Coming to the Katzen

The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center is already asserting its presence in our region under the guidance of its savvy Director and Curator Jack Rasmussen. The Katzen is and will continue to grow as one of the most important art venues in the Mid Atlantic.

And next week they open their 2006 year with three equally interesting exhibitions; from their news release:

Remembering Marc and Komei
This exhibition introduces the outstanding art collection of H. Marc Moyens who, with Komei Wachi, owned and operated Gallery K in Washington, DC for nearly three decades until their deaths, months apart, in 2003. Mixing local and national artists with Europeans often known better abroad than in the United States, Moyens and Wachi eschewed fashion in favor of the offbeat, the magical and the visually arresting. This selection, the first of its kind since Walter Hopps curated a show of Moyens's holdings for the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1969-70, encompasses surrealistic/fantastic images by Ernst Fuchs, Jess, and Sandy Skoglund; expressive, metaphorical and raunchy figures by Lisa Brotman, Roy de Forest, Jean Dubuffet, Fred Folsom, Jody Mussoff and Joe Shannon, and diverse abstractions by Edward Dugmore, Tom Green, Pierre Soulages, and Ken Young.

From the Studio
This exhibition will showcase work by the 21 artists who make up the studio faculty in the Department of Art for the 2005-2006 academic year. The work addresses a wide range of contemporary issues through painting, drawing, sculpture, and multi-media installation. Exhibiting artists include: Tom Bunnell, Zoe Charlton, Mary Cloonan, Billy Colbert, Tim Doud, Ben Ferry, Sharon Fishel, Carol Goldberg, Lee Haner, Kristin Holder, Tendai Johnson, Deborah Kahn, Don Kimes, Isabel Manalo, Mark Oxman, Randall Packer, Luis Silva, Jeff Spaulding, Robert Tillman, Seth Van Kirk, and Susan Yanero.

Comic Reality: Political Cartoons by Ibero-American Artists
This exhibition presents more than 100 new or never-before-published political cartoons from 20 Latin American countries, Spain and Portugal, by Ibero-America's best-known practitioners of the genre. Chico Caruso of Brazil, Oscar Sierra of Costa Rica, Elizandro de Los Angeles of Guatemala, Jimmy Scott of Chile, Pancho Cajaz of Ecuador and others, present humorously incisive images leading the charge against hypocrisy, the misuse of power, scandal, incompetence and buffoonery.

All three exhibitions will open to the public on Wednesday, Jan. 18 and continue through Sunday, March 12, 2006.