Goss on Sugimoto
Heather Goss delivers an intelligent and succint review of Hiroshi Sugimoto at the Hirshhorn, as the new visual-arts friendly DCist suddenly comes through with a couple of decent writers to cover our area's visual art scene.
Read it here.
More please!
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Openings
Remember that Wallsnatchers opens today. Details here.
Some Places, a body of new photographs by Doug Hall opens Friday, February 24th, with a reception from 6:30 - 8pm at Numark Gallery.
Trace, a body of photographs by Gen Aihara opens at Shigeko Bork's mu project in Georgetown. The opening reception is Saturday, February 25, 5 - 7pm. There will also be a Sake tasting sponsored by Joto Sake.
Anna U. Davis's solo exhibition "Sashimi Me" at Studio One Eight in Adams Morgan has a reception this Saturday from 7 - 10pm. There will also be a artist talk at 8pm the same evening.
Project 4, DC's newest gallery, opens this Saturday, Feb. 25 with a reception from 6-8:30 PM. Details here.
More later...
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Wilson Building Art Collection
Deadline: This Friday!
As I mentioned here, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities is currently accepting applications for the Wilson Building Public Art Collection and the deadline is this Friday.
The Wilson Building is located downtown at 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in our capital.
The historic building serves as the headquarters for the Mayor and City Council for the District of Columbia. The works purchased through this call for entries are specifically designated for permanent installation in the Wilson Building.
And this is a very big building, with some very art-friendly walls, is just waiting to be filled with artwork. Only DC, Virginia and Maryland artists are eligible, and I believe that DC residents have some priority.
And as I've said before, I really think that this collection stands a chance to become a very strong and significant opportunity to put together (in one place) a very good sampling of Washington, DC regional artists.
And (of course) this being a public art collection, it immediately leaves out all nudity and any remotely controversial subject - but that's not the Commission's fault, nor the curator's; it's just an unwritten rule in American public art.
Nonetheless I think that this opportunity is as good as any as they come because:
(a) There's no cost associated (entry fees, etc.)
(b) It's easy to enter (you can send slides or CD ROM)
(c) You have a month to prepare (deadline is Feb. 24, 2006)
(d) The curator (Sondra Arkin) is actually someone who has really deep roots in the DC art scene, and knows what makes it tick - artists, galleries, dealers, schools, etc.
No excuses!
And I sincerely hope that some of my fellow gallerists encourage some of their big name area artists (just as we have) to apply and submit to this call, and hopefully be included in the closest that we'll have in this area to a permanent DC artist exhibition.
Download the application here.
Parsons on Transformer
Seems like DCist has finally found a couple of writers to cover the visual arts regularly (about time!). And Adrian Parsons checks in with a really refreshing review of the Relationship Show at Transformer Gallery.
Read the review here.
Wall Snatchers
Curated by our own Kelly Towles and presented by the WPA/C, what promises to be a very interesting exhibition opens tomorrow at the old Staples store in Georgetown.
Wall Snatchers showcases graffiti and street art from Boston, Florida, New York, and Washington DC. It features work by Bask, Eon, Faile, fi5e, Mister Never, Nick Z, and Tes One.
These aren't all your average graffittimeisters. For example, Fi53 (pronounced like the number five) is an MFA graduate from Parsons who has collaborated with Eyebeam to work on new technology that he has applied to street art.
Here's a short video to watch.
It appears that these artists are trying to take the genre to a new place, still somewhat ephemeral, but now "safe" in the sense that they're doing no damage and still getting their message across?
He will be projecting his work on the facade of the old Staples building at 3307 M St. in Georgetown on Thursday night and then they hope to move on to the Corcoran and do the same.
The opening reception is this Thursday, February 23rd, 6:30 - 8:30 pm and the gallery hours are Friday 6 - 10 pm, and Saturday & Sunday 12 - 8 pm.
Picturing the Banjo
NPR has a rare and pretty good local visual arts review and story on the much maligned "Picturing the Banjo" exhibition at the Corcoran.
In fact, it' such an interesting review that I am going to go see the exhibition and make up my own mind about it.
