New Timeout

The current Timeout 2004 guide for Washington, DC has really good coverage of DMV art galleries; in fact it is the only DC guide that offers any decent "guiding" to Washington area galleries.

It is written by Jessica Dawson, who also pens the "Galleries" column for the Washington Post.

Read her introduction (you'll need an Amazon password) here and her favorites here under "Names of the Game."

Jessica nails it when she recognizes in her intro that a new "optimism" is kindling a really good art scene in our region.

Throughout the pages dedicated to the galleries, and as it is to be expected, there are quite a few comparisons to New York this, New York that all over the place.

And reading through Jessica's descriptions of the various galleries also offers an honest and rare insight as to how this critic evaluates and views (she seems to have something about "safe art," whatever that is) most of our region's art galleries. For example Dawson praises Zenith Gallery's Margery Goldberg for her "tireless activism," but describes the gallery as "while influential in the neon art scene, consistently shows mediocre painting and craft."

Addison/Ripley is praised for selling "high-calibre paintings, photography and prints," but "their selections, while lovely, are awfully safe."

Cheryl Numark is "Washington's power dealer", while Leigh Conner shows work by the "kind of cutting-edge artists that Washingtonians usually travel to New York to see."

MOCA is "DC's answer to the hip, alternative galleries of New York."

We "concentrate on photography, but occasionally shows innovative sculpture and work in other media," while our Bethesda outpost is a "bright, glass-walled gallery [that] exhibits realist painting and photography."

Hemphill Fine Arts "plays host to many of Washington's strongest artists," but "the art here tends towards the decorative."

Fusebox is "sharp and savvy," and has "raised the bar for visual art in Washington," and their openings are "events to see and be seen at."

Does anyone know why Jessica has never reviewed Fusebox in her "Galleries" column? Fusebox is easily one of our top area galleries, and I'm curious as to why it is so nicely praised in Timeout, but (so far) avoided in Dawson's bi-weekly column at the WaPo.

Anyway... Bravo Timeout!