If you're going to pretend to be knowledgeable about DC art galleries and the DC art scene, then you have to get out and go to galleries - not to their websites and not to museum lectures - but to galleries and museums and lectures and artists' studios and university shows, etc.

It takes a lot of time, and a lot of gasoline, and a lot of patience. But then, and only then, can one honestly say that one can write about a city's art scene.

Tonite I went to a well-attended opening at Strand on Volta Gallery in Georgetown, where I saw an excellent and really groundbreaking show by one of our key area artists, Margaret Boozer.

Boozer is one of those area artists whose work immediately grabs you with the thought: "WOW! Just when I thought there was nothing new left in art."

More on that later, as I plan to review her show...

The opening was quite good and well-attended, with many DC area artists in attendance as well as the Post's Chief Art Critic and his lovely wife (my kudos to Blake and we hope to see him at more gallery openings and we hope that his editor (John Pancake) makes him write more about DC area art galleries and terrific DC area artists like Margaret Boozer, so that they can have a chance to go from "DC area artist" to just "American artist" at a national level. Gopnik and Pancake can do it via the Post - but they (and it) have to align to make it happen.

Also present was Dr. Jonathan Binstock, the Corcoran's Curator for Contemporary Art... it's good to see Binstock visiting local galleries and seeing what we're showing... he's a great breath of fresh-air over his predecesor. Binstock wrote his thesis on the art of DC's best-known painter, Sam Gilliam, and hopefully the Corcoran will soon announce when Gilliam's well-deserved and first-ever perspective is held there.

31st Annual Mayor's Arts Awards special honorees and finalists

Mayor Muriel Bowser and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) have announced the special honorees and finalists of the 31st Annual Mayor's Arts Awards.

My good bud, printmaker and visual artist (and DMV treasure) Lou Stovall will receive the Mayor's Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. Stovall is the founder of Workshop, Inc., and it a master printmaker who has been commissioned to print works of such noted artists as Josef Albers, Peter Blume, Alexander Calder, Elizabeth Catlett, Sam Gilliam, Loïs Mailou Jones and others.

Theatre producer Julianne Brienza will receive the Mayor's Arts Award for Visionary Leadership. Brienza is a founder and current president and chief executive officer of Capital Fringe, which connects multi-disciplinary artistic experiences to over 40,000 audiences annually and has grown to become the second largest unjuried Fringe Festival in the United States.

Poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller will receive the Mayor's Arts Award for Distinguished Honor. Miller is the author of several collections of poetry, and his anthology "In Search of Color Everywhere" was awarded the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award in 1994. He has been the editor of Poet Lore, the oldest poetry magazine in the United States, and was founder and director of the Ascension Poetry Reading Series, which presented African American poets and poets of color to the general public.

"Our three special honorees represent some of the brightest, most accomplished talents in the District of Columbia," said Arthur Espinoza, Jr., Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. "The impact of their work is felt locally, nationally and internationally. They, along with all this year's award finalists, represent the incredible richness and depth of our city's creative communities."
In addition to the special honorees, awards will be presented to DC-based individual artists and organizations in the following categories: Outstanding New Artist, Excellence in the Humanities, Outstanding Student, Excellence in the Arts. Excellence in Arts Teaching and Excellence in the Creative Industries.

The 2016 Mayor's Arts Award finalists are: Story District, Michael Janis, DC Jazz Festival, Washington Improv Theatre, Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital, Washington Performing Arts, DC Shorts, Pan American Symphony Orchestra, Post Classical Ensemble, Cory L. Stowers, Falun Dafa Association of Washington, Carolyn Malachi, One Common Unity, Sandy Bellamy, Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, Dance Metro DC, Stone Soup Films, Leron Boyd, DC SCORES, Project Create, Amanda Swift, LifePieces to Masterpieces, Washington Performing Arts, Dawn Johnson, Inner City-Inner Child, Young Playwrights' Theater, Split This Rock, Max Tyler Gibbons, Tara Campbell and Maverick Lemons.


My bet is on Michael Janis... of course!

The 31st Annual Mayor's Arts Awards will be presented on Thursday, September 22 at 7:00 PM at the Historic Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U Street NW, Washington, DC. Admission is free and open to the public. This year, the annual awards are presented as part of 202Creates, a new initiative of Mayor Bowser's that showcases the diversity of the District's creative economy. For more information, visit www.dcarts.dc.gov or call 202-724-5613.

Hirshhorn Fêtes Five Washington Artists at Spring Gala

On Saturday, May 6, something very rare for a Washington, DC museum happened:

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden celebrated Washington's world-class community of artists and art enthusiasts with a festive evening gala recognizing prominent D.C.-based contemporary artists and Smithsonian collaborators Sam Gilliam, Linn Meyers, Maggie Michael, Jefferson Pinder and Dan Steinhilber, and marking the final weeks of the groundbreaking exhibition "Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors."

 

Hosted by Smithsonian Secretary David Skorton, Hirshhorn Board Chair Daniel Sallick, and Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu, the evening began with a glamorous cocktail reception amid Yayoi Kusama's dazzling Infinity Mirror Rooms and artist honoree Meyer's 360-degree installation "Our View from Here," followed by an elegant dinner on the Museum's third floor. The late-night party kicked off with decadent desserts and an electrifying light and sound performance work by D.C.-born, L.A.-based The Holladay Brothers, who choreographed the lobby's decor lighting in time to a live musical score.

 

During the evening, Smithsonian leadership toasted the honorees for their achievements in contemporary art. "As Washington's leading institution of modern and contemporary art, it is a tremendous honor to gather together such exciting creative minds who share our deep commitment to the city's diverse communities," said Chiu. "Since the Hirshhorn's founding more than forty years ago, artists are the foundation and inspiration for all that we do."

