like this. Being in a Place screens at 2 p.m. on April 20 at the National Gallery of Art, 6th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. nga.gov. Free. —Brandon Wetherbee

Ongoing: Creating in Abstraction at Gallery B

Through April 27, Morton Fine Art brings a pop-up exhibit of contemporary art to Bethesda’s Gallery B, a public gallery managed by Bethesda Urban Partnership. Titled Creating in Abstraction: A Pop-up Project Group Exhibition of 11 Global Contemporary Artists, the exhibit is part of Morton Fine Art’s trademarked *a pop-up project, which since 2010 has served as what the website describes as a “mobile gallery component which hosts temporary curated exhibitions nationally.” While the artwork is for sale, admission is free and open to the public. Present at the opening reception was founder Amy Morton, who notes that this show is her gallery’s first return to the Bethesda space since COVID. Her enthusiasm for art is contagious, evidenced by the tirelessness with which she spoke with guests about the pieces on display. That spirit of accessibility and joy permeates the exhibit, making it worth a visit even by those unfamiliar with—or unsure about—contemporary art. There’s enough on display to interest and engage without overwhelming. The 25 pieces on view range widely in style and media, from a sculpture and graphite drawings by Nigerian-born Osi Audu to Jaz Graf’s Sutra series, delicate wall-hangings woven from paper, cloth, and the remnants of Theravada Buddhist nuns’ robes. Highlights of Creating in Abstraction include Katherine Tzu–Lan Mann’s richly colored, geometric yet naturalistic “Ewer” and “Palm Summit,” as well as Rosemary Feit Covey’s textured, layered snapshots of the natural world, particularly “Moths – Broken Flight.” Creating in Abstraction runs through April 27 at Gallery B, 7700 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. Thursday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. mortonfineart.com. Free. —Allison R. Shely 

Ongoing: Maureen Minehan at Multiple Exposures Gallery

Keep your expectations in check when visiting Maureen Minehan’s exhibit at Multiple Exposures Gallery. Her images include a bevy of lovely landscapes, but don’t expect them to comprise a deep dive into a specific place. At least she’s honest about that: The exhibit’s title, There and Back, refers to what Minehan calls the “familiar terrain” that “escapes notice” as vacationers drive between the Washington area and the Delaware and Maryland shore. To create her works, Minehan takes photographs, then digitally blends them with watercolors she paints, providing a layer of texture. Despite her consistent technique, the images vary in their look, sometimes dramatically. Some images she made at the destination—at the meeting of ocean and sand—look more like pastel-hued paintings than photographs. Others have the rough look of Polaroid transfer prints, including a high-contrast image of railroad tracks alongside a receding line of telephone poles. Others capture an enveloping fog that turns buildings and trees into near apparitions. However, it’s with a series of isolated buildings that Minehan’s modifications prove most memorable. In several images, she captures structures seemingly bathed in sharp sunlight, even as their surroundings exude a gloomy darkness; in one, an asymmetrical, off-white building provides added intrigue from its eccentric geometry. With such images, we may not be lingering very long, but at least we have been presented with a glimpse of something worthwhile. Maureen Minehan’s There and Back runs through May 19 at Multiple Exposures Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, 105 N. Union St., Alexandria. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. multipleexposuresgallery.com. Free. —Louis Jacobson

Next Thursday: Oneohtrix Point Never at Howard Theatre

There may not seem to be much overlap between the detached coolness of the Weeknd and the frenetic anxiety of the Safdie brothers’ films, but one exists, and his name is Daniel Lopatin. Lopatin, who performs and creates under the moniker Oneohtrix Point Never (OPN), constructs sample-heavy, synthesizer-forward compositions that conjure a sense of tuneful existential dread. For anyone who was able to withstand the excruciating Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie “comedy” The Curse on Showtime, Lopatin helped make the viewing experience that much more uncomfortable thanks to his (and John Medeski) pins and needles–inducing score. On the other end of the spectrum, Lopatin also had a hand in producing the Weeknd’s 2020 hit album, After Hours, and was the musical director for the superstar’s 2021 halftime show, making the country’s biggest stage a bit more bizarre in the process. Outside of his collaborations, Lopatin has been regularly producing some of the most singular electronic music made today and comes to the Howard Theater to promote OPN’s 2023 album, Again. Oneohtrix Point Never play at 8 p.m. on April 25 at Howard Theatre, 620 T St. NW. thehowardtheatre.com. $35–$55. —Matt Siblo

Opens Friday: Mindplay at Arena Stage

“You can do terrible things with this,” Vinny DePonto shares about his skills as a mentalist. “Or you can make people feel less alone in their own heads, a sort of collective catharsis. That’s what the show is an attempt to do.” We are discussing Mindplay, which takes Arena Stage following rave reviews from the production’s run at Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. In our interview DePonto repeatedly says he doesn’t want to give too much away when he’s pressed for specific questions about the show. A mentalist never gives away his tricks, fair enough. But he’s personable, soft-spoken, and charming, all seen in various clips of his mind reading available online. Mindplay is partially autobiographical: DePonto shares how he inherited a magic kit from his paternal grandfather who passed away when his father was still young, how he learned more about his grandfather through the process and enjoyed performing illusions to entertain his family, and how he delved into the psychology of the mind and memory during his maternal grandfather’s battle with dementia. DePonto, who studied theater and psychology, has found a suitably unique way of intertwining the two (he’s also been an illusion consultant for the recent Angels in America revival on Broadway). It’s no surprise really that he thinks a little bit of everyday magic is important for the psyche. “Mysteries help us to expand ourselves, our minds and our souls,” DePonto says. “We live in an age of certainty when we have every answer at our fingertips. I’m proposing that we carve out more ways that we can stumble into wonder and mystery.” One way to approach Mindplay is not as a one-man show, but as a two-hander with each audience member becoming an integral player. He admits that a mind reader without a participatory audience is just speaking questions and commands from a stage. (Even over the phone, he offers to perform a small feat of mind control by coaxing my fingertips to slowly converge as he repeatedly suggests invisible threads pulling them together.) Unlike a comedic hypnotist, he promises not to embarrass participants by snapping his fingers and turning anyone into a clucking chicken, but rather to meaningfully engage with audience members, developing an easy rapport and suspending disbelief, sharing some of his own stories of wonder and connection, reminding us of the forgotten senses of awe and curiosity, and together creating a bit of magic. Mindplay opens Jan. 19 and runs through March 3 at Arena Stage, 1101 6th St. SW. arenastage.org. $41–$95. —Colleen Kennedy

