Save the date
If you click on the image below, you'll get all the details on the coming production, "Hijos del Limbo" at Gala in DC.
Why am I promoting a theatre production in a visual arts blog? Because it involves the work of artist Alessandra Torres, who moved back to D.C. several weeks ago to work on this play, and has done all of the set designs, promotional photos, and designed the limited edition print below for the play. One of her photos appeared in the July 4th Weekend Section of the Washington Post, for upcoming entertainment events in the D.C. area.
It’s interesting to note that Alessandra, and the star of the show, Gabriela Fernandez, were good friends in Puerto Rico when they were children, and are now collaborating on this theater production in Washington, D.C., as adults! Needless to say, they are very excited about their work together, and I thought that you might like to come to one of the performances if you happen to be in D.C. from July 23-26. I think you would find the improvisational nature of the play interesting, and the theme intriguing!
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
This Week: Easton, MD
As I've discussed before, just four years ago Plein Air Easton got started as artists worldwide have begun to return to painting in the Plein Air style, and once again, as they did in 19th century Europe, are leaving their studios to paint and draw outside... on roadsides, on the beach, on top of mountains, in their gardens and yards, and even in city streets to capture landscapes, still lifes, figures and architecture in their natural elements.
I've said that I thought that the resurgence of this movement, much like it happened in Europe in the 19th century, may be a reaction to the overwhelming presence of technology in our daily lives. And that's OK; there's room for plein air painter and digital photographers and technogeeks artists in the art world.
The festival goes from Monday, July 21 - Sunday, July 27, 7:00am-5pm... but there are tons of associated events in the gorgeous and tiny Maryland village. All the details are here.
I will be speaking at 7PM at the Academy Art Museum on the subject of contemporary art, collecting, artists and art in general. I promise to make you laugh if you come by and you may just also learn a few things about art.
So, come on Saturday, July 26, 7:00pm - details here (scroll down).
See ya there!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Goss on Figurative/Narrative
Sizzling Heather Goss reviews Figurative/Narrative at DC's Healing Arts Gallery. Read it here.
Inactive Art Career Syndrome
The WPA in DC is hosting some workshops for a new program called No Artist Left Behind, which will help artists to learn all the basics of documenting their work, including some tip and tricks to photographing their work, saving in correct file formats, and helping WPA members set up their ArtFile Online portfolios. The workshops are coming up soon, July 28 and 29.
Contact them here.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Australian John: Art Scammer
Remember this art scam?
Now a "John" from Australia is doing the same scam... be careful if you get an email trying to buy artwork.
The address in the scam email is:
128 Salmon Street
Port Melbourne, Melbourne 3207
Australia
Phone: 61 2 9498 6830
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Frida Kahlo Talk and Lecture
Come by tomorrow to the Smith Farm's Healing Arts Gallery, where you can not only check out "Figurative/Narrative: Memories of a Presence," featuring work by Billy Colbert, Michael Janis and Paul Andrew Wandless, but also starting at 5:30PM I will be giving a talk and presentation on Frida Kahlo, focusing on her pain and how it affected her artwork and life.
I will discuss Kahlo in terms of an artist defined and iconized by her artwork, in spite of tremendous hurdles and problems.
Free and open to the public.
See ya there!
Wanna go to a DC opening tonight?
The head out to Katzen Museum, where from 6-8PM there will be an opening at the Rotunda for the the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities FY2009 Visual Arts Applicants' Showcase.
Opening Reception: July 16, 2008, 6:30 PM
Exhibition Hours: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Monday - Saturday July 17 - August 1, 2008
Katzen Arts Center
American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20016
See ya there!
My quote... mea culpa
It has been brought to my attention that a paraphrased quote that compares Tim Tate's groundbreaking advancement of fine arts glass to the groundbreaking work of Stieglitz in bringing photography to the fine arts arena, and which I have been generously attributing to a Washington and/or Washington Post art critic was actually initally coined by me several years ago for an essay on the exhibition "Compelled by Content."
After talking or emailing today to several of the folks who I thought had first coined the comparison, it's my memory who appears to be flawed and the comparison was initiated by me.