 

The annual event welcomed 350 guests, and raised $700,000 to support the Hirshhorn's future exhibitions and free public programs for all ages. The museum's 2017-18 schedule will feature a diverse group of contemporary artists whose work responds to global conversations in politics, culture and history, including German artist Markus Lüpertz, Swiss artist Nicolas Party, Russian artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, and American artists Yoko Ono, Theaster Gates and Mark Bradford.

Gala chairs: Robert and Arlene Kogod; Gala co-chairs: Mary and John Pappajohn; GardaWorld; Museum MACAN, Indonesia.

 

Attendees included:

 

Hirshhorn Trustees: Jay and Jill Bernstein; Tamra and Ken Bentsen; Marcus Brauchli and Maggie Farley; Calvin and Jane Lipton Cafritz; Stephan Crétier and Stephany Maillery; Trinh Doan and Michael Jermyn; John and Stephanie Foster; Aimee and Robert Lehrman; Aaron and Barbara Levine; Adam S. Metz and Martha Metz; Elizabeth Miller and Dan Sallick; Juliana Terian.

 

Notable guests: Ambassador Stuart Bernstein, former Ambassador to Denmark, and Wilma Bernstein; Josh and Lisa Bernstein; Kathleen Biden; Ambassador Herman Cohen, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Suzanne Cohen; Marc and Lauren Cohen; Ambassador Frances Cook, former Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman; Ambassador Robert Gelbard, former Ambassador to Indonesia and Bolivia, and Alene Gelbard; Kate Goodall, S&R Foundation; Marly Graubard, Marie Claire; Larry and Anissa Grossman; Stephanie Hodor, curator; Phillippa Hughes, Pink Line Project; Katty Kay, BBC; Dr. Sachiko Kuno, founder of the S&R Foundation; Sydney Licht, artist; Tom Nides, former Deputy Secretary of State, and Virginia Mosley, CNN; Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik, artist; Virginia Shore, Art in Embassies; Benjamin Sutton, curator; Akio Tagawa; Lauren Wolchik, artist.

Tomorrow at AU

Tomorrow the curious and creative will be conducting an orchestra, making a collage with a living artist as a Muse, learning iconic jazz dance moves, and creating music out of thin air.

Fall for the Arts, a unique celebration of the Arts at AU, will feature an afternoon of dynamic classes and hands-on workshops capped off with an elegant reception and live auction of works by prominent artists. The afternoon classes span a wide-range of activities including creating sound effects, acting Shakespeare, Hindustani tabla drumming, and stage combat, to name just a few. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Arts at AU.

There is also a very cool art auction with some excellent artworks up for auction at some very good starting prices, including an amazing Manon Cleary graphite drawing at a starting price of just $2K. Check out the artwork up for auction here or plaease browse below or use the links below to review available works—and see Artist Bios (PDF):

Lisa Montag Brotman Manon Cleary Joan Danziger Willem de Looper Alan Feltus Robert Gates (two artworks) Sam Gilliam Carol Goldberg

Tom Green Micheline Klagsbrun Edith Kuhnle Lou Stovall Robin Rose Ben L. Summerford Sharon Wolpoff

Come celebrate the Arts at American University. The event is open to the public. Admission is $50 for the entire event.

Register Now for 2012

John Anderson on "Washington Matters"

Read John Anderson's reviews of the Katzen's "Washington Matters" exhibition here. The show is derived from the recently published book Washington Art Matters: Art Life in the Capital 1940–1990 - a terrific book that represents the closing project of the Washington Arts Museum. You can buy the book on Amazon here for less that $11!

Until August 11, the top floor of the American University Museum presents a 50-year retrospective of D.C. art between 1940 and 1989, and it feels much like a multifarious Washington Project for the Arts auction. On view are some muscular works by Jim Sanborn and Robin Rose, as well as a few old standards by Martin Puryear, Sam Gilliam, and Kenneth Noland. But, with more than 80 artists represented in the exhibit—most by a single piece—the show doesn't distill the working careers of the artists involved or offer a coherent sense of identity or movement happening in D.C. The only exception is the featured work from the late 1950s and early '60s, when seemingly every artist in Washington was under the spell of Abstract Expressionism and the so-called Washington Color School. After that, District art hopped all over the map.

Of course, this is an exhibit of some compromise, pulled together in limited time. American University Museum Director Jack Rasmussen, a consistent supporter of D.C. art, found a hole for an exhibit last year when he learned The Washington Arts Museum was publishing Washington Art Matters, a book on local art from 1940 to 1989. Earlier this year, the book's authors gave Rasmussen a list of artists to include in the show, and the museum got to work plucking the relevant art from private collections and three area museums in under 10 weeks (the museum already owned about a third of the work).

Washington Art Matters, written by Jean Lawlor Cohen, Sidney Lawrence, Elizabeth Tebow, and Benjamin Forgey, is, by the authors' own admission, "well intentioned." Unfortunately, it struggles with the same hurdles the exhibit does. This summary of 50 years of Washington art, condensed into 213 pages, often reads like a summary of a summary.

Anytime that a "summary of 50 years of Washington art, condensed into 213 pages, often reads like a summary of a summary" is put into an art show, some art will be blurred.

In fact, at any group art shows, some art will be blurred.

Anderson's piece is a very good read of this show, and showcases this talented critic's finely tuned and wise insights into the DMV visual arts scene... and it also manages to focus on the Pyrrhic task of trying to write a book and then put up an exhibition that tries to sum up 50 years of anything...

If my first of the three planned books on DC visual artists drew so much air intake (every once in a while I still get an email from an artist being pissed off that he/she wasn't included in the first volume, and there's still one included artist who still fumes because he wasn't included on the cover - even though I had zip to do with that part), can you imagine what a book attempting to discuss 50 years of DC area art achieves in that area?

