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SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): arrived to a grey,

rainy Washington, DC, and crawled our way through

terrible morning traffic.

It could've been bad, but our cabbie had on NPR,

and we could relax and enjoy the fact that we were not

the ones driving.

We arrived at our hotel starving and quickly scarfed breakfast

in the lobby and pulled out our various devices

to get ready for the day.

See this?

See me double screening?

This is not what I should have been doing.

At this very moment, there was a press preview

for the reopening of the Renwick Gallery,

where we really should have been.

The kind PR folks provided us with this footage.

And watching it is kind of like turning a knife for me.

The Renwick houses the Smithsonian's collection

of contemporary craft and decorative art

and was about to open after a two-year renovation.

They take a progressive approach to this kind of collection

ghettoization, presenting work by a wide range of artists

and makers, showing, quote, how extraordinary handmade

objects have shaped the American experience

and continue to impact our lives.

So these are the installations, created specifically

for the building opening, that we

should have seen instead of writing emails and researching

ramen places for lunch.

This was a pretty major snafu.

But we did a little better after that.

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After taking our sweet time deciding on lunch,

we headed out and took the Metro,

descending into the DuPont Circle Station

at the weirdly slow pace determined by the escalators.

The DC Metro first opened in 1976

and is a magnificent artwork, in itself, designed

by architect Harry Weese.

Throughout the trip, I basked in the strange, brutalist glory

of this Metro system.

The coffered concrete vaulted ceilings

lend a feeling of spaciousness and highlight

the remarkable geometries of this complex transit system.

The lighting is low, indirect, and otherworldly.

If you see no other public art than this in DC,

you're still doing OK.

We arrived to at Daikaya and waited patiently

before devouring our steaming bowls of ramen.

I got the shoyu and Mark the vegetable.

Moving a little more slowly, we got back on the Metro,

picked up our gear, and headed down Massachusetts Avenue,

aka Embassy Row.

We took in the parade of passing buildings,

each with its own distinct architecture and design,

on our way to American University

to meet up with artist Molly Springfield.

We stopped in to the university's museum

and their Katzen Art Center and saw some really delicate,

captivating works on paper by Beverly Ress.

Then we met up with Molly and did some filming there

before heading to her studio an shooting the rest.

When we were done, it was dark.

And guess what?

We were hungry.

So on a tip from a friend, we decided to walk to a place,

called Compass Rose, that specializes

in international street food but served inside

instead of on the street.

It was super dark, so you'll have

to trust me that I had a bourbon drink that was great,

despite its name, hashtag lol, and then

noshed on dishes that were delicious, despite being

culturally confusing.

We had takoyaki, or Japanese octopus fritters, bhel puri

chaat, an Indian puffed rice snack, and tostones,

or fried plantains.

It was Embassy Row all in one, dark, little place.

It was much nicer the next day.

And we started out at the Phillips Collection.

They were playing host to an exhibition,

"Gauguin to Picasso," drawn from private Swiss collections.

But that's not why I was there.

I was there to think about the singular

vision of the eponymous Duncan Phillips, who

gathered this astounding collection by not only being

the grandson of a steel magnate but also by nurturing

close relationships with artists.

Masterpieces of the 20th century appear throughout this warren

of buildings, which started in 1921,

with the Phillips' family home, and extended into a music room,

a modernist wing in the '60s, and another addition

in the '00s.

The Phillips Collection fuses architecture

from different times as well art from different times,

providing room after room of intimate art viewing

moments, interspersing works by Paul Klee and van Gogh

and Mondrian and Jacob Lawrence and Edward Hopper,

with contemporary works like Nikki S. Lee's photography

and "Question Bridge, Black Males" a video installation

that looks to represent and redefine

black male identity in America.

Then there's a Rothko room.

And this is exactly how Rothko wanted his work to be seen.

You're alone in a room, with four of his paintings,

in close proximity, with the lighting just so.

And one floor up, you encounter a recent work,

by Wolfgang Laib, that you smell before you see.

It's a small chamber, lined with beeswax

and lit by a single bulb, providing

another immersive experience.

Duncan Phillips called this place,

an intimate museum combined with an experiment station.

And that's just how it feels, not

like a history that is organized and settled,

but one that is still being worked out,

reexamined, and remixed.

Then we returned to my beloved Metro

and headed to the National Mall.

The mall is under construction and not looking its best.

But who cares?

It's a symbol of progress, and we're there for the art anyway.

We stopping in the Freer and Sackler galleries,

which present the Smithsonian's Asian art holdings, to see

the Freer's Peacock Room.

