Renwick Gallery

Love love love this photo-​friendly museum! The newly renovated gallery boasts a fresh interior full of colorful exhibits that ask you to explore the concept of «wonder.»
If you’re interested in architecture and historic preservation, I recommend watching the short videos in the room following the bug exhibit. I learned that the Renwick was the first building constructed just to house art in America.
Come explore and take fun pictures with your friends. For once you won’t have to hide your camera!

Current exhibit is «Wonder». Nine leading contemporary artist displaying their work which I found amazing. The Renwick Gallery since reopening with this exhibit Fall 2015 has been a buzz and I personally think the hype is valid. If coming to the capital I would make plans to view. The museum is FREE of charge and donations are welcome in the front.
I find no reason to go artist by artist on this review when you can easily click on this link
and learn everything you can possibly want to know. However, I will provide some personal insight that I hope will be helpful.
The building is a stunner and gorgeous inside as well. It is the very first DC museum which I found interesting. It was built at it’s inception as a gallery to display art. It’s never looked better since closing down almost two years for an extensive renovation. The location is across from the White House and snuggled up by the Blair House. So if you have never had the opportunity to see this other historic house check out the plaque, no tours.
My son and I arrived at the door on a Monday just before a 10 AM opening. there were already around fifteen guest waiting to enter. I found out from an employee that lines form early on weekends, even the off season. So first suggestion is to come early and week days will be less congested.
Once you enter my recommendation is to make a right and resist those beautiful stairs in front for now. Enter the gift store and continue on to the next room, the video viewing area. The nine artist describe their work on the left flat screen TV. The second screen shows the actual installation. It will only take 15 minutes and will set up your visit nicely. I really enjoyed it and my 12 year old son set patiently through it and liked if that helps. The production quality is top notch.
After you exit the video room it’s up to you what order you choose, but keep in mind there are two floors. Five exhibits on the bottom, four on top. Restrooms are located on the second floor. NEW to the museum is the promotion of Instagram #renwickgallery to tag your photos and describe how the piece affected you. This has caused the gallery to blow up in attendance over the past month with pics going viral. So if your so inclined prior to your visit check out other photos and post your own on visits.
Everyone will have there own favorite for different reasons. The most impressive to me was artist John Grade «Middle Fork» 2015. The entire piece is made of small rectangular wood blocks glued, then later sanded down from a plaster mask mold of an entire 140 year old tree in Washington state. The work is suspended on cables. The fact you can walk all around it is a little freaky if you have small children, it is a fragile piece. Gallery host are every where to remind you to NOT TOUCH the art. This I believe was the most labor intensive of them all and took over two years to complete with lots of volunteer help.
It will probably take around an hour tops to view including the video and excluding any wait. I would personally be willing to wait in a small line of 15 – 20 minutes if the weather was cooperative. The employees told me the lines moves quickly, but they do have to limit numbers inside to avoid chaos and probably a fire code viloation.
I’m all in on this beautiful gallery with their nine talented artist. If you decided to skip you will be sorry.

This exhibit is a bit overrated. If we had to wait anymore than 20 minutes we would have been quite mad about the lack of return on time invested.
We arrived 20 minutes before opening on a Sunday morning. RIGHT DECISION. As soon as the doors opened we were filed right in. There was such a rush we had just enough time to grab brochures and be ushered down the hall. I totally missed the coat check. ALL COFFEE MUST BE THROWN OUT IMMEDIATELY. The door’s trashcan looked like a Starbucks cemetery.
I guarantee you’ve seen all the exhibits by now on social media. So, I spent most of my time reading the plaques explaining the thought behind the pieces. My personal favorite was the chandelier above the staircase (heading into the tsunami piece). The chandelier was written entirely in binary! *computer geeks unite*
Still, we were in and out of the entire exhibit within ¹⁰⁄₁₅ minutes.

I really enjoyed the Wonder exhibit at the Renwick. It is conveniently located near The White House. After strolling through the President’s casa, my friend and I peaked into the gallery for some colorful fun. The best part about it, is that it is free! If you can catch the Wonder exhibit, I recommend heading to the second floor to the large installation. Lay back and let your mind WONDER!

