Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage
Opening Today!
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| Annie Leibovitz, Plano, Illinois, 2011. ©Annie Leibovitz, 2011 |
We're thrilled to open the exhibition Pilgrimage, which features new work by world-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz. We interviewed Annie recently for the museum's blog, Eye Level. Below is an excerpt; visit the blog post for the full interview.
Tell me how Pilgrimage came about.
Annie: It started off with a list of twelve or so places, people, and ideas and it became a book of twenty-seven, and it continues. Everything on the list made it into the book. One of the key places was the Lincoln Memorial. I grew up in the D.C. area and attended high school here. I honestly don't know why I put it on the list, but it became a touchstone.
Speaking of Lincoln, having the exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in the building where the president had his second inaugural seems appropriate to the emotional tone and content of the book.
Annie: It's so exciting to be doing this at the Smithsonian. When I was at the Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, I bought a copy of Lincoln's writings that the Library of Congress had published and I just fell in love. We all knew the Gettysburg Address as kids, but did not take in the eloquence of the writer, and how beautiful his prose was. We flew down to Kentucky in search of his log cabin, and headed toward Hodgenville, a little town about 50 miles outside of Louisville. We found his birthplace, Sinking Spring Farm, then Knob Creek Farm, where Lincoln lived from about age two through eight. It was about ten miles between the two sites. [It was wonderful] just to be out in the country and [experience] The Lincoln Heritage trail. It's a great country; let's face it.
Pilgrimage runs from January 20 through May 20, 2012. You can see photographs of the exhibition on Flickr. Annie Leibovitz's artist talk on January 24 is sold out, but you can watch the webcast here.