I was once advised that my first volume listing 100 artists would piss off 10,000 unlisted artists... 200 or so will be somewhat tranquilized by the next two volumes, but I can only think of how many 1940-1989 DC artists feel "excluded" from this volume - that's the real Pyrrhic task for the authors (Jean Lawlor Cohen, Sidney Lawrence, Elizabeth Tebow, and Benjamin Forgey), all of whom must be congratulated on the creation of this important and much needed documentation.

 Anderson asks way too much of this show when he writes:

But, with more than 80 artists represented in the exhibit—most by a single piece—the show doesn't distill the working careers of the artists involved or offer a coherent sense of identity or movement happening in D.C.

I'm not sure that it is possible to distill an entire career in such a setting - even retrospectives struggle to show an artist's career if that artists has had a few decades of production. I am also always puzzled why in the visual arts, we're always looking for a sense of order or as he puts it coherence. It is impossible to ask a diverse group of contemporary artists, much less an entire city or region to all collapse into a identifiable and coherent sense of identity - I challenge anyone to show me such a phenomenom in the last 150 years. In fact, the last time that this happened was probably in the 1800s, but we're still using it as a litmus test somehow.

I betcha that even in the halcyon days of the Washington Color School (I loved this part from Anderson's review: "Perhaps the most significant event that separates us from other cities is that Clement Greenberg came here, the colorful staining of canvas was declared a "school," and the recognition made the art-survey books" - the dude is so right!) there was a truckload of DMV artists who weren't staining canvasses or painting lines.

With respect to the latter, I am still astonished to see how many DMV area shows (two will open today/this weekend) include artwork by living artists who are essentially channeling the stripe painters of the 1960s and are yet being shown in 2013. I have never seen a Washington Color Schoolish type artwork in any art fair around the world in the last decade, but here in the DMV both recent graduates and older artists continue to channel Noland, Davis, etc. Somebody should write about that...

Anderson ends his review by stating:

Of course, there's no question that D.C. has contributed to 20th century art in important ways, and nurtured significant artists, as it continues to do. But Washington Art Matters recycles old, whiny arguments to make that point, and the companion exhibit in the AU Museum was afforded too little time and not enough space to give D.C. art the exclamation point it too often seeks.

Sounds like John is challenging American University Museum Director Jack Rasmussen to devote the entire Katzen to a Washington, DC show... cough, cough.

I'm going to see this show, and you have to go see it too... this is Washington, and this is visual art, and visual artists stand on the shoulders of other artists... so go and pay homage to your predecessors. Art school faculties around the region should also all take their classes to this exhibit, and I'd hope that all of our area's museum curators and directors would also take the opportunity to visit and learn about our area's visual arts footprint, but I know that this is asking too much of DMV art curators most of whom who'd rather take a cab to Dulles to fly and go see a group art show by Berlin artists in Germany than take a cab to American University to go see this show... feh!

And thank you to American University Museum Director Jack Rasmussen, whose drive and insight and skill  shows and demonstrates what a museum can do to become more than white walls that show pictures and instead essentially become a key part of a city. And thank you Jean Lawlor Cohen, Sidney Lawrence, Elizabeth Tebow, and Benjamin Forgey, for this intense and important labor of love.

Finally, there's a panel discussion at the Katzen on July 20 - details here.

Washington Art Matters: The 1980s
Saturday, July 20, 3 p.m.
American University Museum
Admission is free
Art Attack project artist Alberto Gaitán; curator-advocate Jim Mahoney; and on-the-scene writer Lee Fleming discuss the aesthetic and political issues of the 1980s. The panel is moderated by Sidney Lawrence, an emerging artist at the time and the Hirshhorn's PR person until 2003, who is one of the Washington Art Matters, Art Life in the Capital: 1940-1990's authors.

And a closing reception on August 10 at 5PM.

Pheo Para Alliance Fundraiser at the Katzen

The Pheo Para Alliance and
The Katzen Arts Center at The American University
cordially invite you to
THE HEALING ARTS
An Evening of Art, Discussion, Good Food, and
Live and Silent Auctions
Saturday, June 22 at 5:30pm
The American University Museum

Sponsorship Levels:
The Andy Warhol Table For 10: $10,000
The Georgia O’Keefe Table For 8: $6,000
The Larry Rivers Table For 6: $4,500
The Sam Gilliam Table For 4: $3,000

$350/person
$175/person for patients and artists

FUNDS RAISED WILL GO TO RESEARCH FOR FINDING A CURE FOR PHEO PARA.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
5:30-6:30 - Cocktails and Art Exhibit of Prominent Washington Artists (and also by yours truly, easily the prominest of all prominent DC area artists... cough, cough... I will be donating this work) . Silent Auction Opens.
 
6:45-7:15 - Panel Discussion “The Healing Arts”
Dr. Frederick Ognibene, Deputy Director Of Clinical Research Training, National Institutes of Health, Moderator
 
PANELISTS:
Susan B. Magee – Author, INTO THE LIGHT The Healing Art of Kalmon Aron
Shanti Norris – Executive Director of Smith Center for Healing And The Arts
Jerzy Sapieyevski – Award Winning Composer, Pianist, and Educator
Tim Tate – Mixed Media Sculptor, Co-Founder of  The Washington Glass School

Humanitarian Award Presentation to Dr. Antonio Tito Fojo (a fellow Cuban-American by the way).
 
7:30-9:30 – Dinner, Entertainment, Live Auction
 
9:30 – Grand Finale

PLEASE RSVP BY FRIDAY, JUNE 14
Checks payable to
Pheo Para Alliance can be sent to:
6111 Western Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20015
To register online, please visit
www.pheo-para-alliance.org

Wanna tour the DC City Hall Art Collection?

At 12 p.m. on Thursday, January 30, the public is invited to the Wilson Building for a guided tour through the City Hall public collection of art on permanent display on floors 1-5 of the Wilson building. The tour will be lead by the talented Ellyn Weiss, whose work is included in the collection.

