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Liberty (ca. 1884) by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Plan for this landmark weekend at goSmithsonian.com and Find a complete listing of the Smithsonian’s Inaugural Events.

Friday, January 16: Inaugural Activities: Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree

Celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama as well as your hopes and dreams for the future of our country. Come by the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden to write your wishes on a piece of paper and tie them to the Wish Tree, which is part of a continuing series of artworks by Yoko Ono that encourages people to become a part of the creative process. Free. Hirshhorn Museum, 10:00 AM-5:30 PM. Repeats January 17-20.

Saturday, January 17: Out of Many: A Multicultural Festival of Music, Dance and Story

Kick off your inauguration celebration with this three-day festival that celebrates the music, dance and storytelling traditions of cultures the world over. Check out the event’s website here for a complete schedule or you can pick up a hard copy on site at the Welcome Center. Free. National Museum of the American Indian. Continues January 18 and 19 and is related to the exhibition “A Century Ago… They Came As Sovereign Leaders.” Read about the event that inspired this show here.

Sunday, January 18: Inaugural Activities Around the Mall

The Smithsonian has a host of multicultural celebrations happening on the Mall to commemorate the inauguration of Barack Obama.

Museum of American History

11:30 AM: In Process… songs of the Civil Rights movement

12:30 PM: Federal City Brass Band, Civil War-era band music

1-3 PM: Jim Bendat signs copies of his book Democracy’s Big Day: The Inauguration of our President, 1789-2009

2:00 PM: In Process… songs of the Civil Rights movement

3:00 PM: Spark!Lab: Benjamin Franklin’s electrical experiments

3:30 PM: Federal City Brass Band, Civil War-era band music

Free. Repeats Jan. 19

Freer/Sackler Gallery of Art

Enjoy a rare viewing of Gari Melcher’s Portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt (1908) and see an autographed letter from President Roosevelt to museum founder Charles Lang Freer.

11 AM: Leyland’s Butler: The Story of Whistler’s Peacock Room, performance tour by Jonathan Watkins

12 Noon: Sharing the Light: Asian Tales of Wisdom Storytelling, performance by Eth-Noh-Tec

2 PM: Seeds of Hope: Dance performance by theShizumi and Kodomo Dance Troupe

3 PM: Gift to the Nation: American Art and Charles Lang Freer’s Aesthetic Vision, tour by art historian Josephine Rodgers

4 PM (Sackler, sublevel 1): Joy of Siam: Dance performance by the Somapa Thai Dance Company

Free. Continues Jan. 19 & 20

S. Dillon Ripley Center

10:00 AM: JFK (189 min., 1991) Oliver Stone’s investigation into the assassination of JFK where the Warren Report’s truthfulness is overshadowed by a colorful cast of conspiracy theories.

1:30 PM: The American President (114 min.) Widowed U.S. president Andrew Shephard falls in love with lobbyist Sydney Helen Wade—allowing his political opponents to publicly question his moral fiber and threaten his odds at being re-elected.

4:00 PM: Dr. Strangelove (93 min., 1964) Stanley Kubrick’s classic Cold War satire where Air Force General Jack D. Ripper, convinced the Communists will take over the Free World, launches a nuclear bomb raid on the Soviet Union. Will the President of the United States be able to stop the planes from dropping their deadly payload?

Free. Repeats Jan. 19

Museum of African Art

Treasure Hunt: Scavenge the museum to find an array of leadership arts from across the African continent. Pick up self-guided activity at the information desk.

12 Noon-2 PM: Screening of the film Hip Hop Colony, a documentary that takes an intimate look at hip hop while establishing its ties to Kenya.

2-4 PM: DJ Adrian Loving performs a mix of African percussion and hip hop.

4-5 PM: Dr. Mark Auslander (Brandeis University) discusses African kingship ceremonies in a lecture entitled “Leadership is People: African Celebrations of a New Leader.”

Free. Continues Jan. 19

Monday, January 19: Presidential Films

10 AM: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (129 min., 1939) Naive and idealistic Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers, discovers many of the shortcomings of the political process as his earnest goal of a National Boys’ Camp leads to a conflict with the state political boss.

1 PM: All the President’s Men (138 min., 1976) Even though we now know the identity of Deep Throat, this film, the patriotism of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein—who uncover the scams and scandals of Nixon’s White House—is evergreen.

4 PM: My Fellow Americans (101 min., 1996l) Kramer and Douglas, two former presidents from opposite ends of the political spectrum, become reluctant allies when they become the target of a conspirator in President Haney’s administration.

Free. S. Dillon Ripley Center

Tuesday, January 20: Barack Obama portrait unveiling

Shepard Fairey’s populist portrait of Barack Obama became an icon of the 2008 presidential election and it the National Portrait Gallery’s pleasure to unveil a large-scale mixed-media version of this portrait. Also, ATM blogger Megan Gambino was able to sit down and chat with the artist about his work. Read “Richard Fairey: The Artist Behind the Obama Portrait” here on Smithsonian.com.

Free. National Portrait Gallery, 10:00 AM-5:30 PM.

Also, all the museums with the exception of the Renwick Gallery will be open to save you from the bitter cold, so stay warm and enjoy the historic weekend!