My fault and my apologies! An overzealous dealer with an overzelous mind. I enthusiastically believe that what Tim Tate is doing to glass is exactly what Stieglitz did to photography, but it is all my own biased opinion.
I will try to correct the source wherever it has appeared.
Gallery Closes: Gallerist Tells All
(Via J.T.) Chicago gallerist Lisa Boyle closes her gallery after four years and in frustration writes about the causes for her failure... here are some tidbits from her words:
Why is it so GOD DAMNED hard to sell a piece of art around here?...Read the entire piece here.
...Oh now. To consider Chicago alone, it would be very easy to slide into that familiar unison of voices about how collectors here don’t collect, museums here don’t connect with the galleries and local artists, there’s not enough critical attention, Chicago can’t compete with LA and NY, etc. Actually, it come out as easily as my breath to shout out a mental “Here, here!” to accompany these tired voices of disappointment. And I could maybe also choose to take a trip down the path of righteousness and talk about people who’ve started galleries with seemingly limitless free financial support and how all the successful galleries are connected in an incestuous web of nepotism and homosexual ego stroking. After all, these are the things I gossip about in my spare time (to people who can’t get back at me, of course)....
...There is also this sea change regarding art fairs’ role in the life of a gallery. While a great load of fun for some people, they have grown over everything like a suffocating mold and swallowed up a whole heap of what an art dealer has to do on any given day. All for the honor of showing work in ramshackle booths along with a fuckthousand other artists. It’s a different job, being a gallery owner, than it was even five years ago...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Jennie Rose on Southern Exposure at SF
As we continue to expand our coverage, we'd like to introduce Jennie Rose, who will be reporting regularly from California. And if her first piece is an example of the shape of things to come, we've lucked out onto a terrific new voice in the visual arts!
Southern Exposure
By Jennie Rose
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, San Francisco galleries and non profit arts support centers like Southern Exposure (SOEX) were filled with work by “state of the art bohemian poets, underground music heroes, revolutionary skaters, and graffiti kings and queens,” wrote Aaron Rose co-curator of Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture.
Beautiful Losers, an exhibit first shown in San Francisco 2004, encapsulates that period twenty years ago when those at the edges of society were thought to be key to the forward movement of the culture in general.
Jo Jackson, Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee, Josh Lazcano, Alicia McCarthy, Clare Rojas, Thomas Campbell, Dan Flanagan, Symantha Gates, Nell Gould and Chris Johanson; These artists’ work showed that they shook off the parsing and packaging of the traditional art world.
The work attracted skaters, freaks and geeks, youth who made no distinction between a performance art piece by an industrial noise band and any other creative endeavors.
Though a few came to this through MFA prestige, Chris Johanson, a skateboarder with no formal art training, began by hanging up some drawings at Adobe Books, a bookshop in San Francisco’s Mission district.
Acting as a kind of ballast for the seismic seizures of the California arts scene, Southern Exposure stays true to its founding principles of the last 35 years: To provide artists--whether they are exhibiting, curating, teaching, or learning—an opportunity to realize ideas for projects that may not otherwise find support.
The organization, which started out like a coop and is now “a pillar in the arts community,” as described by the SOEX Associate Director Aimee Le Duc, is known for nurturing talent, which later becomes celebrated.
True enough, Johanson who has said that his work depicts “a world where nudist dancers, good vibes, emotionally centered people, forest energy and rainbows abut a sinister comic edge,” has a well- established career. In 2003 SF MOMA awarded him a SECA award, and his work was included in both the 2002 Whitney Biennial and the 2003 SITE Santa Fe biennial.
As one nurtured by the support for his ideas, Johanson is invested in the continued success of Southern Exposure. For its 15th annual fundraising auction this year, Johanson donated two pieces, one called “Perception #4,” a color sugarlift aquatint etching.
Other established artists, many who have affinity for or loyalty to SOEX, donated pieces including Catherine Wagner, Andrew Shcoultz, David Ireland and Ajit Chauhan. Chauhan donated “Safe Travels to the Now/Ass You Like It,” a piece in ink and graphite on paper.
