Friday, May 11, 2012

Tim Tate Re-invents His Art

Ever since his debut at the old Fraser Gallery in Georgetown, for years we have been following Tim Tate’s work, its extremely distinctive and unique look: Victorian bell jars hiding mysterious videos…each one very thoughtful and complex and full of clues, meanings and arcane paths.  

Then suddenly this year, Tate’s work veered.  

Fewer domes, larger works, almost "sweet" in theme.  There were certainly commercially successful, but so different in feel to the older, edgier work.  When asked about his new work, Tate would change the topic or say “I have a soft side too, ya know.” 

Perhaps the DMV's best-known artist claimed to be working on "secret projects"...  And he would not talk about them. 

Well, maybe he does have a "soft side", but I've never hidden the fact that I love and admire those deeply thoughtful and complex pieces that he has become so well-known for; that was my favorite Tate and several of those pieces hang in my home.

Well….this week Tate will unveil what he has been working on under wraps for the last six months…..and it was worth the wait!  Expanding on his video fascination and leaving the domes behind, Tate offers an innovative and revolutionary new format to showcase his video work.  The first of these new pieces, the first of many to come, will be shown at the upcoming Artomatic show to give it a test run. 

Here is what's coming: Tate takes a 42” flat screen TV, and then frames it with an ornate Empire frame….and then, as if that wasn't enough, he paints the frame with a Charles Rennie Mackintosh satin black. This gives the TV a slightly Gothic / Steampunk look, while at the same time also making it look as fresh and contemporary as any shown at ArtBasel. 

Tate’s video work has also been refined completely. Now working in high definition (HD), and in color, his richly textured and multi-layered video has morphed more into the vein of a surrealist dialogue of contemporary realism than his older work; but abstract enough to be compelling and mysterious.

The title of the first seminal piece is “Reforged Each Morning, My Fate My Own.” It is a collaborative work with Tate’s long time photographer (and a very gifted one at that) and friend Pete Duvall. This initial piece highlights the skills of both artist and technician. As it unfolds, seduces and hypnotizes the viewer, you can’t take your eyes off of it. 

Why? It references early Maxfield Parrish in a way….with the deep rolling clouds that deliver the ever shifting texture. Add inverted glass objects coming into the frame; smashing and reconfiguring over and over: You cant take your eyes off of it!
Still from “Reforged Each Morning, My Fate My Own" by Tim Tate and Pete Duvall
This video has all the look of a spectacular painting, but instead of a three-dimensional object, Tate takes the viewer into the 4th dimension... sliding the view through the painting over the next minute or so. Think of it as a painting that is 24" x 48" x 60 seconds. 

Let me repeat: Height by Length by Time: Welcome to the 21st century of art.

This piece, and those that will surely follow, show Tate entering his mature artist phase. For those of us less than subjective fans who have followed his career for this last decade, it couldn’t be more fresh and exciting.

Because it was Artomatic a decade ago who gave Tate his artistic wings, Tate is using Artomatic as a test audience for his newer style, complete with a comment book on the pedestal in front. A "test run" before releasing the new works in the broader contemporary art world.   

Let him know how you feel about it…..I think that this may be his best and most sophisticated work yet.

Artomatic opens  on Friday, May 18 at 6PM with a massive art party.

Bethesda Fine Arts Festival is this weekend...

 The ninth annual Bethesda Fine Arts Festival, a two-day event highlighting 140 contemporary artists who will sell their original fine art and fine craft, is this weekend.

The festival is scheduled for Saturday, May 12 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. and Sunday, May 13, from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. It is free to the public.

Artists from throughout the country representing 25 states and Canada will showcase painting, drawing, photography, furniture, jewelry, mixed media, wood and ceramics. 

The bible of outdoor arts festivals, Sunshine Artist Magazine, ranked the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival as one of the top 100 Arts Festivals in the U.S. and Best Show in Maryland and Washington, D.C. The festival will be held in downtown Bethesda’s Woodmont Triangle along Norfolk, Auburn, Del Ray and Cordell Avenues, and will feature live entertainment, children’s activities and Bethesda restaurants including Haagen Dazs, BlackFinn American Saloon, Mamma Lucia, Hard Times Cafe and Yamas Mediterranean Grill.

