IN PLANE VIEW Abstractions of Flight Exhibition Information “Painting has come to an end. Who can do anything better than this propeller? Can you?” –Marcel Duchamp Focusing on the interplay between functional technology and craftsman- ship, In Plain View redirects our attention to the often–overlooked simple beauty of aircraft design. In a uniquely intimate style, this exhibition engages the viewer with close-up facets, sculptural forms, and life-like elements of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum’s internationally renowned aircraft collection. With her playful and discerning eye, Smithsonian photographer Carolyn Russo transforms technology into art providing new landscapes ripe for exploration. Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis 24’’ x 24’’ >> Focke-Wulf Fw 190 F 36” x 36” “For not only is life put in new patterns from the air, but it is somehow arrested, frozen in form.” –Anne Morrow Lindbergh In Plain View Features 56 large-format Giclée framed photographs, text and quotation panels, and labels. This Grumman F8F-2 moderate-security exhibition, which occupies approxi- Bearcat Conquest 1 mately 300 running feet, will open at the National Air 36” x 36” and Space Museum. A companion book with essays by Anne Collins Goodyear and foreword by Patty Wagstaff >> Northrop N-1M is available from powerHouse Books. 24” x 24” “I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the esthetic appeal of flying.” –Amelia Earhart Broken up into five categories—Speed, Bursts, Movement; Flora, Fauna, and Anthropomorphism; Graphics; Textures and Skin; and Propellers—which occasionally overlap, Russo’s photographs reveal new layers of meaning from the whimsical to the profound through their unconventional representations of well-known air and spacecraft. In combina- North American F-86 A Sabre tion with quotes from aviation and space pioneers, poets, and 24” x 24” other artists, whose words resonate with these images, Russo’s work evokes the beauty, wonder, excitement, and thrill as- >> Wittman Chief Oshkosh / Buster sociated with flight. 36” x 36” Featured Artifacts Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis Northrop N-1M CFM International CFM56-2 Engine Kellet XO-60 North American P-51D Mustang Apollo 11 Willit Run? Command Module Columbia Homing Overlay Experiment Boeing B-29 Superfortress Test Vehicle Enola Gay Mercury Capsule 15B Boeing 307 Stratoliner Freedom 7 II Clipper Flying Cloud Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird Focke-Wulf Ta152H Lockheed P-38J Lightning Halberstadt CL.IV North American X-15 Junkers Ju 52/3m Aichi M6A1 Seiran Lockheed 5C Vega Winnie Mae Arado Ar 234 B Blitz McDonnell F-4S Phantom II Soyuz Instrument Module Mercury Capsule “Big Joe” Kreider-Reisner KR-34C Mercury Friendship 7 Lear Jet 23 Robinson R44 Astro G-MURY Lockheed F-104A Starfighter Soyuz TM-10 Landing Module McDonnell F-4S Phantom II Turner RT-14 Meteor North American F-86A Sabre 1903 Wright Flyer Lockheed 5B Vega Albatros D.Va Skylab Orbital Workshop Farman F.60 Space Shuttle Enterprise Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIC SPAD XVI Pitts Special S-1C Little Stinker Supermarine Spitfire Mk VII SpaceShipOne Wittman Chief Oshkosh / Buster Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis Extra 260 Hiller XH-44 Hiller-Copter Focke-Wulf Fw 190 F Langley Aerodrome A Northrop Gamma Polar Star Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat Conquest 1 The Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum maintains the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It is also a vital center for research into the history, science, and technology of aviation and space flight, as well as planetary science and Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird terrestrial geology and geophysics. 24” x 24” “We are coming into a new era of flight, an era in which all past conception of time and distance is changing and changing at a very, very rapid rate.” –Allan Lockheed Exhibition and Publication Collaborators Carolyn Russo has worked as a photographer at the Patty Wagstaff is a six-time member of the USA Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Aerobatic Team, has won the gold, silver, and bronze Museum since 1988. She is author of Artifacts of Flight medals in Olympic-level international aerobatic (Harry N. Abrams, 2003) and Women and Flight: competition, and is the first woman to win the Portraits of Contemporary Women Pilots (Bulfinch title of U.S. National Aerobatic champion and Press, 1997). She was curator of the companion one of the few people to win it three times. Flying Woman and Flight exhibition which toured the nation before millions of airshow spectators each year, her for seven years. Artifacts of Flight received awards from breathtaking performances give spectators a front- the American Institute of Graphic Arts’ 50 Books/50 row seat view of the precision and complexity of Covers Competition and the American Association modern, unlimited hard-core aerobatics. Her smooth, of Museums’ Publications Design competition. She aggressive style sets the standard for performers the holds a BFA in photography from the Massachusetts world over. College of Art and her photographs have appeared in both solo and group shows. Currently, she is working on a new project photographing airport towers. Anne Collins Goodyear is Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. Goodyear is the author of essays in Reconsidering a Century of Flight (UNC Press, 2003) and exhibition catalogues for the North Caro- lina Museum of Art’s Defying Gravity: Contemporary Flight and Flight (Prestel, 2003) and the Art Institute of Chicago’s 2001: Building for Space Travel (Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2001). She is co-editor of Flight: A Cel- ebration of 100 years in Art and Literature (Welcome Books, 2003). Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia 24” x 24” << Focke-Wulf Ta 152 H 36” x 36 ” Visit us at www.nasm.si.edu Brochure Design by Monica Escoba Content/Scheduling Carolyn Russo (202) 633– 2389 [email protected] r Cover: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21F-13 “Fishbed C” 24” x 24” Back: Lockheed 5B Vega 24” x 24”.