By Eliza Tebo

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For the next two weeks, a onetime Jonathan Adler outpost is being repurposed as a gallery for the work of 51 local artists—including an angular fountain, a Rembrandt-esque portrait of father and son, and a rather meta painting of Homer Simpson eyeing a rendering of donuts.

The collection of about 150 works comprises the inaugural By the People x Monochrome Art Fair, a new addition to the international celebration of art and intellect that is By the People. Open to the public through June 23, the art fair offers locals and visitors alike a chance to view and purchase the work of D.C.-area artists of all ages and stages in their career.

“By the People gets so many art lovers into the DMV, and they’re here to experience beautiful works by internationally renowned artists,” says Nina O’Neil, curator of the art fair and founder of art consultation service Monochrome Collective. “The artists in the area are creating beautiful things too—let’s celebrate that as well.”

By the People debuted in 2018 with four days of performances, workshops and discussions that attracted some 26,000 attendees to locations throughout the city. This year, it doubles in length—running from Saturday through June 23—adds the art fair, and features some awfully intriguing projects.

Mason’s Barbershop on H Street on H Street Northeast will be one of the hosts of Union Market and Eaton DC will host the video installation “BLKNWS,” a work from artist Kahlil Joseph. At the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, find an experimental generative poetry workshop that includes a VR experience (you read that right). And you might spy a river barge floating by with art activations and pop-up concerts traveling the Potomac and Anacostia.

For Kate Goodall, founder of both the festival and its primary producer, D.C.-based artist incubator Halcyon, accessibility is a top priority.

“Not everyone can up and go to Aspen or [Art] Basel or the Venice Biennale,” she says. “So what can we do to bring incredibly high-caliber work to D.C. but also have people stumble on it and encounter it in the public space?”

The festival is running a free shuttle bus on weekends and has invited other local arts nonprofits to run parallel programming in what she bills as an “arts takeover of the city.”

Another work to keep an eye out for is “Walking on Clouds” by tech-centric New York artist Jonathan Rosen. In the exhibit, which will be set up at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, visitors stroll through a gauzy haze of fog on their way to interactive mirrors with flashing phrases. Naturally for 2019, they’re then asked to take a selfie.

“You take a selfie and that becomes this fine art work,” says By the People Festival curator Jessica Stafford Davis. “So people leave artwork in their device.”

And let’s talk more about this barge. In terms of mechanics, it’s just your everyday, garden-variety barge that will be pulled by a tugboat to three docking locations: the Georgetown waterfront, the Capitol Riverfront and Anacostia Park. You’ll know it because it will be bearing the billboard art piece “They Are Us, Us is Them” by Hank Willis Thomas, a conceptual artist and co-founder of the civic-minded arts hub For Freedoms. Each docking site will host different activities, and spectators will be invited to respond to Thomas’ work by completing phrases such as “Freedom of ___” and “Freedom to ___” on provided lawn signs.

“People get to write on the lawn sign what they think about when they think of freedom, which, in this very divisive time, anyone can approach from any direction,” Goodall says. “That’s a very powerful American ideal, even though we might all define it slightly differently. It’s a nice thing to remember that we’re maybe more alike than we are different around an activity like that.”