Job in the Arts
Deadline: March 24, 2006
The College of New Jersey has a full time ten-month renewable position available for a Curator/Director in support of The College Art Gallery at The College of New Jersey, beginning Fall semester 2006.
The Curator/Director works closely with the Art Department faculty, the Dean of the School of Art, Media and Music, student Art Majors, and the community to create exhibitions, collect works of art for the campus collection, and contribute to the larger presence of art on the TCNJ campus. This individual must be an experienced professional and scholar who is able to perform the following duties: act as gallery registrar; plan and implement 6 exhibitions per year with faculty input; install exhibitions (student workers available); develop patron relationships; provide programmatic leadership; assist in the development of financial resources through grants and gifts support; assist in growing and developing the college collection; supervise student assistants; teach (as needed) in areas related to museum studies and contemporary art.
TCNJ is in the midst of designing a new Art building that will provide for a new gallery, additional space for exhibitions, collections, and interactive learning areas. By the post mark deadline of March 24, please submit a letter of application, current resume, documentation of recent exhibitions, and a statement of curatorial philosophy to:
Gallery Director Search Committee
Department of Art
The College of New Jersey
P.O. Box 7718
Ewing, NJ 08628-0718
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Monticello, Arkansas
First of all, althought it was named after the Jeffersonian Monticello, in the Arkansas version, it is pronounced with a soft "c"... as a Spaniard or Frenchman would pronounce it: Montisello.
Population 9,146 and home to the the University of Arkansas at Monticello, which has quite a nice looking campus - more "University-looking" in fact, than that ugly eyesore that is the University of Maryland's main campus. And it goes beyond that; it is clear that it is quite a good University, and it's clear that the state, or someone, is pouring a lot of money into it.
It's different being down here in the real rural part of the nation. On the way from the parking lot to the local WalMart, every single person that I passed say hello to me.
Even inside WalMart people were saying hello all over the place. It was kind of nice.
I think that this may have been the first time that I've been inside a WalMart, and let me tell you: it's huge! And I suspicion suspect that a lot of Monticellans work here, and they're all so friendly!
And everything is soooo cheap! A Nats ballcap was five bucks - not the $12.95 to $19.95 range that I see around the DC area.
And all the restaurants are buffet style! I think I've gained five pounds in the last two days just eating catfish alone.
A very nice little place: Monticello, Arkansas.
Anyway, heading back home later this morning.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Padget Moving on
Jonathan Padget, who authors the twice-a-month "Arts Beat" column in the WaPo is moving on.
Starting Tuesday, he will be working as a the new Style copy editor. His arts editorial aide duties will be handled by Kate Wichmann through late March, with coverage after that TBD.
Everytime the WaPo says TBD for one of their arts column I get nervous; the last TBD that we're still waiting for the "D" was for the addition of a new freelancer to replace Glenn Dixon and bring the "Galleries" column back to once a week.
Obviously the WaPo has decided that they will keep "Galleries" to just twice a month and are too chicken to announce that fact.
If you don't get it, you don't get it.
Icy
I'm at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, and this morning the car was covered under half an inch of ice, which I am told it's quite unusual for this area!
More later.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Thank You Marc and Komei
Before I get started: the more that I visit the new Katzen Art Center’s galleries, the more that it dawns on me that we now can boast to having one of the best visual art spaces in the Mid-Atlantic; the place is just amazing, and I am hypnotized by the way that walls pop in and out and curve around, forcing the visitor to admire not only what’s on display, but the space as well.
On display currently is the massive "Remembering Marc & Komei" exhibition through March 12, 2006.
This exhibition introduces 92 artists from the 2,500 plus art collection of H. Marc Moyens and Komei Wachi, the deceased owners of the now closed Gallery K in Washington, D.C.
This exhibition, the first to show the collection since Walter Hopps curated a show of Moyens’s collection for the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1969-70, is a truly unique opportunity to view, study and learn what makes successful art collectors and successful art dealers often merge into one entity.
At first sight, the initial reaction is to try to write that Moyens and later Wachi had an amazing diverse and eclectic taste in art. Once we check that initial impulse with the fact that the collection spread over many decades, it is easy to see that their tastes and insights changed over the years, but never their curiosity and zeal to acquire and grow their collection.
