Saturday, April 24, 2010

Dawson on DMV

The WaPo's Jessica Dawson covered a wide range of the DMV art scene in this review(s): She covered shows at McLean Project for the Arts, Thomas Drymon Selects at the Studio Gallery, Carroll Square Gallery, Amy Lin's exhibit at Addison Ripley, and Andrew Wodzianski's Pop-Up living space in 100 sq. ft. performance.

Think about this: in order to cover all those shows, Dawson had to travel all over the DMV - and I'm sure that she visited a lot more spaces than those that she wrote about.

That is why writing art criticism is so time consuming: it takes a lot of gallery hopping just to produce a good round-up article like this one. Good job!

Andrew Wodzianski: 24/7

Click here or watch below:


Andrew Wodzianski Live from his 100 sqft home

Paneling

I'm part of the panel Special Seminar: Social Networking and Marketing Your Art, which is is today Saturday April 24, from 1-3PM. All the details are here.

Why not the visual arts?

A while back I was told by a writer (and later by a photographer) from the Gazette newspapers (which are owned by the Washington Post), that the WaPo has been using articles originally published/done for the Gazette to augment its coverage.

Years ago I suggested to the WaPo Arts Editor exactly the same thing: that they augment their visual arts coverage by publishing the reviews from the Gazette in their Style section, especially during the Dawson/Gopnik off weeks.

It made sense to me; they own the articles, so why not re-use them as needed. Like the Post has done with all of my constructive criticism and improvement ideas, they filed it in the round file and I've never heard back from them.

But apparently this "re-use" has been happening with some Gazette articles recently - but not the visual arts. I don't know which articles, and I don't know how to find out, and I am told that the Style section co-editor/editor (I'm not sure what he is) Scott Vogel doesn't answer emails, and I don't know who to ask.

However, it still makes sense to me. The Gazette has two really good writers in their employ to this end: Dr. Claudia Rousseau and Jordan Edwards.

Rousseau is a highly educated art critic and scholar with an impeccable pedigree and highly respected not only in our area, but also in Latin America, where she wrote art criticism in Spanish for many years before returning to the US. Read some of her recent reviews here.

Edwards is a journalist with a taste for the fine arts. Since I've been back living in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Montgomery County, I've been following his writing in the Gazette and he has earned my respect for the mind-boggling diverse genres of art that he covers for them. Check him out here.

How about it WaPo? If you don't get it, you don't get it...