PROJECTION WARNINGS BY ROBIN BELL
Washington, DC, August 11th, 2026 - Addison/Ripley is excited to present Projection Warnings by Robin Bell as its first show of the fall 2026 season, a full gallery activation featuring multiple new works by Robin Bell. Bell is the founder of Bell Visuals and an award-winning editor, video journalist, and multimedia artist based in Washington, DC. Trained as a classical printmaker, he has established a distinctive practice at the intersection of fine art, film, public space, and political action. His work spans creative, civic, and public-interest projects, with a focus on using video, sound, and image to spark dialogue and advance social change.
During a month-long installation for this exhibition - one that promises to provoke, intrigue, and inspire - Bell has tasked himself with presenting art and technology side by side in a multitude of ways, including outward-facing work that will engage passersby, much as his many public projections, such as the acclaimed Trump Hotel intervention “Pay Trump Bribes Here,” have already done.
“What would it look like to make art about the Trumps without their likeness? How might it create different aesthetic and political possibilities? There are answers already out there. Some of them veer closer to propaganda than art, like Robin Bell’s light projections of protest messages on government buildings and Trump hotels.”
— Jillian Steinhauer, New York Times
“I don’t know the artist who did this light-projection, but this is on the Trump Hotel in DC right now. Should win a Venice Gold Lion.”
— Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine
Bell’s talent for combining groundbreaking technology with more traditional painting and printmaking into hybrid, relatable spinoffs facilitate a more personal relationship between the artist and his work. From his current Milk Tree studio, Bell seeks and nourishes community as a vital partner for his highly contemporary, rapidly evolving art.
About Robin Bell / Bell Visuals
Robin Bell is the founder of Bell Visuals and an award-winning editor, video journalist, and multimedia artist based in Washington, DC. Trained as a classical printmaker, he works at the intersection of fine art, film, public space, and political action, using video, sound, and image to spark dialogue and advance social change. More information is available at bellvisuals.com.
About Addison/Ripley Fine Art
Founded in 1981 in a former carriage house in Dupont Circle, Addison/Ripley Fine Art is now a Georgetown gallery presenting changing exhibitions of contemporary art in all media. Beyond its exhibitions, the gallery serves as an art consultant and curator for institutions including the Warner Building, the German Marshall Fund, and the U.S. Department of State's Overseas Buildings Operation.
Exhibition Details
Exhibition Name: Projection Warnings by Robin Bell
Venue: Addison/Ripley Fine Art, 1670 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036
Exhibition Dates: September 12th – October 17th, 2026
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11am-4pm
Opening Reception: September 19th 5-7pm
Artist Talk: October 10th 11am
Closing Reception: October 17th 5-7pm
A/R
In 2025 A/R expanded its footprint, unlocking spaces the building had not utilized in years — partnering with StudioLab RD to bring their working studio into that previously idle lower level — and reworked the lighting throughout, so the rooms read differently than they did as Addison/Ripley. That lighting isn't just for daytime visitors, either: the gallery is deliberately organized and lit so it keeps giving after hours, too — walk or drive past the Corner at night and the windows are doing real work, turning A/R into something you can experience without ever stepping inside.
Underneath A/R's recent digital emphasis is a very deliberate bet on the physical: in a moment when so much art discovery happens on a screen — and D.C.'s gallery scene keeps thinning out — A/R is leaning hard into being one of the last true bricks-and-mortar galleries left in the city. Fewer galleries means more focus on the ones that remain, and A/R is treating that as an opportunity rather than a threat.
The roster reflects that same openness: unknown, little known, and well known artists share wall space on equal footing — a first-time discovery hanging a room away from a marquee name. That's not incidental to the space, either — it's the whole reason the studio-to-gallery pipeline matters to Addison personally. "Mounting a new show never gets old," he says. "Taking the work from studio to gallery walls brings it alive in new, previously unimagined ways" — and with StudioLab RD now working in the building itself, that transformation happens close enough to watch.
Artists like Robin Bell, Matt Curry, and Jonathan Monaghan are bringing the digital art world into sharp focus at A/R, and the gallery backs that work with real infrastructure: FAL (Fine Art Ledger) tags, attached to the back of each work, offer surety, easily accessible information, and durable provenance — traditional pieces included, lending them the same credence as the screen-based ones beside them.
That's the real trick of the redesign: it doesn't ask you to choose between the two things a gallery used to have to sacrifice one for the other to offer — the warmth of standing in a room with real work, and the confidence of knowing exactly what you're looking at. A/R keeps both. Walk in during a show and you're watching art come alive in real time; walk by at midnight and the Corner is still lit for you. Either way, in a city with fewer and fewer galleries doing this, A/R made sure it's the one worth stopping for — committed to augmenting the collector experience and building a stronger art community, one show at a time.
Featured Artists
Grid
Waterfall