Saturday: Making Memories: A Journey Through Dementia at Dance Place

Music, dance, and memory are somehow tied together. Harvard recommends dancing for reducing dementia risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that dancing improves brain health. And who could forget the viral video of an elderly woman with memory loss hearing the Swan Lake score and dancing the choreography once more from her chair? Choreographer Mark Tomasic, whose mother has Alzheimer’s disease, created “Proof” to stir his mother’s memory, the way Swan Lake stirred the former ballerina. The choreography in “Proof” tracks his parents’ courtship, focusing on a day Tomasic’s father, a pilot, took her up in a plane. “He reenacted some of those moments and a movement structure that he recalled alongside her,” says Mary Verdi–Fletcher, president and founding artistic director of the Dancing Wheels Company. “Proof” is part of the company’s upcoming program at Dance Place called Making Memories: A Journey Through Dementia, which also includes a second Tomasic piece, “Three 4 Ann.” To build the program, Verdi-Fletcher wanted to weave in the stories of people like Tomasic who care for loved ones with Alzheimer’s and dementia. So they pulled together a community group in Cleveland, Ohio—where Dancing Wheels is based—of families, health providers, and community volunteers. “We created video montages with interviews from these families and the caregivers and medical staff,” says Verdi-Fletcher. “We created classes to work with both the family members and patients together.” The dances and the stories will be presented alongside one another and the show will also include a live testimonial from choreographers, resources from local D.C. and national memory care organizations, and a postshow talk with memory care professionals. Making Memories: A Journey Through Dementia starts at 4 p.m. on Jan. 20 at Dance Place, 3225 8th St. NE. danceplace.com. $10–$30. —Mary Scott Manning

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday: Cowboy Bebop at AFI

Pop culture works in mysterious ways. For instance, the Cowboy Bebop TV series was initially green-lit to make a quick buck off the space opera renaissance that was supposed to accompany the release of The Phantom Menace in the late ’90s. But instead of ending up in the bargain bin of history with all the other Star Wars knock offs, Bebop ended up doing more to influence the future of sci-fi and action than George Lucas’ whole prequel trilogy. (If you said “what about Clone Wars?” after reading the previous sentence, you need to rethink your media diet and life choices.) Created by anime legend Shinichiro Watanabe, Bebop is a galaxy-spanning adventure story featuring space battles, superweapons, and the one element that almost all sci-fi, even really good sci-fi, lacks: a sense of effortless cool, infused into the show via Watanabe’s love of noir, westerns, and, as the title promises, jazz. The plot of the Cowboy Bebop movie, which was released in 2001 and takes place between episodes 22 and 23 of the show, finds bounty hunters Spike and Jet looking for a job that will expand their diets beyond a daily wet-feeding of cup of ramen. In pursuit of their new bounty, they and their fellow passengers on the spacecraft Bebop (Faye Valentine, their sometimes-accomplice, and technology expert Edward) end up tangled in a bloody dispute between a pharmaceutical company and an ex-military bioterrorist. From there, the story plays out pretty much how you’d expect … But you don’t watch Cowboy Bebop for the story. You watch it for the action, for the vibes, for the gorgeous ship designs from Kimitoshi Yamane. You watch it for futuristic cities, where Blade Runner skylines loom over Taxi Driver alleys that give way to Raiders of the Lost Arc bazaars. Above all, you watch it for the interplay between the animation and the music, untouched to this day by imitators destined to clog the bargain bins of history while our titular space cowboy flies off into the sunset. Cowboy Bebop plays at 4:45 p.m. on Jan. 21, 7 p.m. on Jan. 22, and 9:15 p.m. on Jan. 23 at AFI Silver, 8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring. silver.afi.com. $8–$13. —Will Lennon

Tuesday: Hotline TNT at the 9:30 Club

One of the biggest disappointments of last year’s Riot Fest was the last-minute cancellation of New York’s Hotline TNT due to a rain delay. The band’s 2023 album, Cartwheel, was one of the best indie rock records of the year and I was desperate to hear how its distorted melodies would soar above a festival crowd. And while there’s no shortage of bands currently mining ’90s alternative rock for inspiration, Hotline TNT’s take—a little My Bloody Valentine, a dash of Midwestern emo—coheres into an immediately infectious whole, giving Cartwheel the feel of an album that could get stuck in your car’s six-disc CD changer and you’d be glad it did. One of the songs I have my fingers crossed for the band to play when they open for Wednesday on Tuesday at the 9:30 Club is “Out of Town,” which takes the syrupy jangle of the Lemonheads and runs it through J Mascis’ Marshall stacks to create two minutes of pure, fuzzed-out bliss. Hotline TNT, opening for Wednesday, play at 8 p.m. on Jan. 23 at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. 930.com. Sold out. —Matt Siblo

