Shirin Neshat in C'ville
Just like DC-based artist Aylene Fallah has been doing courageously for years (in spite of threats and insults), New York-based artist Shirin Neshat explores the role of women in Islamic society.
And now, in conjunction with the Virginia Film Festival’s theme Revelations: Finding God at the Movies, Charlottesville, VA Second Street Gallery will showcase Neshat’s video installation Passage (2001), a work that was commissioned by well-known composer Philip Glass.This presentation of Passage represents Neshat’s Mid-Atlantic debut. It will run through October 28, 2006.
Update: Neshat and a couple of alert readers point out that Neshat had her video "Rapture" exhibited at the 2002 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' three-part video-art exhibition "Outer and Inner Space: A Video Exhibition in Three Parts," so the above is not her Mid-Atlantic debut.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Sculpture
The Arlington Art Center's Fall solos open on October 10, reception on October 13 from 6-9PM. In addition to showing artists from all over the Mid-Atlantic, they are also kicking off "Sculpture on the Grounds."
The first installment: "InSight Out," is curated by Twylene Moyer, the managing Editor of Sculpture Magazine. She has selected a group that features artists from Baltimore and environs.
Even more cool about "Sculpture on the Grounds" is that (as far as I know) the program will be the only dedicated temporary outdoor sculpture program in the Washington DC area. I am told that they’ll "rotate every six months and seek to show some really cutting edge work."
Opportunity for Artists – Mid-Atlantic Region
Deadline: October 31, 2006
The Open Studios Press is currently accepting entries for the 2006 Mid-Atlantic competition for painters. Competitions are conducted annually in each of six regions of the country and lead to publication in New American Paintings magazine.
Juried by curators from prominent museums. Painting, drawing, monoprints/types, mixed media, 2-D only (no photo or editions). Entry fee $30. Postmark deadline: Mid-Atlantic 10/31/06 ( DE, MD, NJ, PA, VA, WV and Washington DC) other areas, contact below. The DC area curator will be my good friend Stephen Bennett Phillips, Curator, The Phillips Collection.
Send four 35mm slides, resume, entry fee and SASE to:
Open Studios Press
450 Harrison Ave #304
Boston, MA 02118
Questions: (617) 778-5265 or www.newamericanpaintings.com.
How is this art?
The Student Coalition at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, MN asks: How is this art?
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
McCabe on The Exhibitionists
"The Exhibitionists" is the title of the current three-person show in Baltimore's Gallery Imperato, and the City Paper's Brett McCabe does a nice job reviewing the exhibition here.
The exhibition includes work by the most recent Trawick Prize winner: James Rieck.
Mid Atlantic Openings
October 3
October 4
October 5
October 6
October 7
October 8
October 13
October 14
October 17
If I'm missing your opening, email me.
Opportunity for Artists from the African Diaspora
Deadline: October 31, 2006.
The Schmucker Art Gallery at Gettysburg College seeks works for an exhibition, tentatively titled "Negotiating Identities in the African World," and scheduled in conjunction with the 13th Central Pennsylvania Consortium Africana Studies Conference, Interrogating issues of Citizenship, Identity, Ethnicity and Race in the African World, 150 years after the Dred Scott Decision.
Exhibition dates are March 30-April 22, 2007. The conference and exhibition will both be part of Gettysburg College's 175th Anniversary celebration and Africana Studies' 20-year celebration. Artists from the African Diaspora are invited to submit artworks engaging either the conference or exhibition themes. Works will be selected by an academic and curatorial committee. Please forward slides or jpegs, artist statement and vita to:
Molly Hutton
Director
Schmucker Art Gallery
Gettysburg College
300 N. Washington St.
Gettysburg, PA 17325.
Electronic submissions may be sent to mhutton@gettysburg.edu.
Opportunity for Artists
Deadline: November 13, 2006
Rebooted: Life Ater E-Junk. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wis., invites artists to create a work of art for the upcoming exhibition, "Rebooted: Life After E-Junk."
They want you to create a two or three-dimensional work of art which incorporates at least one component of a computer, cell phone, handheld or other technological tool into something wholly new and unexpected. Create an assemblage about how your life has been changed by computers. There is no entry fee to participate in this exhibition. The exhibition runs Dec. 3, 2006 to Feb. 11, 2007.
Contact information: please call the John Michael Kohler Arts Center at 920/458-6144 for more information and to receive a registration form.
Opportunity for Artists
Deadline: October 6, 2006
The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities' Art Bank Program has a call for entries as they are purchasing artwork to be part of the District of Columbia's 2007 Art Bank Program.
Works in the collection are owned by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and loaned to other District Government agencies for display in public areas. Deadline: October 6, 2006.