Dodges Ridge (1947) by Andrew Wyeth, American Art Museum.

Andrew Wyeth died in his sleep, January 15, at age 91. He was a part of a highly gifted continuum of artists—the son of illustrator NC Wyeth, brother of Henriette Wyeth and father of Jamie Wyeth—and over the course of his lifetime he produced a body of technically and aesthetically astounding work that melds realism with surrealism and abstract expressionism. It is a style that has garnered both controversy and admiration.

(Fred Rogers was a fan of his work and had the artist appear on his popular children’s program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Check out the video below. In 1963 Wyeth was awarded a Presidential Freedom Award—the highest civilian honor—by President John F. Kennedy and in 1970 was feted by President Richard Nixon with a black tie dinner and the first-ever exhibition of a living artist’s work in the White House.)

In 1948, at age 31, he created Christina’s World, which has since become an icon of American art. Wyeth is survived by his wife, Betsy, sons, Nicholas and Jamie, and his paintings. The Smithsonian American Art Museum is fortunate to own several of his pieces. (Dodges Ridge, pictured above, is currently the only one on view.) Read more about Andrew Wyeth’s legacy in “Wyeth’s World,” originally published in the June 2006 issue of Smithsonian.

Lincoln's inaugural ball, March 6, 1865; Illustration from "Illustrated London News"

If you find yourself roaming the streets this Inaugural weekend without a ticket to a fancy ball, I suggest you wander up to the third floor of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. It’s since been renovated, of course, but it was the space where Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural ball was held. Get this: tickets to Lincoln’s ball cost $10 and admitted a gentleman and two ladies. Scandalous. An extravagant midnight supper was served and apparently the food ended up slopped on the dance floor.

The museum is holding inauguration-themed tours throughout the weekend to tell the story of the third floor and other presidential and inaugural-themed pieces in its collection. Some highlights include a Steinway piano (the 100,000th produced by the company) painted by American impressionist Thomas Wilmer Dewing that was gifted to the White House during Teddy Roosevelt’s administration and a cabinet full of White House china.

* Tours today at 2 p.m., January 16 at 2 p.m., January 17 and 18 at 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. and January 21 at 6 p.m.

Shepard Fairey with his "Hope" portrait

Shepard Fairey:

“My hope was that if I made an iconic image of Obama that yielded both a recognizable portrait of him and something that seemed to transcend the limitations of a photograph—something that felt like a passionate art piece and had an idealism to it that would reflect the idealism of the subject, then it could be a powerful tool.”

Journalists these days are hot on the trail of Fairey, a graphic designer whose instantly recognizable portrait of Obama is being added to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection this weekend. I got fifteen minutes with the artist the other day. Check out the resulting interview on Smithsonian.com.

Wake Forest University debater Rohit Nath (above) and his teammate Marie-Odile Hobeika will face Michigan State University at The Inaugural Debate Series.

What should President-elect Barack Obama do in his first 100 days of office? Should he push for universal health care? Intervene in the Israel-Gaza conflict? Put forward legislation to create green jobs?

These questions will be discussed by some of the nation’s top college debaters at The Inaugural Debate Series to take place Monday, January 19 at the National Museum of Natural History.

The event is sponsored by Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in cooperation with the Debate Consortium, a pilot program that partners nationally competitive university debate teams with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) looking to revive their debate programs. The 2007 film, The Great Debaters, a fictionalized account of the 1935 historically black Wiley College debate team’s face off against the reigning debate champions of the time, renewed student interest in the activity.

Wake Forest University debater Rohit Nath, left, a senior economics major and soon-to-be law school student, has been busy perusing databases like Lexis-Nexis and keeping up with the news in preparation for the event.

He and teammate Marie-Odile Hobeika, a senior philosophy major, will debate Michigan State University. The Wake Forest duo will argue that Obama should not make energy and climate change a priority during his first days in office.

The Voorhees College debate team will discuss foreign policy at the Inaugural Debate Series.

The four other teams participating include the University of Mary Washington and the University of Southern California who will debate health care and the economy, as well as two schools representing Historically Black Colleges and Universities—Fayetteville State University and Voorhees College— who will debate foreign policy.

For Nath, feelings of excitement are weighing out his anxiety. “It’s definitely not just another debate for me,” he says. “More than anything, this is a debate that’s been intended to increase diversity throughout the general debating community.”

According to his coach Ross Smith, the director of the 2008 National Championship-winning Wake Forest debate team, the Inaugural Debate Series aims to reengage HBCUs in debate. Smith will be one of several coaches participating in a workshop the weekend before the Series to advise HBCU students and faculty on how to jump start debate programs on their campuses.

The University of Mary Washington debate team will tackle health care and the economy.

Although Obama may not be able to attend, the series is officially on the Inaugural Committee’s calendar of events.

“It would be great for him to listen to what we have to say,” Nath says. “To be fair though, the point of this debate is not for us to voice our opinions but to have a debate over these issues. I would hope that he listens to the debate and decides what the winning side is based on the arguments presented.”

The invitation to the debate will also allow all the debaters to take part in the inaugural celebrations. “We’re honored to be in D.C. during inauguration because it’s something much bigger than the debate or anything else that we’re involved in right now,” Nath says.

Around the Mall wishes all of the debaters the best of luck.