Wednesday: Oliver Tree at The Anthem

Oliver Tree is living his best life. Leading into the North American leg of the musician’s Alone in a Crowd world tour, named for the album he dropped in September, he played a DJ set aboard a luxury vessel navigating Antarctica and scaled the Great Wall of China. In some ways, such feats are tame compared to his usual antics riding the world’s biggest scooter or wrestling Bobby Lee on the comedian’s podcast—whatever it takes to go viral. Tree seems to acknowledge the monster he’s created on the self-aware, acoustic-turned-synth-pop track “Strangers.” There he bemoans: “I turned into what I hated/ But I can’t escape my own fate/ In the mirror I’m betrayed, when I am staring at my own face/ It’s hard to believe, the more friends you have the better/ It’s never what it seems, I feel more alone than ever.” Tree’s artistic endeavors have given rise to a Cerberus comprised of three eccentric, often volatile personas, one for each of his albums: scooter boy Turbo, cowboy Shawney Bravo, and now fashion designer Cornelius Cummings. Each will be on display at Tree’s performance, which he’s described as a cross between a movie, TV show, concert and play complete with wrestling, standup, motivational speaking and, yes, scooter stunts. Rather than making a scene, Tree is aiming for a spectacle and showing another side to himself in the process. Alone in a Crowd includes a love song, “Essence”, a rarity for the artist with funk elements that hints at a new creative wellspring. Only time will tell what fresh persona emerges from the ether. Oliver Tree plays at 8 p.m. on Jan. 24 at The Anthem, 901 Wharf St. SW. theanthemdc.com. $45–$85. —Dave Nyczepir

Friday through Sunday: MEN ARE ANIMALS at 11:Eleven 

There’s no doubt that art can be sexy, but most galleries don’t come with an “adults only” warning. Not so for MEN ARE ANIMALS, a pop-up event taking place at 11:Eleven gallery this weekend that’s exclusively for viewers over the age of 18. Curator Joshua Cook selected a mix of queer DMV and national artists, some of whom he’s worked with at erotic art-making events. Though there’s plenty of work from a queer or sexual lens, the focus is on the theme of the exhibit’s title. If humans are mere animals, are they carnal or innocent, domesticated or wild, more in touch with the world or oblivious to it? Some highlights include a rabbit-infused photo series from Maryland-based boudoir photographer Ronjhay Bowser, skeletal “bone men” mixed-media pieces from D.C. artist Aiden Paddlety, photographer Jeanette Spicer’s photographs that explore the lesbian gaze, and inventive sculptures and custom jewelry by Kayla Rodriguez. Most works are for sale, and interested buyers can DM @men.are.animals on Instagram to come to a collector’s preview Friday night from 4 to 6 p.m.; an opening reception, open to the public, follows. Saturday evening (long after when galleries typically close up for the night) will be packed with sexy supplemental activities. A preview of the yet-to-be-completed documentary RIDE: A Queer Kink Adventure will be shown, created by artist Patrick McNaughton and following his journey through kink and fetish communities following the end of a long-term relationship. The film is seeking further funding and will explore the history of the kink and fetish scene, and challenge the preconceptions of who participates in those circles. Things will get even steamier when McNaughton’s erotic art organization dandyland.art demonstrates some live nude body painting, and clothing pop-up Blame Daddy will have some slightly naughty looks for sale. MEN ARE ANIMALS runs Jan. 12, from 6-8 p.m.; Jan. 13 from noon to 9 p.m.; and Jan. 14 from noon to 5 p.m. at 11:Eleven gallery, 10 Florida Ave. NW. menareanimals.gallery. Free. —Stephanie Rudig

Saturday: Okan at the Kennedy Center

Okan is a Toronto-based band founded by violinist Elizabeth Rodriguez and percussionist and vocalist Magdelys Savigne. The duo incorporate a range of styles from the Caribbean and around the world, including classical, jazz, samba, and traditional Cuban music, which itself blends styles from Africa and Spain. The focus on Cuban music is especially important to Okan—both Rodriguez and Savigne are originally from Cuba. In fact, Rodriguez was the Havana Youth Orchestra’s concertmaster(!) before relocating to Canada for political reasons. “Every Cuban is running away from a dictatorship,” said Rodriguez in an interview with the Edmonton Journal. “When you get the opportunity to go to another country you take it… Feeling free is priceless.” (In a later interview with Afropop Worldwide in September, Rodriguez noted that life in Canada isn’t perfect either: “People come here with degrees and become cab drivers.”) Although spreading the gospel of traditional Cuban music is core to the group’s mission, fusing Cuban rhythms and styles with others is what makes their sound unique. Okan recently collaborated with Colombian Canadian singer Lido Pimienta, and their most recent album, OKANTOMI, may be their most eclectic yet, featuring a Vietnamese flutist and “futuristic Afro-Cuban” energy. The band’s name, which means “heart” in Santeria, is fitting for a number of reasons: One, not unlike Okan, Santeria blends traditions from Africa, the Caribbean, and the West. Two, soon after Savigne and Rodriguez met in Canada as part of another project, they decided not only to form a band together, but to get married. “Okan” describes both the band’s roots and the relationship at its center. “We get to experience a life where we can share so many cool things that are happening to us as individuals, as human beings,” Rodriguez told Afropop Worldwide. “We’re both sharing that stage and the music.” Okan play at 6 p.m. on Jan. 13 at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. kennedy-center.org. Free, but tickets are currently sold out. —Will Lennon

