Art-Play-Practice
Step inside a work of art from The Phillips Collection
Art-Play-Practice is a new initiative at Phillips@THEARC that invites you to experience works from The Phillips Collection in an immersive, hands-on way.
The first installation draws inspiration from Broad Cape by Sam Gilliam, transforming the space into a vibrant environment of color, canvas, and movement. Designed for all ages, Art-Play-Practice encourages you to explore, create, and play within the world of the artwork.
Come play!
Phillips@THEARC, 1801 Mississippi Ave SE, Washington, DC
This summer, Art–Play–Practice is open Fridays from 11 am–3 pm and second Wednesdays from 6:30–8:30 pm during Crochet Circle.
Stay tuned for after-school clubs and Saturday workshops beginning in the fall.
Free admission. All ages welcome.
Upcoming Workshops
About Sam Gilliam
Sam Gilliam (1933—2022) was an American artist, teacher, and innovator, known for breaking paintings out of their frames. He draped big colorful canvases across walls and ceilings. He continually experimented with paint and materials and challenged ideas about what paintings could be. For most of his life, Gilliam lived and worked in Washington, DC. One visitor to his Sixteenth Street Heights studio described it as a light-filled “candy store of color.”
Gilliam filled it with paint and tools he used to spread paint like rakes, hoes, and buckets. His artworks were draped and hung on the walls. Gilliam was constantly remaking his art. If he didn’t like it, he transformed it into something else. Gilliam welcomed neighborhood kids to paint alongside him in his studio. Sometimes he gifted them red plastic trucks or wooden planes he kept throughout his studio.
Learn More
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“Artist Sam Gilliam Dies,” The Washington Post, June 27, 2022
- Oral history interview with Sam Gilliam, September 18, 1984 (Archives of American Art)
- Oral history interview with Sam Gilliam, November 4-11, 1989 (Archives of American Art)
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Abstract Art is Political (Sam Gilliam), May 2020 (Louisiana Museum of Art)
Left to right: Sam Gilliam, Red Register, 1970, Maya, 1970, and Broad Cape, 1972, on view at The Phillips Collection.
Sam Gilliam in his Washington, DC, studio, 1980. Photo: Anthony Barboza, Getty Images
Sam Gilliam giving a talk in front of his work Flour Mill in the Goh Annex stairwell, 2011
Sam Gilliam, Red Petals, 1967, Acrylic on canvas, 88 x 93 in. The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1967
“Paintings by Sam Gilliam” pamphlet, The Phillips Collection, 1967
Special thanks to the Sherman Fairchild Foundation for lead support of Art-Play-Practice.
This inaugural installation is designed by To Be Done Studio.