Tapestry, a significant art form in medieval and Italian Renaissance times, takes on a different look through new techniques. The Textile Museum’s By Hand in the Electronic Age: Contemporary Tapestry shows how a Hungarian artist such as Katalin Zelenak uses the electronic line-by-line image on a computer screen with a tapestry that’s also constructed line by line. American artist Jon Eric Riis questions issues of personal identity with a glistening Chinese-shaped coat of silk, metallic thread and cotton in “Heart of Gold, Female #1.” Twelve Hungarian artists and two Americans make up this intriguing show. At the Textile Museum, 2320 S Street NW. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission free, with a suggested donation of $5. 202/667-0441.
— Joanna Shaw-Eagle
The National Gallery of Art, drawing on holdings from the Mexican Film Institute, is hosting an extended retrospective series titled Milestones in Mexican Cinema: 1898-2003. The opening program, scheduled for Sunday at 4:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the East Building, revives the second and third installments, El Compadre Mendoza and Pancho Villa, in a historical trilogy of the mid-1930s directed by Fernando de Fuentes. The former deals with a cynical landowner during the Mexican Revolution.
A program on April 24 will be devoted to a double bill from the silent period. The remainder of the series tracks more or less chronologically from the early 1940s through the early 1990s, concluding June 20 with a showing of the most successful Mexican production of recent years, Like Water for Chocolate. Fourth Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Admission is free, but an early arrival is advisable. 202/842-6799.
— Gary Arnold
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