Ends Sunday: How to Be a Korean Woman at Theater J

Finishing its two-week run this weekend, How to Be a Korean Woman is the final entry in the Here I Am series, a “triptych” of solo shows focused on identity staged by Theater J at the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center. Written and performed by the Twin Cities-based Sun Mee Chomet, with direction by Zaraawar Mistry, How to Be a Korean Woman is an autobiographical story of one American adoptee’s reunion with her Korean birth family. Well-received by audiences across the U.S. and in Korea, Theater J’s production is the one-woman show’s East Coast regional premiere. Chomet is quoted in the program as saying, “I have always been grateful that my father was Jewish…There are so many parallels in the Jewish-American and Korean-American experiences of family history and loss and survival.” Chomet also says that while the show explores her own story and “the internal life of what so many adoptees hold inside,” it is fundamentally and “universally about every person’s desire to be whole.” Running 85 minutes with no intermission, remaining shows including evening performances, a Friday and Sunday matinee (which is open-captioned). How to Be a Korean Woman runs through Jan. 14 at Theater J, 1529 16th St. NW. theaterj.org. $49.99–$90.99. —Allison R. Shely

Wednesday: Cure at Alamo Drafthouse

“Who are you?” You might answer by describing your job. Maybe you state your gender or nationality. But who are you beneath that? And beneath that? What are you covering up with this LinkedIn-compatible facade you call a life? Why? Try it again. “Who are you?” In the hands of Mamiya, the amnesiac drifter at the center of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1997 film, Cure, this seemingly innocuous question is as lethal as the deadliest virus. Cure would play like a relatively straightforward cat-and-mouse murder mystery if it weren’t for the fact that Mamiya never actually kills anyone. He simply asks questions, peels off layers, and finds the shuddering brutality hidden beneath the skins of his victims turned perpetrators. Then they do the killing for themselves. Whether Mamiya is supernatural or using some psychological trick lifted from the notebooks of Anton Mesmer isn’t clear. The cop charged with putting a stop to the strange rampage is Detective Kenichi Takabe. In a subversion of the standard hard-boiled detective trope, Takabe isn’t a particularly resilient investigator, and he certainly isn’t immune to Mamiya’s mind games. As he closes in on his target, he’s also getting closer to something inside himself that he doesn’t want to face. Cure is hard to classify. Because of its setting and tone, it’s often categorized alongside acclaimed Japanese horror movies of the day like Ringu (1998) and Audition (1999). It’s also a keystone in the filmography of a director best known for horror. Kurosawa (no relation to Akira or Rashomon fame) would go on to make J-horror classic Pulse, and has been hailed by some as Japan’s equivalent to Canada’s David Cronenberg. Still, Cure isn’t really a horror movie. It’s technically a detective story … But it’s not a mystery, since there’s no question of who’s doing the killing. Instead, the question is “what drives us to kill?” Or, as Mamiya might put it: “Who are you?” Cure screens at 8 p.m. on Jan. 17 at Alamo Drafthouse, 630 Rhode Island Ave. NE. drafthouse.com. $11. —Will Lennon

Remember the young woman who went viral for posting about her “unpaid internship” in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office? It turns out she wasn’t the only one who experienced poor communication and confusion in the program that otherwise provided good work experience.

“I’m not sharing this so that people feel sorry for me,” Maisie Cook said in her Aug. 20, 2021, Twitter thread. “I’m sharing this to call out workplaces for mistreating their interns and not fairly compensating them for their hard work.”

Her account of poor communication and conflicting information about the remunerative status of the internship program spurred significant interest, as well as two Advisory Neighborhood Commission resolutions on the subject. The resolutions criticized internships offered across local agencies and called for all D.C. government interns to be paid.

According to Cook’s thread, she landed what was billed as an unpaid internship in the mayor’s office through the Leadership, Engagement, Achievement and Development, or LEAD program, which targeted college students and recent college graduates. Each intern hired through the program would be assigned to a department in the mayor’s office and work between 20 and 35 hours a week, according to the job posting.

Cook was assigned to Bowser’s Office of Communications, she said in her Twitter thread, but there were issues from the jump. She said she spent the first two days of the internship “calling and emailing several employees in the office of employment services and the comms office, since no one had contacted me since I was hired.” When she finally got in touch, the communications office told her they never received word that she had been hired. 

Still, Cook was allowed to move forward with the internship, which she generally described as a positive experience. As her last day approached, Cook learned that LEAD interns working in other departments had been paid for their work. 

Cook said she reached out to the internship coordinator to request payment. The coordinator replied saying that Cook had never reached out to confirm that she was staying in the program after her initial struggles to connect with the communications office, and that if she had wanted payment she should have asked for it at the beginning. According to Cook, she was locked out of her dc.gov email account by the time she wrote the Twitter thread, so she could not access or share the email exchange. 

But through a Freedom of Information Act request, City Paper obtained the emails that corroborate Cook’s story. In the messages, an internship coordinator named Booker Roary incorrectly claimed that the position description lists the LEAD internship as paid, and scolded Cook for requesting payment as the internship was about to end. “To wait until the day before the last day of the internship to reach out after we spoke with you stating that you will let me know if you will continue with the internship which you never did doesn’t help your case with you not getting paid,” Roary wrote.

Roary told Cook that “it states in the job description that this is a paid internship.” But multiple online postings for the fall 2021 LEAD internships note that “this is an unpaid internship.” In one of her replies, Cook acknowledged that during an orientation, Roary said he was “working on” getting the interns paid, but she says she never received any information after that. “I have gone through both my personal and work emails to see if I ever received anything regarding payment and I have found nothing,” she wrote to Roary in one of her email responses.

