Glass Revolutionaries at Maurine Littleton

Michael Janis, Allegra Marquart, and Tim Tate will open at Maurine Littleton's power gallery in Georgetown with a rare opening reception to meet the artists on September 28, 5-7PM.

As far as I know, these are the first local DC area artists picked up by Littleton in the many years that her gallery has been in business and their subsequent national success represent an interesting example of what happens when a recognized power gallery in a particular field brings some attention to an emerging or mid career artist

The exhibition goes through October 18.

Airborne



Heading to Miami... more later. Some posts have been already scheduled for the next few days.

DC Arts Expo opens to the public today

The Washington DC International Arts Expo opens to the public this morning. View the works of over 100 fine artists and galleries from across the country. Enjoy seminars, spoken word and live performances throughout the day. In the evening, attend two special events benefiting local arts programs, Life Pieces to Masterpieces and the Washington Project for the Arts.

Saturday, September 20, 2008, 10am - 9pm
Washington DC Convention Center Expo Hall D
801 Mount Vernon Place NW, Washington, DC
General Admission Tickets $10.00

10am – Doors Open
12Noon - Opening Ceremony with performance from singer David Kirton
1pm - Seminar “Art Talk with the Experts” Special guests’ speakers’ artists James Denmark and Paul Goodnight
2pm - Seminar “Art Collecting 101" with Atlanta-based art historian and collector Paul Jones
3pm – The Collective Collaboration Student Mural Presentation
10pm-1am - The After Hours Xperience

The Collective Collaboration Student Mural Project, 3pm - 4pm
Washington DC Convention Center Expo Hall D
Making its inaugural debut, The Collective Collaboration Project joins students from various arts programs across the country to present their original mural designed with the theme in mind, “Artists Are Colorless.” The goal of this project is to not only engage the creative mind of our next generation of fine artist, but to teach them how to work together no matter their creative differences. A cash award will be presented to the school with the best mural.

An Intimate Evening of Art, 6pm - 9pm
The Park at 14th Street, 1101 14th Street, NW
Tickets $100 with proceeds to Benefit Life Pieces to Masterpieces

The After Hours Xperience, 10pm-1am
Washington Convention Center, Expo Hall D Main Stage
Tickets $15 with proceeds to benefit Washington Project of the Arts

Hosted by 88 and X Culture TV, late night owls and the party people will be in the house to “xperience a 21 century art happening for the mature!” A fast-paced inspired and inspiring event that brings artists off the canvas, out of their studios and into a live-action, multi-media environment.

Travolta

Click here to find out a happy story on what artwork is in John Travolta's new yatch.

By the way, Elena Maza, the artist in this case, also writes political/Cuban op-ed pieces here.

New DC Arts Executive Director

(Via DCist)"Former BET exec and video marketing entrepreneur Gloria Nauden has been named Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities."

From what I can find on Google, Gloria Nauden is the founder of Radar Entertainment Group, a District-based boutique marketing and video production company. They provide specialized marketing services to companies such as Verizon, Lincoln Mercury, Moet Hennessy and XM Satellite Radio.

Nauden previously worked as an executive at Black Entertainment Television in the Strategic Business Development division, where she is credited with "successfully managing a $12 million development budget with 250 employees spanning three states."

Nauden has lived in the District for almost 20 years, and serves as a volunteer at numerous civic organizations including, Parklands Community Center; Sasha Bruce House; Foods & Friends; The Covenant House; Thurgood Marshall Center; and House of Ruth.

We welcome Gloria Nauden to that very important job; Bienvenida!

We'll be watching.

Lost Dalis

"Relatives of one of the world's most famous portrait photographers have sued a Manhattan gallery, saying it lost valuable photographs created with Spanish surrealist master Salvador Dali.

A daughter and two grandchildren of the late Philippe Halsman say in a lawsuit 41 of the works created by Halsman and Dali were reported stolen in April 2007.

The works were among dozens delivered to the Howard Greenberg Gallery in 2003 and 2004.

The federal court lawsuit demands $684,000 in damages."

Read the AP story here.

Ann Temkin at MoMA

Ann Temkin, once from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is now the Museum of Modern Art's new chief curator of painting and sculpture. She succeeds John Elderfield, who retired as chief curator of painting and sculpture in July.

Read the NYT report here.

