The DC Cheer squad members shake their pompoms in support of the arts. Photograph by E. Brady Robinson.

In a world of slashed budgets and shrinking audiences, it seems arts institutions could use a little cheerleading these days. Thankfully there’s DC Cheer, an amateur cheerleading squad that seeks to enliven the local arts scene. Their brightly colored pompoms and Rockettes-inspired high kicks can now be found in and around art exhibitions and galleries in the Washington area.

DC Cheer is “based on the idea of giving a voice to the DC art community, which has been thriving but remains in the shadow of DC’s larger official presence,” says Kristina Bilonick, a native Washingtonian visual artist. As the former program director for the Washington Project for the Arts, Bilonick spent most of her time promoting DC artists through shows and events, and it became her favorite part of the job. Literally cheerleading for the cause just seemed like an extension of that.

Having long harbored the idea, she finally formed DC Cheer in September of last year for the (e)merge Art Fair, which showcased experimental artists’ performances and installations. Part performance art and part whimsy, DC Cheer encourages not only the arts but also the artists, who, Bilonick says, often appreciate the morale boost and bonhomie amid DC’s fiercely competitive art community. “Artists forming pyramids or doing group motions is an exact metaphor for the way artists in DC should be supporting each other,” she says.

Left: Maurice Denis, Marthe offering Bernadette a bunch of grapes, Le Pouldu, September 15, 1890. Right: Maurice Denis, Noële and Her Mother, 1896. Photographs © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

“You press the button, we do the rest” said the slogan on George Eastman’s first Kodak camera, which enthralled thousands of would-be photographers when it debuted in 1888. No longer was photography relegated to professionals with expensive, cumbersome equipment—Eastman’s handheld made easy work of the process, creating shutterbugs of amateurs and artists alike. Many post-impressionist painters and printmakers found themselves swept up in the Kodak craze, taking thousands of snapshots of their travels, families, models, and muses. Some of their photographs were exchanged with fellow artists; some were used as studies for future pieces. And some, perhaps, were never meant to be seen.

Two hundred of these prints are on display in the Phillips Collection’s latest installation, “Snapshot: Painters and Photography, from Bonnard to Vuillard,” which makes its stateside debut tomorrow after an initial showing in Amsterdam. Co-organized by the Van Gogh Museum, the Phillips Collection, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the exhibition explores the work of seven artists known to be transfixed by this new medium. A few may be familiar: Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Félix Vallotton, and Maurice Denis were all members of a post-impressionist school known as the Nabis, a group of avant-garde painters influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin. The remaining three—Henri Rivière, George Hendrik Breitner, and Henri Evenepoel—are lesser known, but were equally as enamored with Eastman’s technology. Curators combed through Parisian attics and peeked into dusty shoeboxes in the Hague to uncover these artists’ photos, many of which have never been shown before.

Manet’s “Masked Ball at the Opera,” now on display in the French Galleries in the National Gallery of Art’s West Building. Photograph courtesy of the NGA.

MUSEUM EXHIBITS

The French paintings at the National Gallery of Art have a brand new home. Following a two-year renovation and reorganization at the hands of curator Mary Morton, the French Galleries in the NGA’s West Building are now open on the second floor, with Monets, Manets, Cezannes, and Gauguins galore. Morton’s curation groups paintings by theme, so one room groups view paintings, another places women artists together (including six remarkable works by Mary Cassatt), and another has what appears to be an “Eastern boudoir” motif. Jokes aside, there are some outstanding works to be seen here, so it’s well worth a trip if you haven’t visited recently.

Also at the National Gallery: In advance of the London Olympics, an exhibition in the West Building looks at how cities have historically spruced themselves up for major events. “From the Library: The Fleeting Structures of Early Modern Europe,” February 4 through July 29, draws from the museum’s rare-books collection to explore the temporary structures built in the 15th and 16th centuries for everything from royal weddings to coronations.

Also in the West Building through July 8, “The Baroque Genius of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione” brings together around 80 prints and drawings by Castiglione, an influential Italian baroque artist.

The Kinsey Sicks return to Theater J with Electile Dysfunction. Photograph courtesy of the group’s Facebook page.

Thursday, February 2

ART: Phillips After 5, a popular after-hours event at the Phillips Collection, returns with live jazz music, acting classes led by Arena Stage staffers, gallery talks, and more. Food and drink will be available for purchase. Tickets ($12) can be purchased through the gallery’s website. 5 to 8:30 PM.

