Statuary Controversy

I couple of days ago I was listening to WTOP News, which like all other radio and TV stations in our area (with the posssible exception of WAMU) rarely if ever, reports on anything dealing with the visual arts, although they do an excellent job delivering free publicity and reports for movies, concerts and theatre. Like nearly all of our main media outlets, WTOP probably believes that their listening public does not care about our area gallery shows as much as they do about who is playing next at Blues Alley.

Anyway, they had a story on a controversy surrounding the Statuary Hall sculpture selection process to add two new sculptures of prominent Washingtonians that could be displayed in the United States Capitol's Statuary Hall, where every state in the Union is represented by two statues of prominent people from the state's past. The District of Columbia is not represented by anyone, and so the DC public was apparently invited to vote as to which prominent Washingtonians should be added to the collection.

Residents cast around 3,000 votes based on the following criteria: "The person must have a record of distinguished service to the city; must be a U.S. citizen; and must be deceased."

Frederick Douglass, the former slave-turned-newspaper publisher received the most votes (311) and musician Duke Ellington (238 votes) came in second. Both men were also on a list of recommendations made by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities steering committee.

This is where the controversy apparently starts.

According to WTOP News:

A selection committee created by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities made their own recommendations, and the commission had the final say in the selection.

And

Minutes from a May 2006 meeting reveal the commissioners were unanimous in the first choice of Frederick Douglass, the former slave-turned-newspaper publisher.

But...

...the minutes from the May meeting show the commissioners could not decide on the second choice, and delayed the vote for one month.

Prior to adjourning, commissioner Gail Berry West made a motion to add Pierre L'Enfant to the list of finalists.

L'Enfant came in 10th in the public voting, with 107 votes -- well behind Duke Ellington, Thurgood Marshall and Benjamin Banneker, but 16 votes ahead Mayor Washington.

When the commission reconvened in June, they made a rare move of taking the remaining votes by secret ballot.

Commission Chair Dorothy McSweeny told WTOP she couldn't recall the last time the commission voted in secret, but added she supported the move.

Mayor Tony Williams has said he was "disappointed" with the selection of L'Enfant. In a written statement, Williams' spokesperson Vince Morris tells WTOP:

The mayor has already made it clear that L'Enfant was not his top choice. While it's important for boards and commissions to operate independently, the mayor also likes to see decisions made that reflect popular opinion.

Another problem with the L'Enfant choice is his nationality. One of the requirements to be selected was U.S. citizenship. Technically, the French-born L'Enfant was not a U.S. citizen.

It will be interesting to see which two Washingtonians actually end up in the Hall, and even more interesting to see (in the event that one of them is L'Enfant), what he looks like, since as far as we know, and if I recall correctly, there's some controversy as to what he truly looked like.

Friday!

Nu... so it's Friday and it's not broiling out there, and there are some truly good gallery shows that we can enjoy between 6-8PM tonight. For a good recommendation, DCist's Heather Goss has a good sampling here.

This Friday will be remembered as the one gallery Friday to explore new talent, and this is as good as it gets for beginning collectors to gather their sheckels and if they see something that they like either at Conner, Irvine and Project 4, to snap it, as they all have shows focusing on either recent art school grads, current students or MFA grads.

I've been driving up and down I-95 like a million times this last few weeks looking for a house around Swarthmore, PA, and I think that I may have finally found one or two that I sorta like, while managing to avoid the fact that most houses in that town are usually 95 years (or more) old, and I'm not a very good DIY type.

Meanwhile my Maryland house is for sale, and I've just reduced it today by $50K so that it's a great deal and will hopefully sell quickly! The realtor made me take down a lot of the artwork from the walls, as it "makes the house look bigger." She wanted it all down, but I refused, as I think that it makes the home look more appealing! Buy the house here

Go see some galleries tonight!

See ya there!

Penis artist

While I was over at Reuters checking out the Mark Jenkins story, I came across this "artist" who paints with his penis.

I suspect that dickilism (or as it is called in the UK: willyism) may be simply the latest ridiculous effort created in order to stand out in an art world often dominated by gimmick. It worked for Chris Offili, Damien Hirst and many others... so why not for Pricasso (whose real name is Tim Patch).

And in case you were wondering... yes, there's already a guy who paints with his asshole.

Update: And in case you were wondering part two... yes the a guy who paints with his asshole once exhibited in Washington, DC (many years ago) - It was painting (geez) titled "Rectal Realism" and the piece was in fact a portrait of Andy Warhol.

