More Troubles...
A month after he was arrested on the way to his own exhibition opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art for tagging property with graffiti, street artist Shepard Fairey stands to face new charges in the Massachusetts capital.Read the ArtInfo story here.
Get your Kahlo on
Frida Kahlo remains not only one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, but her spectacular life experiences, her writing and her views on life and art have also influenced many artists throughout the years.
The Washington Post once described me as a "Kahlophile since age 17," and since the very first time that I walked into a museum in Mexico City at that age and came across Kahlo's "Las Dos Fridas," I have been hypnotized and seduced by this most Mexican of Mexican viragos.
AOM Registration Opens Soon
Registration to be part of Artomatic 2009 opens online Friday March 27th.
The tenth anniversary event will run from May 29 to July 5 at Half Street's 55 M Street, S.E. - blocks from Nationals Park - atop the Navy Yard metro in D.C.'s Capitol Riverfront neighborhood.
Artomatic is unjuried, unfettered, popular, crazy, and all artists are welcome. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis and will end when space is filled. The artists and the public love this amazing art explosion, while the critics usually hate it in their Freudian need for a curatorial hand or someone in charge.
Artomatic.org will have all you need to know by March 27. For registration questions, e-mail register@artomatic.org. To volunteer, e-mail volunteer@artomatic.org.
Major Art Fair coming to DC
The third annual International Caribbean Art Fair is coming to the nation's capital later this year, a change of venue from its usual New York location, where ICAFair has been held for the last two years.
ICAFair, a first-of-its-kind art fair exclusively for the representation of Caribbean Art, will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center from September 10-13, 2009.
ICAFair provides exhibition opportunities to galleries and art dealers representing artists of Caribbean heritage.
At $2,400 for a 12' x 12' booth, this fair is a steal compared to the booth prices of every other fair around, so it may attract enough galleries willing to take a chance in today's negative-driven economy. From what I hear, the fair has done well in the last couple of years.
If you're curious what constitutes "Caribbean heritage," see the definition here.
I also know that ICAFair organizers have already been working hard and have been meeting with Cultural Attaches at the Caribbean embassies in DC to forge partnerships and help create awareness in their home countries. They've also just announced a joint-lecture partnership with the IDB Cultural Center scheduled for June 11th at 6:30pm at their location in Washington, DC.
This is great news for the District's arts scene, and I really hope that some sponsors and the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities step up to the plate to help make this art event a success.
Opportunity for Artists
Sign up Deadline: April 15th 2009
Postmark Deadline: July 1st 2009
The Canvas Project - Your work at the world's busiest airport!
Sign up to receive five 3"x3" canvases and a list of 5 user generated words that you are to interpret onto each canvas. The goal of the exhibition is to create a visual encyclopedia using mini canvases and artists from all over the world. At least one of your canvases will be published in an Art House book and one will be on display at the world's busiest airport, The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Everyone who signs up and sends back their work will be included in the book and the exhibition. They do not jury any of the work. Art House is all about community and you don't have to be a professional artist to participate in the exhibition. This project is about being creative and inspiring yourself and others.
Fee: $18
Sign up Deadline: April 15th 2009
Postmark Deadline: July 1st 2009
To sign up to participate, visit this website.
Black and Italian and Beechcroftian
Brewing around for a couple of months...
Vanessa Beecroft had better prepare for some serious damage control, since director Pietra Brettkelly's documentary on Beecroft, The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, opens at Sundance tonight. The doc cluster-bombs her faddish fascination with Sudanese orphans and paints Beecroft as a hypocritically self-aware, colossally colonial pomo narcissist. The film is brutally effective because it lets Beecroft hang herself with damaging quotes and appalling behavior.Read the report in NY Magazine here and Black Cat Bone here and the WaPo here.
The documentary explores Beecroft’s experiment in Sudan, in which she attempts to adopt two Sudanese orphans and use them as subjects in her work. Wise to theory, Beecroft says her adoption will be “not just fetishization of the blacks. It will be a beginning of a relationship with that country.” The film documents the significant gap between Beecroft's theory and her actions.
Upon her arrival in the Sudan, Beecroft hurries to set up a photo shoot, hiding the cameras from the orphanage's sisters, calling the babies “these poor creatures.” Which baby should she photograph? “Either one or the other,” she says, “it doesn’t matter.”
Repeatedly, Beecroft claims that she “loves this culture” — but, in the film’s most disturbing scene, sisters from the orphanage try to stop her from stripping the children nude inside their abbey for an elaborate photo shoot. Beecroft refuses, complains, starts shooting again, and eventually loses a physical confrontation with one of the sisters, who takes the children away from her, furious that Beecroft is stripping children naked inside a church. “Christ, these people,” Beecroft moans, as she barricades herself inside, pushing a pew up against the door to keep the sisters out of their own abbey.
"Many people are enraged," Amnau Eele, head of the Black Artists Association, told Page Six. "She wants to be famous on the backs of poor black children."
Opportunity for Artists
Deadline: March 13, 2009
UNICEF is seeking artists of all levels (beginner to professional) to contribute artwork to promote the Tap Project — a campaign to provide clean drinking water to children around the world. All of the works submitted will be eligible for a $500 juried prize and exhibition during World Water Week, March 22-28, at the Pepco Edison Gallery located at 701 Ninth St., NW in DC. Submissions will also be considered for use in print and online advertising in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
During World Water Week participating restaurants will ask diners to voluntarily pay $1 for the tap water they would usually enjoy for free. For every dollar raised, a child will have clean drinking water for 40 days.