Cook posted again six days after her initial thread, saying she had finally been paid for her work. But her posts had already garnered thousands of likes and dozens of replies, and piqued local interest in the inner workings of the LEAD program.

“To have just one person walk away with not only a negative experience, but a negative perspective on what D.C. workers are valued at … is so disappointing to me,” says former ANC Amanda Farnan, who represented single-member district 1B11 when she was interviewed for this story. “It leads me to think, ‘What else is going wrong?’”

Cook is not the only person to have struggled with communication in the LEAD program. In interviews with City Paper, several past LEAD participants describe a confusing onboarding process and fuzzy policies regarding how and when interns would be paid.

Online postings for previous years also described the position as unpaid. A packet of documents provided to the summer 2021 cohort of LEAD interns (labeled “Fall 2017”) included an introduction that described LEAD as a “3 month non-paid internship.” 

Members of the summer 2021 cohort interviewed for this story say they were paid, too. A spokesperson from the Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments tells City Paper that the LEAD internship was listed as unpaid because “that’s just the way the postings were laid out.”

Listing an internship as unpaid can narrow the field of applicants, according to Carlos Mark Vera, cofounder of Pay Our Interns, a D.C.-based nonprofit that has worked with members of Congress to increase the number of offices on the Hill offering paid internships.

“You basically are already excluding 80 percent,” Vera says. “Interning in D.C. is not cheap. It’s one of the most expensive cities in the world. So when you’re listing it as unpaid, many people are saying, ‘Why bother applying if I won’t be able to afford to work for free?’”

Emails obtained in the FOIA request show that Cook and at least four other LEAD interns from the summer 2021 cohort contacted the internship coordinator about pay-related issues.

On July 7, one intern wrote that they had “not received any information concerning the pay schedule or when payments are expected to be administered.” They also described being “unsure of how our hours are supposed to be logged.”

Charles Thomason was assigned to the Mayor’s Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs as a member of the summer 2021 cohort. He believed he had applied for an unpaid internship, but he says he learned in a Zoom call with an internship coordinator that interns could get paid for their work via the Mayor Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program. 

Other LEAD interns say they, too, had been paid through MBSYEP, a program operated by the Department of Employment Services. The program overview describes MBSYEP as a “locally-funded initiative that provides District youth ages 14 to 24 with an enriching summer employment experience through subsidized placements in the public and private sectors.”

But when it came time to actually get paid, Thomason says he had to go to another DOES office to obtain a debit card, which is one of the methods DOES uses for paying participants in the MBSYEP program.

“The first time I went down there, I actually went into the unemployment office because it was a little bit unclear where to go,” Thomason says. “It was a little bit disorganized.”

A MOTA official confirms that some LEAD interns were paid through MBSYEP. To qualify for MBSYEP, participants must be District residents. According to a MBSYEP supervisor handbook for 2021, people between the ages of 16 and 21 were paid $9 per hour, and people between 22 and 24 received $15 per hour. (In summer 2022, Bowser announced that 22- to 24-year-olds were being bumped up to $16.10 an hour, and it appears wages have stayed the same.) Nonresidents do not get paid for their work as LEAD interns, though they might receive college credit, according to the MOTA spokesperson.

Several former LEAD interns shared stories similar to Cook’s about difficulty communicating with the internship coordinator’s office.

“That was a little wonky,” says Thomason. “They didn’t necessarily do a bad job. But communication with them was a little difficult … But then again with COVID, I know things were a little bit disorganized in general.”

The summer 2021 program is not representative of the LEAD program as a whole, according to MOTA, since it was the first attempt to relaunch the program after it was put on hold due to the pandemic.

“It’s an unfortunate comparison of this summer to anything else we’ve ever done,” the MOTA spokesperson says.

Christian Damiana participated in the LEAD program in the fall of 2019, working on D.C. statehood issues in the Mayor’s Office of Federal and Regional Affairs. Damiana was an American University student at the time and was not paid for his work, he says.

“I had an all right time getting placed,” Damiana recalls. “My first day I walked in the office, they knew I was coming. But a few days before, they didn’t. I’m not sure that they requested an intern. The communication as to who was getting an intern and when wasn’t there.” 

Interns from different cohorts experienced inconsistent follow-through in terms of communication.

Materials provided to the summer 2021 interns indicated that participants could expect to “gather once per week for a development session to learn and refine necessary government skills.” These “weekly development workshops” are also advertised on several postings for the LEAD program. 

“That never happened,” Thomason says. “From the intern perspective, it wasn’t a big deal … But yeah, if I was ruling the world, I’d have someone look that over. Because I think it’s like a missed opportunity.”

“I didn’t know any of the other interns,” Damiana says of his 2019 cohort. “They highlight career development, but the training, meetings, and career development never happened … A lot of the big parts of the internship that were highlighted never happened.” 

Summer 2021 career development workshops were curtailed because of COVID restrictions, according to the MOTA spokesperson. Although there were a couple of “face-to-face” gatherings near the end of the summer, most meetings were “just direct feedback between the intern and the person that she or he was assigned to.” 

The spokesperson says that they did not know why a member of the fall 2019 cohort would report not having any career development meetings. “It could have been that he or she missed them,” the spokesperson says. In response, Damiana says no one from MOTA communicated with him after he started interning at OFRA.

Terrell Brooks, a summer 2021 intern, says he attended weekly meetings as part of his internship, where he played icebreaker games with interns working in different departments and learned about goings-on in the community. In a departure from others in his cohort, Brooks describes communication with MOTA and the LEAD internship coordinator as “really clear.”

Aside from reports of garbled communication, participants describe positive work experiences in the program. Damiana says his experience prompted him to get involved in D.C. government, and he was later elected as an ANC representing single-member district 3D07, a position he no longer holds. Damiana was since hired as the communications director for Ward 3 Councilmember Matthew Frumin.