Ahhh... the good ole days...

Tapedude in Reuters

The news agency Reuters has a really cool video story about DC's own tapedude artist Mark Jenkins.

See it here.

Mark Jenkins continues to gather spectacular international coverage and attention to his work, granted from a street art perspective (and an unique one at that), and yet our local museum curators seem to be asleep at the wheel and driving right past him at the same time that he's the subject of major magazine coverage in Europe and now this story.

Wake up!

Art Dealers of the World: Unite!

Well... at least the ones that are DC art dealers around the 14th Street area.

The CP's Nell Boeschenstein has an excellent story on a movement by six art dealers around the 14th Street area to gather some momentum and start some sort of organization.

There is currently an Art Dealers Association of Greater Washington, but as Nell Boeschenstein points out, it might as well not exist.

I know that Bethesda art dealers (well, the ones that are real art dealers anyway) are also thinking of gathering together under their own art dealers' organization, due to the same concerns expressed by the dealers quoted in Nell Boeschenstein's story.

And the Dupont Circle area dealers are probably thinking the same thing, as the Art Dealers Association of Greater Washington has been pretty moribund for the last few years.

Opportunity for Maryland Artists

The Baltimore Museum of Art in collaboration with the Maryland State Arts Council just announced siteMaryland, a month-long juried exhibition of art by leading contemporary artists living and working in Maryland. Details here.

Designed to change venues yearly, this year’s project (opening October 1) will take as its site the grounds of the museum, where artists are invited to rethink and reinvent the exterior spaces of the facility.

Adjacent to the Johns Hopkins University campus, the BMA boasts a blend of contemporary and neoclassical architecture, a renowned sculpture garden, and a dramatic stepped entrance along Art Museum Drive.

Applicants are encouraged to visit the museum and develop ideas for the site.

Submissions must include a written description of the concept and images of recent work. Awards ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 will be granted as needed for materials.

Applications must be received no later than August 18, 2006.

Please mail your submissions and a SASE to:

siteMaryland
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive
Baltimore, MD 21218

Or e-mail siteMaryland@artbma.org for more details.

Another MFA Show tomorrow!

So in addition to the great opportunities tomorrow at Conner and at Irvine to see some fresh work by recent graduates and current art students, Project 4 also has 15 Minutes opening tomorrow, and the five artists featured are recent MFA recipients from schools throughout the Mid Atlantic region working in paint, charcoal and printmaking.

Opening Reception is August 4, 2006 - 6:00 - 8:30 pm and the artists are Phillip Adams, Marc Alain, Luisa Greenfield, Ivanny Pagan and Jonathan Trundle.

Congratulations

To DC area artist Victor Ekpuk (now living in Holland), who will be having his first solo show in Holland at Gallery 23 in Amsterdam.

WPA/C Call for Artists

Deadline: Friday, August 11, 5pm.

The WPA/C is calling all Video, Performance, and Sound Artists for their experimental media series.

Download the call for entries here.

All nights will run from 7:00 - 9:00 pm in the Corcoran Gallery of Art's Armand Hammer Auditorium.

Artists Wanted For Barracks Row Festival

Barracks Row Main Street is looking for artists to sell their creations at Barracks Row Fest, which will be held on Saturday, September 16th from 11:00-5:00 p.m. in the 400-700 blocks of 8th Street, SE.

The street festival attracted 6,000 people last year, and they hope to attract even more this time. If you would like to participate, you can download a vendor application at www.barracksrow.org or email mainstreet@barracksrow.org.

Barracks Row is located next to the Eastern Market Metro station.

Exhibit Opportunity for Emerging Artists

ARCH Development Corp. and the Honfleur Gallery, a new art gallery located in historic Anacostia, are looking to exhibit emerging artists in the Washington D.C., Metropolitan area.

The gallery is still under construction, but ARCH is planning the 2007 opening exhibition and putting together an artist group for the season. To learn more about the gallery visit the ARCH website for details at www.archdc.org and click on the arts tab.

Lunacy

A recent memo by Luis A. Luna, Assistant Administrator, Office of Administration and Resources Management announced a decision to install a temporary screen to cover up several historical murals on the 5th floor of the Ariel Rios building in Washington, DC. These murals were created under a 1934 U.S. Treasury art commissioning program, and have apparently been the subject of complaints over the years, and were once previously covered up during the Clinton Administration, before being apparently exhibited again during the current administration, before being hidden from view once more.