All artwork should pertain to drinking water. Due date is March 13. Details here.
At the D'Art Center in Norfolk
In the many years that I have been jurying or curating art exhibitions around the nation, I have never ceased to be impressed each and every time by the diversity of the human mind when putting pen to paper, or brush to canvas or chisel to stone, or eye to camera view finder.
And yet, after well over 300 exhibitions in which I have had a hand in orchestrating, I can say with an enthusiastic attitude that the recent exhibition for Norfolk's D’Art Center (which opened last Friday) provided me, the juror, with one of the most pleasant and interesting and intelligent juried competitions that it has been my honor to put together.
Hundreds of artists from 17 states submitted work for the competition, so the talent pool was diverse and geographically diverse.
My first pleasant surprise in jurying this exhibition was the high number of really good entries from which I was to select the exhibition, or better said, competition. Those artists which I selected really brought their best to the show and competed well. And having said that, there were at least a dozen more artists, had space allowed it, that could have been included.
My second surprise was the significant number of really good three dimensional entries in the pool of submissions. I express this as surprise because generally, most of these national level jury shows are comprised of 90% two-dimensional work and a handful of sculptures or other 3D pieces.
The 3D pieces competed well, also a pleasant change of pace for me and my experience on this subject. Super entries such as Lesley Hildreth’s “Hares, multiplying like rabbits while waiting for the Tortoise,” a remarkable clay piece with multiple sculptures which marry oddly zoomorphic imagery with intelligent composition and design and a superb title that would have made Barnett Newman proud of the often ignored art of titling art.
Or in an almost 180 degree artistic U-turn, Sarah Haven’s elegant and minimalist “Ideal,” a ceramic, glaze and decal sculpture which uses clues to have the viewer interpret her work, rather than forcing her ideas upon us.
Another unusual surprise came to me in the work of Virginia painter Mark Miltz, whose trompe l’oeil work is very familiar to me. In his sculptural installation “Game,” Miltz brings something new to me, and certainly sure to raise some eyebrows in Norfolk, or anywhere else for that matter.
Jury Duty
Deadline: March 27, 2009 (postmark).
I'm going to be jurying an art show for The Fine Arts League of Cary in North Carolina, and they are seeking entries for its 15th Annual Juried Art Exhibition to be held from May 8th to June 27th, 2009 in Cary/Raleigh, NC. Show awards and purchase awards will total over $5,000. Entries can only be mailed via CD. The postmark deadline for the mail-in registration is March 27, 2009.
Full details and a printable prospectus are available on the web here or call Kathryn Cook at 919-345-0681.
Goldberg: The Woman Behind the Flame at Zenith Gallery
By Rosetta DeBerardinis
“Art is truth,” declares Margery Goldberg, the owner of Zenith Gallery in Washington, DC’s Penn Quarter who yesterday closed ONLY the doors to her downtown store front, but not her business. And, if it is truth you want, she is your lady. Ms. Goldberg is one of the most honest and outspoken members of the Greater DC art community.
“When you own your own business there is no sabbatical,” she sighs. “You work all the time.” She wants to make it perfectly clear that she is NOT closing her business, but merely changing the way she does business. The success of Zenith has been reliant upon her visibility and her relationships with the artist and art patrons along with its ties to the community. “I haven’t had a day off in years,” she declares. “I am exhausted!”
Many of the readers of this blog were not born yet when Ms. Goldberg opened the doors to her first gallery on 14th Street in 1978. There she rented a 50,000 sq. foot industrial space and nurtured and supported 50 artists. She relocated Zenith Gallery to its present location on Seventh Street in 1986. Many of the artists who began their careers with her remain affiliated with the gallery or return to exhibit in her annual anniversary show. When asked why she wanted to be responsible for the career and welfare of fifty artists, she shot back, “I always take care of everybody”. And, her care-taking extends to her family, her dog Max and to the needs of her now deceased father.
“This is a bitter-sweet moment,” she laments. “I have wanted to do this for years but I waited until I hit a good round number. Thirty is a good one, much better than 18 or twenty-five. I wanted to do it on my terms.” The petite woman with coiled hair, a boisterous voice and one of the best sock collections on the East Coast, is a tough business woman with a big heart.
She is concerned about the impact the closing will have on the downtown business district. “Zenith is more than a gallery is a close-knit part of the community,” she explains. When Zenith moved on 7th Street, it was not the upscale real estate district that it is today. The million dollar condos and the yuppie chains did not exist and the rents were reasonable. Today, it another part of the city where artists have pioneered through urban blight and can no longer afford to remain.
However, Zenith is not moving because of the absorbent rent increases. That is something Ms. Goldberg wants to drive-home. Unlike other downtown landlords and developers, hers has been most supportive and wishes the gallery would stay. Zenith is leaving its brick and mortar because its owner needs a rest and believes there is a new way to operate in the art world. Most of the staff will remain on the payroll and so will the majority of the artists it represents. Although, she did admit that this is an excellent time to sever ties with those artists who are either difficult to deal with or whose work isn’t in demand.
“When I first opened, I had this motto: Genius, good-looks and money are not an excuse to be an asshole,” she says laughing. So, if you are one of those she recommends that you find another gallery, not hers. In addition to her disdain for prima-donnas, she has no great admiration for urban developers, D.C. Mayor Fenty or the Washington Post critics since Paul Richards. She accuses the developers of raising rents sky-high making downtown real estate too expensive for small business owners and that the District of Columbia offers little support for its small businesses, especially the arts. Her mantra is, “I am mad as hell and can’t take it anymore!”