In fact, it’s a fascinating guessing game to see what and who came first. This is not easy, as these two gentlemen collected both area and national artists as well as many European artists who were often known better abroad than in the United States.
It has been written that "Moyens and Wachi eschewed fashion in favor of the offbeat, the magical, and the visually arresting." And I would agree with some reservations, in the sense that I don’t think that they eschewed fashion, but were in several cases, ahead of the coming fashion trend, and like experienced collectors, often stuck with their instincts, and were handsomely rewarded later, once the ever swinging art fashion pendulum swung back to align with their selections.
Let’s walk through this amazing show.
On the ground floor gallery, we discover a very early Joe Shannon. Titled "Businessmen" and painted in 1970, it is a precursor to the harsh, warring paintings that Shannon would produce over the next 35 years. It is also curious to see a fully dressed Shannon appear in the painting (he’s the bearded man to the left), as Shannon usually makes his appearances in his works in the buff.
This talented Puerto Rican artist has been a key member of the DC art scene for nearly five decades now and he has been ignored way too long, and Shannon is overdue for a major museum retrospective here in DC.
Take a deep breath.
And then we are surrounded by my earlier points. How could a collection be so eclectic and diverse? How could the same collector that picked up John McLaughlin’s "#21-1959" possibly in 1959 and Annie Truitt’s "Arundel XIV" in 1975 and Morris Graves barely there pastel on paper "Bird of the Inner Eye" in 1955, also select Fritz Kothe’s "Honda" in 1966?
Because he or they, liked them.
And sometimes there are stories associated with the pieces, that remind us what kind of mensch these two gentlemen truly were.
There’s an amazing, and highly personal piece in the exhibition by DC artist Sidney Lawrence. It is called "Peaceable Kingdom" and Lawrence created it in 1982, when it was part of his solo exhibition at Gallery K.
The piece, which depicts the artist (Lawrence's face is in the sun) and was dedicated by Lawrence to his father (who had died about the time that the work was created and is depicted as the phantom face on the left) in a very intimate and story-telling world, sold to a local DC collector. The iconographic work depicts Abram Lerner, then Lawrence's boss at the Hirshhorn, talking to artist Jody Mussoff. Lawrence created the work from a photograph taken at an opening, and as he recalls, they were discussing the fact that a drawing by Mussoff was about to be bought by Joe Hirshhorn, and then donated to the museum.
This intimate, iconographic work was not an easy piece of art to acquire, and it shows a courageous and savvy collector with a very good eye for art.
A few years later the collector died, and his children, who obviously did not share their father’s valiant taste in artwork, asked Komei and Marc if they could return the piece and get their money back.
I was astounded that someone could be so bold as to ask to return a work of art acquired years earlier.
But I was even more astounded to discover that Komei and Marc, did indeed return their father’s money and then decided to keep the piece for their own collection.
It is also clear to see that these two gents liked surrealistic and fantastic images in their collection. There’s a spectacular Ernst Fuchs oil and tempera on board titled "Angel of Death" (c.1952-58) that reminds me of both Bosch and more specifically of DC’s own Erik Sandberg, who exhibited with Gallery K for a while, but is curiously not included in this exhibit, and probably should have been (if his work is in their collection).
But my favorite work in this genre was an odd painting of a bald lady, appropriately titled "Bald-Headed Lady" and painted in 1960 by Zoltan Von Boer, superbly standing alone in its oddity and outsider-like feeling.
Another masterful work in this genre is Margarida Kendall Hull’s (who was Sandberg's biggest influence when he was her student at GMU) jaw dropping "Lillith," painted by Kendall in 1993. Kendall Hall had a series of highly successful solo shows with Gallery K, and has since then, in a paradoxical departure, enjoyed spectacular success in Europe, where her work has been selling so briskly, both to museums and collectors, that Kendall now has a sizeable wait list, while all but disappearing from the local DC art scene.
There are other surprises from the area artists in this collection (besides seeing a dressed Joe Shannon).
Such as a great graphite on paper drawing by Fred Folsom titled "Chesterfields" and done by Folsom in 1978. Another one of my favorites is a dual litho by Scip Barnhart and Jody Mussoff, a joint self-portrait of these two well-known DC artists done in 1993.