This is a unique chance to meet with local artists featured in the collection and have a discussion on being an artist in the Nation's capital and to see a rich cross section of local artists (both established and emerging). This will be a bi-monthly occurrence. This is the richest and largest permanent exhibition of the work of local DC area artists in the city, featuring a broad range of work, from internationally known artists such as Jacob Kainen, Sam Gilliam, Tim Tate and William Christenberry, to work by most of the artists of significance working in the capital region area now.

The tour is free; however space is limited. Please RSVP to beth.baldwin@dc.gov with the number in your party. Meet at the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance — the building is located at 1350 Pennsylvania Ave NW. ID is required to enter the building.

New case opened CP scribe Kriston Capps polices the whole Jacob Lawrence squabble and in the process comes up with an excellent point. According to Capps, "Betty Monkman, the curator of the White House, reveals that, while Lawrence’s painting isn’t the sole piece by a black artist in the executive mansion, it’s close to it — there are only two others." That's now three out of "an estimated 375 total in the White House’s art collection." 

Geez. 

That implies that Simmie Knox's portrait of Pres. Clinton is not considered part of the White House’s art collection, which doesn't make sense. Knox is a DC area artist by the way, and a brilliant painter. So let's take the first century and a half off the acquisition process, which probably just focused on American artists from one of the four races, and somewhat reverse my stand on segregating artists by race, rather than just artistic merit, and let me take the uncomfortable side of trying to ask the question "why aren't there more works by black artists in the White House collection?" 

Even if one ignores color, and just looks at the art and artistic achievement, there are plenty of great American artists, who happen to be black, that one suspect should be in the White House collection. Some art greats, by artistic default, I would think, would have to be Black, or Asian, or Native American, not just Caucasian artists - after all, all four races of mankind create art and all four and their many mixtures, live in America. 

 And let's say that the White House's collection is not exactly, ah... contemporary, which would eliminate a lot of good modern choices; and after all, the White House is not an art museum, but it sort of feels that it should be a classy arts conglomerate where all things say "America." 

Back in the 1980's, the great Jacob Lawrence was awarded the National Medal of Arts from Pres. George Bush The First. Why did it take 27 years for one of his paintings to become part of the White House's permanent collection? Capps identifies the other two paintings: "Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City (1885) also hangs in the Green Room, its home since 1996. And an 1892 painting by one “Bannister” (they likely mean Ed Bannister) acquired last year is currently undergoing conservation." 

So two of the three have been acquired by the Bushes, and before 1996 there wasn't a single work of art by any black artist in the President's home, in spite of the fact that artists such as Lawrence, Bearden, Gilliam, Puryear, and others are all just great American artists, period, and have even broken the National Gallery of Art code. 

Makes my head hurt.

The Dynamics of the DC Art Scene

The Art Dealers Association of Greater Washington, in partnership with The Kreeger Museum, are putting together a panel discussion on how Art Dealers, Collectors, Curators and Museum Directors interact to support the visual arts in the DC area.

The Kreeger Museum,
2401 Foxhall Road NW
Washington, DC 20007

Thursday, February 24, 2011
6:30pm - 9 pm

Tickets: $20 / The Kreeger Museum Members: $15
Includes a cheese and wine reception.

Preceding the panel discussion, guests will have an opportunity to view In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists, the culmination of a project initiated by artist Sam Gilliam, consisting of monoprints by 20 artists from the DC community, who typically work in different styles and mediums.

For reservations, call 202-338-3552.

Panelists include:
- Juliette Bethea, Collector
- Dr. Johnnetta Cole, Director, National Museum of African Art
- Judy A. Greenberg, Director, The Kreeger Museum
- Gisela Huberman, Collector (and proud owner of my work)
- Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
- and moderator Bill Dunlap, Artist and Art Critic and TV talking head, and one of the 100 in my book about DC artists.

Considering the focus of the panel, am I the only one who finds it odd that missing from the panel are any art dealers?

The curious case of artist Rachel Dolezal

If by now you don't know who Rachel Dolezal is, and what her immense deception was, then you just got on the Internets for the first time ever a few minutes ago and came to this website on your first click ever.

In summary, Rachel Dolezal is a white female artist and professor, whom for the last few years has deceived people into believing that she was African-American, or as she prefers to be called: black.

She's not, her parents and adopted brothers (who are black) have "outed" her, and by now pretty much the entire planet knows this. There are many hypothesis already submitted to make your head spin as to why this person did this, and although this charade leaves a distasteful taste in my mind, I'm trying really hard not to judge this lady for this action. The Twitter world is also having a lot of fun with her, and there are a lot of funny memes floating around as well. That's a photo of her as a young girl in Montana.

She has plenty of other detractors which are also vectors into forming an opinion about Dolezal, and one thing emerges clear: she can fabricate a tall tale.

In an interview with The Easterner, the newspaper for Eastern Washington University, Dolezal said that she was born in a “Montana teepee.” She added that her family “hunted their food with bows and arrows.” 

She has also said that as a child, she and her parents lived in Colorado and South Africa. Her parents say all of that is false and that Dolezal never lived in either place.

She has stated that while living in South Africa (which she never did) with her parents, they beat her with a baboon whip, whatever that is; punishing her and her siblings by "skin complexion." 

As BuzzFeed reports, according to her father, her “oldest son Izaiah,” is actually her adopted brother; her parents have adopted four black children.

In another issue of The Easterner, Dolezal reportedly told a reporter that the man who raised her with her mother is her stepfather. Her parents have denied that.

In January, a photo of Dolezal and a black man appeared on the Spokane NAACP's Facebook page, and the man was identified as Dolezal's father. A similar photo then appeared in her personal Facebook account where she identified the man as her "Dad." Subsequently the man has been identified as Albert Wilkerson - a black man from North Idaho who had volunteered at the Human Rights Education Institute in the past when Dolezal was in charge of that organization's educational programs.

In one of her classes, she allegedly asked for a Hispanic student to volunteer for class questions. When a white Hispanic student raised her hand, Dolezal allegedly told the student that she "didn't look Hispanic" and asked for another volunteer. That takes "cojones!"