As artists continue to whine about declining sales, the absence of press coverage and high commissions few understand or care about the responsibilities of the art dealer or gallerist who is chained to a storefront operation from opening to closing, answering calls from artists and customers, paying the rent on the white cube and mounting show after show each year. She predicts that storefront commercial galleries will begin to disappear. “Nobody can afford the rent and it’s not safe anymore,” she says. It was surprising to learn that Zenith is robbed almost once a week. No, they don’t break the large glass windows that would be too obvious. Instead the thieves snatch a small piece or sculpture, a cell phone on a desk or a wallet buried deep inside an employee’s purse. Ms. Goldberg attributes the lack of police presence as part of the problem. And, when she calls the police they claim to be unable to find the gallery.
Since art dealers and gallerists are a pivotal link between artists and their public and between sellers and collectors, her prediction about the disappearance of storefronts will have a definite impact upon the local art market. If she is correct, art galleries will soon become destination points and few will be able survive in obscurity. Nor does she believe chain galleries can survive in there. When asked why so many galleries fail, she provides a direct and honest response. “Anyone can open an art gallery,” she admits. “But, they have no freaking idea how hard it is- the hard work and the hours. It is for people who need to make money, not for the rich. It is for those who need to earn a living and who have a fire in their belly.” According to Ms. Goldberg, even rich contacts are a restricted audience because patrons only purchase a limited amount of art annually. Then, there is the daily grind which is so demanding and that most people simply don’t want to work that hard, despite their love for art.
When she closes the doors to the glass fish-bowel this week, Zenith gallery will begin to operate its new format. With most of the staff continuing and the construction of a gallery in her home, Ms. Goldberg intends to cast her entrepreneurial net far and wide. She will continue to work with her stable of artists and retain a relationship with the 20,000 people in her database. Watch out, she is taking her show on the road doing traveling exhibitions, studio visits, art tours, promoting her foundation, producing and exhibiting more of her own sculpture and dreaming about the 100-acre art community she hopes to develop. She may say she is tired but her ‘to-do list’ is quite long. I predict that Margery Goldberg will sleep late a few mornings here and there and take off a day or two once in a while, but this woman with fire in her belly will remain a noticeable flame.
Artists' Websites: Kathryn Cornelius
DC uberartist and my good friend Kathryn Cornelius was once described snarkely as a "barely emerging artist." But the snarky comment backfired and success is the best revenge, and Cornelius has become one of the district's best known and most ubiquitous artists.
And it has been a busy couple of months for her... in February she exhibited with Your Last Neighbor and Transformer at VIDEOYO! in DC... This exhibition has since travelled to Delaware, and the opening of VIDEYO! Part Deux! is at the New Wilmington Art Association tonight, 6-10pm. The show/s are curated by Breck Omar Brunson and feature DC, Philly, and NYC-based artists.
Also in February, artist Lisa Marie Thalhammer and Cornelius put on a performance event called Soup Kitchen.
The piece was a part of Transformer's Summer Camp series. You can see pics on Transformer's site here and on their Facebook profile.
Also, in December she was profiled in the DC Modern Luxury magazine (along with some other great DC art folks!).
Also, if you are in DC, next Thursday evening from 6:30-9:30pm, she will be giving an artist talk entitled "IDEAS ART FREE," presented by Meat Market Gallery as the inaugural event in their Red Tape: Artist Talks series.
My good friend Jeffry Cudlin, Director of Exhibitions at the Arlington Arts Center (and the author of Cornelius' 2007 Curator's Office solo show essay), will give an introduction and she will share some of her past works, discuss a few of the major themes explored, and give a sneak preview of a few new pieces. Please RSVP to redtape@meatmarketgallery.com if you can make it.
Visit her new website here.
Power of the Web
"The Age of Obama," my first drawing of 2009 and currently on exhibition at Projects Gallery in Philadelphia as part of their Obama-rama exhibition (which may be traveling to a few American cities and the subject of a book), through the wonders of the internets has been acquired by an Irish collector and will be on its way to Ireland at the end of the exhibition.
Opportunity for Artists
Deadline: April 30, 2009
Philadelphia's Projects Gallery has announced a call to artists for its June-July 2009 Juried Art Exhibition entitled “Summer in the City”. The steamy summer months often prompt Philly residents to flee; but for the segment that remains, there is a certain magic to the sticky days and long nights. Emerging from their wintry cocoon, Philadelphians take to the streets and stoops, bikes and bars, parks and playgrounds.
They want art that captures that unique sensibility of summer in the city with a distinct Philadelphia flavor. Entrants may present work of any media or subject, but artists must be located in the greater Philadelphia and Delaware Valley region.
They are looking to discover emerging, established and/or outsider artists with a mixed media approach and urban sensibility. The show will be displayed June 5 – August 1, 2009 at Projects Gallery in Philadelphia.
Eligibility: Open to all artists who reside in the greater Philadelphia and Delaware Valley area. Work must be original and completed within the past 2 years. Works for consideration may be of any media but must be no larger than 36” W. All work must be available for sale. Gallery commission on sales is 50%. An artist statement and resume will be required from all accepted artists. Artist is responsible for transportation of work to and from gallery. Accepted video artists must supply viewing equipment.
Prizes: A “Best In Show” prize of $300 will be awarded by artist Frank Hyder.