Who else is there?
There are strong pieces by Lisa Brotman, Jean Dubuffet, Edward Dugmore, Pierre Soulages, and Ken Young. There’s a box (done in the 1950s) by Joseph Cornell, a 1977 Sean Scully and Sandra Skoglund’s weird Ciba "Revenge of the Goldfish" from 1981 and Andrea Way’s "Floating Time" from 1985.
But the lesson here is very simple.
When you love art, (if you can) you buy art. And then you buy what you
Thank you Komei; thank you Marc.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
From the Studio at the Katzen
The top floor gallery of the beautiful Katzen Arts Center’s galleries is currently hosting "From the Studio," a group show that brings together the artists that make up American University’s studio art faculty (both full time and adjunct professors).
It seems that more and more I like to reveal my hand very early on a review, especially when reviewing a group show, and let me tell you right away that the best work in this show is by Zoe Charlton, who is exhibiting several pieces from her Undercover Series (sorry - I don't have any good images).
Charlton, who works mixed media on vellum, is an artist who has managed to create and deliver on a very hard assignment: the marriage of sensuality with the most economical presentation possible. It is as in viewing her work, perhaps anchored by the bare presentation on vellum, we are seeing individual cels from an animated, sexy film, the kind that one would see at those artsy erotic film festivals in San Francisco or Seattle, but never here in DC.
In any event, this professor brings some fresh new ideas and loads of talent to our area, and I’m really looking forward to seeing more of her work over the years.
AU students seeking to learn how to paint properly, should all immediately sign up for Ben Ferry’s class (I hope that he’s teaching paining); he’s without a doubt the best technical painter in the faculty, and his mysteriously-titled painting "Jumping in the Grass," easily shows that even the most common of subjects (in this case a dog) can be elevated to a sublime place by that most ancient of mediums, which keep surprising all of those who keep clamoring that painting is dead. As long as talented painters such as Ferry wield brushes, painting will never die.
Trawick Prize finalist Jeff Spaulding shows why he nearly won that highly competitive prize a few years ago, and his "Endgame" sculptural installation was not only evocative in its mental references to Saint Sebastian, but also popped into my head that famous painting by Frida Kahlo where she has depicted herself as a deer full of arrows.
Luis Silva’s video installation, titled "March 6" and Susan Yanero’s weird and super busy "Mollie’s Life," a huge oil on canvas, rounded up what I thought were the most successful works in this group show.
Overall the exhibition is an excellent opportunity to peek inside the faculty at AU and discover both fresh new talent, established artists and the usual head-scratcher that comes along with any group show.
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.
The exhibition runs through March 12, 2006.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Gopnik on Dada
The WaPo's Chief Art Critic reviews the terrific Dada exhibit at the NGA, and very early on the review he shows his solid neoCon right wing colors by throwing in the now blase reference to Abu Ghraib in an art review, which will surely merit a few thousand words of response from you know who.
And you get to read the review here and now (a day and a half early), as it will be published next Sunday!
The review also includes a really cool "Learn the ABC's of Dada" link. See that here. I don't know if the printed version of the review will carry it, but online it is a brilliant departure from the usual type of review, and yet another marker on the road to the burial of the printed press.
Well done to Gopnik and to the WaPo for this multimediaish review!
O'Sullivan on Bourgeois
Michael O'Sullivan has a really good review of the "Louise Bourgeois: Femme" exhibition at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
Read it here.
Midwives at Round House
Last night I snagged a couple of free tickets and went to see Midwives at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda.
The play is based on the #1 New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection novel Midwives by Chris Bohjalian. It was adapted by Dana Yeaton and directed by Mark Ramont.
The play starts 15 years after the event, with a very pregnant woman making an entrance into a hospital room from within a very beautiful stage prop that arches over the entire stage. It is sometimes lit, and sometimes translucent, and it is sort of a remarkable cage where stripped tree branches are caged and suspended around and over the stage, looking like a huge Yuriko Yamaguchi sculpture.
The pregnant woman, we soon find out is Charlotte Bedford (played superbly by Kimberly Parker Green), and she now lives in the imagination of the retired midwife, who is recovering from cancer.