She has a local DMV connection:  She went to Howard University for her Master’s Degree in Fine Arts, where she also taught undergraduate art students, and was around the DMV until around 2005. As as far as I can figure out, the switch to "black" happened around the time that she headed out West, and then, according to Buzzfeed, she reportedly told her adoptive brother (who is black) not to “blow her cover”, as that's where apparently she started "passing as black."

In the The Eastener interview we learn that:

She met her now ex-husband and afterward moved to Washington D.C. in 1999 where they married and where Dolezal furthered her education in the fine arts at Howard University, graduating with a master’s degree.

“I’m a creator, and so whether that’s painting, whether that’s creating organizationally or creating curriculum, whatever, I like to create things,” she said.

During her time at Howard, her paintings sold quite well in convention centers around the nation, the highest for around $10,000

She met her now ex-husband and afterward moved to Washington D.C. in 1999 where they married and where Doležal furthered her education in the fine arts at Howard University, graduating with a master’s degree.

“I’m a creator, and so whether that’s painting, whether that’s creating organizationally or creating curriculum, whatever, I like to create things,” she said.

During her time at Howard, her paintings sold quite well in convention centers around the nation, the highest for around $10,000.

- See more at: http://easterneronline.com/35006/eagle-life/a-life-to-be-heard/#sthash.1aUk3liU.l9olZOOM.dpuf

She met her now ex-husband and afterward moved to Washington D.C. in 1999 where they married and where Doležal furthered her education in the fine arts at Howard University, graduating with a master’s degree.

“I’m a creator, and so whether that’s painting, whether that’s creating organizationally or creating curriculum, whatever, I like to create things,” she said.

During her time at Howard, her paintings sold quite well in convention centers around the nation, the highest for around $10,000.

- See more at: http://easterneronline.com/35006/eagle-life/a-life-to-be-heard/#sthash.1aUk3liU.l9olZOOM.dpuf

Dolezal is thus a trained, apparently widely exhibited artist, and is/was an Art Instructor at North Idaho College, and an Adjunct Professor of African American Culture at Eastern Washington University, . You can see her artwork here.

Let me be the first one to say that I have no knowledge of any "art circuit" where artists or galleries sell artwork in convention centers, unless Dolezal is talking about art fairs. But let's not dwell on that too long, maybe there is an art circuit, outside of my radar (rather unlikely) and NOT art fairs, where artists sell their work in "convention centers." But even art fairs where in their infancy stage in 1999!

But let's believe her for a minute, and this is getting harder by the second the more we learn about this person. If Rachel Dolezal, as a student at Howard, was selling artwork for as high as $10,000 in 1999, she was not only the top priced student at Howard ever, but also the top priced student in the DMV ever, and at the very top of the artist food chain in the DMV, right along with Sam Gilliam in 1999.

But I had never heard of her until her deceit was exposed a few days ago... in the last few years I've mentored two art students from Howard, and I suspect  that they've never heard of her either... someone popping paintings for up to $10K in 1999 in DC would have been a legend in her school, around the art crowd in the DMV, and in the radar of every art dealer in the city.

And thus, I don't believe Dolezal on this giant art lie either.

Another thing bugs me; there's an impressive level of technical skill in this 2011 Dolezal painting in the way that the paint is handled, the treatment of the light and the wood surfaces... (Update: see http://dcartnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/rachel-dolezal-totally-busted-as-artist.html for a new theory on how some of these very realistic paintings may have been done):

"Recognition" by Rachel Dolezal
Acrylic on Elkhide"
60"x36" c. 2011

That is simply and completely missing from this painting below, which is done in an exceedingly amateurish fashion; almost as if it is the work of another artist:

"Utterance" by Rachel Dolezal
Acrylic on Strips of Elkhide
72"x40" c. 2011

The manner in which the perspective of the figure, the treatment of the hands, and the disaster that is the manner in which the white wood and white bricks have been handled, show a much less skilled artist. This is white straight off the tube with a little black added to make a colorless gray in order to separate the wood slats and bricks and add shadows. The skin tones on the man are also straight out of the tube amateur time.

Both paintings were apparently done in 2011... see where I'm going?

In 2009 she created the below gorgeous piece (Update: see http://dcartnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/rachel-dolezal-totally-busted-as-artist.html for a new theory on how some of these very realistic paintings may have been done)::

"Visitation" by Rachel Dolezal
86"x33" c.2009
Acrylic on Stitched and Sculpted Elkhide

She describes it as:

This one-of-a-kind original features seven different elkhides sewn together with invisible nylon thread, then soaked and sculpted for a free-form piece that defies the need for a frame. The warm tones are rendered in a classical style with acrylic paint and finished with a satin varnish, for ease of maintenance and display.

She adds in her website that the piece is/was "On Tour in Maryland."

But also in 2009 she paints this rather pedestrian work:

"Sabrina"
Oil on Canvas by Rachel Dolezal
18"x24" c. 2009
 

She tells us that this painting features the "artist's younger sister while living in South Africa." It is/was on sale for $1,000 while "On Tour in Mississippi."

Are you starting to see the difference in the way in which the technical skill shows up in some work and it is non-existent in others? That's a head scratcher... and by the way, let's not forget that she never lived in South Africa... I'll let someone else find out if she has an adopted sister named Sabrina, but from what I can tell, she has no sister named Sabrina; The Dolezals’ adopted children are apparently named: Ezra, Izaiah, Esther and Zach.

Two years earlier she was painting like this:

"Untitled" by Rachel Dolezal

Oilstick drawing on sculpted Elkhide, with sculpted Elkhide frame
32"x40"c. 2007

"Miscarriage" by Rachel Dolezal

Size and Media Unknown

c. 2007

Those of you who have read my art criticism over the years know that I encourage artists to explore and visit all forms of styles and subjects and at all costs avoid the Mondrian trap (getting stuck in one style for the rest of your life), but instead follow the Picasso model and re-invent yourself every few years, or the Richter model and explore several avenues at once.