DC Arts Expo opens to the public tomorrow

The Washington DC International Arts Expo opens to the public tomorrow. View the works of over 100 fine artists and galleries from across the country. Enjoy seminars, spoken word and live performances throughout the day. In the evening, attend two special events benefiting local arts programs, Life Pieces to Masterpieces and the Washington Project for the Arts.

Saturday, September 20, 2008, 10am - 9pm
Washington DC Convention Center Expo Hall D
801 Mount Vernon Place NW, Washington, DC
General Admission Tickets $10.00

10am – Doors Open
12Noon - Opening Ceremony with performance from singer David Kirton
1pm - Seminar “Art Talk with the Experts” Special guests’ speakers’ artists James Denmark and Paul Goodnight
2pm - Seminar “Art Collecting 101" with Atlanta-based art historian and collector Paul Jones
3pm – The Collective Collaboration Student Mural Presentation
10pm-1am - The After Hours Xperience

The Collective Collaboration Student Mural Project, 3pm - 4pm
Washington DC Convention Center Expo Hall D
Making its inaugural debut, The Collective Collaboration Project joins students from various arts programs across the country to present their original mural designed with the theme in mind, “Artists Are Colorless.” The goal of this project is to not only engage the creative mind of our next generation of fine artist, but to teach them how to work together no matter their creative differences. A cash award will be presented to the school with the best mural.

An Intimate Evening of Art, 6pm - 9pm
The Park at 14th Street, 1101 14th Street, NW
Tickets $100 with proceeds to Benefit Life Pieces to Masterpieces

The After Hours Xperience, 10pm-1am
Washington Convention Center, Expo Hall D Main Stage
Tickets $15 with proceeds to benefit Washington Project of the Arts

Hosted by 88 and X Culture TV, late night owls and the party people will be in the house to “xperience a 21 century art happening for the mature!” A fast-paced inspired and inspiring event that brings artists off the canvas, out of their studios and into a live-action, multi-media environment.

Che dell'Egitto

"This spring the state apartments of Italy's presidential palace, the Palazzo del Quirinale, hosted a remarkable exhibit of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan artifacts, all of them found on Italian soil but held until recently in private collections and museums in the United States, notably the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The exhibit marked a diplomatic coup for Francesco Rutelli, the former mayor of Rome who until last April had served the left-wing government of Romano Prodi for two years as minister of culture. Through an arrangement of long-term loans and the deft application of diplomatic pressure, Rutelli had convinced museum directors that returning these artifacts, all of them acquired from dealers whose methods were not entirely scrupulous, would help to discourage the knowingly illegal looting of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan sites in Italy."

Read the New Republic article here.

The rest of the planet has to return every Italian artifact that doesn't pass the Italian dodgyness test to Italy?

If the answer is Si! Then do Italian museums have to return Roman antiquities that were made in other parts of the Roman Empire to the nations that now exist there?

If Si, then Italy better start packing the 13 Egyptian obelisks that are now part of Rome. The "dealers" who brought those pieces to Rome did so by force.

Newsflash: Cairo is clearing out some spaces for them!

Every Greek vase back to Greece? But do Greek museums have to return Cypriot antiquities to Cyprus?

Does every dodgy mummy have to find its way back to Egypt?

I know what Richard Pryor would have said.

Corcoran Gallery of Art needs a Curatorial Intern

The Corcoran Gallery of Art seeks a part- or full-time curatorial intern for its Photography and Media Arts department. The Keim Internship is a one-year internship intended for recent graduates with a BA or BFA who seek museum experience prior to entering a graduate program in Art History or a related field.

Duties and Responsibilities:
• Assist curators with special exhibitions, management of the permanent collection, and other projects
• Help with research, editing, and production of texts and publications
• Support with exhibition planning
• Research on objects in the collection and objects proposed for acquisition
• Maintenance of exhibition, collection, and artist files
• Coordination of collection loan forms, loan agreements, and exhibition contracts
• Assistance with general correspondence
• Assistance with programs that pertain to the Photography and Media Arts department.

Qualifications:
• The ideal candidate will possess a strong knowledge of the history of photography and will have an interest in working with the Corcoran’s photographic collection.
• Previous experience in arts or collections management, at a museum, art gallery, alternative art space, or historical collection, is strongly preferred.

To apply: Please submit a CV, cover letter, names and contact details for two references, and one brief writing sample (this could be a short academic essay, an article, or a museum-related text)to:

Amanda Maddox
Assistant Curator of Photography and Media Arts
Corcoran Gallery of Art
500 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20006

Wrong Trousers

New Baltimore Gallery

My good friend Myrtis Bedolla has opened a new gallery in Baltimore on the first floor of a Victorian-era town house at 2224 N. Charles St., replacing her Capitol Hill space in Washington.