For more information and an application, please visit their website to download the Call for Entries application, or call 202-724-5613 to have one sent to you.
The City's Art Bank is a growing collection of moveable works funded through DC Creates Public Art, the District’s Art in Public Places Program.
Works in the collection are owned by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and are loaned to other District government agencies for display in public areas of government buildings. This collection helps preserve the city’s past and is an important legacy for future generations. Currently, approximately 1,600 artworks are on display in more than 100 agencies.
This year the work will be chosen by Carl Cole, who is one of the DCCAH Commissioners; Judy A. Greenberg, Director of the Kreeger Museum; Karen Holtzman, who is a fine arts Appraiser; my good friend Alejandro Negrín, who is the Director of the Cultural Institute of Mexico and Paul Roth, Curator for Photography at the Corcoran.
Congratulations
To DC sculptor Dan Steinhilber, who gets a hip interview with Baltimore Sun art critic Glenn McNatt (of the kind the WaPo has never done for a DC artist), about Steinhilber's mini show at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Congratulations also to Steinhilber's next door neighbor on G street, NW, Tim Tate, and to Tate's partner at the Washington Glass School, Michael Janis, both of which will be included in the London-published 50 Distinguished Contemporary Artists in Glass edited by Lisa Hoftijzer and which will be out next month!
Congratulations to hard-working DC artist Sondra Arkin, whose solo show "Indian Summer" opens at the Blue Moon, 35 Baltimore Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on October 6 and runs through November 2, 2006.
More on remarkable confluence
"Remarkable confluence" is what I have decided to call the curious phenomenom of what happens when two artists, working in different cities and either at different times or same time frames, and completely unaware of each other's existance, seem to arrive at remarkably similar visual works.
A while back I noted how the Louis Cameron paintings currently at G Fine Art in Washington, DC were remarkably similar (in both idea, subject matter, and size) to the work that I did six years ago.
Over the weekend Virginia artist Andrew Devlin, winner of the 2004 Georgetown International Art Competition read this mini-mention of artist John Beech's exhibition (also at G Fine Art) and was also intrigued as to how Beech's current drawings are so similar, both in subject matter and presentation and delivery (with the whole "drawing under a swath of shiny acrylic paint" element) as Devlin's own work from a couple of years ago. See examples of both below.
I imagine that somewhere on the planet, at the same time that Pollock was dripping paint onto canvas, some other artist, blissfully unaware of Pollock's work, was possibly doing exactly the same thing is some smaller, less aware place.
"Remarkable confluence" also happens a lot in science, where inventors toil away at their inventions, and as soon as they are published they discover that someone else, a half world away, has been working and invented the same thing.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Sydney McGee Part II
A few days ago I discussed the issue of teacher Sydney McGee in Frisco, Texas getting fired from her teaching post after 28 years allegedly due to complaints that one of her students saw a nude sculpture during a museum trip. Read that here.
A reader from Frisco, Texas has responded to the report by offering the other side of the story. Angel writes:
I am very disappointed in the one-sided slant to the news stories regarding this Fisher Elementary Art Teacher who is being put on leave WITH pay with a recommended non-renewal of her contract next spring. Frisco, Texas citizens and one of its' largest employers - FISD - support the arts!Some observations:
I do not want to have a debate on the subject of nude art at the DMA as I know very well that the district would never put a teacher on a growth plan solely for this reason. I know that the administrators, school board members, principals, and teachers support the visual arts in a very positive way.
Many districts have cut their art programs, but not FISD.
FISD’s art programs have received several award winning recognitions in the visual arts. Our district was honored for the Outstanding Youth Art Month Observance Award from the Texas Art Education Association for involvement on a state level. One can go to the district’s website at www. friscoisd.org and find several news articles on art endeavors and art student recognitions.
Each year the district puts on a district wide art show in honor of Youth Art Month which is celebrated in the spring. The district allows budget monies for the art program including not only supplies but fine art prints to share with students in the classroom. They support and allow field trips to such places as the Dallas Museum of Art, Hall Office Park’s outdoor sculptures, and the like.
Student artworks are continually displayed in our community. The City of Frisco voted to pass a proposition regarding public art being an integral part of our city. Our city has the highly regarded Hall Office Park collection of outdoor sculptures open to the public for ground tours. One can drive around various locations in Frisco and discover public works of art everywhere.
You cannot tell me that we are some culturally-insensitive group of citizens and that our school administrators are as well. It is simply not true!
I feel bad that the media attention (including forums like this, talk radio, newspapers, and television broadcasts) brought on our town has put us in such a negative light.
This is pure smoke and mirrors brought on by this teacher in an attempt to take the heat off of the real issues at hand. She was never fired, only asked to improve. Instead of trying to improve, she went straight to the media bad-mouthing her principal and her employer which is FISD. I think they have every right not to renew her contract at this point.
