I know, I know... I keep bashing the Post on their miserably tiny coverage of our area's art galleries and artists, but I must admit that at least Michael O'Sullivan, who covers the museums and sometimes galleries for the Post's Weekend section, does a pretty good job of keeping a finger on the pulse of DC's visual arts.

Today he covers five separate shows in Indian Art Beyond the Museum.

He also reviews "The Dream of Earth: 21st-Century Tendencies in Mexican Sculpture." at the Cultural Institute of Mexico. That is one show that I do not want to miss.

If you haven't been to the Cultural Institute of Mexico, please do so; it is one of the most beautiful buildings and most attractive gallery spaces in DC.

Other than the really cheesy headline, this is a pretty eloquent review by the New York Times' Michael Kimmelman of the Dan Flavin traveling retrospective exhibition now at the East Building of the National Gallery.

Even some humor: In discussing Flavin's impact, Kimmelman writes that ... "It also helped to open the way for installation art, but you can't blame only Flavin for that."

Who else do we blame? We want names!

Tonite is the Dupont Circle Art Galleries' crawl... from 6-8 PM. Most galleries will have wine and food as well as the artists will be there to meet the public.

Go and buy some art.

In a major new visual arts initiative for the Northern Virginia region, the League of Reston Artists (LRA) announces its first Call for Curated and Solo Art Exhibition Proposals for exhibits to be presented during its 2005 season at its sponsoring venue, The University of Phoenix Northern Virginia Campus, in Reston, Virginia.

LRA Board Member and spokesperson, James W. Bailey, says that individual artists, groups of artists, artist collectives, and independent emerging curators are invited to submit proposals for a curated exhibition by the postmarked deadline of Monday, January 17, 2005. Bailey also says proposals for solo artist exhibitions will be considered and are strongly encouraged from regional artists as part of this call.

"Those interested in submitting proposals are encouraged to visit the site at the University of Phoenix first to see how the space would work with their ideas," says Bailey. "Interested curators and artists can download the proposal application form from our web site."

Proposals should include a brief narrative exhibition statement, artist statements from key participants, a proposed budget, a proposed timeframe for the exhibition and relevant support materials, including representational slides, photographs, CD’s or videos. The LRA Board will select shows based on a representation of the proposed works included in the proposal.

Congratulations to Tyler Green, Washington, DC's first art BLOGger, who has been designated as the art critic for Bloomberg News.

The Vampire Rises Again

"A group of works by Damien Hirst, including his famous tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde and "Hymn," his monumental bronze anatomical model, as well as pieces by fellow British artists Tracey Emin, Jenny Saville, Sarah Lucas, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Marc Quinn, and Chris Ofili, among many others, are to be removed from display at the Saatchi Gallery. In their place comes an exhibition, "The triumph of painting" which opens in January 2005 to mark the 20th anniversary of the gallery."

The new show is devoted to the work of five painters, Peter Doig, Luc Tuymans, Marlene Dumas, Jörg Immendorf, and Martin Kippenberger, described by Charles Saatchi as "key European artists."

If you are one of those critics or curators who have been trumpeting the "death of painting" for the last four decades: your flag-bearer just went to the other side.

Read the entire Art Newspaper story here. (Thanks AJ).

The Washington City Paper continues to take over the vacuum created by the continuous Washington Post's poor coverage of the area's galleries and artists with several interesting reviews in the current issue.

Louis Jacobson reviews our current show of Hugh Shurley's DC debut of his photographs at our Georgetown gallery. He also reviews Kristi Mathews at Flashpoint.

And Jeffry Cudlin has a very good and interesting review of Avish Khebrehzadeh at Conner Contemporary Art.