To Enter: There is a non-refundable entry fee of $25.00 (U.S.) per artist for up to five entries. Additional detail images are permitted. Digital files of artist statements, resumes and/or bios must be included with image entries. Submissions must be digital 300 dpi at least 8” jpg, gif or tiff format on a CD or DVD. CD/DVD will not be returned. Do not send original artwork. No slides. Please include a list of entries with the following information: artist name, titles of images, media, dimensions, date and retail price of work submitted. All entries must be received no later than April 30, 2009. Make checks payable to: Projects Gallery. If any of these requirements are not met the submission will be deemed ineligible.
Mail entries, list of entries, entry fee to:
Projects Gallery
629 N 2nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19123
Calendar
• April 30, 2009 deadline for entries
• May 10, 2009 entrants notified
• May 30, 2009 accepted works due to gallery
• June 5, 2009 opening reception
• August 1, 2009 exhibition closes
• August 3-5, 2009 pick-up work or prepaid shipping returned
Work will be juried by Projects Gallery’s Associate Director Sequoia Medley. In addition to the exhibition, press releases and images will be sent out and the exhibition will be highlighted on the gallery’s website. Please forward this to all interested parties.
Questions? Contact info@projectsgallery.com.
New Baltimore Gallery
Nudashank is a new independent, artist-run gallery space in Baltimore, Maryland. Their mission is to showcase young artists. Founded by Seth Adelsberger and Alex Ebstein, Nudashank "hopes to bring new blood into the Baltimore scene, benefiting the regional artists, and providing a new venue for national and international artwork."
The gallery hosts approximately 6 exhibitions per year, featuring group and 2-person shows. Their goal is to have a large inventory of available works including drawings, paintings, zines, and prints. The 1000 square foot gallery is located on the third floor of the H&H building in downtown Baltimore, which already houses the Whole Gallery, Gallery Four, and Floristree.
Sedonaing...
Done with some private family matters... done with some exhausting hiking (more to come)... done with some archeological visiting... done with loads of Mexican food eating (how come no East Coast Mexican restaurant offers nopalitos or carnitas?)... and now ready for some gallery hopping.
Memo to frozen East Coast: It's nice and sunny here.
Wanna go to an artist talk in DC tomorrow?
Artist Talk: Mark Cameron Boyd
Host: Hamiltonian Gallery
Start Time: Wednesday, March 4 at 7:00pm
End Time: Wednesday, March 4 at 8:30pm
Where: Hamiltonian Gallery
Habatat for Healing
Habatat for Healing is running from Thursday, March 05, 2009 to Tuesday, April 07, 2009.
Virginia's Habatat Galleries' wants to make a difference. With help from the art community, they have put together an exhibition that raises money and awareness for Leukemia & Lymphoma.
For more information on how you can help their campaign, please contact Lindsey Scott at 561-213-0793 or lindseyscott@mac.com and check out the exhibition online here.
The Trawick Prize
Deadline: Monday, April 20, 2009
The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is now accepting submissions for The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards. The highly respected annual juried art competition awards $14,000 in prize monies to four selected artists. Deadline for slide submission is April 20, 2009 and up to fifteen artists will be invited to display their work from September 4 – September 28, 2007 in downtown Bethesda at Heineman-Myers Contemporary Art.
The Trawick Prize is without a doubt, the key fine arts competition available to DC, MD and VA artists and has already produced some spectaculaer results for its winners.
The first place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A “young” artist whose birth date is after April 20, 1979 may also be awarded $1,000.
Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. Original painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video are accepted. The maximum dimension should not exceed 96 inches in any direction. No reproductions. Artwork must have been completed within the last two years. Selected artists must deliver artwork to exhibit site in Bethesda, MD. All works on paper must be framed to full conservation standards.
The Trawick Prize was established by local Bethesda business owner Carol Trawick. Ms. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 25 years in downtown Bethesda. She is the Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District and past Chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership. Additionally, the Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation was established in 2007 after the Trawicks sold their successful information technology company.
For a complete submission form, please visit www.bethesda.org or send a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc., c/o The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, 7700 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, MD 20814.
Not sure when the jurors will be announced, as the website still lists the 2008 jurors.
Get yer stimulus loot
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is beginning the application process to award the $50 million appropriated to the NEA as part of the federal economic stimulus packages. By law, 40% of the $50 million will be passed on to the 56 state, territory and regional arts agencies.
The NEA will award the remaining $30 million through competitive grants. Individuals and organizations can apply.
I am hearing that all applicants must be previous NEA award recipients in good standing from the past four years, which doesn't make sense to me, but the NEA's forthcoming Recovery Act grant guidelines will provide details - we hope. If this is indeed a requirement, it is not only unfair, but it is divisive and unless I am missing something, quite perplexing.
Synopses of the guidelines are scheduled to be posted at grants.gov by March 8 with complete application guidelines scheduled to be posted on March 18.
Applicants must be registered at grants.gov.
The NEA urges applicants to verify their registration. If you are not registered please begin the process now as it can take up to two weeks.
To register please click here.
Full text of the latest NEA announcement follows:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides $50 million to be distributed in direct grants to fund arts projects and activities which preserve jobs in the non-profit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn.
Forty percent of such funds will be distributed to State arts agencies and regional arts organizations and 60 percent of the funds will be competitively awarded to nonprofit organizations that meet the eligibility criteria being established for this program.
Application guidelines for two funding programs are being developed and will be posted as soon as completed and approved by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Synopses will be posted on Grants.gov by March 8; full guidelines on our site by March 18.