Admission to the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival is free. The festival is located six blocks from the Bethesda Metro station and free parking is available close to the event in the parking garage located on Auburn Avenue.

Annual Spring Open Studio at Flux Studios Tomorrow

Flux Studios Annual Spring Open Studios
Saturday, may 12, 2012
12 - 5 pm

3708 Wells Avenue
Mt. Rainier, MD 20712
(directly behind the Washington Glass School)


Artists: 
jessica beels
bianka groves
jeffery herrity
tamara laird
laurel lukaszewski
brittany petersen
novie trump
elizabeth vorlicek

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Tom Green

Curator's Office has announced the release of two new prints by Tom Green from his acclaimed Of This World body of work recently exhibited in April at Curator's Office. The two works were printed by the renowned master printer David Adamson of Adamson Editions.  


















TOM GREEN
Of This World 8  (left)
Of This World 6  (right)
archival pigment print on natural watercolor paper, 330 gsm
28" x 20"  paper size 
edition of 25 
2012

For further information on these two prints, please contact Curator's Office at 202.387.1008 or info@curatorsoffice.com.

Of This World includes 8 of the last works on paper that the artist made in 2011, prior to being diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). The suite is a lyrical compendium of the glyphic work the artist is so well-known for. A horizon line unites the entire body of work, but his continued preoccupation with the semiotics of symbolic form is lucid, restrained, and powerful.  
  
Tom Green began working with the glyph forms in the late sixties, while he was taking Pre-Columbian courses. He says, "Studying the Mayan culture, I was struck by the glyphic carvings and drawings that seemed so inventive yet puzzling. So I began writing notes in a glyphic script to my friends, not copying the Mayan forms but trying to create my own forms that would resonate in a contemporary mind. Around 1987, casting about for a new direction, I tried painting a canvas covered with glyphs. The glyphs are not a language. (I try not to repeat forms) but rather a series of discreet forms that are to be interpreted individually. Most are not abstract but derive from the sensory experiences of daily life."

J.W.Mahoney writes, "The most obviously recognizable element in Tom Green's eight paper pieces is something that another master abstractionist, Mark Rothko, couldn't avoid: the horizon. Tom Green's facing a horizon we all will, that of leaving our circumstantial world for that beyond our personal life. Tom's working both sides of this line, so far, as his work reflects. But these pieces are still of this world, as Tom is." 

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: Sunday, May 22, 2012, 12 midnight. 
 
An opportunity to hang as much artwork as possible in a space 10ft x 4ft for the month of August at Touchstone Gallery a contemporary gallery in the heart of Washington, DC. Digital images of all artwork required with application. 
 
There will be room for only 38 artists; each space about 10ft high x 4ft and 1 floor space for sculptor 5ft x 5ft. $240 hanging fee; work to be hung by their hanging committee. No entry fee is required. Must submit filled out application form that can be downloaded at www.touchstonegallery.com and e-mail it to images.touchstone@gmail.com along with images of the works you intend to show. 
 
Full Prospectus, Application form and other information are available for download on Touchstone’s website: www.touchstonegallery.com

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

The Ultimate Toilet Paper

At least for Cubans!

Fidel CastroFinally you can now make your Cuban or Cuban-American's dreams come true! Cuba's brutal dictator and for over 50 years the suffocater [[Verb] To stifle; to destroy; to extinguish; as, to suffocate] of the Cuban people, deserves to be in the mierda tanks of history.

Full roll of toilet paper with Fidel Castro's face on every sheet. Ideal for parties, reunions or for plain personal pleasure. Order more than one. The ideal gift for your Cuban friend.

Send me some... por favor!

Heard on Univision...

Holy Oil from Psalm 23! All the way from Israel! Healing nearly everything! Free giveaway! - a rather interesting 14th century commercial playing on Univision tonight...


Eureka! in Ireland

I am honored to have been invited to participate in an exhibition (opening next week) about art and science and technology... and taking place in Dublin's very cool Blue Leaf Gallery... below is an essay about it by Dr. Deirdre Mulrooney...