To some extent Dolezal does that, and most of the collages on her website are quite good, bordering on spectacular.

But there's something that bothers me about the also spectacular drift in technical skill in the 2009 - 2011 examples that I have shown above (Update: see http://dcartnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/rachel-dolezal-totally-busted-as-artist.html for a new theory on how some of these very realistic paintings may have been done).

And given Dolezal's now confirmed string of lies, fabrications and abuses, it plants a question in my head as to the authenticity of some of these works.

And after exhaustive search of the Internets for a digital footprint of this artist's works since 1999, I have come up with pretty much zip until 2007, when one image shows up in someone else's blog. Some of her work has already popped up in EBay from earlier periods, and signed by her married name of Rachel Moore, which is a much more common name and yet, plenty of other female artists' works by that name show up in search, but none that I can associate to Dolezal, but at least seems to prove that in 2005 she was "selling" work in the DMV directly, as verified by one of the owners of the pieces being offered on EBay.

For such a financially successful artist, selling works for as high as $10K while a student, the fact that (until recently) almost zero about her art exists on the Interwebs, is both odd and telling.

Update: Part II here and Part III here.

Update 2: After seeing more of Dolezal's work from when she was an active artist in the DMV, it is clear that she's quite a talented painter. It seems to me that she has the technical skill to create work like "Recognition" and "Visitation." This makes the other rather amateurish works displayed above even more puzzling.

Update  3: After reviewing the evidence submitted to me by Dave Castillo, it is clear that Rachel Dolezal is the artist that painted "Sabrina", and "Utterance" and the last two images in this post. The other, more skilled works, now appear to be photo transfers that have been treated with an acrylic medium to make them look like an original painting. See the evidence here.

Washington Artists Circa 1989 CLOSES October 5, 2019

This companion exhibition to the Corcoran exhibition 6.13.89 exhibits paintings, drawings, and prints from the GW Collection by artists who registered their protest of the volatile cancellation of the exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe.  Also included are selected reminiscences of artists who were in Washington, D.C. at the time experiencing the upheaval as it occurred.  Including work by William Christenberry, Georgia Deal, Fred Folsom, Clark V. Fox, Sam Gilliam, Janis Goodman, Tom Green, Andrew Hudson, Lowell Nesbitt, William Newman, Dennis O'Neil, Eric Rudd, Ann Purcell, Joseph Shannon and Franklin White.

Luther W. Brady Art Gallery
Corcoran Flagg Building - Gallery 1 • 500 17th Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 
P: 202-994-1525 

Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 1:00 - 5:00 pm 

Yuri Schwebler Curatorial Project at AU

My good bud John Anderson passes the following:

I'm pleased to announce that the Yuri Schwebler curatorial project I have been working on the last few years is “open," and that the catalog is now available online. 

Although originally scheduled to open in June, because of the pandemic the American University Museum canceled all their summer exhibitions. As a result, I offered to create a virtual exhibition (fancy words for "slideshow") to substitute for what was no longer going to be on exhibit. You can find links to the slideshow, and the exhibition catalog, on the museum's exhibition page.

This exhibition is, in many respects, an extension of my earlier Jefferson Place Gallery research, which has expanded to included monographs of Hilda Thorpe, Mary Orwen, and Jennie Lea Knight (each at Marymount University, co-curated with Meaghan Kent and Caitlin Berry), and a catalog essay about Rockne Krebs and Sam Gilliam, for Day Eight's exhibition Built and Unbuilt.

On Thursday, at 12:30 Eastern, there is a virtual discussion between the Museum's Director, Jack Rasmussen, and myself. Registration can also be found on the exhibition page.

This is how you get into an art fair

I first published this over a decade ago, in two parts, and it has been completely ignored by all the art and artists' organizations to which it was aimed... here's the gist of it and I've refreshed it a little, updated it, and combined the two parts:

Let us start...

Over the last two decades, I've written many times before about art fairs and Art Basel Miami Beach week in the Greater Miami area - this is the world's "big dance" when it comes to the visual arts; this is the big party and everyone is invited. However, it is a matter of how to get into a reputable art fair that's the issue to many artists and galleries.

Art fairs are very expensive. As I've noted before, many galleries risk everything to come to Miami or New York, or London to do an art fair, and I suspect that many are financially destroyed at the end of the week. And yet, many do well and return year after year.

Between my years with the Fraser Gallery and now with AAAP, we've been returning to Miami for two decades now. Other DMV and regional galleries that keep coming back are my good buds at Connersmith, sometimes also Hamiltonian. They consistently take the financial risk and venture to Miami (and in some cases all over the US and Europe). Some other participants have been Morton Fine Arts, Zenith, and Adah Rose.

Others have tried a year or two, crashed and burned and never return to the party.

Is there a formula to this? What the the magic that makes this work for some and not for others?

I know of at least two galleries in the Mid Atlantic who have "financial backers" who absorb most or some of the financial risk involved in doing an art fair. Since these sort of galleries are very limited (who wouldn't love to have a financial backer?), they are the "outliers" in the formula for clicking the right button in the art fair game.

Some non-profits have the economic stability to play consistently in the art fair game; and to make it easier for them, many art fairs have special, lower pricing for non-profits. So they are also a special case, I think, because in most cases, the financial risk is absorbed by the state of their income-gathering to stay afloat as a non-profit.

It is a mystery to me why not more DMV area non-profits go to the art fairs. Hamiltonian is a notable exception, as has been Honfleur Gallery in Anacostia.

And the WPA did use to participate in the DC-based and fabled (e)merge art fair... and it did really well!

