Kriston Capps leads off this week’s arts section with his look at But Is It Art?, a DIY art fair scheduled the same weekend as (e)merge, a glossy gathering of international galleries that will take place at the Capitol Skyline Hotel. That edificie’s owner, Mera Rubell, is a major Miami art patron, and she’s poised to become a major player in the D.C. art world when she opens at museum at the old Randall School in Southwest. So why is that making some D.C. artists—-like the folks behind But Is It Art?—-anxious?

Louis Jacobson reviews the latest installment of the Phillips Collection’s “Intersections” series—-but decides that Allen deSouza‘s rudderless series of transportation-themed images doesn’t benefit by being placed next to the museum’s famous “The Migration Series,” by the painter Jacob Lawrence. Ally Schweitzer gets behind the polished new album by chillwave standard-bearer Washed Out. Tricia Olszewski reviews one tepid German film with some lovely cinematography, and a documentary about a great cinematographer. City Paper staff and contributors offer nominations for the worst D.C. movies ever. Benjamin R. Freed compares Vince Gray‘s Washington to Transformers’. And in One Track Mind, Leor Galil talks to local trio The Gift about its self-described “funeral grunge.”