The swath of work chosen for the auction always includes artists who participated in any SOEX exhibition of the last three years. Some are invited, such as Vanessa Marsh, a photographer and recent grad from California College of the Arts (CCA), who was invited to participate and is likely to have an exhibition in the future.
One of the most recent to come up through this tradition is Tara Foley who donated “Landscape number 12” a gouache, tape, pencil piece. A week ago Foley just wrapped up Say Hello to Neverending, a solo show at Fecal Face Gallery in downtown San Francisco. Say Hello… charts the symbiotic relationship between destruction and creation by mapping a world ruled by juxtapositions.
“Sometimes we do have work that is purely aesthetic, but then again, when it comes to the artist, it’s really about the work going on the community right now,” says Le Duc.
“Right now it is work which is socially aware, and politically active, such as the work by Hank Willis Thomas.” Thomas donated a digital print called “Black Power,” a close up of a mouth with a gold grill.
“Hank has an uncanny ability to unpack what it is about pop culture that institutionalizes racism,” says Le Duc. “He confronts the co-opting of the black male body. The words ‘black power’ in the grill, this hyper-hyper reality of seeing every pore and hair on this guy’s face takes it to ‘where is the power coming from?’”
Southern Exposure never worries about what sells or looks good, nor does it invoke ideas of a historic or aesthetic canon. “That’s more the business of a museum.”
As Le Duc simply puts it, “We’re in the business of supporting emerging artists and artists and as they create new work. There’s no sense of hierarchy. We stay focused on the overall goal.”
Beginning the move to a new space, Southern Exposure plans to open the doors to spacious Mission district digs in spring of 2009, where it will continue its self-described work as a “daring, nimble, and accessible arts organization.”
Monday, July 14, 2008
The best laid plans of mice and art dealers...
While I had intended to report everyday from Art Santa Fe, working these art fairs is such a constant hands on act, coupled with the fact that I'm always on my feet at these affairs, and a few other things all added up to a report-less experience on a daily basis from the fair.
Overall, this year's Art Santa Fe was not the commercial success that many of the art galleries and dealers who participated had hoped that it would be. It was not all the fault of the organizers, who I think did the best job that anyone taking the complex challenge of organizing such an event -- with its army of people in a chess game of movement and issues -- has to do.
But the talk in the dealers' break room and along the aisles was not good.
Like any art fair, I am sure that there were some galleries who did well, but I suspect that the vast majority did poorly as far as sales were concerned.
AN art fair is not all about sales, although when one puts out several thousand dollars in fees, travel, staff, etc., sales is damned well ahead of whatever is in second place.
Connections and networking is another good element of art fairs. In our case we made the direct connection with two of the top art collectors in the US.
Collectors with connections are even more important... in one case, he is not only a major photography collector about to become a collector of contemporary Cuban art (on the advise of his art advisers), but also on the board of a major museum. His wife is a major collector of glass, and also on the board of a major school.
All these bits and pieces help to cement a gallery's future; even as sales do not materialize at the frequency that one wishes for.
One negative thing about the fair that I did hear from the locals was the fact that according to them the organizers were "crazy to set the fair on the same weekend as the Fifth Annual International Folk Art Market," the largest international folk art market in the world, which was taking place at exactly the same time as Art Santa Fe. I'm not sure what, if any effect this had on the low sales experienced by most of the gallerists and dealers who confided in me.
Another good aspect for reputable dealers in fairs like this, is the ability, provided that the dealer is one who works for his/her artists, to find other dealers and galleries for our artists.
We managed to find and begin to cement a relationship with two new dealers, one in Britain, one in Santa Fe, for one of our artists -- as well as for an artist whose work I know. She will be happy once she calls me and finds out that she has a very good Santa Fe gallery very interested in her work.
Another thing that I kept hearing about was how poorly American fairs were doing in general, although it seems that some European fairs were doing better. We also heard some horror stories about some "hotel fairs."