Thank you for hearing my opinion which is factually driven and personally driven for me to want to communicate.
By the way, her 28 year tenure was NOT all served in the FISD and not all of those years were as an ART teacher.
I'll agree that generally there are always two sides to most stories, but I still have some reservations with this story, the flavor of which comes to us strictly through what is published in the press. Either everyone in the printmedia is doing, as Angel alleges, "smoke and mirrors," or FISD is doing one of the worst information (lack thereof) campaigns of all times to address an obviously sensitive subject.
As a reader in Wordpress.com commented, "if Frisco ISD has been having a problem with this teacher it should have been put down in-writing on previous performance reviews. Where are they?" By the way, there are loads of good comments, both pro and con the issue at Wordpress.com.
I'd like to add that if the issue for not renewing the contract was NOT as a result of the parent complaint over the nude sculpture at the museum, then the board, or the school or FISD should have explained it immediately and come out and said "this award winning, experienced teacher's contract is not being renewed because "fill-in-the-blank" and not because of the complaints raised by a parent as a result of the museum trip."
Then we'd all know why she's being let go, and also know (at least officially) that it was not as a result of the parent's complaint over the museum trip.
Until that happens, the museum trip and the subsequent complaint, immediately followed by the events reported in the press, continue to shed a bad light on FISD.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Opportunity for Mid Atlantic Photographers
Deadline: Friday, October 6, 2006
PhotoGenesis: McLean Project for the Arts - All Mid-Atlantic artists (DC, VA, MD, PA, NJ, DE, WV) are invited to submit up to 20 slides or digital images of 2 or 3 dimensional, installation or video works completed within the last two years and not previously exhibited at MPA.
Works that spring from photographic images, ideas or techniques will be considered. Work may, but need not necessarily remain within the realm of photography to be included in the exhibit. Works that move beyond the traditional forms of the medium are encouraged.
The jurors will consider the first four images for exhibit. These four must be available. Works must fit through a 81” x 65” doorway.
Awards: Cash prizes totaling $1,500 will be awarded by the jurors.
Jurors: Stephen Bennett Phillips is currently curator at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Claudia Bohn-Spector is a freelance writer and curator specializing in American and European art and photography. Charles Brock is associate curator of American and British Paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Entry Fee: $25. Fee waived for current MPA members. Fee includes one-year artist membership to MPA. Make checks payable to: McLean Project for the Arts.
Images: Artists may submit up to twenty 35 mm slides in a slide sheet or twenty digital images on a CD or up to 10 minutes of recorded material.
For further information, visit: www.mpaart.org, email Nancy Sausser: nsausser@mpaart.org, Phone: 703.790.1953, TDD 703.827.8255.
McLean Project for the Arts
1234 Ingleside Avenue
McLean, VA 22101
Tonite in Philly
Tonite, starting at 6PM at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Print Center is sponsoring a lecture by internationally renowned camera obscura artist Abelardo Morell.
He will discuss his career and the recent work he has made in conjunction with The Print Center and The Philadelphia Museum of Art. A book signing of his recent book, Abelardo Morell published by Phaidon Press, will immediately follow the lecture. Books will be available for purchase in the Museum Store.
Abelardo Morell transformed Gallery #171 in the Modern and Contemporary wing of The Philadelphia Museum of Art into a camera obscura. Through a small hole in one of the gallery’s windows the image of the museum’s East Entrance becomes a piece of art on display along with The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) by Surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico.
When I lived in Scotland in the late 80s, one of my favorite places to visit when in Edinburgh was the 1850's Camera Obscura in the Outlook Tower, which shows constantly rotating panoramic views of one of Europe's most beautiful cities.
New DC gallery
Galerie Myrtis announces its grand opening with an exhibition featuring works by African-American and African artists including: Selma Burke, Ed Love, Folusho Akomlede, Sylvester Mubayi, Joseph Holston, William Tolliver, Edward Chiwara, Velphia Mzimba, Lois Mailou Jones, Danny Simmons, Ben Macala, Hargreaves Ntukwana, Viola Burley Leak, Charles Sebree, Thokozani Mathobela, Winston Saoli, Samella Lewis, Ellen Powell Tibernio, and David Mbele.
Date: October 20, 2006
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Location: Galerie Myrtis
500 9th Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
RSVP: Phone: 202/548-7575
Email: collectors@creativeartisans.net
Please RSVP by October 10, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Warren Craghead at GRACE
New work from Warren Craghead opens tomorrow, Friday Sept. 29 at the Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, Virginia, easy to find right off the Dulles Toll Road. The Opening Reception is tomorrow, Friday September 29, 6pm - 9pm with an Artist's Talk at 7PM.