Eureka!
Whitaker Court, Whitaker Square
Sir John Rogersons Quay
Dublin 2, Ireland
17 May 2012 - 16 July 2012

Selected Works
Press Release
Thumbnails

Previous 1/1 Next

Bethany Krull
Surrogate (monkey baby)
porcelain, wood, modified diaper, baby bedding
38 x 59cm
 
Eureka!Meditations on the light and dark sides of discovery in science and technology as explored through the eyes of three Irish, and ten American  contemporary and emerging artists.
We this people
On this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing,
Irresistible tenderness,
That the haltered neck is happy to bow,
And the proud back is glad to bend.
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines…
  --  From “Space Junk” by Maya Angelou
 Exploratorium Founder Frank Oppenheimer called artists and scientists “the official ‘noticers’ of society,” adding that “they notice things  that other people either have never learned to see or have learned to  ignore, and communicate those ‘noticings’ to others. Eureka! Is a term  generally referring to discovery. But, discovery and awareness is not always beneficial. It can, in fact, be lethal.  Science and Technology has its dark side.  J. Robert Oppenheimer invented the atomic bomb, and his first revelation was from the Hindu text, "I have become death, a destroyer of worlds".

Anxiety underlies much of the American artists’ work in Eureka! – from Rick Newton’s spitfires and Dali-esque sci-fi lobster pincers emerging out of a clear blue sky; to Kirsten Deirup’s mounds of non-biodegradable rubbish, to the spray-paint feel of Jean-Pierre Roy’s apocalyptic atomic mushroom cloud paintings, and the polish of Bethany Krull’s porcelain pets (which might be in conversation with Damian Hirst’s sharks and calves preserved in formaldehyde).

But the world of science and technology can also be a fun, affirmative, and playful one, as in Kyle Trowbridge’s ‘paintings that text’, Allison Schullnik’s retro stop-motion claymation music videos and Catherine Owens’ sidereal wonder.

If “Science” is “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment” (OED) and Technology, from the ancient Greek Tekhne, which incidentally means ‘art, craft’, is defined as ‘the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes’ (OED), then Artists are naturally to be found at that intersection, performing their own alchemy on the edges between humanity, technology, and science.  That is where the cutting edge of science has lived since time immemorial, pushing the limits, dreaming, imagining the previously unimaginable – and sometimes bringing it into being, for better or for worse.

Similarly, the artist as explorer/ searcher/ expeditionist is constantly striving towards that Damascene moment, where like Saul, the scales fall from their eyes and new visions are beheld, new connections, opening a door to transformation, and maybe even enlightenment (Pauline or not).

That’s the point where the scientist exclaims Eureka! “A cry of joy or satisfaction when one finds or discovers something: from Gk Heureka ‘I have found it’, said to have been uttered by Archimedes when he hit upon a method of determining the purity of gold (OED).

Equally, each artist has their own Epiphany “a moment of sudden and great revelation”, which, most crucially they communicate to us via their work – whatever form that may take.  In this exhibition the forms are myriad.

Across the planet, from mobile phone charging huts in African villages to technology super-stores in downtown New York, everybody knows that our love affair with pervasive technology ‘the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes’ is at an all-time high.  Inextricable to what sociologist Raymond Williams calls the ‘structure of feeling’ of our society, we can’t leave home without it - there it is, in our pockets, subtly, and sometimes insidiously embedded into the fibre of our very existence. Like a Trojan Horse, ubiquitous technology has infiltrated into the very matrix of our human “being”, as we mediate the world through smart phones, communicating through truncated text messages, cartoon-esque emoticons, relying on this intangible, virtual world for intimacy through disembodied skype on lap-tops, desk-tops, tablets and i-pads.  This, too, can be both good and bad.

Have you ever stopped to think how (say, compared to previous generations, who had nothing mediating between themselves and their “”live experience”), we negotiate and navigate the world mostly through small rectangular screens?  In Eureka!, artist Patrick Jacobs playfully subverts and interrogates this with his quaint, circular, 18th century Claude Frames. Think how anthropologically fascinating it must be to an onlooker, how we tap, gaze into, and even pet our rectangular screens like we might  a beloved dog or a cat.  Which brings me to Bethany Krull’s exquisite, yet somehow disquieting porcelain pets.

