Washington, DC Art News

Burtynsky is 6 feet 2 and, aside from a graying goatee, he doesn't look particularly artsy, nor is there anything pretentious or obscure about the way he discusses his work. He could pass for upper management at some small business where it's always casual Friday, which is actually what he was, for a while. In the mid-'80s he started a photographic printing company called Toronto Image Works, which he still owns and which now has 35 employees.

"the book illustrates how urban and street art have recently broken even further out of the subculture and are being featured more often in galleries and museums worldwide. It analyses how these public art forms are being perceived in an international art context and investigates the fundamentally different forms of presentation that this new context demands."

Dear Lenny,

It's possible to look at two thousand, or 20 thousand paintings and still miss what looking is all about. Fortunately for me, Libby Lumpkin has that ability but I wish you'd at least concede that there are some things that you don't understand -- (I love Vermeer, but that has nothing to do with my intention; The tradition I work in has much more to do with Bonnard and Rousseau, Birchfield and Wolf Kahn).

My paintings can be looked at forever and they'll keep yielding up new things. The most superficial way of seeing them is that they're paintings of my back yard. (Although if you came out to my back yard, that's not what you'd see.) What I'm doing is constructing a reality and if you'd let yourself enter into the paintings, really walk around in them, you'd feel the air, and a specific moment in time. If you look up at the sky there'd be the surprise of that particular sky and the whole configuration of buildings and trees creates spaces that you can wander up to, through, even around and be endlessly satisfied. And there is also an ominous quality -- spring isn't the pastel spring that you think of, but some almost acidic feeling of being oversaturated with the moist air. Winter has to do with the rhythm of the bare branches and shadows and the golden light hitting the tops of the trees and sometimes a feeling of gloom. If you look at the pastels, the information is in them; they are my point of departure, but then the paintings are re-imagined to create a new reality.(That's not kudzu on the tree -- it's Virginia creeper, but what's on the real tree is English ivy. The crepe myrtle I lifted from Pinehurst N.C. along with the loblolly pine.) And then there's the light. The way I use color to create light has everything to do with the most subtle color interactions.

It's easy to dismiss as the cliché' of "light" -- but who really does this in the way I do? My color isn't representational, but creates a light and atmosphere which can be felt. I've never seen it and I'll bet you haven't either.

I'm writing this because I'm so disappointed at the superficial way you have categorized and dismissed my work. It's clear from your critique that you are either unable or unwilling to immerse yourself in a deeper way of looking.

I'm going to quote Jed Perl here: "the more an artist asks us to look at a work over a period of time, the more a work drops beneath the radar screens that criticism has set up to track the contemporary scene."

I have the highest standards for my paintings. I mean every single brush stroke. I've been a painter my whole life; I taught at Duke for years and at the Corcoran.

I know what I'm talking about. My hope is that you'll think about what I'm saying and take another look.

Sheila Blake

November 17, 2004

From: F. Lennox Campello
To: D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities

Subj: RECOMMENDATION FOR A PUBLIC ART PROJECT

Summary: This point paper offers a recommendation for a recurring public art project designed to attract worldwide attention to the Washington, DC fine arts community. This idea is being submitted for consideration by DCCAH for future implementation.

Background: Washington, DC public art projects, like many other cities, have yielded a mix of public success and bitter art criticism. Most recently, projects such as “Party Animals” and “Pandamania” have enjoyed spectacular public acclaim, but have been severely criticized by area art critics. Whereas it is my belief that a publicly-funded DCCAH should answer to the public and not to elitist art critics, I believe that I have come up with a concept and idea that is both novel and creative. No other city has done this before (to my knowledge) and this project, if funded and implemented, will make a huge leap in placing Washington, DC on the leading edge of the art world.

The Project: A call for artists to create art videos. No theme, no guidance (other than the standard caveats to preclude pornography, hate-mongering, racism or personal attacks): just a call for artists (either worldwide or Greater DC area) to create an art video. This has never been done before by anyone, anywhere, as a mass call for public art. A public project that delivers art videos on a massive, public scale will place this contemporary genre of art outside of a museum environment for the first time ever.

The Logistics: 100 20-inch TVs with built-in DVD players will be needed ($269 each). Each one placed inside a custom built viewing bubbles (see attached design). The viewing bubbles can be constructed by the same company who built the Pandas. The material for the “bubble” can be the same as the Panda material, except for the viewing area, which should be constructed of Lexan, which is the plexiglass material from which NASCAR racecar windshields are made from; it is practically indestructible and it does not fog or scratch. Cost for these “bubbles” should be approximately the same as a panda or party animal.

Electrical power will be needed; however, this is easily available on nearly every street in DC, as every single lamp post in Washington has a power source at the base of the lamp post. The “bubbles” will have to be built and placed so that a safe connection to the power source can be accomplished.

The accepted videos will be run on a 24/7 continuous loop so that they can be viewed by the public ad hoc. At the end of a specified period, signed still photography from the videos can be auctioned off – or even sold throughout the period (from a website). This is very common in the world of art videos – no one buys videos, but they will buy signed photographs from the videos.

The Process: A worldwide call for videos: the call for art can be made for free in many Internet web sites (places like artdeadlines.com as well as magazines such as ArtCalendar, etc.) If successful, this can become an International Public Video Biennial (no one is doing this!) to a huge public audience. Call it the Washington Video Biennial!

We ask for artists to submit videos (CD ROMs) and then a panel selects 100 videos to be exhibited to the public. Each year DCCAH can hire two curators (cost is $300-$500 each) to select the videos (or an advisory panel can be picked to select the videos).

Copyright: I have had this idea researched, and no one else is doing this as a public art project or as a project in general, so I have had it copyrighted. However, I am submitting it to DCCAH at no cost or monetary compensation to me. I am doing this (at no cost to DCCAH) to ensure that my ideas and concepts for this project are carried out as I have envisioned them, and I hereby re-iterate that I am not seeking monetary compensation in any form or manner from DCCAH.

I reserve all rights to market this idea to other cities in the event that DCCAH declines to implement it, or after it has been successfully implemented by DCCAH or any other institution in the Greater Washington, DC area.

Since it is my desire and intention to implement this in Washington, DC, and for the benefit of Washington, DC, I hereby grant DCCAH a period of 180 days to notify me of their decision for "first right of refusal" to implement, fund and execute this proposal. At any time after that, or if declined in writing, I intend to submit this proposal to other cities.

Next Step: I hereby request a meeting with DCCAH to verbally explain this project and answer any questions.

All I know is I was lucky to be alive and for the first time took notice of so much I had missed before. In leaving the hospital and driving through Georgetown’s residential neighborhoods, I suddenly became aware of the neighborhood’s stylish detail and historic fabric – the facades, turrets, towers, portals, lintels, sills, fences, fire plaques – now became fascinating in their unusual way. And the easy transfer of lines from one building to the next worked in a way that only enhanced the dignity of these grand imposing structures. Having lived in both Boston and New York City provided an historical perspective enabling me to appreciate what make Georgetown so unique.