Craghead likens his studio to "a bomb crater where pieces of notebook paper, cardboard, post-its, and foam lie in piles surrounded by scraps of pen and pencil drawings, string, plastic, old junk mail, and magazines."
Also showing is "The Suburban Excavation Project: Recent Work by Adam Grossi."
Kudos to GRACE, whose exhibition program this past year has been vigorously renovated and has certainly offered some exciting new work. Don't miss this show!
Miya Ando Stanoff at Ligne Roset
Bay area artist Miya Ando Stanoff's minimalist works on steel canvas make their DC area debut with an exhibition at Ligne Roset DC.
There will be a champagne reception for the artist on September 30, 2006 from 12-6PM. Ligne Roset is at 3306 M Street NW, Washington DC 20007.
Miya is a graduate of UC Berkeley and attended Yale University where she studied East Asian Buddhist Iconography. Half-Japanese and half-Russian, she was raised bilingually and in two cultures, living both in her family's Buddhist temple in Japan and in Northern California. She comes from a tradition of metalworking, as she is the descendant of Bizen sword maker Ando Yoshiro Masakatsu.
Freedom at Heliport
In an exhibition titled "Freedom," Gateway's Heliport Gallery in Silver Spring, Maryland, features the works of four artists that have left their respective countries due to socio-political strife. According to the news release, the exhibit is not overtly political, nor does it shout oppression. On the other hand, it shows four artists at different stages in their careers that have each used art and their new found freedom as a means for emotional release and chance to redefine themselves.
An example is Dr. Kyi May Kaung. While growing up in Burma, Dr. Kaung was only allowed to paint realistic images because the government could understand them. Abstract art was more or less forbidden. Conversely, now living here in the US, Dr. Kaung is now exploring the boundaries of abstract art for the first time.
The exhibit includes work by Machyar Gleunta, Dr. Kyi May Kaung, Win Pe and Hatim Eltayeb Mahmed Ali Elmaki.
The opening reception is Friday, October 6 fro 6-9 PM.
Ellyn Weiss at Nevin Kelly
The Nevin Kelly Gallery will host a solo exhibition of new works by Bethesda artist Ellyn Weiss from October 4 until October 29, 2006. The exhibition, titled "Circular Reasoning," includes two series of new works. The first is a series of oil bar paintings on wood that shares its title with the show itself. The second is a series of woodblock monoprints on paper called "Bioelectronics." An opening reception with the artist will be held on Thursday, October 5 from 6 until 9 o'clock p.m. The public is invited. The gallery is located at 1517 U Street, NW, Washington, DC.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Sydney McGee
I've spent all day in the DC area, and when I returned home tonight I had my inbox full of emails from readers asking if I had seen this.
Sydney McGee is an art teacher (with 28 years of experience) who has been fired by the Frisco, Texas school board because this Fisher Elementary School art teacher took 89 fifth-graders on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art last April and then some of the fifth graders reported to their parents that they had seen "a nude sculpture at the art museum."
Then the parents "raised concern..."
And then she was put on paid administrative leave...
And now the Frisco, Texas school board has voted not to renew her contract after 28 years.
[Anger]
Does the Frisco, Texas school board realize that these actions appear to put them a century or two ahead of the Islamofascists that I am sure they all abhor?
According to the Dallas Morning News:
Ms. McGee, who has taught in various Texas districts for 28 years, said she visited the museum and spoke with museum staffers before the trip to ensure that it was appropriate for the fifth-grade class. Ms. McGee said she does not know which piece of art offended the parent, and the district did not identify it.Quick to appear to shift the blame, "board members said there were other performance issues in question beyond the trip complaint."
Ms. McGee said principal Nancy Lawson called her into a meeting the day after the trip to admonish her about the parent's complaint. Shortly thereafter, she received a negative review and a series of directives about displaying student artwork and creating lesson plans.
"You have to start somewhere when you've seen things you don't believe are in the best interest of the students," Superintendent Rick Reedy said.
Aw Texas... can't take you anywhere...
Options:
1. Frisco School Board immediately should prohibit any and all school trips to any museums or any other venues where any art nudity or nudity in any other form is present.
2. All Texas museums within school bus driving distance of Frisco, Texas should immediately (a) get rid of all nude artworks or (b) cover them up whenever the Frisco kids show up.
3. Frisco voters should fire all these Friscidiots on the Board.
Here's what we can do:
Email a note of support for Sydney McGee to Buddy Minett President of the Frisco School Board. Or write to him at:
Buddy Minett
President
8548 Scott Circle
Frisco, TX 75036
If you write, be courteous and intelligent.