These days, going outside the front door sans mobile phone can produce separation anxiety of a most intense nature. Without the mobile phone, though we may actually be in the outside world, we feel cut off from it. In a variation on this theme, in her “Frankenstein’s monster” type oeuvre artist Bethany Krull raises the issue of how warm, cuddly – and terrifying - technology has become.  She puts this to us in her polished, porcelain current series called “Dominance and Affection”, revealing how we have tamed wild nature, and genetically modified it to suit our inner control freak. ‘In today’s nature-deprived society, our most intimate connection tends to be with plants and animals that we have drastically altered through the process of domestication.  Instead of us succumbing to our role as part of nature, nature must bend to our will, and it is science and technology that makes this happen”.  Far beyond Stanley Kubrik’s prophetic Hal in “2001: A Space Odyssey” - have we finally lost our last shred of humility where nature is concerned?  What ever happened to mystery?

“We have turned wild animals into companions, genetically sculpting them into sweeter, cuter, less dangerous versions of themselves”, says Krull. “We shower our pets with love at the same time we cage and contain them and it is this affection contradicting complete control that I am interested in illustrating in my work. For no amount of love lavished upon these creatures will erase the fact that the success of the relationship lies in our complete domination over all aspects of their existence.”

“Zoology (the study of animals) and Ethology (a more specific study of animal behavior) play quite significant roles in my work as I am constantly exploring the ways in which the human animal interacts with other species (which is often informed by the psychological sciences as well as ethics) and how wild species come to be domesticated. I am interested in the complicated and often contradictory attitudes our society often maintains with other species as well as the human species propensity to dominate.”

Meanwhile, in her Claymation music videos, artist Allison Schulnik brings us back to the earth Patrick Kavanagh deifies in his 1942 poem “The Great Hunger”, with his opening gambit “Clay is the Word, and Clay is the flesh”. Schulnik’s “Mound”, “Hobo” and “Forest”, bring us back to the joy of primordial goo. Abandoning the blatantly hi-tech because it is disconnected from the physical aspects of what makes a sculptural artist a creator, her paradoxically luddite claymations, are populated with Apichatong Weerasethakul type creatures, UFO’s, primordial slime, hobos, clowns, and the occasional extra-terrestrial.  Her stop-motion animation, with plasticine clay, where objects are constantly adjusted by hand and photographed to create movement on film - are striking for their gloopy colour-burst painterly quality, going back to child-like basics and wonder of squeezing raw colour out of a tube of paint, and mushing it around on the palette.

This is where she introduces the elemental science of dancing: spellbinding Martha-Graham esque choreography is conjured out of this colourburst slime to mesmeric effect.  Schulnik’s sculptural claymation music videos – with the occasional UFO – bring us back to a reassuringly earthy world of yore.

In “Metathesiophobia I Irish Sculptor Margaret O’Brien’s gorgeous, part unctuous, part crystalline “Gallium” plunges us into the old-fashioned science of Mechanical Engineering, and the feel of being back in school science lab. Developing her own alchemy of slow and repetitive changes in temperature, O’Brien allows various forms of the metal Gallium, whose state and form is constantly in flux to invite metaphorical exploration of the relationship and boundaries between the physical and the psychological.

“Metathesiophobia I uses the physical properties of the metal gallium to explore the relationship and boundaries between the physical and the psychological, with particular regard to the experience of objects and conditions of space” shares O’Brien. “Gallium is one of five metals whose physical state is unstable at or near room temperature and, due to its physical properties, it does not solidify into the same physical form twice but reforms with each change in state. With the changing nature of the material, the relationship of the viewer to the ‘object’ is destabilized as familiarity with its form is continually undermined.”

Constantly in a kind of Heraclitean flux - due to the changing nature of the material, the relationship of the viewer to the ‘object’ is destabilized as familiarity with its form is continually undermined. This results in the viewer’s referencing through association being constantly challenged and redressed.

“I use science or technology to introduce the possibility of malfunction or technical failure into the work, as a formal condition of the work that informs and renegotiates shifting boundaries between the physical and psychological. The language of the works is anchored on the interstice between operational and breakdown so that the work embodies a condition of impossibility within the threat of technical failure, and endless conditions of possibility or potentiality within the realm of its functioning or semi-functioning capacity. In doing this, the experience of the physical and psychological is interweaved within the experience of the work. “  

From there to the playful science of games: have you ever wondered, if abstract painting could text, what it might say? Wave your mobile phone in front of Kyle Trowbridge’s Piet Mondriaan Style painting and find out! Like a Trojan horse, Kyle Trowbridge has embedded messages into his scannable painting, so the viewer experiences this oxymoron of literal text emanating out of abstraction. “Much of my work in the past has been based on buried subtext… It’s the idea that things are never what they appear to be that I am truly in love with.  So when you pick up your phone and scan my paintings, you can see the literal message it conveys.” This work could trace its lineage to morse code, which, in its day was high technology indeed.