Applicants will be required to submit their applications electronically through Grants.gov, the federal government's online application system. All applicants must be registered with Grants.gov in order to submit their application.
If you have already registered with Grants.gov, renew/verify your registration with Grants.gov and make sure that all of your information is current before you apply. Organizations that are not already registered should allow at least two weeks to complete this multi-step process.
See the step-by-step instructions for registering at Get Registered.
Funding Program: Competitive Grants
One-time grants will be awarded to eligible nonprofit organizations including arts organizations, local arts agencies, statewide assemblies of local arts agencies, arts service organizations, units of state (other than state arts agencies) or local government, and a wide range of other organizations that can help advance the goals of the Arts Endowment and this program.
All applicants must be previous NEA award recipients in good standing from the past four years (NEA's forthcoming Recovery Act grant guidelines will provide details). Listings of grantees from the last four years can be found on our web site.
Sedona, Arizona
While I am airborne heading West to Sedona, AZ, I thought that it may be a cool idea to rehash some of my older thoughts on that area for all the newbies to the blog.
While there's no doubt on the planet that Sedona, Arizona is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, as I discovered while visiting there the last two years, it is also one of the key spiritual magnets to a variety of religions and beliefs, including the significant number of people attracted to Sedona as a result of its "energy Vortexes."
Let there be no doubt that this is an area of profound beauty and full of a palpable sense of energy and power. I have loved it for the last two years and will be back many times, as there are dozens and dozens of trails and vistas to explore. This visit may get interesting as far as hiking, as I am nursing a really sore Achilles tendon (too much basketball); let's hope that massive doses of Advil do the trick.
On my last trip in 2008, I focused some time and comments on the Sedona art scene, a "scene" with some national footprint, regardless of where you stand on the planetary scale of the art world. In fact, within a few minutes of anyone discussing that they're going to Sedona, someone will immediately pop in and describe the city's great art scene.
Last year I approached those views with the prejudiced eyes of the artsy Easterner, accustomed to white cube galleries, minimally presented with austere framing, white matting, and where even title and price labels are often eschewed in preference of a discrete price list on the gallerist's white or light wood postmodern design table.
Let start with the Sedona art galleries from the city's dealers' association, which seems to have shrunk a little in membership since last year - probably as a result of the economy.
But first, extrapolating from the city's website, the city probably has around 12,000 people, and about 90% of them are non-Hispanic whites, and last year came in with a median household income roughly $100,000 less than Potomac, Maryland and paradoxically (also last year) with a median house price about $100,000 more than Potomac's pricey homes. I've been watching those house prices dive bomb both places over the last year, but they're still widely discordant between the two places.
But this dollar discordance is the first of many paradoxes about this gorgeous place.
Depending on who you believe, Sodona also gets between four and five million visitors a year.
The Sedona Visitors Guide tells these millions of visitors that Sedona "not too long ago had 300 residents, now has 300 artists and more than 40 galleries." We also learn from the guide that Sedona averages one gallery per 300 residents, and for every dollar spent on art, the art buyers spend $12 on other Sedona stuff.
I often wonder how the granularity on these statistics take place.
The guide also claimed last year that statistics show that approximately 33% of the city's visitors are attracted there by the art, and that these art aficionados thus spend between $200,000 to one million dollars in various Sedona businesses each day. We thus can extrapolate that around $16,666 to $83,333 dollars are spent each day on art in this small town.
One issue appears to be clear: it's the tourists who buy art, not so much the locals (does that sound familiar?). This makes sense, after all, how much art can 12,000 residents buy from 40 galleries?
Another clear issue is that whoever writes this statement has a wider definition of what makes "art" than from the rest of us; I think. Let's say that I would accept the statistic if it had stated that the money is spent on "arts and crafts."
"Locals don't buy any art," told me last year a former Sedona gallerist, who prior to opening a gallery in Sedona had been a dealer in Chicago. "There are a lot of retired people here [the median age is around 55] and although there are some very large multi-million dollar homes, there are also a lot of modular homes [a fancy way to described a souped-up trailer]."
To the prejudiced and minimalist Easterner eye, the riot of color, subjects and presentation that characterizes most Southwestern art is an assault to long-held visual sensibilities created by the black and white world of the East Coast and Left Coast artworlds and its European and Latin American brethren.
I am shocked to discover that perhaps there's something of an elitist in all of us, as the preconditioning of being an artist, an art critic and an art dealer raised in all those aspects, and mostly along the Eastern states, prejudices my eyes to what I've referred previously as "coyote art."
My better half, who many years ago interned in Santa Fe with the legendary Gerald Peters Gallery (and Peters is credited by many as energizing the interest in Southwestern art and placing Santa Fe and the Southwest in general on the art scene), tried over the last couple of years to educate me somewhat as to the different sensibilities between what she labels "an Easterner, with an East Coast vision of what a gallery should look like, looking at a Southwestern space."
It will take time, but then again, at one point in his life Duncan Phillips hated Impressionism and then eventually was seduced by it and became the American champion for it.
On the other hand, Wisconsin farm girl Georgia O'Keefe, even in her Southwest years always kept her austere black and white world where colors were generally reserved for her paintings.
So for the last two years I have proceeded with as open a mind as I can have, maybe somewhere between Phillips' eventual enthusiasm and O'Keefe's steadfast minimalism in personal tastes.