Several former interns point out that, though they had gripes with some aspects of the program, overall LEAD was a worthwhile experience. Interns describe taking on meaningful projects and receiving consistent support and guidance from employees in their departments.

“The overall goal of the LEAD internship program is to make sure that the person in the program understands how the government works,” says the MOTA spokesperson. “I think that’s the story we’ve been so proud of … the number of people who came in as an intern and haven’t left yet.” 

At least three members of the summer 2021 cohort went on to work as full-time staff members in the mayor’s office for at least some amount of time, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

“I learned a lot,” Damiana says. “But at the same time… we have a responsibility to make sure [students are] treated fairly. That’s an issue in D.C. as a whole. Am I going to get what I’ve been promised? Or, am I going to be getting coffee and getting doughnuts?” 

In the months after Cook’s viral thread, two ANCs approved resolutions regarding the treatment of interns in D.C. 

At the time the resolutions were written, Damiana’s ANC included American University and George Washington University’s Mount Vernon campus within its boundaries. (New boundaries took effect in January 2023.) Farnan’s ANC included Howard University. 

Farnan recalls working eight unpaid internships—including a gig at the United Nations—while studying at American. She worked at a gym on AU’s campus and picked up shifts as a waiter to support herself during college. 

“Of course looking back, I never would have changed what I did because the experience I had was so great,” Farnan said after her ANC adopted the resolution. “But more people in D.C.—as we see rent increasing and people getting back to work and in-person opportunities becoming available again—they should be paid… People should be compensated for their time.”

The resolution, which Farnan wrote, describes D.C. government internship postings as “hard to find at best and misleading at worst.” It also singles out the LEAD program, noting that though the program advertises itself as unpaid, “many previous interns report being paid for their work.” 

Farnan’s and Damiana’s resolutions also criticize policies surrounding internships offered by the D.C. Council, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Office of the Advisory Neighborhood Commissions. Both resolutions propose three recommendations: All D.C. government internships should have clear and transparent job postings; interns should be paid a reasonable wage (Farnan’s resolution calls for a “living wage” while Damiana’s calls for a “fair wage”); and agencies should conduct exit interviews with all D.C. government interns. 

“I think we need clarification around everything,” Farnan says.

Cook graduated from college in 2022 and has since been doing digital media work for political organizations. She still stands by her decision to take to social media and vent her frustrations with the LEAD program.

“Sharing my experience ultimately led to me receiving the compensation I’d earned, which I am grateful for,” Cook tells City Paper. “But my main reason for posting about it was to make others aware of the disorganization and unfair practices in the internship program and the mayor’s office as a whole.”

Like the noble art of skateboarding, the upcoming Leave It On the Board show is part exhibition, part competition. 

Twelve D.C.-area artists will vie for cash prizes by presenting their latest creations on a novel medium: the surface of a skateboard. The artist behind the best board will take home $1,000; another $1,000 goes to the best triptych installation (a foldable, three-paneled painting; the “panels” in this case will, naturally, be skateboards). Runners-up receive prizes too.

The event will also feature six noncompeting guest artists displaying their own art and photography. Honfleur Gallery, a 1,700-square-foot contemporary art exhibition space in Anacostia, is hosting. Officially, Leave It On the Board is being put on by the ARCH Development Corporation (a group dedicated to promoting local art in Anacostia), which has run the gallery since it opened in 2007.

The roster of 12 competing artists includes Austin Morris, a former Marine Corps data specialist who owns a fashion design and visual arts company; Cooper Joslin, a poet, journalist, and certified full-stack developer who moonlights as an artist; as well as Keiona Clark and Karla Rodas, two local working creatives crusading against the “starving artist” archetype. 

Local artist Elijah Prince found out about the competition through the gallery’s social media in April and entered, thinking it would be a good opportunity to meet other creatives from the area. Prince dabbled in skateboarding when he was younger, but is, in his own words, “not very good.” Still, he loves skate culture, and believes its ethos overlaps with the way he approaches art.

“Skateboarding is about uninhibited expression and dauntless freedom,” Prince tells City Paper. “I wanted to combine these ideals in a way that felt both open and powerful.”

Judges reviewed more than 200 submission before shaving the finalists down to the elite 12. Prince made the cut. 

“The competition was so fierce,” says Leave It On the Board curator Luis Del Valle. 

A giant in the D.C. art scene, Del Valle is known for his portraits of civil rights heroes—including Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Ida B. Wells—which evoke the same sense of reverence as his portraits of Catholic saints. Many of Del Valle’s paintings manage to look simultaneously like something decorating the wall of a trendy restaurant or an altar. His murals can be found across the DMV.

Del Valle began his formal development as an artist by studying Renaissance portraiture, but he soon came to incorporate influences from subversives like Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. 

A local for decades, Del Valle and his family arrived in D.C.and settled in Columbia Heights in 1985, after fleeing the Nicaraguan Contra War, enduring a monthslong journey to the U.S. border and surviving a stint in a Texas refugee camp. Unfortunately, they arrived just in time to witness the city’s crack epidemic. It was amid this chaotic environment that Del Valle started cultivating a love of tagging and graffiti, which steadily evolved into a broader love of art. 

Although he faced his share of difficulties growing up, Del Valle doesn’t self-mythologize. Instead, he sees the civil rights icons that feature heavily in his artwork as heroes who endured hardships he can hardly imagine. 

“When we hear leaders today complaining about how bad it is, I love to point out how the people who came before us had it so much worse,” says Del Valle. “Starting even with Frederick Douglass.” 