“I think at its root, the idea of using codes can cloak meaning in such interesting ways. Leaving my art to perform like a wolf in sheep’s clothing or is it a sheep in wolf’s clothing!”

“I do not believe these to be a far stretch from the literal definitions of the terms science and technology” he elaborates. “These are technologically based because the very foundation of these paintings relies on the structuring of the QR code. but it does not end with the painting itself. To unlock the full potential of these paintings one must again rely on their smart phones to decipher the code/painting. Technology by way of the computer is used to convert my text and generate a coded version. It is then technology once again that is used to translate this digital language. Technology itself mirrors current social trends greatly. It is the computer and its heavy interrelation with life, society, and our environment, that further increases the drawing upon such subjects as computer science, engineering, and applied science. The Quick Response code is one more excuse to pull out our phones and justify their existence!”

“Colour theory and the science of colour plays a great part in the creation of these works as QR codes are designed to be mono chromatic. This of course is because there are inherent limitations in the smartphone camera lens that is to act as a scanner for these codes. Believe me I have spent many hours struggling with certain colours to keep these paintings scannable. There are so many variables (hue, chroma, saturation, intensity, value, clash, simultaneous contrast, etc. etc.) that only the breaking down of colour to a science can help overcome / manage them.”

Meanwhile, in another scientific realm, at the forefront of experimental film and media since the 1980’s, Leslie Thornton’s kaleidoscopic Ant Video, Bluebird, Fish, and zebra lure us into a hyper National Geographic type of environment.

Deconstructing the ubiquitous rectangular screen our 2012 world is framed in, we see Patrick Jacobs’ hallucinatory mushrooms emerge in trippy perspective through an anachronistic Claude glass – a circular optical device popular in the 18th century used to frame the picturesque.  The quaint yet disorienting combination of the pretty frame –– coupled with Jacobs’ negative focal length of the concave lenses and sculptural foreshortening all combine to create an illusion of infinite depth within a narrow space.  Ingeniously, the artist has made you a magic mushroom, and a teeny fairy ring, reveling in the beauty and pharmacology of the nature his art mimics.

“A kind of pseudoscience often characterizes my work in which the everyday conspires to transcend to the supernatural”, he says.  “We have always attempted to understand the world around us through a mixture of scientific fact and cultural assumptions, wishful thinking or even magic.  The fairy ring fungus series centers on a folk-tale which held that dark grass and mushrooms growing in a circle followed the path made by fairies dancing in a ring.  An ordinary natural phenomenon - the bane of lawn owners and gardeners - thus becomes the object of wonder.   Each work consists of a constructed, three-dimensional diorama lighted from within and viewed through a circular window of glass lenses.  Recalling the Claude glass, an optical device popular in the 18th century used to frame the picturesque, and Chevron's Ortho home and garden brochures, the lenses also invoke the invisible eye of the wary homeowner searching a landscape for imagined interlopers.  Installed within the wall, the physical diorama vanishes and we struggle to ascertain an image which can only exist within our mind.   The combination of the negative focal length of the concave lenses and sculptural foreshortening creates the illusion of infinite depth within a narrow space.  Blurring boundaries between painting, sculpture and photography the works present the viewer with a spatial and perceptual conundrum;  we are drawn into a space at once determinate and infinite, natural and contrived, prosaic and otherworldly.   In the foreground, we behold a detail of a cluster of mushrooms tenderly recreated with a degree of botanical accuracy.  Then, our gaze is drawn deeper into a space with an impossible bird's eye view of a distant, fantastical landscape.  The unwanted, or mundane become synonymous with a disorienting even hallucinatory experience”.

