Attended AOM's opening night last night - I arrived a bit early in order to walk the 5th floor and begin the process of awarding my usual Artomatic awards and eventually pick my top 10 AOM artists.
The 2100 M Street, NW building is a HUGE Brutalist maze - just the 5th floor took me over two hours and towards the end I was rushing in order to be back in my room in time for the evening crowds to arrive. In my opinion, the amount of visitors was steady and decent for a Friday night opening, but based on the 5th floor alone, a little less than my usual recollection from previous (and much smaller) AOMs, so that perception is probably somewhat flawed from both those factors.
Met loads and loads of artists friends, many of whom I had not seen in years, usually since the pre-Covidian Age and in some cases, decades! I was also told that the Washington Post's freelance galleries' art critic Mark Jenkins had been passing through - good luck trying to write a one column art review of a 1,000+ artists art event - to be fair to Jenkins, the WaPo should send him over to AOM multiple times and have him write a column for each floor!
In a preventive strike, the great Michael O'Sullivan, who used to write about the DC art scene, had a great piece on the history of AOM and also covered this iteration. Read that here.
During the opening ceremonies, I am also told that Mayor Bowser had to be rushed away to safety as:
What the Mayor of DC has to do with "advocating for a cease-fire in Palestine" escapes me, but you reap what you sow. On the one hand, Andy Shallal and the other protesters can go fuck themselves for using an artists' event - who never get any press attention in the District - to bring attention to themselves and their cause... may the bluebird of happiness shit all over your birthday cakes.
On the other (third hand), and a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences, because of the protest and rushing the AOM stage, this Artomatic has already received more press coverage on its opening day that probably all other Artomatics put together! So, thank you Andy Shallal and your gang! Thank you and I hope that they arrested all you fuckers!
Back to the arts... as I noted, I strolled through the 5th floor, which seems to have an unplanned concentration of some of the better-known artists of the DMV, such as Tim Tate, Erwin Timmers, Michael Janis, Alison Sigethy Patricia de Poel Wilberg, (see a glass pattern here?), Laurel Lukaszewski, Andrew Wodzianski, Shanthi Chandrasekar, Ric Garcia, Steve Wanna, J. Jordan Bruns and others.
Let us start a stroll through the 5th floor then... and from my 5th floor walk through at ARTOMATIC, it's gonna be hard and next to impossible to best Melissa Burley in the Best Steam Punk art category! She's in room 5103 and knocking it out of the ballpark with her gorgeous and entrancing sculptures!
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| Melissa Burley in room 5103 at Artomatic 2024 |
There's a 16-year-old artist in room 5045 (Evelyn Johns) whose paintings also caught my eye for the natural painting skills that she's already exhibiting (pun intended) and so far she has earned my Best Young Artist award.
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| Evelyn Johns in Room 5045 at Artomatic 2024 |
Like previous Artomatics, there's plenty of bad photography and also plenty of spectacular work! Possibly some of the most powerful photographs that I have ever seen is in the "Scars" series being exhibited by (new to me) photographer Rahul Saha in Room 5026. See all of them here. They are not only beautiful photographs of (mostly) beautiful bodies, but also deliver a powerful punch to the solar plexus of the mind's eye!
These were my favorites amongst many superb works:
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| Holly from the SCAR series by Rahul Shah at Artomatic |
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| Lila from the SCAR series by Rahul Shah at Artomatic |
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| Lucky Art Studio in room 5090 at Artomatic 2024 |
Another category usually overloaded with work is food art, and so far Anna Katalkina is leading the Yummy Art award. These are delicious paintings by clearly a spectacularly skilled artist! She's in room 5087
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| Anna Katalkina in room 5087 at Artomatic 2024 |
As by my own assessment, I am the planet's leading expert on Washington area glass art, it is always exciting to me when I discover a new talent, and on the 5th floor, close by the elevators in that central area where all the artists from the Washington Glass School are located, I discovered the work of a young new glass artist named Griffon Dillon whose work was really refreshing and new.
Social Media Art Award - Michele Banks' intelligent approach to the monster inside social media - I don't need to visit the other floors! She's in room 5108.
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| Michele Banks in room 5108 at Artomatic 2024 |
Salon Hanging Style Award - Easily won by Joseph Shepperd Rogers in Room 5091.
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| Joseph Shepperd Rogers in Room 5091 at Artomatic 2024 |
Best Abstract Action Painting on the 5th floor - Marthe McGrath in room 5011... this is a pending review of other floors award - but certainly worth a visit!
Scariest Pussy Award - This is a tentative award, until I visit all floors, as in the past Andrei Trach has always won this coveted category and I do not know if his work is in this edition of Artomatic. Pending further exploration, so far the award is going to Phyllis Mayes in room 5063!
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| Phyllis Mayes in room 5063 |
Best Teddy Bear Noir Award - I'm pretty sure that she invented this new category, but the award is clearly merited by this talented photographer! Victoria Pickering in room 5065!
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| Victoria Pickering - Teddy Bear Noir |
Open Invisible Worlds Award - Gorgeous close up photography by Stuart Diekmeyer in Room 5060. This kind of work is soooo hard to do, and even harder to present in such intelligent manner!
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| Stuart Diekmeyer Gallery of Photos at Artomatic 2024 |
Best Presentation of the Subject Matter (Ever!) - Easily won by the intelligent substrate used by J.L. Hussey in presenting the Musicians series in room 5014.
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| J.L. Hussey - Musicians series in room 5014 |
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| Little Walter by J.L. Hussey from the Musicians series in room 5014 |
Best Ever Interpretation of Picasso's Guernica - Judith Benderson in room 5012.
Best Frida Kahlo (2D) in a floor with lots of Frida Kahlos was a really tough category... on just this floor there are a LOT of art pieces about the Fridanator, including a really good one from a Lebanese artist. But what really stood out to me was this work by fellow Cubano artist Ric Garcia. And at $75 Samolians, this is clearly one of the best - if not the best! - deal at Artomatic! Buy them now!
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| Young & Frida V by Ric Garcia in room 5033 |
Most Fantastical Glass - Alison Sigethy in room 5075 - I've said enough over the years about this amazing master... and yet every time that I see her work, it WOWs me!
Another new award category, and I am pretty sure that this artist is the final winner, as perhaps she is the ONLY artist on the entire planet, maybe even the galaxy, focusing on this subject! In any event, the Best Beaker Art Award goes to Jenn Bock in room 5073!
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| Beaker artwork by Jenn Bock in room 5073 at ARTOMATIC 2024 |
Best Poor Sport Award is awarded to Andrew Wodzianski who cheated and awarded it to himself before I could check out his brilliant work in room 5061.
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| Andrew Wodzianski in room 5061. |
Best Mixed Media (Ever) - Another "ever" winner is J. Jordan Bruns, who is one of those fantastic artists who can created really good art is pretty much any genre, and also teach it, and also present it really well... and so on! And yet this series of works always stuns me by their unusual ability to cross around art boundaries and deliver. The Brunsdinator is in room 5062 and you can connect with him in his great Glen Echo classroom here.
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| J. Jordan Bruns mixed media work at Artomatic 2024 |
And all of that was just one floor! Do you now understand why Mark Jenkins' task from the Washington Post is impossible!
More floors later...
