Washington
Creating a memorial to the horrors of World War I
Over the past 40 years, memorials to America’s 20th century wars have sprung up across Washington, D.C., with one conspicuous omission: There was no national memorial to veterans of World War I in our nation’s capital.
“If you ask anybody on the streets where the World War I memorial is in D.C., most of them will point you to the D.C. Veterans Memorial,” said Joe Weishaar. “For a long time people assumed that it was the national memorial. But the little rotunda that’s there is only to district residents.”
In 2015, Weishaar was a 25-year-old intern at a Chicago architecture firm when he heard about an open design competition for D.C.’s first national World War I memorial. “I set up a shelf in my closet, I set my computer on the shelf, and that was my office,” he said. “I was doing this, like, in nights and weekends after work.”
He sent off his design and then forgot about it, until … “I got a very strange phone call and they’re like, ‘You’re one of five finalists. We need you in Washington, like, tomorrow,’” he said.
Weishaar had never even been to Washington. “No, I had never been. Didn’t own a suit!”
Weishaar’s design beat out more than 360 applicants from over 20 countries.
When the memorial opened to the public in 2021, only one thing was missing: an intricate, 60-foot-long bronze relief, the memorial’s centerpiece, created by classical sculptor Sabin Howard, a firebrand and self-appointed bulwark against the scourge of modern art. “Artists like de Kooning or Jackson Pollock, I’m in opposition to them,” said Howard. “It’s a scam, what’s happened in the last 100 years. I’m here to rectify that scam.”
For his tableau depicting World War I, he said, “I threw out the last hundred years of history in the art world, and I went back to what preceded that period of time.”
Shepherding Howard through the byzantine approvals process was his client, the Congressionally-created World War I Centennial Commission.
“You go to these meetings, and none of the people in the room are artists; they’re all lawyers and, you know, Washington bureaucrats,” Howard said. “The commission asked me, ‘We need to see more – a dying soldier, perhaps, and more suffering.’ I started posing the models. You had madness, you had amputations, death. So, I went pretty deep.”
When he brought that iteration into the commission office, he said chairs were literally thrown in the room.
“I was treated as, ‘You’re working for us.’ And I took that for a long time. But then we got to a moment in the relationship, I stood up and I said, ‘I will not compromise this design. And if you don’t like it, you sculpt it, and I’ll send you some webinars.’”
The World War I Centennial Commission said they are “proud of the magnificent Memorial that Joe Weishaar and Sabin Howard have created,” and that it “provides a model of how a complex and collaborative process can work.”
Howard may lack tact, but he doesn’t lack confidence. His sculpture charts a soldier’s wartime journey, from his ambivalent departure, to his wordless homecoming, to the animal savagery of combat in-between. Pointing to one soldier, he said, “If you look at this figure, I don’t think in the history of art that there’s ever been a figure with this much explosive energy.”
Howard’s “movie in bronze,” consisting of 38 figures weighing 25 tons, ends with a soldier, home from war, lowering a helmet to a young girl.
For World War I historian Jennifer Keene, the sculpture’s final tableau illustrates the heavy toll the war exacted on its veterans: “They were not prepared for what they were going to find – the quagmire, the terror of artillery shells, rats and lice and trench feet. No, they are completely unprepared.”
Keene said, “I think that idea at the end, that it’s just a gesture, right? ‘Here’s the helmet.’ There’s no words there, because maybe there aren’t words that can really describe what that soldier has been through.”
The sculpture, which will be unveiled at a ceremony later this month, took nine years of Sabin Howard’s life. “Yeah, but that’s not a lot, when you think about it,” he said.
Asked what he hopes visitors to the memorial a century from now would experience, Howard replied, “I want the visitor 100 years from now to have the same feeling that I had when I went to go see the David when I was 25. We are made in God’s image. That sculpture is made in God’s image. So is mine. It’s a simple thing, but very deep.”
For more info:
Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Joseph Frandino.
See also:
DE Dawuane Smoot, LB Foyesade Oluokun, TE Brenton Strange, S Eric Murray, and S Antonio Johnson speak with the media after practice on Thursday ahead of the Wild Card Matchup vs. Bills.