The Salvador Dali-esque, anxious world of Rick Newton, where spitfire planes and lobster pincers emerge out of the sky rhymes with the age-old Shakespearean sentiment ‘like fies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport”.  Inspired by scientific textbook illustrations, and incorporating Cold War imagery, Newton has created a personal mythology concerning the future of the planet – with a generous dollop of post 9-11 angst.

As regards how science informs his work, Newton offers: “If the applied science of technology is perceived as an icon for the modern desire to provide for human growth, then my work is informed by this ideal trajectory.  For me, technological innovations signify change and the climate of opinion from the various epochs artificially imposed by scientific inquiry.  For the modern period, change over time can be traced via technological innovations”.

Delving into environmental science, the ecology and anatomy of our world, Kirsten Deirup’s paintings suggest how biodegradable human beings have a short “shelf life” in contrast to the synthetic rubbish we produce – residue which persists indestructibly into the future for generations to come. Deirup approaches the ecology and anatomy of the contemporary world to create scenes that remind viewers of the fragility of what is misperceived as stability and balance in our world.

Bio-ethics also features on Deirup’s somewhat anxious palette.  Her concerns about the current scientific penchant for genetic tinkering manifests in Hieronymous Bosch-style nightmares in paint – scary possible outcomes not conceptualised by evolution or nature.

Science has become the beacon for ‘Revelation’ in Jean-Pierre Roy’s painterly, post-divine, materialist world. “Classical Western Art traditions often have at their core a desire for "Revelation", he offers.  “As the material and existential unknowns formally relegated to the realm of the "divine" give up their secrets to the small, unwavering and clarifying lens of rational investigation, "Science" has become the beacon for this act of "Revelation" for a post-divine, materialist world-view.”

“The day to day evolution of the state of the scientific conversation makes it's way into my work- from Geology and Meteorology, to Thermodynamics and Particle Physics.  On a macro-level, my work seeks to evoke a place for the viewer to contemplate the act of discovery itself. The Enlightenment gave rise to schools of sculptors and painters that sought to codify the "old world-view" shattering ideas of Christiaan Huygens, Galileo and Tycho Brahe.  Artists like Casper Davide Friedrich and painters from the American Luminist Tradition sought to move the sublime mysteries of the world out of the damp confines of the cloisters and pews of the church and out into the light of the now Sun-Centric planetary system and the dappled star light of a much larger cosmos”.

“Drawing on these traditions of light as a metaphor for the rational mind, my work continues to explore the luminous boundaries between the known and the unknown, or as 19th century mathematician Georg Cantor put it "the chasm between what he had seen and what he knew must be there, but could never reach." Lenny Campello gives us a virtual wink as he brings us back to the retro technology of Tube TV and old soap operas in his installation.  Featuring 1950’s couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in a classic bedroom farce moment from iconic series “I Love Lucy”, Desi walks in and catches Lucy in the arms of his fellow Cuban – Fidel Castro.   Storytelling and narrative will always be part of the fabric of what it is to be human, and Campello reminds us that technology, is often but a tool to plug in to this innate and ancient human need.

“My work has always been about the narrative and/or storytelling”, he  says. “My marriage of a traditional and well-established genre of art (such as drawing has been for centuries), with a modern form of technology is an attempt on my part to extend the narrative of the artwork via embedded videos or powerpoint presentations. The digital technology thus expands what the visual imagery offers via drawing and it adds more information, more clues, a deeper agenda.”

Finally, out of all the sidereal, technological and scientific wonder in this exhibition, and on this ‘small and lonely planet, travelling through casual space, past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns’ in “Space Junk”, U2 collaborator, and 3D pioneer Catherine Owens invites us to consider Maya Angelou’s heartening assertion:
When we come to it, we must confess
That we are the possible,
We are the miraculous,
We are the true wonder of this world.
So go on, put your miraculous self in the vortex of the organic conversation that emerges between these eclectic art works, and perhaps experience your own epiphany.  Claim your own Eureka! Moment.

The Art of Art of Tattoing... of Art

Remember this fan of my work who had one of my drawings tattoed onto her body?

It has happened again! Below is a drawing that I did about a decade ago, and below that is a tattoo of that drawing that a fan of that piece had added to her body as personal art

This is "Mermaid Lovers" from 2004, charcoal and conte on paper

And this is the tattoo created onto the body of someone who really loves that drawing!

