Washingtonians gathered at the National Gallery Sculpture Garden on Feb. 14th to celebrate its reopening, despite most D.C. museums and galleries remaining closed due to the pandemic. The garden closed in November as cases rose exponentially in D.C., but reopened as a “valentine to our visitors,” said National Gallery of Art director Kaywin Feldman.
Pavilion Café, a D.C. family favorite, also reopened with a full takeout menu. Patrons are required to wear masks and observe social distancing regulations, but this didn’t stop couples and families from taking strolls (safely) in the sculpture garden as part of their Valentine’s Day festivities.
Despite last Sunday’s gray weather, children played with Roy Lichtenstein’s House I, a pop-art “house” that appears to move as you walk past it. Having grown up in D.C. myself, visits to the sculpture garden were a defining part of my childhood. I welcomed each winter skating with my friends in the sculpture garden’s ice rink (which is sadly closed), and my love for art grew at field trips to the museums on the mall. House was one of the first pieces of art I loved – it was when I was playing with it at the sculpture garden that I learned art was fun, a realization that defined my aesthetic as an artist.
For creatives like me, the pandemic has been a time of loss in terms of inspiration and motivation. While my classes remain online and my social interactions remain limited, I struggle to find the drive to create, the means to critique, and the gratitude to appreciate art. I haven’t felt that itch to make something (creatives: you know the one) since my high school abruptly closed on March 13th, 2020 – the day I finished my last painting. Watching a collective appreciation of art at Sculpture Garden’s reopening served as a reminder that the love language of art isn’t dead.
I watched couples and families while they watched the artwork. A young couple dressed up in Valentine’s-themed formal clothing stopped in front of each sculpture to discuss it in what seemed like they were trying to prove their cultural knowledge to each other. The girl stumbled in her heels (probably not the best choice for the day’s rain and sleet), while her boyfriend held her hand lovingly. Most couples declined to comment on their experience, and one member of a pair said “It’s Valentine’s Day! Any other day I would,” which may be a testament to the reopening’s success.
Hannah Freedberg, an associate director at Gagosian Gallery London, believes that Valentine’s Day was the perfect time for the garden to reopen. “How you respond to a work of art is a subjective, passionate and visceral experience – just like love. The long-standing relationship between art and love is absolute and never-ending, perhaps because both art and love are languages, a visual and spiritual way of communicating,” she said.
Freedberg herself is recently engaged, and she says that a celebration of art drew her and her fiancé together. “Two days after we first met, Giles (her fiancé) came to a Howard Hodgkin opening at the gallery I work at. It was only the second time we’d met and he brought his parents along! It was a beautiful show – but sad – the first the gallery had following Hodgkin’s passing that year,” said Freedberg.
Freedberg and her fiancé don’t always agree about whether a piece of art is good or bad, but she feels that debates about art are central to her relationship. “That’s the wonderful thing about art, everyone reacts and responds differently,” she said. “It’s helpful to have a healthy debate on what works are satisfying and why.”
I chatted with an elderly couple while waiting in line for coffee at the Pavilion Café during my visit to the Sculpture Garden. They had been together for fifty-two years, and had planned a visit to the sculpture garden as the main event of their Valentine’s Day celebrations. “This place is so D.C… I’ve lived here my whole life so it feels weird for museums to be closed. I definitely think they can open safely – we need art!” said the husband, who asked to remain anonymous. “We used to go to museums all the time when we first met. It’s romantic to fall in love over art,” said his wife.
Camilia Fateh 