OPEN on K

Rush Baker IV, Colby Caldwell, Steven Cushner, Stephanie Garon, Franz Jantzen, Mark Kelner, Tanya Marcuse, Renée Stout, Julie Wolfe

September 25 - November 24, 2021

Washington DC - HEMPHILL is pleased to announce the exhibition, OPEN on K, opening on Saturday, September 25, 2021. The exhibition will remain on view through November 24, 2021.

“If you build it, they will come,” the popular and misquoted line from Field of Dreams, comes from the Old Testament in god’s response to Noah’s question of how he will gather all the animals of the earth into his ark. The oft-repeated line came to mind after the gallery’s move to K Street in early 2020, as the pandemic prevented us from celebrating the new location.

The gallery faces two questions as we approach the beginning of the Fall art season. The first: how to address the uncertainty of public and personal health safety. The gallery’s response throughout the pandemic has been to continually adapt in big and small ways, evolve and update safety precautions, experiment with the methods of presenting artworks, while looking to alternative ways of engaging the gallery’s audience. OPEN on K will be the gallery’s first exhibition fully open to the public. We will proceed and be prepared to adjust with visitor safety in mind.

The second question: having delayed the celebration of the new gallery space, “what to show?” The answer? GO BIG! For all of us, having been inhibited for the past 19 months, the response is obvious. There is a need to feel re-empowered and to return to thinking expansively. The gallery looked to Rush Baker IV, Colby Caldwell, Steven Cushner, Stephanie Garon, Franz Jantzen, Mark Kelner, Tanya Marcuse, Renée Stout, and Julie Wolfe for big impact pieces. Nine large-scale works will occupy the gallery space, each projecting confidence and fully utilizing the architecture. None are laid-back, conceptually removed, or simply decorative. The show is glorious, defiant, and stately.