Edward Gunts in the Sun wrote a nice article on the subject; read it here and visit the gallery website here.

Smithsonian on the right path

'Dr. Clough’s own travel must now be approved by the Smithsonian’s chief financial officer. Dr. Clough has also resigned from his salaried positions on three corporate boards. From 2000 to 2006 his predecessor, Mr. Small, spent 64 business days serving on corporate boards that paid him a total of $5.7 million.

Mr. Small’s salary was $916,000 in 2007, but the Smithsonian is paying Dr. Clough $490,000. He pays his own rent on a town house near the fish market in southeast Washington; Mr. Small used a Smithsonian housing allowance for his town house in an affluent neighborhood in northwest Washington. Dr. Clough’s home is about a quarter-mile from the Smithsonian museums, so he can walk to work; Mr. Small used a chauffeur.

While he is earning less than he did at Georgia Tech, where his salary package was worth $551,186, Dr. Clough said he hadn’t looked back. “This is something I wanted to do,” he said.'

Read the NYT article by Robin Pogrebin here.

Lehman Brothers and the Arts

My good buds Laura and Rob at ArtPark have a fascinating post on Neuberger Berman, a division of Lehman Brothers.

Read it here.

DC Arts Expo Opens Tomorrow

Tomorrow evening the District's next experiment with an art fair opens with the Artists Preview Reception and Fundraiser at the Washington, DC International Arts Expo, which kicks off the weekend with an Artist Preview and a highly anticipated Fundraising Reception with proceeds benefiting the Howard University Armour J. Blackburn University Center Director’s Discretionary Fund.

Patrons of the arts along with first time collectors will join Mistress of Ceremonies Andrea Roane as she welcomes and introduces them to the artists in the Expo. Enjoy exclusive art unveilings, cash bar, wine tasting and live nationally known and local jazz and spoken word performances. Tickets $50 - details here.

Friday, September 19, 2008, 6pm - 10pm
Washington DC Convention Center Expo Hall D
801 Mount Vernon Place NW, Washington, DC

Friday Night Gun Fight


DC's Project 4 joins the trompe l’oeil mania going on in the art scene and presents Friday Night Gun Fight, a solo exhibition of new works by New York-based artist Michael Scoggins.

"Making reference to Naive Art and Art Brut, Scoggins creates large-scale trompe l’oeil replications of scrawled sheets of notebook paper to voice obscure political and psychological opinions. When he reveals his ostensibly personal views and emotions, he does so in a manner that is direct, but distorted by humor and irony."

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 20, 6:00 - 9:00pm.

Workhouse

I have exciting news about a new Northern Virginia art venue!

The Workhouse Arts Center, Virginia’s newest arts community is opening its doors to the public beginning September 19. There will be a weeklong celebration of visual and performing arts.

Details here.

Opportunity for artists

Deadline: December 12, 2008

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival was ranked #78 on the Top 200 Best Shows in the USA by Sunshine Artist Magazine in the September 2008 issue which annually ranks the 200 best fine arts and fine craft shows in the country.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival is the highest ranked show in Maryland and is 1 of only 19 new shows to make the top 100. This is the first ranking in the Top 200 of the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival.

The sixth annual Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 9 and May 10, 2009. Applications for 2009 are currently available and the deadline is Dec. 12, 2008. More information can be found here or call Lauren Hamilton at (301) 215-6660, Ext. 16.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: October 17, 2008

Visions Art Gallery in Medway, MA is seeking original artwork for the upcoming "This is the End... Tales of the Apocalypse," which will be on exhibit from January 4, 2009 until February 6, 2009. Share your visions of the End of the World with them.

Deadline for Participation: October 17, 2008
Acceptance Notification: October 23, 2008
Deadline for artwork: December 20, 2008

Download full Prospectus here.

Congressional Arts Report Card

The Americans for the Arts Action Fund PAC has produced the 2008 Congressional Arts Report Card to help you make arts-informed decisions at the ballot box in November. The report contains carefully evaluated legislative benchmarks that form a detailed arts record, including a numerical score and letter grade, for each Member of the House based on numerous arts and arts education issues.

Read it here. Neither McCain nor Obama are members of the Senate Cultural Caucus.