Great area for photos! Fairly private. My niece enjoyed her photoshoot.
Very cool to see DC street Art up close and personal
Best place to take professional and amateur pics in DC! Parking is a pain during the day so use a parking app but otherwise its worth a visit with a camera
The DC Alley Museum is a “neat” place on a surface level. If I had a job in the small business community it was located in, it would be a cool place to hang around during break hours. But that is it. It is hardly a museum and clearly exists for money. Although actual museums do suffer from the same profitization of art that this “museum” does, this place is an exaggeration of it.The place itself has a very superficial, shallow feeling to it. There are few art pieces. The few of them that there are seemingly have little maintenance and care done to their preservation. Their only protection seems to be security cameras hanging above these paintings which you just have to walk into an alleyway to experience. While the murals are well-crafted, they all have this shallow progressive theme to them. A good example is its “LOVE” mural. The “LOVE” mural is a simple painting of rainbow-colored rectangles on garage doors spelling out the word “LOVE.” The “LOVE” mural is obviously there to promote queer inclusiveness and respect, but is not very profound, new, nor thought-provoking in doing so. I wish I could call this “LOVE” mural by its actual artwork title, but none is listed; in fact, every piece has little to no information or context provided to them. This reveals the lack of serious commitment that a true museum should have.The “museum” is obviously there just for profit. It’s there to raise the land value of the surrounding business buildings. Being next to something listed as a museum would do this. Also, by listing itself as a museum, it shows up as one on tourism registries next to actual ones like the Smithsonians, increasing the number of people who visit and fall for this clear tourist trap. The profitization also shows in the shallow artwork. As Hito Steyerl pointed out in her essay “Politics of Art: Contemporary Art and the Transition to Post-Democracy,” the increasingly neoliberal and profit-driven world reduces the quality of artwork to shallow pieces which offer no real profoundness to them.1Although, actual museums rely on profit incentives too. Since the 80’s, museums everywhere in America have had to rely on donations from the wealthy and from corporations. This is because of the Reagan-era reforms that greatly slashed the amount of money the government was putting into the arts.2 This raised concerning problems for the world of art and museums, and how our own public culture is shaped and represented. Before the neoliberal reforms of the 80’s, the government used to be more involved in art. As John F. Kennedy said on the matter: “Government can never take on the role of patronage and support filled by private individuals and groups in our society. But government surely has a significant part to play in helping establish the conditions under which art can flourish.”.3I agree with JFK. There needs to be a balance of how much private individuals and groups can influence art and how much the public can influence art. Otherwise, when you have very profit-driven museum scenes, you end up with the DC Alley “Museum.”______1Hito Steyerl, “Politics of Art: Contemporary Art and the Transition to Post-Democracy,” e-flux, December 2010.2吳金桃 Chin-tao Wu, Embracing the Enterprise Culture: Art Institutions Since the 1980s. New Left Review, Summer 1998. pp 28-293Cher Krause Knight, A Short History of Official Public Art. Public Art: Theory, Practice, Populism. (Blackwell: 2008); pg 1
The Alley area is cool, great place for a walk. Im unclear what the museum involves actually
Worth a look and visits to the neighboring bars or restaurants
I love street art, this alley only has a few murals, so much potential to exploit more street art.
Wasnt as big as we thought, cars where constantly driving through the streets. But the art was good.
DC Alley Museum is so cool. I love the beautiful murals in the alley. There are restaurants there too. The museum art exhibit that I saw featured some Chicago Jazz musicians. It was nice to see Chicago Jazz highlighted during the DC Jazz Festival.
Beautiful. Definitely worth the visit.
Good place to create content
It was closed in open hours, poorly organized no management
Nice wall paintings. Only takes about 20mins to walkthrough.
Far out
Beautiful wall art
Get lifted by art here .