THEATER: Constellation Theatre Company’s Blood Wedding opens tonight at Source. Written by Federico García Lorca, the Spanish tragedy is about lovers torn apart by murder and old feuds. Tickets ($20 to $40) can be purchased through the theater’s website. 8 PM. The play runs through March 4.

MUSIC: Trumpeter Andrew Balio joins the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Strathmore. The program will feature works by Bach, Rameau, Haydn, and Mozart. Tickets ($28 to $88) can be purchased through the Strathmore’s website. 8 PM.

Indie pop band the Jackfields are performing at the Iota Club and Cafe. The Virgina natives fuse Pink Floyd psychedelia with Beatles piano pop. You can listen to some of their songs here. The band will be joined by Aaron Thompson and Bobbie Allen. Tickets ($10) can be purchased at the door. 9 PM.

Photograph of “Sometimes I See Myself in You” by Deborah Willis courtesy of the Philips Collection.

When Deborah Willis was asked to consider working on an exhibit with her son, photographer Hank Willis Thomas, the theme of parenthood seemed like a natural fit. Willis—chair of the Photography and Imaging department at NYU and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant—knew early on that her son had an affinity for photography. “Whenever we would visit my mother, he’d rearrange all the pictures in the family album,” she says. “He had this gift in terms of images and storytelling.”

“Progeny,” at the Fine Art Gallery in the Art & Design Building on George Mason University's Fairfax Campus—the pair’s first show together—explores motherhood, memory, and family traits through photographs of the artists as well as their portraits of others. Without planning it, many of Willis’s and Thomas’s ideas corresponded. “I was interviewing pregnant women and asking them words they lived by, and he was asking people in a video installation about their birth,” Willis says. “I was looking at female bodybuilders, and he was looking at sportsmen, thinking about iconic images of male bodies.”

Willis lived in Washington for ten years while working at the Smithsonian and pursuing her doctorate in cultural studies at George Mason. During that time, her son—whose show “Strange Fruit” was at the Corcoran until earlier this year—attended DC’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where he focused on photography and museum studies. “He was living my dream—there weren’t the same opportunities in the ’60s,” Willis says. “What I learned at George Mason was how to have a different conversation about art.”

“Progeny” runs February 1 through 29. Learn more at GMU's website.

This article appears in the February 2012 issue of The Washingtonian.

Baltimore native Ellen Cherry takes the stage tonight at Strathmore. Photograph courtesy of the artist’s website.

Wednesday, February 1

ART: Don’t miss opening night of Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas’s new exhibition, “Progeny.” The mother-son duo’s show explores motherhood, memory, and family through photographs. “Progeny” runs through February 29 at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts.

MUSIC: Singer-songwriter Ellen Cherry performs at Strathmore tonight. The Emmy-nominated musician released her newest album, (New) Years, in 2010. You can listen to some of her songs here. Tickets ($12) can be purchased through Strathmore’s website. 7:30 PM.

If you’re in the mood for something edgier, Machine Head are dropping by the Rams Head. The Grammy-nominated band toured with Metallica in 2009. The group will be joined by Suicide Silence and Darkest Hour. Tickets ($20) can be purchased through the venue’s website. Doors open at 6 PM.

BOOKS: Barney’s New York creative ambassador Simon Doonan will sign copies of his new book, Gay Men Don’t Get Fat, at the W Hotel. Guests can enjoy drink specials and door prizes. E-mail whappenings@brandlinkdcrsvp.com to RSVP. 7 to 9 PM.

Rob Peterson participating in the “Radio Ark Transmission” project. Photograph by Chris Kennedy.

Tackling social issues has long been a theme among conceptual artists, but as a new show at Anacostia’s Honfleur Gallery demonstrates, doing so can yield mixed results. Curated by Honfleur cofounder Briony Evans Hynson, “Visual Audio: Inquiries Into Found Media” features two artistic collaborations, each with a hyper-local focus. “Radio Transmission Ark,” organized by artists Robert Peterson, Lindsey Reynolds, and Kate Clark with Hirshhorn Museum music educator Jon William, is a refreshingly sensitive tribute to Southeast DC. The project is almost bewilderingly multidisciplinary—it includes a sketchy, in-progress “Memory Map” of Anacostia, additional maps peppered with notes on daily experiences, found objects from the area, zines of black-and-white photographs (on sale for $10 to $15), audio recordings, a radio transmission, and a Tumblr journal.