Leisure
Recognize!, the National Portrait Gallery’s new exhibit about hip-hop culture, is slightly self-admonishing, born of a desire to recognize the movement’s work as “museum-worthy.”
Doing a bit of sampling of its own, the Portrait Gallery chose a photographer, a painter, a poet, a video artist and two graffiti artists to showcase different aspects of hip-hop. Forgoing its usual strategy of sticking to retrospectives, the Smithsonian museum has produced an awkward first foray into current culture. Although the exhibit feels disjointed and insufficient at times, most of its pieces are unique and worth seeing.
By
Sara Carothers
February 14, 2008