In 2019, Del Valle put on Out of Chaos, which paid tribute to the graffiti style that inspired him as a young artist. The exhibit featured his handiwork adorning street signs; today it seems Out of Chaos shares a bit of its creative DNA with Leave It On the Board. In both shows, Del Valle embraces less common mediums as alternatives to the more traditional canvas. 

More recently, in 2022, Del Valle curated a showcase of Latine creatives called Love, Hope, & Art: Woven Thread. Del Valle sees his art-making and curation as being in-conversation with each other rather than as separate vocations. He frequently displays his own art at shows he curates. (And he curates quite a few shows: He’s currently working on four, including Leave It On the Board.) “Mother of Darkness,” one of his most iconic portraits, featuring a woman in Dia de los Muertos-style makeup wearing a crown of colorful feathers and flowers, was on display at Love, Hope & Art. 

Del Valle has an endearing bias toward locally oriented art. For several years in the late 2000s, he did curation for the Saint John Paul II National Shrine, where he worked with pieces from the Catholic Church in Europe: It only made him more proud of his D.C. roots. “When I saw the quality of the collection that we had on loan from the Vatican … it showed me that local artists are creating just-as-good of works of art,” he recalls.

And although he has murals on display at Naval Criminal Investigative Service headquarters and at the Italian Consulate, ask him his favorite pieces and he’s quick to talk about work he’s done for local schools. Specifically: his mural of Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison at Garrison Elementary School, his mural of a march in Mount Pleasant at Bancroft Elementary, and his mural of civil rights and labor icons at Cardozo Educational Center. 

Although he lives in Anacostia, Del Valle stays connected to Columbia Heights by teaching classes and workshops at the Latin American Youth Center. The neighborhood has changed significantly since he lived there, and though the artist sees much of the change as for the better (he says there are far fewer drugs and gangs), he worries the locals and business owners who laid the foundation for the neighborhood’s success might be left behind as rents continue to climb. “I just want them to have the opportunity to enjoy the changes,” Del Valle says.

Growing up, Del Valle was never particularly interested in skateboarding. But he’s always loved the graffiti and tags associated with skate parks, and the way this art bridges the gap between skater and graffiti cultures. 

Skate parks themselves also make for unique canvases. 

“You have the loops, you have these curves,” says Del Valle. “And when you apply graffiti to those types of structures or those ramps, it really gives the graffiti an extra dimension.” 

It was Duane Gautier, Honfleur Gallery’s founder, who started the conversation about an exhibition on skateboard art. After seeing a show featuring board art at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last November, Gautier reached out to Del Valle about doing something similar in the District. 

“I was blown away by the idea that we could merge fine arts and skateboarding, in such a way that not only [opened] up what skateboarding culture is about to the culture that is involved in it, but also … to a fine arts audience,” says Del Valle. 

Bridging gaps is a recurring theme in Del Valle’s work and life. Murals of civil rights icons bridge gaps between a hard past and a hopeful future. Graffiti on road signs and skateboards bridges gaps between the street-level creativity of D.C. and so-called fine art.

As Del Valle concludes: “The most effective way to change the world is to learn about each other.” 

Leave It On the Board opens on Aug. 19 with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. and runs through Sept. 16 at Honfleur Gallery. honfleurgallerydc.com. Like executing a wicked grind at the Shaw skate park or tagging the side of the Columbia Heights Target, it’s totally free.

Tonight: Take 5: Jazz With Keith Butler Jr. at SAAM 

This monthly live jazz concert series takes place after hours in the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery’s iconic Kogod Courtyard, which is the perfect spot to catch your breath and enjoy some AC. The series’ next performance is July 20, featuring jazz musician Keith Butler Jr. Butler hails from Wilmington, North Carolina, and is a 2022 graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts’ music composition program. Now calling D.C. home, he’s a founding member of the music ensemble New World as well as part of the avant-jazz quartet ¡FIASCO! A rising star on D.C.’s rich music scene and a representative of jazz’s next generation, his happy hour performance is not to be missed—especially since it’s quite likely he’ll be playing much bigger venues soon. Butler is currently working on his second album. SAAM will also have board games out for attendees to play and refreshments for sale in the Courtyard Cafe to round out a perfect D.C. summer night. Keith Butler Jr. plays at 5 p.m. on July 20 in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 8th and G streets NW. si.edu. Free; registration is encouraged. —Serena Zets 

Friday and Saturday: Tee-Con at the Convention Center

Tee-Con, the ultimate T-shirt convention, returns to the Washington Convention Center this weekend with a busy schedule of live musical performances, graffiti classes, art demonstrations, DJ exhibitions, and much more. A unique and fully interactive two-day event for all ages, Tee-Con is a place where attendees can play video games, cosplay, learn to create customized apparel, and simply have fun! Created by Michelle “Noodles” Smith, a local artist, entrepreneur, and owner of the Cookie Wear clothing boutique, Smith has been in the fashion industry for more than 20 years. “This is our sixth year of Tee-Con at the convention center,” Smith says proudly. An educational experience for fashion, retail, and design, the convention has previously featured special guests including April Walker from Walker Wear, Carl Brown from FUBU, and Stuart “Izzy” Ezrailson from Commander Salamander and Up Against the Wall to, says Smith, “teach the business of building a clothing brand.” Smith has consistently provided opportunities to other local brands and small businesses, many of them owned by women and minorities. Special for this year, Tee-Con is celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop with an appearance by Andre Leroy Davis, the iconic illustrator and cartoonist from the Source magazine; the local Corinto Gallery will host an art and graffiti battle on Saturday. Smith is a true B-Girl—at the age of 54 she still writes rhymes and journals every day. Her next project is to publish a book about the hip-hop pioneers from the Nation’s Capital. “I feel there is a lack of awareness in the D.C. hip-hop community,” Smith says. “Our pioneers are getting older. My book will be a permanent fixture of history in Washington D.C.” Tee Con runs July 21, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and July 22, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., at the Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Pl. NW. teeconconvention.com. $10–$20. —Sidney Thomas