This is what it looks like well-lit in the photos

Wikipedia provides.

But this is more what it's like to experience it.

But anyway, it's the former dining room of rich guy

Frederick Leyland that features a painting by James McNeill

Whistler as well as elaborate wall decorations

done by Whistler, without Leyland's permission

or payment.

This resulted in one of the most epic art

battles of all time, which you should really go read about.

But what's interesting is that we

were lucky to visit while Darren Waterston's

contemporary reimagination of the room

was on view in the adjacent Sackler Gallery.

Waterston reconstructs the room as a decadent ruin,

making visible the room's nasty history

and commenting on the excesses of both that Gilded

Age and our own.

Then we made a quick detour through the National Gallery

of Art Sculpture Garden to say, hello,

to these works by Sol Lewitt, Tony Smith, Roxy Paine, Roy

Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van

Bruggen.

I disregarded the secret of enjoying art,

and that's making sure your blood sugar isn't too low.

So we just kind of quickly saluted these totems

and hurried to Buredo, a totem of trendy eating.

They make burrito-sized sushi rolls.

Wait, do I need to say that again?

Burrito-sized sushi rolls.

Sure, it's just a differently shaped hand roll, which

has existed for some time.

But these weren't just novel and well-marketed, they were good.

And just the fuel we needed to continue on our art marathon

to the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

There we saw an excellent exhibition of photographs

by Esther Bubley, who was hired by the Office of War

Information and documented life in the United States

throughout the '40s, '50s, and '60s.

The museum also had on a great show called "Pathmakers."

It featured a really interesting mix of work

from the often separate spheres of art and craft and design.

And I especially enjoyed this installation,

by Polly Apfelbaum, a display of the work of designer Hella

Jongerius, and, of course, the work of art assignment alumna

Michelle Grabner.

Next step, quick stops at Hemphill Gallery,

to see a show of work by Renee Stout,

and Adamson Gallery, which had to show

of magnificent photographs by Gordon Parks.

I had just written about Parks for our animation

in the Alex Soth episode about the FSA's photography project.

So it was a treat to see the works

in person and in large-scale.

Then we made a way to Transformer, a nonprofit art

organization, to have coffee with Victoria

Reis, its executive and artistic director.

Transformer does important work on behalf of emerging artists,

locally, in DC, as well as nationally and internationally.

They do this not only through exhibitions

but also through educational programs, partnerships

with other institutions, and an annual silent auction

and benefit party, that they had closed their gallery

space to get ready for.

They had a lovely installation, in their storefront,

by Paris-based artist Helene Garcia, called

"Let's Drink a Dozen Roses," providing us further proof

that bigger isn't always better, and art and new ideas

can thrive in unexpected places.

We ended the day back on the National Mall.

I forgot to mention it was Veteran's Day, which,

I'm ashamed to admit, usually comes

and goes for me with little activity in honor

of the important day.

We walked along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,

as the last of the chairs were being broken down

from the earlier ceremonies, and scanned,

with many others, the names of the over 58,000 servicemen

and women who died during the war.

The Wall, as it's called, is a stunning work of art--

the best in the city in my view--

designed by artist and architect Maya Lin when she

was only a senior in college.

It was a moving experience, and one

that stayed with me even as we continued on

to the much less moving Lincoln Memorial

to fight for photo space.

And it definitely stayed with me as we

witnessed a beautiful sunset over the reflecting pool.

The next day, we got up early to try out GBD Donuts

but were devastated to find that they don't open until 11:00 on

most weekdays.

Not that early GBD.

And we didn't have much time, so we

were kind of forced to go upstairs to Jrink for a juice

instead.

It was actually really good juice, which I do recommend.

But when you're expecting donuts, well, it's not donuts.

Then off we went to DC's foremost contemporary art

institutions, the Hirshhorn, which, come to think of it,

is kind of shaped like a donut.

It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft, as a, quote,

large piece of functional sculpture,

and opened to the public in 1974.

Its curved galleries define and expand your experience

of the work it contains.

And its windows provide views out to the National Mall,

with an exhibition of works drawn

from their permanent collection.

Ditching the tired tactic of organizing by chronology

or geography, the curators have opted instead

to create thematic groupings.

You get to see the treasures of their collection,

like early sculptures by Claes Oldenburg and Robert Gober's

window to another time and place, along with newer

editions by Cai Guo-Qiang, Yinka Shonibare, and Nick Cave.

There's a wonderful piece by Rachel Harrison

on view, which may, at first glance,

look like another modernist-informed sculpture

until you register it's roughly hewn structure and bright pink