I am curious to see what changes the economic downturn has wrought, but there were a lot of spaces in and around Sedona that sell artwork. I'm not really sure if there really are 40 galleries, unless one includes a lot of spaces that sell a lot of Native American and Mexican crafts.
Sedona itself is sort of divided into two areas, and as one comes to it from Highway 179, Uptown Sedona is to the right and the other Sedona to the left. Most art spaces are either located on 179 itself or Uptown Sedona.
The first set of galleries one comes across on 179 are located on a shopping area to the right as one enters the city, with a spectacular view (from the shops) of the Sedona rocks and the city itself.
And when you drive up Highway 179 into Sedona, one of the first galleries that you come across is the huge Exposures Gallery, which is located on the right side of 179 as one approaches the city.
Sedona and Jerome are like kissing cousins of the Arizona tourist draw. I think that together, they can also become complimentary partners for an art draw of its own.Someone still has francs
A painting by Henri Matisse sold Monday for $41.1 million — a record auction price for a work by the artist — at an art sale from the estate of Yves Saint Laurent, Christie's said.Details here.
The sale came at the start of a three-day Paris auction of art from the collection of the late French fashion designer that some are calling "the sale of the century."
Airborne
Heading to beautiful Sedona, Arizona... art galleries, red rocks, vortexes...
Note to airport designers: The fact that in Philly Airport gate A-11 is right across gate A-2, but gate A-9 is nowhere near gate A-8 may make sense to you, but to the rest of the planet it is a perplexing design silliness.
Wanna be in a PostSecret book?
My good friend Frank Warren is the genius whose worldwide art project, PostSecret, is easily the world's largest public art project by a googleplex of factors.
And Frank just told me about the new PostSecret book that will be released later this year - PostSecret Confessions on Life, Death and God.
This book has been two years in the making, but there is still time to contribute your postcards.
Use this link to watch a personal message from Warren about this special fifth PostSecret book and learn how to mail in your deepest secrets today.
Opportunity for Artists
Deadline: March 27, 2009 (postmark).
The Fine Arts League of Cary is seeking entries for its 15th Annual Juried Art Exhibition to be held from May 8th to June 27th, 2009 in Cary/Raleigh, NC. Show awards and purchase awards will total over $5,000. Entries can only be mailed via CD. The postmark deadline for the mail-in registration is March 27, 2009. I will be the juror for this show.
Full details and a printable prospectus are available
on the web here or call Kathryn Cook at 919-345-0681.
Best burrito in the world?
The massive carnitas burro in San Diego's Santana drive through?
There used to be only one Santana - on Rosecrans - but now I think that the little drive through has grown into a chain.
No matter, the food is still great and cooked just as you order it, not pre-cooked, and the carnitas are just amazing.
New Hirshhorn Museum director
Richard Koshalek has been named director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, effective April 13.
Koshalek, 67, was president of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., from 1999 until January 2009. Before that, he served as director of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles for nearly 20 years.
"Richard Koshalek has vast experience in both the education and museum worlds," said Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough. "His creativity brought modern and contemporary art to bear on issues of the day and will help the museum and the Institution reach broad audiences in technologically and aesthetically exciting new ways."
"I am immensely excited to come to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden," said Koshalek. "This institution, more than most, is at the perfect time and place to make a unique contribution not only to the history of modern and contemporary art, but to the larger appreciation of the role of the arts in society. Given its place in the nation's capital, as well as its proximity to a peerless range of cultural, diplomatic and civic resources, the Hirshhorn can be a catalyst for new creative and collaborative energy in many arenas."
We are also hoping that Koshalek discovers the museum's proximity to a large number of world class art galleries and an immense number of DC area artists, both of which, with a few and notable rare exceptions, have been largely ignored by the Hirshhorn in the past.
"In the past it seemed that Hirshhorn curators found it easier to visit Berlin or New York, or any place for that matter, rather than their own city, when looking for emerging artists or new innovative work in commercial galleries," Campello Vulcan-melded into Koshalek's mind. "Not anymore," he added, "there's a new sheriff in town."
PMA Woes
Facing a dramatic downturn in its endowment and waning city support, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is cutting staff, delaying exhibitions, curtailing programs, trimming salaries and — subject to city approval — increasing admission fees.Read the Inky report here.
The cuts will bring the museum’s operating budget down by about $1.7 million to $52 million for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, and, the museum hopes, will stave off a deficit the following year forecast as high as $5 million.
The museum will eliminate 30 positions — about seven percent of the staff — in all areas, though no curators are being let go. Of those 30 jobs, 16 are layoffs of current personnel, with the remaining positions lost by not filling vacancies.
Senior staff will take salary cuts of between five and 10 percent, said interim CEO Gail M. Harrity yesterday.
Dobrzynski on the Art Fairs
The crowd was cordial, happily sipping from glasses of Champagne, white wine, and soda. Big collectors like Marty Margulies, Agnes Gund, Frances Bowes, Don Marron, and Helen Schwab roamed the art-filled aisles. As everyone walked around during the gala opening of the annual Art Dealers Association of America art fair in New York last week, they were smiling, laughing, pausing frequently to chat and to look at the art in the gallery booths.Read the Judith Dobrzynski report on The Daily Beast here.
What they weren’t doing, despite valiant new strategies by some dealers, was buying much art.
Blows
A blow to the Greater DC area art scene... in the making... unless we all do something.