Job in the Arts

Deadline: October 6, 2012

Position: Chair, Department of Fine Arts: The University of Maryland Eastern Shore, MD.

Resumes and nominations are being accepted for a twelve month, tenure track position. Salary is commensurate with education, experience and qualifications. The position is available July, 2012. 
The School of the Arts and Professions seeks candidates who can provide competent management for the bureaucratic aspects of running a department. The successful candidate will be required to teach two classes per semester; engage in extensive service to the school and university communities; foster an inviting, collegial atmosphere; and provide leadership to junior and senior faculty. Performs other related duties as assigned. Qualifications: Candidates must have a Ph.D. or M.F.A in one of the disciplines housed in the department. Candidates must have a record of scholarship, successful teaching experience, and administrative experience in curriculum planning, program and faculty development, personnel supervision, budget management, and success in obtaining external grants. Candidate should have the ability to manage the details involved in running a department and a style of leadership that encourages collegiality and a positive working environment. Note: Individuals with degrees outside of the US may be subject to verification. Verification of degree is the responsibility of the candidate. 
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore, an 1890 Land-Grant Institution in the University of System of Maryland, is located in the historical town of Princess Anne, 15 minutes from the city of Salisbury and forty minutes from the resort of Ocean City, Maryland. The campus is centrally located 2-3 hours from Baltimore, MD, Washington, D.C., Virginia Beach and Philadelphia, PA. 
The successful candidate must be able to show acceptable documentation establishing the right to accept employment in the United States of America. UMES is an EEO/AA employer, a drug-free workplace, and enforces a no-smoking policy applicable to all campus buildings. Minorities, women and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply. 
How to Apply: Resumes will be accepted until the position is filled. Interested, qualified candidates should send letter of application, curriculum vita, unofficial transcripts (official transcripts will be required once a candidate is selected), and three current professional letters of recommendation to the Department of Human Resources, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, Maryland 21853-1299. E-mail: mvames@umes.edu. Web Site: www.umes.edu

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Art League Announces New Executive Director

Congrats to the Art League's new Executive Director Suzanne Bethel:
The Art League Board of Directors is delighted to announce that Suzanne Bethel has been appointed to the position of Executive Director commencing on October 1, 2012. She will succeed current and long time Executive Director, Linda Hafer.

Currently the Executive Director for Operations, Suzanne’s multi-faceted experience and career at The Art League will bring a unique wealth of knowledge to her future role as the chief executive officer. From her days as School Registrar, Curriculum Director, School Director, and Deputy Director of Operations, to her present position as the Executive Director for Operations, Suzanne has excelled in every project she has undertaken. She will continue to direct the day-to-day management of The Art League, which includes all operations and programming, and will oversee all Development and community programs. The Art League’s School, and Gallery, with their celebrated and renowned educational, membership and exhibition programming will continue to be under her very experienced hand.

Suzanne will continue to lead The Art League staff in serving the long time mission and constituencies of The League, and will be fostering new creative partnerships within Alexandria and beyond. Focusing on sustainability, Suzanne is leading the way with the establishment of a newly consolidated school facility at the Madison Annex. This complex will house 3-D and 2-D art programs in a synergistic environment that will be ready for launch by the beginning of the Fall 2012 term.

We have enormous pride in her many accomplishments and respect for Suzanne and her extraordinary capabilities and vision for The Art League’s future. Current Executive Director, Linda Hafer, has offered a ringing endorsement of Suzanne’s succession to this new position:

“Suzanne is the perfect choice to lead The Art League ‘onward and upward!’ She has a deep understanding of the culture of The Art League, and the experience, vision, and passion to recognize the strengths and the wonderful potential of our organization. She has earned the respect of all who have worked with her. I have complete confidence in Suzanne's ability to continue building on the successes of the generations of artists who have created this living community, and enthusiastically congratulate her on this well deserved recognition!”
 Want some ideas on how to kick-start some new initiatives for the Art League? Call me!

