Mallory Carlson ’19

From the line starting to form outside at least thirty minutes before opening to the people laying on the floor to look at one of the works of art, WONDER, the new exhibition at the Renwick Gallery, earns its name and the buzz it has been receiving as of late.

After undergoing a two-year renovation, the Renwick Gallery, which holds the Smithsonian Museum of Art’s collection of contemporary art, reopened with a bang this past November, becoming Instagram-famous shortly after on January 8. It’s no surprise, as when you walk around the gallery, you see words on the wall, boasting the phrase “Photography encouraged,” and the ever popular #RenwickGallery.

Even the rainy morning in D.C couldn’t dampen my anticipation of seeing the art in the Renwick. Phone camera at the ready, I walked through the hall with the crowd of people to artwork that would become one of my favorites, Patrick Dougherty’s structures created from weaving branches together. They stretched all over the space, huge formations that you could stand in or look through the circular gaps that reminded me of portholes on a ship.

The next exhibit is one that is, in my opinion, most seen on Instagram, a huge weaving of colorful thread that stretches from floor to ceiling by artist Gabriel Dawe. The art is hard to capture in one photo, as I learned as I moved from side to side of the room, trying to get the best shot possible that would capture the beauty of the way the artwork caught the light but also show the extensive length it possessed. After deciding that I had done the best I could on the photo front, I moved on to the second of my three favorite exhibits.

The third exhibit was not as breathtaking at first glance, but once I got closer, I could see why it was just as deserving of attention as the other exhibits. Tara Donovan created multiple towers made of ordinary materials, the prominent one being index cards. These stacks were intricately glued together so that none of them are like any other, varying in shape and size. The detail of these thousands of cards is fascinating. This room also held my favorite quote that I saw while at the Renwick, an observation by Albert Einstein that goes as follows: “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.”

The fourth exhibit was definitely the one I found most interesting. After walking upstairs, you enter a room that is illuminated only by the huge artwork on the ceiling. The material is what appeared to be some sort of netting that changed colors as the spotlights on it did. The line to get to the next exhibit stretched around the room, and people were staring up at the work from the line and from the middle of the room, as they reclined on chairs or on the floor. I even spotted some people on pillows, dreamily staring up at the changing colors of Janet Echelman’s astonishing work.

The next three exhibits, at least to me, were not as captivating. The fifth work was a model of a tree hanging sideways in the middle of the room, created by John Grade. Interesting, but not enticing. The sixth entranced me more. It was art by Maya Lin, who used glass marbles to make a design that stretched across the floor and up the walls. The seventh was a bending, intricate structure put together with pieces of rubber tires by Chakaia Booker.

The last exhibit was a brightly painted room, decorated by Jennifer Angus. The designs on the wall were definitely something different- the patterns were created by bugs. I was asked if I thought they were real, and I said no without thinking about it too much. Then I was told what the plaque with information on the exhibit said. Those hundreds of bugs on the wall? They were quite real. That’s when I decided that room would not be one of my favorites, but art is art.

WONDER offers an enchanting experience that will captivate people of all ages and interests, but time is limited because it will only be on view for six months.