But I would submit that there are several area non-profits that could, and should participate in Miami and New York art fairs as part of their business model; if a local non-profit can afford to pay $70-$80,000 a year to its executive director (and several DMV non-profits are in that range), then it can certainly afford to budget $12-18K to participate in an art fair outside of the DMV. 

I think this as an outsider - completely ignorant to the money shell game that running a non profit must be, and I tip my hat to them.

I'm not saying that all visual arts non-profits should do this - I am sure that the mission of some of them are strictly focused on "local" only, rather than expanding their artistic presentations outside the capital region.

But that still leaves several key ones that (if I was the DMV art dictator) should be in NYC and Miami during art fair times.

This also applies to some of our large membership-based visual arts organizations and cooperative galleries, such as The Art League.

I'm a big fan of The Art League, and when I lived close to Alexandria I was a member for many years, and I have been honored multiple times by being selected as a juror for them.

And thus I am going to use them as an example, but this example applies to the multiple "other" art leagues, groups, clubs, cooperatives, etc. that exist around our region and which are important and significant components of our cultural tapestry. I could just as easily have picked the Rockville Art League, or the League of Reston Artists, or Tephra ICA, Waverly, WPA, Touchstone, Fairfax Art League, CHAW, etc.

The money part is always an issue, but when the money risk can be divided into several (rather than one) entities, then the overall financial risk is reduced, because it is spread, rather than concentrated into one (the independent commercial gallery) bank account.

So let's proceed with this possible example using The Art League.

They have several thousand members and run a very successful and important program in their space inside the Torpedo Factory and assorted classrooms all over the area. So successful in fact, that changing that model (or expanding it...) must seem anathema to their leaders.

So the issue is, how does The Art League (again, you can fill in any of multiple DMV area membership-based art organizations) pick or select the 3-5 artists to take to an art fair?

The "good" art fairs are nearly always tightly juried. There are many art fairs where one just pays and anyone and everyone can go - those usually suck as some DMV galleries and many DMV solo artists will unfortunately discover when they suddenly decide to jump into the art fair arena of without research.

And thus for Miami/NYC fairs I am thinking (in no particular order) about Art Miami, Context, Aqua, Pulse, NADA, Untitled, Volta, Affordable Art Fair(s), Scope, Miami Project, Frieze... some of these are very, very hard to get in, but they're listed nonetheless, because there is a "food chain" of art fairs, and the bottom-feeders usually spell disaster for the participants.

And thus The Art League would need to establish a process to pre-jury its membership to 3-5 artists and apply with those artists to an art fair. I would start with The Affordable Art Fair in New York. They are close by and they are a "proven" fair which has been in operations over 25 years. I have done it many times and consistently recommend it to any gallery that asks me about art fairs in general.

And thus The Art League would need to canvas their membership and find out who is interested in being juried for possible selection for further jurying into an art fair. I would make this process independent from the Art League itself - just like they do for their monthly juried shows, and have interested artists bring their work in to be juried by an independent juror.

That juror has to be a very special juror - in fact 98% of your standard-issue visual art jurors (art professors, art critics, art writers, art center directors, artists, etc.) would guarantee a disaster to this process. In the DMV the jury pool for this process is very limited and its members are only those gallerists who have participated in multiple art fairs. In fact I can't think of anyone better to jury this part than me! Or Leigh Conner or Adah Rose...

This is a critical point, so I'm going to repeat it: The DMV the jury pool for this process is very limited and its members are only those gallerists who have successfully participated in multiple art fairs. In fact I can't think of anyone better to jury this part than me!

Let me repeat another key point: The Art League would need to canvas their membership and find out who's interested in being juried for possible selection for further jurying into an art fair.

Everything that I'm going to discuss below has to be clearly explained in the prospectus for this process, so that each applying artist knows exactly what this would involve.

I suspect that a large number of artists would find this attractive, and perhaps a small jurying fee ($10?) could be applied to subsidize the art fair costs (I would budget anywhere from $12-20K, depending on booth size).

Whatever you do, DO NOT use an art fair director as a juror! They are usually interested in what would make the fair look good (usually from an unsellable trendy perspective) , rather than understand the delicate balance of good art, finances, and peripheral issues that come to play into this process.

The juror would pick 3-5 artists and 2-3 alternates. This is because some art fair processes do have the option to accept an application while at the same time rejecting some of the artists in that application.

So now we have a group of artists, culled from applying Art League members, ready and willing to participate in an art fair.

The actual application process is easy, so I'm not getting into that - be aware that deadlines are usually months before the actual fairs.

If accepted, the next step is transporting the artwork to the art fair, and then returning the unsold artwork back to the owners. For this, the Art League has various options.

One option would be to hire a transport company. There are dozens and dozens of specialized carriers that do this and they pick up and transport the art to your booth at the fair, and at the end pick it up from your booth and transport it back. This is the easiest and the most expensive. From here to NYC and back I would budget $1200-$2000 depending on volume. Packaging also becomes an issue here.

Another option is to rent a truck or van and schlep the work to and from the fair yourself. This is what I usually do for New York and Miami.

A third option is to have each artist (or teamed artists) bring their own work in their own cars, vans, etc.

In this example, I would offer each accepted artist the choice to come to the fair, and help hang and help to sell their own work. This should be an option, not a requirement, as some artists would rather spend a week in Baghdad than a long weekend in an art fair dealing with art collectors; but some artists do like doing that. In any event, just "being" and seeing what goes on at an art fair is a spectacular learning opportunity for anyone involved in the visual arts.

The Art League has the luxury of having a very skilled "front desk" team that is already well-versed in the arcane art of selling artwork - so they could and should also come to the fair to handle questions and sales, etc. DO NOT send your executive director or curator to handle sales - that would be a disaster!

We're getting dangerously close to having a lot of people crowding the booth, so let's please keep the number of people hanging around the booth at all times to less than three; the artists can "float" in and out.

There is strength in numbers in many other aspects: transporting artwork, hanging it, packing it, splitting costs of hotel rooms, etc.