Several hotel fairs will not be returning to Miami this December, although someone from Art Basel who was around the fair checking out the art and the fair itself, told me that Miami expects about 25 art fairs this December - that's a spectacular fair overload, and it also means that even though some of last year's fairs will not return, some new ones will pop up!
We had dinner one night with some gallerists from Europe and the US, as well as a few other artsy folks - a fair organizer, an art magazine editor, a curator or two, and someone who has a business of doing the booths at the fairs.
It was lively conversation, and I dropped a bomb of a rumor that I have been hearing about from people who do not want to be quoted.
"I've been hearing a rumor that Art Basel Miami Beach may be pulling out of Miami Beach and relocating to Los Angeles," I said.
"Nonsense!" said a very, very connected curator from Miami. "ABMB and the city have a six year contract - ABMB is not going anywhere!"
"I've heard the same thing," said a magazine publisher from Los Angeles.
"And," added the art magazine publisher, "there's only two years left on that contract." That info was backed by another person in the group, who also added that he thought that it was pretty much set that ABMB would be moving to LA after its contract with Miami Beach expires.
"It will never happen," said the vigorous defender of Miami. "Miami is a magnet for Europeans in the winter, and the crossroads for Latin America, Europe and North America... people and collectors, want to go to Miami in December."
"That's true," replied her tormentors, "but LA is the center point of the Latin American Pacific rim as well as Asia... and we have beaches as well."
And thus several plugged-in insiders seem to verify what I've been hearing about for months: that the heart of the Miami art fairs phenomenon - Art Basel Miami Beach - may be, and I repeat, may be, pulling out of Miami Beach once its six year contract ends and ABMB may thus be moving the American version of the European fair to Los Angeles.
Basel's Vernissage TV
Yours truly in Basel's Vernissage TV, which was covering Art Santa Fe this last weekend.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Art Santa Fe Day One
Arrived a couple of days ago in New Mexico for Art Santa Fe art fair, where we'll be peddling artwork at the fair, being held this year from July 10-13, 2008 at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe and right across the street from Site Santa Fe.
When we arrived at Albuquerque on Tuesday afternoon, we spent most of the day exploring the old city.
On Wednesday we checked into the fair spaces. The whole area around it is a whirlwind of construction as new art sites, art buildings, etc. continue to populate this area of the city.
All the crates were waiting for us at booth 52, and right away I realized that (as usual) I had shipped way too much work. Everything was unpacked and then we had the crates removed.
Because the storage area at the fair didn't open till much later, it was an interesting chess game moving around all the extra work while isolating what work to hang for the opening tonight.
The press preview is at 3:30PM, and then the opening an hour later.
If you're in that amazing little city full of art galleries (nearly 300 of them) during this time, come by booth 52 and say hola!
Lots more later as I tell you how the opening gala went!
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Wanna go to a Silver Spring, MD opening?
Gateway's Heliport Gallery has an upcoming exhibit based on the surrealist game, Exquisite Corpse. Opening July 12 from 5 - 8 pm
Work by Karren Alenier, Mark Behme, Bobbi Clay, Christopher Conlon, Warren Craghead III, Patrick Finley, Fred Folsom, Gail Gorlitzz, JoAnne Growney, Stephen Hanks , Elyse Harrison, Neil Joffe, John Landis, Emery Lewis, Donna M. McCullough, Emily Piccirillo, Shelley Sarrin, Rima Schulkind, Ed Thomas, Joyce Zipperer, and Birdie Zoltan.
Gallery located at 8001 Kennett Street, Suite 3, Silver Spring, MD 20910. 301.562.1400. Close to Red Line Silver Spring Station.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Wanna go to a DC opening?
Figurative/Narrative: Memories of a Presence opens Friday, July 11 with a reception from 5:30-8PM at DC's Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts' Healing Arts Gallery. Work by Billy Colbert, Paul Andrew Wandless, and Michael Janis.
The show runs through August 28.
John Collier at Art Whino
National Harbor's ArtWhino has a solo show by John Collier coming up that looks really interesting to figure aficionados.
The opening is July 12th, 2008 from 6pm-Midnight.
