The fun-to-read end of year's "top ten lists" are out from our local newspapers' art critics. This is always a difficult exercise for any writer.
First, please realize that an art critic must first start by visiting a dozen or more shows each month, culled from the hundreds of invitations to new shows that he/she receives. Why? because in order to make a good visual arts critic, the visual senses must be offered a lot of choice so that blinders and tunnel-vision can be defeated.
Thus to make an honest list, a reputable art critic in our area would personally have to see 120-200 gallery and museum shows a year, and then pick ten at the end of the year as his/her opinion of what he/she liked the best in that year. It's also fun to see where the different critics agree, and where they disagree, as art opinions are one of the most personal and subjective issues in writing. But even though some of them work for some of the top members of what I call the Fake News Industrial Complex (look up Eisenhower for the inspiration), these are all interesting reads:
Louis Jacobson, who reviews photography and other art shows (both museums and galleries) for the WCP (as well as some other national art magazines), has his Top Ten Photography Shows listed here.
The WCP's Glenn Dixon, who reviews mostly museum shows and a handful of gallery shows a year, as well as movies, music and books, and so on and so on, has his very interesting Top Ten List here.
And Michael O'Sullivan, who reviews both museums and galleries for the Washington Post each Friday in the Weekend section, has his Top Ten List here, with a little mix of out-of-town shows.
My top ten list of Washington shows (sans ours of course):
1. "Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting" at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A huge wake-up slap in the face to asleep-at-the-wheel critics and curators who keep trying to believe that painting is dead.
2. "Picasso: The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier," at the National Gallery of Art. Artists will paint and draw whatever or whoever is around them. A spectacular view of one of "his" women by the greatest artist of modern times.
3. "Tobacco: Architectural Photographs by Maxwell MacKenzie," at the American Institute of Architects. MacKenzie's landscape photography is to the genre what Richter is to painting (disclaimer: Max also shows with us, no objectivity here).
4. "Census 03" at the Corcoran. This show had some holes, but it's important for the Corcoran to keep an eye on the local art scene. But for that to happen well, their curators must get out of their offices and visit studios and show up at some galleries to see some shows on a regular basis. How about a "Census 04" ?
5. "The 47th Corcoran Biennial" at the Corcoran. Jonathan Binstock's first Biennial was much maligned in the press, but I think that it accomplished a couple of important things: (a) it brought some well-known artists to Washington for the first time (and ahead of other museums), and (b) it included some local talent in it.
6. "Cuba Now!" at the Sumner School Museum and Archives. Although Washington, DC's own half-Cuban photographer Nestor Hernandez stole this show with his brilliant Cuban street photography, this show was nonetheless one of the best among a deluge of Cuba-related shows in our area in 2003.
7. "Yuriko Yamaguchi" at Numark Gallery. The minimalism of Yamaguchi's beautiful organic sculptures reflect what the true power of this abused term truly can be.
8. "Joseph Mills: Inner City," at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The obsessive photographic vision of a Washington, DC street photographer with an uncanny ability to deliver the unusual from the most common of subjects.
9. Mark Bennett at Conner Contemporary. According to the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1996, this stuff is not even supposed to be art, but they are wrong, and I found it unexplicably attractive and intelligent.
10. James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art. Presented for the first time ever as Whistler intended the art to be seen. A beautiful little show seen in a new (old) light.
First, please realize that an art critic must first start by visiting a dozen or more shows each month, culled from the hundreds of invitations to new shows that he/she receives. Why? because in order to make a good visual arts critic, the visual senses must be offered a lot of choice so that blinders and tunnel-vision can be defeated.
Thus to make an honest list, a reputable art critic in our area would personally have to see 120-200 gallery and museum shows a year, and then pick ten at the end of the year as his/her opinion of what he/she liked the best in that year. It's also fun to see where the different critics agree, and where they disagree, as art opinions are one of the most personal and subjective issues in writing. But even though some of them work for some of the top members of what I call the Fake News Industrial Complex (look up Eisenhower for the inspiration), these are all interesting reads:
Louis Jacobson, who reviews photography and other art shows (both museums and galleries) for the WCP (as well as some other national art magazines), has his Top Ten Photography Shows listed here.
The WCP's Glenn Dixon, who reviews mostly museum shows and a handful of gallery shows a year, as well as movies, music and books, and so on and so on, has his very interesting Top Ten List here.
And Michael O'Sullivan, who reviews both museums and galleries for the Washington Post each Friday in the Weekend section, has his Top Ten List here, with a little mix of out-of-town shows.
My top ten list of Washington shows (sans ours of course):
1. "Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting" at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A huge wake-up slap in the face to asleep-at-the-wheel critics and curators who keep trying to believe that painting is dead.
2. "Picasso: The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier," at the National Gallery of Art. Artists will paint and draw whatever or whoever is around them. A spectacular view of one of "his" women by the greatest artist of modern times.
3. "Tobacco: Architectural Photographs by Maxwell MacKenzie," at the American Institute of Architects. MacKenzie's landscape photography is to the genre what Richter is to painting (disclaimer: Max also shows with us, no objectivity here).
4. "Census 03" at the Corcoran. This show had some holes, but it's important for the Corcoran to keep an eye on the local art scene. But for that to happen well, their curators must get out of their offices and visit studios and show up at some galleries to see some shows on a regular basis. How about a "Census 04" ?
5. "The 47th Corcoran Biennial" at the Corcoran. Jonathan Binstock's first Biennial was much maligned in the press, but I think that it accomplished a couple of important things: (a) it brought some well-known artists to Washington for the first time (and ahead of other museums), and (b) it included some local talent in it.
6. "Cuba Now!" at the Sumner School Museum and Archives. Although Washington, DC's own half-Cuban photographer Nestor Hernandez stole this show with his brilliant Cuban street photography, this show was nonetheless one of the best among a deluge of Cuba-related shows in our area in 2003.
7. "Yuriko Yamaguchi" at Numark Gallery. The minimalism of Yamaguchi's beautiful organic sculptures reflect what the true power of this abused term truly can be.
8. "Joseph Mills: Inner City," at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The obsessive photographic vision of a Washington, DC street photographer with an uncanny ability to deliver the unusual from the most common of subjects.
9. Mark Bennett at Conner Contemporary. According to the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1996, this stuff is not even supposed to be art, but they are wrong, and I found it unexplicably attractive and intelligent.
10. James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art. Presented for the first time ever as Whistler intended the art to be seen. A beautiful little show seen in a new (old) light.
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