Narrated by a variety of characters, the play moves back and forth in time, slowly decomposing for the audience a set of clues and information about what happened on the night that the childbirth went wrong.
As Connie looks back on her mother's trial, both her and her mother (and silently the ghost of the dead woman) are attempting to understand and figure out what truly happened on that night, and heal the wounds left on their psyches in the years that followed.
The audience is treated to a very horrific re-enactment of the childbirth, which is taking place in the Bedford's home on a wintry and icy New England night. A night when the phone lines are down and the the roads are so slick with ice that no one can even get to their car when the delivery gets complicated.
The midwife, thus unable to get her patient to a hospital, tries courageously to save both the mother and unborn child while her inexperienced apprentice of three months and the woman's terrified husband (who is a minister and is played by Gene Gillette) generally get in the way.
The audience is led to believe that the mother dies but that the baby is saved thanks to an emergency C-section done by Sybil with a kitchen knife.
And this is where the issue becomes complicated, as first the the apprentice and then the husband suggest that maybe the mother wasn't really dead when the midwife cut her open.
And the rest of the play presents the case, showing bits and pieces of the trial, re-enactments of the operation, and the final resolution between mother and daughter, as to what may or may have not happened that night.
For the first twenty minutes or so of the play, the Charlotte Bedford character is completely silent, usually just ghost-stepping around the stage or sitting on the bed. And I was thinking to myself: "This actress has the best role ever in a play: no lines to learn!"
Soon I became fascinated by her silence, and began to realize how her facial and body postures were affecting the audience and I.
Eventually, when she spoke, both in her role as Charlotte Bedford and later as the voice for the judge in the trial of Sybil Danforth, it was clear to me that Kimberly Parker Green had the most difficult role in this play and she stole this show.
Kimberly Parker Green, managed to make her silent parts become integral parts of the discussions and fights going on between mother and daughter. In part thanks to excellent lighting, in repose she (because this actress is very fair skinned and light-haired), became almost like a Vermeer painting, except when her subtle facial expressions added fuel to an argument (Sybil can see Charlotte) or reproachment to an excuse.
One thing that I completely missed: Why were both Bedfords (the preacher and his wife) speaking with heavy Southern accents in a scene set in rural Vermont?
Either they have their geography wrong, or maybe I missed a part where they were Southeners who had moved to Yankee-land. In any event, it was a bit distracting and out of place with everyone else's lack of any noticable accent, as no one attempted a New England accent (caps instead of cops, ps instead of pierced, and yaaad instead of yard, etc.).
The play is powerful and well-directed, and the audience (average age around 65) visibly winced many times at the harshness of the events unfolding in front of them.
With the singular exceptions of Parker Green, and Lynn Steinmetz (who superbly plays both a nurse and a doctor in two different roles) I became somewhat annoyed by the rest of the acting performance.
In part this was a cascade effect from the extended arguing scenes between the midwife and her daughter. Both actresses kept the same tone and style of speech throughout all levels of fighting; the daughter very shrill and screechy, and the mother very stoic. Meanwhile I kept thinking: "This isn't how people really argue - at least no one that I know."
Nonetheless this is a very powerful play, and surprisingly eye-opening in the sense that it offers us a window into a nearly extinguished aspect of American life: the lay midwife.
The play runs through Feb. 26, 2006. Read the WaPo review of the play by Lisa Traiger here, and read the Wash Times review here, and the WCP review here. Isn't it nice how every paper in town reviews theatre? When was it the last time that we saw the big three review the same gallery show?
Sibyl Danforth: MaryBeth Wise
Charlotte Bedford: Kimberly Parker Green
Connie Danforth: Stephanie Burden
Bill Tanner: Paul Morella
Louise, Dr. Gerson: Lynn Steinmetz
Lori Pine, Anne Austin, Patty: Rana Kay
Asa Bedford, David Pine: Gene Gillette
Stephen Hastings: John Lescault
Dr. Lang, Barton Hewitt: John Dow
Parsons on Frenn
Adrian Parsons reviews our current Chawky Frenn exhibition at Fraser Bethesda.
Read the review here.
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