Thursday, October 23, 2003

Email received asked me if I could provide the artist with a list of local art critics, and I thought that this list would be a good resource for artists trying to get a review or bring their work or show to a critic's attention. Artists should mail their press releases and info to the critic's name in care of the newspaper or magazine that they write for. Of note, the national magazines such as ARTNews or Art in America rarely review area galleries, and when they do so, it is often under the guidance and direction of their New York Reviews editor. Often the "local reviews" in these national magazines are focused on the DC area museum shows. By the way, ARTNews will have a Washington DC City Focus in their December issue. Anyway here's my list of area art critics who are regularly published, if I am missing anyone, please email me:

Washington Post
Jessica Dawson - "Galleries" art critic
Michael O'Sullivan - Weekend section art critic
Blake Gopnik - Chief Art Critic (rarely reviews area galleries and focuses instead on museums)
Paul Richard - Retired former Chief Art Critic (still does a few museum reviews a year)
Nicole Miller - Covers the visual arts for Sunday Source
Jonathan Padget - Arts Beat column - not really criticism, more like news
Maura McCarthy - Visual Arts Editor and Critic for washingtonpost.com

Washington Times
Joanna Shaw-Eagle

Washington City Paper
Louis Jacobson (also writes for ArtNews and Art on Paper magazines)
Glenn Dixon (articles often re-published in Artnet.com)
Robert Lalasz (WCP's new Senior Arts Writer)

Georgetowner
Gary Tischler (museums only)
John Blee (galleries)

Gazette
Dr. Claudia Rousseau

Baltimore Sun
Glenn McNatt

ARTNews
Louis Jacobson
Rex Weil
others ad hoc...

Art in America
J.W. Mahoney
Joe Shannon
others ad hoc...

Art on Paper
Louis Jacobson

WETA "Around Town"
Bill Dunlap

Artnet.com Magazine
Sidney Lawrence
Tyler Green
Glenn Dixon

ArtlinePlus
Dr. John Haslem

Crier Newspapers
Me

DC One Magazine
Me

Artists just trying to get in print somewhere should not just limit themselves to trying to get one of the above very busy critics - in addition to them you should also send the news release of your solo show, etc. to your college newspaper, as well as to any of the many neighborhood newspapers published all around the metro area. In other words, if you live in Bowie and are having a show in DC, there's a pretty good chance that the Bowie Blade will do an article or review for you. Also don't forget that the Post publishes several separate community sections such as Montgomery Extra, Prince William Extra, etc. Those writers and editors may be interested in doing a story on an artist from their community.

Thusdays is supposed to focus on "Galleries/Art News" in the Post's Style section, and today's "Galleries" column by Jessica Dawson has a couple of reviews as well as some interesting words and comments on the longevity of color photographs.

The archival nature of artwork is an important issue, often ignored by artists and by gallery owners, but more and more of interest to art collectors. The advent of Iris digital reproductions (also called Gyclee) brought many new choices for artists and photographers, and in the early days the issue of color longevitiy was ignored. Several lawsuits later, there are archival inks and pigments now available to the reproduction industry, but it is a complicated matrix of what ink or pigment gives you what longevity on what kind or brand of paper.

The absolute last word on these issues is always held by Wilhelm Imaging Research. They conduct research on the stability and preservation of traditional and digital color photographs and motion pictures. The company publishes brand name-specific permanence data for desktop and large-format inkjet printers and other digital printing devices. Wilhelm Imaging Research also provides consulting services to museums, archives, and commercial collections on sub-zero cold storage for the very long term preservation of still photographs and motion pictures.

DC area painter Elena Maza emails me about my Oct. 20, 2003 rant about the idea for a new Latino Museum and adds: "I couldn't agree more with you about the "new" Latino Museum idea -- ridiculous. Besides, if we continue to build museums to honor every hyphenated American and cause, soon there will not be a square inch of space left on the Mall or anywhere else in the D.C. area!"

November 10 is the date that the art collection of the new Washington Convention Center is unveiled with a press walk-through. The Center spent $4 million to create the largest public arts program in a U.S. convention center history. The program was overseen by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities with advice from the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery. There are around 85-100 works of art distributed throughout the Center and about 50% of the artists are from the Washington area.

I was always sort of curious as to what in the hell does the National Gallery of Art know about Washington area artists? It's not like their curators are scouring Washington area galleries looking for the latest hot artist.

Anyway, as with most public art, I am willing to bet that there will not be a single nude in the entire collection, as it has become that standard of American public art that nudes (or any stuff that can be remotely "offensive" to anyone) is never part of the collection. Nonetheless there are some very good area artists represented in this collection and I am looking forward to seeing the work in place.

Talking about the DC Arts Commission, the call for nominees for the 19th Annual Mayor's Arts Awards is out. Anyone can nominate a candidate and the deadline for receipt of nominations is November 3, 2003. Nomination forms are here.