Tuesday: SciFi Book Club: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr at Solid State Books

When people make the case for “comics-as-art,” they always seem to trot out the same exhibits: Maus, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns. Classics, sure, but dusty. Including newer titles like The Many Deaths of Laila Starr would go a long way toward freshening up the roster. The five-issue series, which originally hit shelves in April of 2021, is now available compiled in graphic novel format. If every issue of Laila Starr is a hearty meal, this compilation is a visual feast. Its lush pinks, purples, and oranges illustrate a surreal journey from a land beyond the mortal clouds to the bustling streets of Mumbai. The imagery comes courtesy of Portuguese artist Filipe Andrade, who has previously worked with Marvel Comics and MTV Networks. Andrade’s designs are instantly attractive and engaging. The architecture, from glinting skyscrapers to rusting factories, is gorgeous, and cigarette smoke twists and curls like it has a mind of its own. Former Swamp Thing scribe Ram V. tells the story of suicide victim-turned-avatar for the God of Death Laila Starr as she hunts Darius Shah, who is destined to create a technology that could extend life spans indefinitely. If he is allowed to succeed, Starr’s corner office gig as a bigwig in the afterlife is history. Starr’s pursuit spans decades, and the series consists of vignettes (some funny, some sad, some moderately violent) that coalesce into a meditation on the relationship between life and death. In the story and art, you can see influences from Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga, Neil Gaiman, and the Matt Fraction and David Aja run of Hawkeye. Solid State Books’ Sci-Fi book club will be discussing The Many Deaths of Laila Starr at their July meeting; it’s a great opportunity to support a local bookshop and ponder your own mortality (a real chocolate and peanut butter tier combo) all in the same evening. The discussion starts at 7 p.m. on July 25 at Solid State Books, 600 H St. NE. solidstatebooksdc.com. Free. —Will Lennon

Ongoing: Parallel Crossroads of the Americas at Art Museum of the Americas

With an anthropological approach, the Art Museum of the Americas’ twinned exhibit of photographs by Joseane Daher of Brazil and Vicente Gonzalez Mimica of Chile strongly echoes Magdalena Correa’s photo exhibit of Latvia’s Suiti people in the museum’s sister location a few blocks away. Daher’s photographs offer a wider geographical lens, documenting a variety of indigenous and minority communities throughout Brazil, including the face-painting and dances of the Huni Kuin and the fiber harvesting and sporting competitions of the Xavante. Daher also experiments with metaphor in her “Rupture” series, in which she projects images from her documentary work onto cement columns that have crumbled due to mechanical stress tests, offering an objective correlative for the pressures facing Brazil’s indigenous peoples. Mimica’s project, meanwhile, is more focused. He reconnects with communities in Chile’s southern Tierra del Fuego region, where he grew up as a descendant of immigrants from Croatia. Mimica’s photographs are moody to the extreme; the skies over the sheep herds, isolated pubs, and grizzled gold miners are unrelentingly gray, suggesting the landscape of rural Scotland. Mimica’s finest images include an arrow-shaped arrangement of birds flying through the sky; the bumpy, highly tactile surface of open water; and a rephotograph of an antique image of a boy and a girl that is deteriorating artfully into a series of voids. All images by both artists have been shared with the museum digitally, then printed and adhered directly to the walls, minimizing the cost and ecological impact of framing, shipping, and insurance. Parallel Crossroads runs through Aug. 11 at the Art Museum of the Americas F Street Gallery, 1889 F St. NW. museum.oas.org. Free, but visits are by appointment only; contact fgoncalves@oas.org. —Louis Jacobson

Ongoing: Blue Dreams and Poets for Science at the National Academy of Sciences 

The National Academy of Sciences is hosting an immersive video installation billed as “inspired by the intricate workings of microbial networks in the deep sea and beyond.” These gallant microbes may be crucial to earth and life, but—like “Sea Ice Daily Drawings,” another gorgeously styled recent exhibit in the Academy’s curvilinear Upstairs Gallery—the scientific explanation leaves a lot to the imagination. Blue Dreams, the current exhibit, is an interdisciplinary collaboration involving Rika Anderson, Samantha (Mandy) Joye, Rebecca Rutstein, Shayn Peirce-Cottler, and Tom Skalak; it offers a looped video projected from floor to ceiling against the gallery’s semicircular wall. Visually, the work offers surreal shapes in shades of deep purple, red, and hot pink, washing over each other. They range from calming water waves to phantasmagoric flame-like forms to jiggly, sperm-shaped objects. But to the viewer, all the real-world good ascribed to them remains sadly unelaborated. Meanwhile, downstairs in the West Gallery is the more self-explanatory exhibit Poets for Science featuring 24 poems that explore connections between science and poetry. Of these, the most compelling poems are those most divorced from politics: Pattiann Rogers’ ode to the humble, one-celled organisms known as archaeans, Peter Meinke’s pairing of a close call with a subway pickpocket in Paris and his daughter’s research into prehensile proteins known as zinc fingers, and Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska’s meditation on the number Pi, impressively translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh. Blue Dreams runs through Sept. 15; Poets for Science runs through Sept. 8 at the National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave. NW. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. cpnas.org. Free. —Louis Jacobson