The murals which will be once again covered up, and which have titles such as "French Explorers and Indians," "Torture by Stake," "The Red Man Takes the Mochila," etc. depict a diverse set of panoramas ranging from spectacular scenes of the often violent interaction between the American West's native nations and the new settlers, to artistic recreation of historical meetings between European explorers and native Americans.

While it is perhaps understandable that the imagery on some of these murals may be objectionable to some workers or visitors -- perhaps embarrassing to some due to the nudity in some of the murals, and perhaps offensive to others due to its depiction of native Americans, and maybe even more objectionable due to the violence depicted in many of them -- in my opinion it would be even more objectionable to a majority of us to have these historical murals covered up or destroyed.

I object.

A nation that chooses to ignore or whitewash its past, is a nation without a historical memory and without a cultural footprint.

Nearly the entire world was aghast when the Taliban destroyed the gigantic Buddha sculptures that were offensive to that repressive regime, and we all condemned the demolition as a vile and barbaric act of cultural ignorance and artistic destruction. And yet here we are almost somewhat ready to do the same in principle to an integral, if not proud, part of our historical and artistic past.

Art is perhaps the only vehicle that we have left that crosses all cultural barriers and creates bridges and memories for mankind. Visual art, especially representational historical visual art, has created for our nation an important cultural footprint and a significant record of our past. As such it cannot and must not be now censored or destroyed, lest we forget it.

I have had many opportunities to sit on the advisory board of the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and in that process I have helped to fund many of the contemporary murals that now adorn our nation's capital. In that experience, I have no doubt in my mind that there is no arts commission or city in our nation that would remotely consider funding these 1930s vintage murals in 2006, much less in a public building. That is just the nature of where we were in 1930 as a people and where we are now.

But it is my hope that decades from now, if someone finds any of the murals that we have funded in the last few years for our nation's capital objectionable, that our future Americans will have more conviction and more common sense and more guts to stand fast rather than to immediately take the politically-correct and knee-jerk reaction to "cover" them up, or consider removing them.

Keep the murals as they are.

Airborne today and heading home to the news that the world's longest reigning dictator may be getting ready to face the music!

Introductions

Friday is shaping out to be the key day of the year to go see what new talent two of our savviest gallerists out there have discovered in the way of new talent.

"Introductions 2" at Irvine Contemporary also opens the same night as Conner's Academy exhibition. "Introductions 2" features eleven recent graduates from MICA, Corcoran, American University and VCU.

Irvine's reception is also Friday Aug 4 6-8. This is a great night to see new talent at both Conner and Irvine.

Airborne today and heading to one of my favorites places on the planet: Seattle! ... more later.

Academy

Academy 2006, the 6th annual BFA/MFA invitational hosted by Conner Contemporary (and one of those recurring shows that should never be missed), opens next Friday, August 4th from 6-8pm.

This is an opportunity to see the best and brightest of our area's schools, as handpicked by one of our top gallerists.

Ads

I don't ever recall seeing a TV ad for a museum exhibition in Washington, DC. Perhaps it is because our region is such a magnet for tourists, and a lot of the foor traffic that visits our museums are, uh, visitors to the area -- that museums feel that there's no need for TV ads.

But just saw some new TV ads here in Colorado:

The Denver Art Museum wants to spread the word about the upcoming opening of its Frederic C. Hamilton Building. The major expansion was designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind and has been under construction for more than four years.

The ads, designed by the Integer Group Denver, urge consumers to check out the new $90.5 million building, as well as what's inside.

Read the Denver Post story here.

Congrats!

To Argentine-born artist and DC area resident Mirta Kupferminc, who has been distinguished with the Silver Medal at the 12th International Biennal Print and Drawing Exhibition, R.O.C. in Taipei.

The International Jury selected Mirta´s print entitled “Thirty thousands and one” from about 4,000 artworks received from the whole world. The selected work was done by the artist in remembrance of the 30,000 disappeared people during the military dictatorship that happened thirty years ago in Argentina.

Littleton

I'm in Littleton, Colorado, surrounded by beautiful rocks, great trails and mountain lions. "If you come across a lion while hiking," said the six foot tall hotel front desk lady, "Just look big and stare at it; whatever you do, do not try to run away."

Look big, stare at it.

Right.

Airborne today and heading to Denver and then Seattle on Friday... more later.