I had a great time when I visited here. I brought a 2 year old who ended up running amok in the place and she was a great source of entertainment for many folks inside the gallery. The current exhibition inside is called Wonder which is offers contemporary and interactive art (to an extent). Example the birds nest exhibit was insane. You could walk around them and inside them.
The Chesapeake Bay floor and wall exhibit by Maya Lin (the same designer of the Vietnam Memorial) had to be one of my favorites. It was amazing how much detail was put into it.
Speaking of detail — sqeamish alert if you don’t like bugs… don’t read on and skip down a couple of paragraphs…
BUG WALLS — there was an entire room that was covered in bugs. They were shaped in the design of Dias de los Muertos. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen some pretty freaky shit in my life. That had to be in the top 5. Why would you take thousands of dead bugs and do this? I can’t imagine being the person who has to take that stuff down. Yuck and more yuck. Nonetheless very interesting and it does make you wonder, «why would someone in their right mind do this?» I guess it fits the exhibit’s namesake very deliberately.
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The little 2 year old that I took with me ran around the room where there were pillows laid in the floor where you would look up at the ceiling and see what I would imagine were colorful fishnets. I am horrible at interpreting art, but that’s the closest thing I can conclude them to be. Add mood lighting and you’ve got a great exhibit for people to relax and meditate… or still the wifi… or run around and cause disturbance to everyone. I actually had a couple of people come up to me and tell me she was the highlight of the show because she was so cute.
There were several other exhibits that I can not going to go through and name, but these are the ones that stuck out to me.
It is running through the beginning of summer and I highly recommend take your camera and roll in there. It’s fun and interactive plus good for curious older kids.

Free! Beautiful building with some fascinating, interesting, interactive (loved the woven installations I think of as birds nests that you can go inside), and just plain cool art. Will be a hit with everyone, including kids. I saw lots lying on their backs in the multicolored netting room, admiring the shades and color play on the ceiling. The bug room is stunning, though I think I loved the rainbow threads more.
Be sure to obey signs about where to stand and what not to touch. There’s an unmanned coat room. My friend said it can get insanely crowded on the weekends and take hours to go through everything. On a weekday at lunchtime with no line, it took 30 minutes to an hour to leisurely take it all in. Impress your out of town friends and family and take them here.

The Renwick Gallery is very hard to attend. As a child my mother would tell me to keep my hands to myself when we went into department stores and into people’s houses to visit. The Wonder exhibit just brought back all of my past temptations to do just the opposite, TOUCH DAMN NEAR EVERYTHING! (Not to worry I used full restraint)
This is such a great exhibit, the only drawback is that there are so many images online, once I got here there were no surprises, so as tempting as it is, if you manage to read a review on this museum, don’t look at any of the pictures if possible.
My favorite installation was Jennifer Angus’s, In the midnight Garden, hot pink room with colorful insects strategically placed like wall paper, pictures don’t do this space justice, especially when you get up close to these big bright beautiful insects.
Another gorgeous piece was Leo Villareal’s 23,000 LED lights that shimmered and sparkled as a chandelier; the closest thing I’ve seen to it is when sunlight sparkles on a pond. It shimmers in waves, absolutely beautiful.
The tree pods are a must see, Patrick Dougherty used willow osiers and saplings to create these nature coves, all I was thinking is that they would be great to have dinner in like at a restaurant, private but then they had a little window you can see out of! Really cool idea to just run with in so many directions. The most impressive part is that as you look through the pod there seems to be no cast or skeletal structure to explain how the artist trained the branches into this upright circular nest.
The Renwick Gallery has a lot of history, created back in 1859, for William Wilson Corcoran’s art collection. It’s inspiration was the Louvre in Paris.
The gift shop has so many cool high fashion minimalist pieces: origami inspired coats, bow ties made of bird’s feathers, to hand made one of a kind statement piece necklaces.
So much to see, just go! Art lifts your spirits and always sends the hopeful message ‘that with creativity anything is possible’.
No need to Wonder:
2^nd floor closes May 8^th 2016 and the 1^st floor closes July 10^th 2016.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Finally glad to see this place back and operating after 2 years of renovations! However be sure you arrive early! The first time I went was in December before the gallery became instagram famous. I visited this weekend and the line wrapped to the white house back to the entrance of the building! It’s worth the wait though
9 exhibits are inside and boy are they magnificent. It’s absolutely breathtaking to see the exhibits as they make you wonder, HOW DID THEY DO THIS?
My favorite exhibits were:
+Individually colored strings that were strung to imitate a rainbow. Didn’t find the pot of gold at the end of it though
+15 ft high stacks of cards shaped as mountains that made you feel like you were on a boat navigating some mystical land in China.
+Color changing lamps that was reflecting what was perceived on this gigantic fishnet
+The bug room. I asked one of the museum staff if those were real bugs, and yes… they were. The bugs were placed to represent a design. Cool but icky.
Did I mention this place is FREE? Definitely a must do in DC before the WONDER gallery closes in May. You can find the perfect instagram picture here :)

What an awesome exhibit to go to! It had beautifully displayed art work that were all created from different materials. It was super crowded and there were huge lines, but the lines went by faster than I thought it would. There were way too many people to try and take cute pictures.
However, I can’t complain because this place has free admission and is located near the metro stop. It is right in front of the White House.
Go and visit this place! It is worth the trek through D.C.