0:00 – 2:28 – DE Dawuane Smoot
2:29 – 6:24 – LB Foyesade Oluokun
6:25 – 9:25 – TE Brenton Strange
9:26 – 11:32 – S Eric Murray
11:33 – 13:46 – S Antonio Johnson
DUBAI, Jan 11 (Reuters) – Iran warned President Donald Trump on Sunday that any U.S. attack would lead to Tehran striking back against Israel and regional U.S. military bases as “legitimate targets”, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told parliament.
Sign up here.
Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by William Mallard
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Washington
Washington National Opera cuts ties with the Kennedy Center after longstanding partnership | CNN Politics
The Washington National Opera on Friday announced it is parting ways with the Kennedy Center after more than a decade with the arts institution.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the opera said in a statement.
The decoupling marks another high-profile withdrawal since President Donald Trump and his newly installed board of trustees instituted broad thematic and cosmetic changes to the building, including renaming the facility “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
The opera said it plans to “reduce its spring season and relocate performances to new venues.”
A source familiar with the dynamic told CNN the decision to part ways was made by the opera’s board and its leadership, and that the decision was not mutual.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center said in a statement, “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship. We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell, who was appointed by Trump’s hand-picked board, said on X, “Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety.”
Grenell added, “Having an exclusive Opera was just not financially smart. And our patrons clearly wanted a refresh.”
Since taking the reins at the center, Grenell has cut existing staff, hired political allies and mandated a “break-even policy” for every performance.
The opera said the new policy was a factor in its decision to leave the center.
“The Center’s new business model requires productions to be fully funded in advance—a requirement incompatible with opera operations,” the opera said.
Francesca Zambello, the opera’s artistic director, said she is “deeply saddened to leave The Kennedy Center.”
“In the coming years, as we explore new venues and new ways of performing, WNO remains committed to its mission and artistic vision,” she said.
The New York Times first reported the opera’s departure.
Founded in 1956 as the “Opera Society of Washington,” the group has performed across the district, taking permanent residency in the Kennedy Center in 2011.
The performing arts center has been hit with a string of abrupt cancellations from artists in recent weeks including the jazz group The Cookers and New York City-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers who canceled their performances after Trump’s name was added to the center – a living memorial for assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
The American College Theater Festival voted to suspend its relationship with the Kennedy Center, calling the affiliation “no longer viable” and citing concerns over a misalignment of the group’s values.
American banjo player Béla Fleck withdrew his upcoming performance with the National Symphony Orchestra, saying that performing at the center has become “charged and political.”
The Brentano String Quartet, who canceled their February 1 performance at the Kennedy Center, said they will “regretfully forego performing there.”
CNN has reached out to the Kennedy Center on the additional cancellations.
The opera said, “The Board and management of the company wish the Center well in its own future endeavors.”
CNN’s Betsy Klein and Nicky Robertson contributed to this report.
Iowa football lands explosive running back L.J. Phillips Jr.
$660,000 Daily Tennessee Jackpot winner in La Vergne – WBBJ TV
Texas A&M Lands Second Big-Time Defensive Line Commitment In Transfer Portal
5 vehicles hit exercise equipment on I-15 near Arizona-Utah border
The rise and fall and rise of Vermont-schooled skier Mikaela Shiffrin – VTDigger
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Federal judge blocks Trump administration from enforcing mail-in voting rules in executive order
Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine
Nationwide anti-ICE protests call for accountability after Renee Good’s death
Trump says Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners ‘in a BIG WAY’
Somali minister says Israel plans to displace Palestinians to Somaliland
-
Detroit, MI1 week ago2 hospitalized after shooting on Lodge Freeway in Detroit
-
Technology5 days agoPower bank feature creep is out of control
-
Dallas, TX3 days agoAnti-ICE protest outside Dallas City Hall follows deadly shooting in Minneapolis
-
Dallas, TX6 days agoDefensive coordinator candidates who could improve Cowboys’ brutal secondary in 2026
-
Delaware2 days agoMERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach
-
Iowa5 days agoPat McAfee praises Audi Crooks, plays hype song for Iowa State star
-
Health1 week agoViral New Year reset routine is helping people adopt healthier habits
-
Nebraska4 days agoOregon State LB transfer Dexter Foster commits to Nebraska