Arlington County Manager Ron Carlee has proposed the closing of the Ellipse Arts Center in the FY2010 recommended budget. This closing includes a complete budget cut of the Ballston, Virginia area Ellipse Arts Center facility rent, a complete budget cut for visual art exhibition programs and a complete budget cut for visual arts educational programs.
Cynthia Connolly, Ellipse Arts Center Manager & Curator, and LisaMarie Thalhammer, Ellipse Arts Center Education Programmer, are graciously but urgently asking for your written support in proving that Arlington County’s continued funding of the visual arts is a value to our community. Please consider writing a short statement in support of the Ellipse Arts Center program.
I hope you will take a moment before the end of the day tomorrow to send a note of support to Lisa. Please email Lisa Marie at lthalhammer@arlingtonva.us with your supportive statement by the end of the day tomorrow, Thursday, February 26, 2009.
Please call with any questions or concerns at 703-228-1861. You can also contact Ron Carlee directly 703.228.3120, fax: 703.228.3218 or email Ron Carlee - County Manager at countymanager@arlingtonva.us
A Public Thank You to Kim Ward
As we all know by now, the WPA's Kim Ward will soon leave as the head honcho for that terrific artists' organization.
I can’t exactly recall the first time that I met Kim Ward, but the first time that she made a distinct impression on me was back when she was one of the several WPA people working under Annie Adjchavanich’s leadership and the WPA was at the Corcoran and they had just published their first Artists Directory.
They were distributing boxes of the books through galleries in the District and Greater DC area, and I was working that day at my old and first gallery in Canal Square in Georgetown. We had asked for a couple of boxes, and Ward came into the gallery carrying one of the boxes, with that huge smile that she always seems to have.
“I’m illegally parked!” she announced in her hypnotizing Southern accent.
“You’ll get a ticket,” I predicted. “Let me go back with you to the car and I’ll bring the second box over.”
I walked with her across the street and picked up the second box from her car. She zipped away to her next delivery spot.
“Damn,” I said as I struggled with the weight of the box of books, “How’d in the hell did that tiny thing carry this box?”
It was the first of many instances where Kim Ward would show me and others the toughness, resiliency and hard working ethic of a woman in love with her job and the huge number of artists that the WPA represents. I’ve seen this woman scrubbing floors, painting walls, patching up holes, washing dishes, hammering at walls, cleaning spills, serving food… hanging artwork, all the stuff that makes the life of the director of an artists’ organization a glamorous job.
Ward worked her way up the WPA ladder until she became the executive director and new leader of the WPA, and in the five years since that happened she re-crafted that organization into a very important part of what makes the Washington, DC art scene “tick.”
Ward’s accomplishments at the helm of the WPA have been nothing short of spectacular; all the way from guiding the organization to the digital age to guiding it right out of the heavy shadow of the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
It can be probably argued that the Corcoran provided a life line to the WPA after several directors almost ran the organization into extinction. The Corcoran relationship allowed the WPA to rediscover itself, and to breathe a little easier in financial terms.
First under the dizzying leadership of my good friend Annie Adjchavanich and then under Kim Ward’s strong and steady hand the WPA began to rise again, and eventually it regained its independence last year.
And once again, it would be hard to imagine Washington, DC without a WPA. And hard to imagine a WPA without Kim Ward.
I am proud to call her my friend and on behalf of the thousands of WPA artist members, and of the Greater DC area art dealers, and every symbiot of the District’s art scene: Kim Ward, thank you!
If you wear a Che Guevara T-Shirt
Unless it is one like the one on the left, then you are wearing the image of one of the 20th century's worst psychopaths, who (like Hitler) never hid his hate and goals in his writing and speeches, which if you took the time to read, you'd find jewels like this (on the subject of the Cuban missile crisis:
"If the missiles had remained we would have used them against the very heart of the United States, including New York. We must never establish peaceful coexistence. We must walk the path of victory even if it costs millions of atomic victims."
-- Che Guevara, Interview in London Daily Worker, 1962
Artists' Websites: Kathryn Cook
Kathryn Cook is a North Carolina artist and Kathryn's very cool paintings "provide visual metaphors for the viewer to consider ideas that define different elements of human nature, for better or worse, as well as our response to the age we live in."
Profiler
Art Connect has been profiling all the best art blogs on the web and they've just covered me.
Thanks!
Black Hole Sun
Sometimes a sentence or a word or even part of a song's lyrics trigger me into doing a drawing inspired by the words.
Right now as I travel West to California I am obsessed with ideas about a drawing inspired by these lyrics.
New Executive Director of Washington Project for the Arts
Today the Board of Trustees of the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) announced the appointment of Lisa J. Gold as the new Executive Director of the organization, now entering its 34th year as a leader in the support of regional contemporary fine art. Ms. Gold begins her new role on March 18, as the leader of a highly successful non-profit organization that has come to be recognized as one of the most influential and important arts groups in the region, and the U.S.
Ms. Gold’s appointment follows the nearly five-year leadership of my good friend Kim Ward, who successfully guided the WPA through the 2007 separation from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and subsequent re-establishment of the WPA as a fully independent force in the arts community. What Ward did to revive an almost moribund WPA was nothing short of spectacular and I hope that all members of the WPA know how much they owe to that tough, hard-working little steel magnolia.
“The Washington Project for the Arts is very fortunate to have found Lisa Gold from such a great pool of highly qualified candidates,” said Board of Trustees Chair and also my good buddyand one of a handful of Cubans in the DC area, Andres Tremols. “Her experience, insight, familiarity with Washington, DC and with the world of contemporary art will be a great asset for WPA and the greater region.”