Before you book a hotel room anywhere in the major US cities (especially NYC) always check www.bedbugregistry.com. Again, I kid thee not. Pick a hotel that is walking distance from the fair or public transportation to the fair.

The elephant in the room here is cost(s), but again there is strength in numbers.

Art fairs often offer discounted prices to non-profits; Honfleur Gallery in Anacostia (in the past) has participated in The Affordable Art Fair in NYC and takes advantage of this special pricing. WPA participated (and had great success) at (e)merge and Hamiltonian is often somewhere in Miami.

Art fair prices are different depending on the fair. You can see the booth prices for the next Affordable Art Fair New York here. 

I'm my head I have this concept of having the selected Art League artists have a "financial stake" in this process by having them contribute some funds towards the art fair fees. Nothing works like putting your money where your mouth is. But then again, as a large organization, perhaps a more artist-friendly model would be for the Art League to cover all the art fair costs from a combination of jury entry fees and their own budget.

Of course, the Art League would also keep their usual commission on sales, so this also has a money-making angle for them.

What are the art fair costs? There are direct costs and associated costs.

Direct costs are:
(a) Cost of the basic booth
(b) Cost of additional booth stuff (extra walls, extra lights, storage)
(c) Some fairs have a "shared" advertising cost (AAFNYC doesn't)

Associated Costs are:
(a) Cost of required insurance (Art League would be able to use their current insurer or buy insurance directly from the art fair)
(b) Cost of transportation of the art. If using own vehicle, then also cost of parking it
(c) Cost of Art League staff at the fair (bus to NYC and shared hotel room and per diem for food)
(d) Cost of the juror to select the artists

Funding sources for all these costs are:
(a) Art League budget
(b) Nominal jurying fee for applying artists
(c) Commission on sales at the fair (this, of course, is putting the cart ahead of the horse)

Commercial galleries take huge chances at art fairs. My very first art fair all around cost was about $8,000 almost two decade ago - all that was charged on the gallery's credit card and we held our breath while at the fair. We sold about $30,000 worth of art, and thus after commissions to the artists we cleared $15,000 and paid off the credit card and then had $6,000 to put towards the next art fair fee.

I can count on one hand the number of times that we sold that much in any gallery art show in the DMV; and I've had a gallery here of one sort or another since 1996.

What's in it for the artists?

Usually a lot more than for the gallery. I will repeat this: more often than not, an artist reaps more good things out of an art fair than the gallery does.

These things include:

(a) Exposure to more art collectors, curators, press, etc. in a few days than in years of exhibiting art around the DMV. You will see more people in 4-5 days than in five hundred years at a gallery in the DMV. Statistically (and yes I do have an undergraduate Math degree in Numerical Analysis in addition to my Art degree), the sheer number translates into sales. Since my first art fair in 2006, I have sold over 500 works of my art.

(b) Exposure to other galleries who may be interested in your work. I have multiple examples of this - Just ask DMV area artist Judith Peck what has happened to her career once she started showing at art fairs.... or read the example of my dear friend Sam Gilliam!

(c) A significantly higher chance of getting critical press.

(d) A significantly higher chance of getting your work noticed by both freelance and museum curators and art advisors, etc. Since 2006 I've had over twenty commissions via art advisors and several pieces acquired by multiple museums. The chance of getting your work noticed by a DMV museum curator is probably higher than the chance of winning the lottery. Most DMV area museum curators (AU's Jack Rasmussen being the brilliant exception) would rather take a cab to Dulles to fly to Miami to see emerging artists' works at fairs than taking a cab to see a gallery show in Georgetown.

(e) Being part of the art fair "wake effect" --- Read about that here.

(f) A much better chance to getting invited to participate in other shows such as university shows, themed-shows, group shows, etc. Ask Virginia artist Sheila Giolitti about that.

I hope that I've made my point, and I hope that some visual art groups and organizations are reading this.

WPA, Tephra ICA, Blackrock Center for the Arts, Touchstone, Art League, Washington Project for the Arts, Maryland Art Place, Multiple Exposures, Gallery 10, Washington Sculptors Group, VizArts, Artomatic, Waverly Street Gallery, DC Arts Center, DCCAH, Target Gallery, Torpedo Factory, Montgomery Art Association, Workhouse Arts Center, Art Gallery of Potomac, Rockville Art League, The Artists' Undertaking, Glen Echo... I'm looking at you.

UPDATE: Cristina Salmastrelli, the energetic Regional Managing Director for Ramsay Fairs, pipes in with some terrific comments:

My comments, in no particular order:

I love that artists should not be required to come to an art fair if they do not want to. There are some artists that cannot stomach the fast pace of a fair or the harsh realities that comes with it. This is why artist representatives are so important, in my opinion. Visitors and potential art buyers can be quite harsh and sometimes artist cannot hear negative feedback. I never want an artist to hear negative feedback unless it’s filtered through their representation or a proper lense. In my opinion and in the most idyllic sense, the entire gallery system is there to protect the artist and their creativity from external messages. I have seen artist wilt when representing their own work and that makes me really upset, so I love the fact that the artist onsite requirement theory can be eliminated.

The formula for art fair success is an ever changing one. It more and more reminds me of early motherhood or Instagram’s algorithms every day. Once you feel like you got your system down pat, CURVEBALL STRAIGHT AHEAD! And the only way to properly prepare for this is to come in feeling strong and excited to talk to people at every opportunity. Every edition needs to be your first and there can be no assumptions that you will be as successful as your last. And with that theory, the fair experience never ends on the last day and that constant follow up and dedication to build relations with new clients, old clients and potential ones will pay off down the line.

It never hurts to take time to try and understand the different motivations when it comes to purchasing art. From there, take time to practice how to close deals based on the variety of reasons why someone buys an artwork. In the end, this exchange is about emotions and this purchase is emotive, so understanding people really helps to make your experience a successful one.