Monday, May 07, 2012

The Incantation of Frida K

Here is "The Incantation of Frida K", which is both an homage in my obsessive interest in Kahlo as well as an homage to the wonderful American writer and poet Kate Braverman. This piece is now in the private collection of a well-known DMV area art collector in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Here's the drawing - almost finished except for the text which will be added to the halo

Here is the cut-out from Kahlo's chest - it is in the shape of a heart with fangs - this is the window from which the video will play. The text around her halo is a passage from Braverman's book of the same title as this piece.
The Incantation of Frida K. The necklace around Kahlo's neck is a cluster of clues and images of bombs, skeletons, hidden images, penises, babies and even mathematical conjectures.
Another video shot of The Incantation of Frida K


Detail of the appropriated video, which comes from a home movie by an unknown person and shows Kahlo, almost as a black widow, about to ensnare a very young and frightened young girl. See the full video here.


Sunday, May 06, 2012

My neighborhood

A few days ago we received a glossy postcard announcing an estate sale this weekend in one of those gigantic Potomac mansions on Stapleford Hall Drive. It announced that everything must go and talked about artwork, and seeing that this joint is only about a 90 second drive from my much smaller house, I decided to drop in and see what sort of artwork dwells in one of these gigantic homes.

The place was indeed gargantuan and by the time we got there around 10AM, which is when the sale was scheduled to begin, it was already crawling with dozens of curious potential buyers.

The home, which belongs to a retired NBA basketball star, was palatial indeed - although the "antique reproduction" style of expensive (but still a reproduction) glossy, vulgar furniture was certainly not my style - although (second "although in this sentence) there were some very nice Middle Eastern and Persian rugs all over the mansion.

But I concentrated on the "artwork", and as I had come well prepared to be disappointed, I found exactly what I expected in this multimillion dollar mansion: dreck.

On the walls hung what appeared to be the "Chinese painting villages" made oils on canvas of the usual themes: hyper-realistic fruits bowls brimming with grapes and fruits, wine bottles with cigars by the side, basic palette landscapes, brushy flowers, etc. As expected, they were all framed in what was clearly very expensive mouldings - the three to five thousand dollar range custom framework that these peddlers of visual wall dreck seduce the buyers into acquiring for their wall decor.

"Everything is 50% off the price tags," announced the floor boss of a small army of name-tagged floor assistants. Right off the bat that was a clue about the real reality of "everything must go..." and the inherent sadness of the event.

As I walked around the house, in one large window alcove facing the swimming pool, from far away I saw what looked like a large Tamara de Lempicka hanging on the alcove wall. I held my breath as I approached it, fully expecting to discover some ersatz bad copy job.

And that's exactly what it was: a bad Chinese/Ebay copy of a Lempicka on a $2,000 frame going for a few hundred bucks. Someone had copied de Lempicka's Adam and Eve using a lot of white to stretch out the colors and then signed it with a name close but not exactly the same as the original artist's name.

Back on the main floor, as I walked by, the large oil of shiny grapes and fruits was being examined by a Saturday-morning whiskered man and a woman, and a bored teen. "What do you think?" he asks of her.

The price tag on the Chinese oil was $2,000+, which means that this piece of kitsch wall decor was being given away for around a $1,000 samolians; five gets you ten that the original price from the "gallery" that sold it to the former NBA star was around $5,000.

As with the other crap hanging on the walls, that poor (not in dollars, but in visual arts knowledge) former NBA star had been conned not only into buying mass produced (one at a time) wall decor offered as fine art, but also then some gifted gabber of a salesman had added a $2-$3,000 frame to augment the monstrous act of conning someone into acquiring what they think of as "art" and presenting it as "art" (read elaborate, roccoco, expensive and disturbingly kitschy frame mouldings).

"I like it," says she back to the perspective buyer.

"It would really snap that room for me," he adds, "That's the only thing missing."

"I think I'm going to buy it," he says. She turns to to the 15 year teen.

"What do you think?", she asks of the bored teen.

She shrugs her shoulders, "Itsawright...", she mumbles.

Even in this scenario, I've seen this scene play a thousand times. Even though in their eyes the huge hand-painted riot of fruit oil hanging on a massive frame on the wall seems to be too good of a deal to pass, since it is "art", they are looking for an excuse to walk on.

But that room really needs something to snap it together. "I think I'm going to buy it," says he again, brow furrowed and arms crossed. He turns around, looking to find one of the floor assistants, finds one and beckons her over with one of those forefinger wiggles that cartoon characters use to tell someone to come over.

I walk on by, saddened a little.