Most recently, Lisa Gold was the Public Relations and Marketing Director at The Drawing Center in New York City, where she managed the institution’s public programs and communications (drawing uh? I like her already). Ms. Gold has over twenty years of diverse experience in arts management, fundraising, development, programming, outreach, marketing, advertising and public relations. With a career that began in Washington, DC, her previous roles have included Director of Development and Communications at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, NY; as Outreach and Development Director at apexart in New York City; as well as Associate Director and Account Management positions at advertising and marketing agencies in the private sector in Washington, DC and New York. Her experience is enhanced by an extensive resume of volunteerism, including serving as the Chair of the New Leadership Alliance of the New York City Chapter of ArtTable, as the Open Studios Director for the Downtown Arts Festival, and in various roles with a number of New York City visual arts organizations.
"I am incredibly grateful for the trust the Board of Trustees and staff of the WPA have placed in me. I am looking forward to working with their support, and with the artists and art community of Washington, to ensure a remarkable future for the WPA,” said Gold. “It’s a tremendous privilege to be handed the reins of such a celebrated and important organization. I am excited to bring new ideas and energy to the WPA and to the community."
The Washington Project for the Arts has recently hosted a number of successful exhibitions, programs and educational seminars including: AQUIFER, a sculpture show in conjunction with the Washington Sculptor’s Group; When Absence Becomes Presence, the fourth iteration of the WPA Experimental Media Series in partnership with The Phillips Collection; Uncommon Beauty at the Ellipse Arts Center, and No Artist Left Behind, a ‘how-to’ self-help video campaign to help motivate artists and encourage them to take advantage of WPA opportunities.
On Saturday, March 7, 2009 the WPA will host the 30th Art Auction Gala, to be held at the Katzen Arts Center, which includes a silent auction of more than 125 original works by regional contemporary artists. For more information on the WPA, visit their website here.
Opportunity for Artists
Deadline: March 27, 2009 (postmark).
I have been retained as the juror for The Fine Arts League of Cary in North Carolina, and they are seeking entries for its 15th Annual Juried Art Exhibition to be held from May 8th to June 27th, 2009 in Cary/Raleigh, NC. Show awards and purchase awards will total over $5,000. Entries can only be mailed via CD. The postmark deadline for the mail-in registration is March 27, 2009.
Full details and a printable prospectus are available
on the web at here or call Kathryn Cook at 919-345-0681.
Congratulations
Katie Miller, 25, is a winner of the 2008 Wynn Newhouse Award - a $60,000 merit-based grant shared among four professional artists with disabilities. Artists may not apply directly for the award; Miller was one of a group of artists nominated anonymously. Congratulations to Miller and the other award winners: Barbara Bloom, Isabella Kirkland, and Stephen Lapthisophon.
The four award winners were chosen from the pool of nominees by an impressive selection committee consisting of Phong Bui, publisher of the Brooklyn Rail, uberartist Chuck Close, Donna DeSalvo, curator at the Whitney Museum, Chicago-based artist Joseph Grigely, and the award's namesake, art collector Wynn Newhouse. 
Miller is excited to meet the other award winners at a private luncheon in New York next month. She plans on using the money to cover part of her graduate school tuition in the fall. "It is an enormous honor to be chosen by such a highly-regarded jury," says Miller, "I was humbled to be amongst the winners. They have outstanding work and are much more accomplished in their careers than me." To the right is "Newborn Walking," a recent charcoal and pastel on paper, 30 x 54 inches.
Miller is also excited to be exhibiting in The Armory Show – The International Fair of New Art, which has been the world's leading art fair devoted exclusively to contemporary art since its introduction in 1999. Top galleries and dealers from all over the world vie for one of less than 200 booths. In just four days, over 52,000 international visitors are expected to shuffle through Piers 92 and 94 along the Hudson River.
Miller is one of fourteen artists chosen by VSA Arts to exhibit in their booth. This is the first year that this non-profit has participated in the show. VSA Arts, which showcases the accomplishments of artists with disabilities and promotes increased access to the arts for people with disabilities, has previously exhibited Katie Miller's work in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Smithsonian Institution.
As many of you know, I often surf the web looking for new artists (new to me anyway) so that I can highlight them here. Last year I discovered Miller's work and announced it here.
Katie Miller of Parkton, Maryland graduated with honors in 2007 from Maryland Institute College of Art, where she majored in painting. She has been exhibiting her work for the past ten years. She is proud to be on the autism spectrum and is active in the autism rights and neurodiversity movements. Miller thanks autism for her intense concentration, heightened perception, and unique way of viewing the world. She plans on a career as a professional artist.
The 2009 Armory Show takes place from March 5-8, 2009, Pier 94, at Twelfth Avenue at 55th Street, New York, NY. It is open to the public from noon to 8 p.m. March 5-7 and from noon to 7 p.m. on March 8.
Free Studio Space in Philly
Deadline: April 17, 2009
The 40th Street Artist-in-Residence Program (AIR) awards West Philadelphia artists one year of free studio space at 40th and Chestnut Sts. In exchange, each artist shares his/her talents with the West Philadelphia community by leading workshops, teaching classes, exhibiting in the area, etc. Founded by artist Edward M. Epstein in 2003, the program addresses the need for studio space in West Philadelphia, assists artists with career development, and makes the 40th Street area a nexus for visual arts.
They are now accepting applications for the next round of artists. Applications are due April 17, 2009. The next round begins August 15, 2009. Details here.
