Family Free Saturday At Wadsworth Atheneum

HARTFORD — On Saturday, September 26, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will participate in the fifth annual Museum Day, presented by Smithsonian magazine. A celebration of culture, learning and the dissemination of knowledge, Smithsonian’s Museum Day reflects the spirit of the magazine, and emulates the free-admission policy of the Smithsonian Institution’s Washington, DC-based properties.

Doors will be open free of charge to Smithsonian magazine readers and Smithsonian.com visitors at museums and cultural institutions nationwide.

Visit Smithsonian.com/MuseumDay to download your Museum Day Admission Card. Attendees must present the Museum Day Admission Card to gain free entry to participating institutions. Each card provides museum access for two people, and one admission card is permitted per household. Listings and links to participating museums’ can also be found at that website.

The Wadsworth is currently presenting four temporary exhibitions.

Through January 3, the museum will continue “The MATRIX Effect,” a return to the museum’s long-running video series of exhibitions that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2000. Christian Jankowski’s 26-minute video The MATRIX Effect, which features interviews with MATRIX founding director Jim Elliott and curator Andrea Miller-Keller, is the centerpiece of the exhibition, which also include works by artists who were featured in the MATRIX years 1975-2000 including Janine Antoni (1996), John Baldessari (1977), Dawoud Bey (1997), Christo and Jeanne-Claude (1978), Christian Jankowski (2000), Louise Lawler (1984), Sol LeWitt (1975 and 2001), Glenn Ligon (1992), and Adrian Piper (1980).

The exhibition is both a retrospective of the MATRIX exhibitions of the past and a celebration of the project’s upcoming return in January.

For the next two years, the Wadsworth Atheneum is planning a series of small-scale dossier exhibitions inspired by works in its permanent collection and “Rembrandt’s People,” on view until January 24, is debuting this series. The exhibition focuses on the artist Rembrandt van Rijn, Holland’s greatest 17th Century painter, and two paintings attributed to the artist: a supposed “Portrait of Saskia” and “Portrait of Titus.”

Although published at the time with much fanfare, both works have over time come to be identified as products of the Rembrandt shop. The Wadsworth exhibition is presenting these two works along with other Rembrandt works from distinguished public and private collections in the United States and Canada, with an aim to demonstrate the artist’s talent as a figure painter.

“The Allure of Lace,” on view until February 28, presents individual lace pieces, along with lace incorporated into clothing, handkerchiefs and fans from Europe and the Middle East, as well as 20th Century dresses, samples, lace making tools and portrait miniatures, all drawn from the museum’s costume & textile collections.

And through April 4, the museum is also presenting “Digging Deeper,” a collaborative exhibition featuring the works of Willie Cole and Hank Willis Thomas. The two men were invited to explore The Amistad Center for Art & Culture’s extensive collection of art, artifacts and archives which document the African American experience and respond with new works inspired by this rich source material. The show also includes additional objects from the Center’s collection to highlight the common threads between historical characterizations of race and present-day conceptions of African American culture.

Visitors should note that this particular exhibition contains a flashing strobe light. People with a history of photo-sensitive seizures should not plan to visit this exhibition.

In addition to the current exhibitions, Family Free Day will also offer activities between 10 am and 1 pm. Visitors can look at and create snowy scenes inspired by works of art at the museum, and watch lace-making demonstrations by members of The New England Lace Group.

Last year, upwards of 200,000 people attended Museum Day, with all 50 states plus Puerto Rico represented by more than 900 participating museums, including 84 Smithsonian affiliate museums. This year, the magazine expects to attract over 1,000 museums.

The Wadsworth is located at 600 Main Street in Hartford. Saturday hours are 10 am to 5 pm. For more information, visit WadsworthAtheneum.org or call 860-278-2670.