Out of Order Picks

By the time I showed up to the Maryland Art Place to drop my piece for "Out of Order" I was number 299, so by 6:22PM there were already almost three hundred pieces on the walls, and as I mentioned yesterday I jotted down a few exceptional pieces.

So from the first 300 artists in this massive open show, my top pick went to number 136 by Gilden Bransky! A close second, or perhaps sharing top spot is Anthony Terranova's amazing steel jacket (#76).

I also quite liked a cool little nude by #199, Jan Friedlander, and also Palma Allen (#100) multiple nude.

Really good work by number 155, Lauren Simonutti.

A really brilliant work by Hadieh Shafie (#42) which reminded me of the Arabic poems that cover most of the walls of the Alhambra pops in as a good challenger for Best in Show.

Balage's (#92) gorgeous painting of Joan of Arc (I think) is one of the best paintings in MAP, as is Patrick Kluga's painting of tomatoes (sorry but I cannot decipher the number from my notes).

Another really well done oil is Zachary Thornton's oil portrait (#111), although Thornton got a little lazy with the hands.

And Rosetta DeBernardinis (#198) is her usual fresh and powerful work, which is the polar opposite of another favorite, David Wilson's airbrush (I think) at #160.

And how could I not pick Alexa Brooks' evocative piece of the subject of Cuba? It is number 294!

The Silent Auction and Gala is at 8PM, this coming Friday, April 11, 2008. Go buy some artwork!

Beyond the Easel

Beyond the Easel: Preparing to Market and Sell Your Art
Date: Saturday, May 3, 2008
Time: 10am-6pm
Location: Warehouse Arts Complex in Washington, DC

Instructor: Rosetta DeBerardinis, School 33 Resident Studio Artist, Liquitex Artist of the Month: 2007, contributor to Daily Campello Art News, former Art Tour Guide, and abstract painter whose work has been exhibited and sold at commercial galleries and art venues in the Washington metro area, Baltimore and Richmond, VA.

This course is designed for professional artists who approach art as a business.
Defining goals, identifying the market, the studio, developing a body of work, marketing tools, promotion, the Internet, galleries and other venues are some of the topics to be discussed. It will provide the basic organizational and marketing skills required to exhibit and sell artwork.

Limit: 45 Students
Students are required to bring notebook and a writing instrument.
Cost: $50

Questions may be directed to: RosettaGallery@aol.com

Wanna go to an opening in Bethesda?

Joan Danziger opens at Bethesda's Osuna Gallery on Saturday, April 12, 2008, from 5-8 pm with an exhibition of recent sculptures.

Jury Duty

Tomorrow I will be on art jury duty for VSA arts, looking at entries inspired by the performing arts for “Derivative Composition,” an international juried art exhibition that will be on display at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., from May 29 - July 20, 2008.

Two-and three-dimensional art, digital art, installations, video and film, and other media that draw inspiration from music, theater, or dance are to be judged.

More on all of that later...

Deadhead Wading

Earlier tonight, after spending hours on a clogged up I-95 drive from Philly, I arrived in Baltimore, parked for 61 minutes (cost me $13 bucks), then I waded my way through a couple of hundred deadheads hanging around the plaza where the beautiful spaces of the Maryland Art Place is located in Baltimore to drop my piece for "Out of Order," where MAP opens its doors to any artist who wishes to exhibit their work in their gallery. Work must be original and ready to hang. They will accept one piece per artist, with wall dimensions not to exceed 5’x5’. They will be open all night accepting work.

Details here.

I was number 299, so by 6:22PM there were already almost three hundred pieces on the walls, and I jotted down a few exceptional pieces, which I had intended to mention, but which I left in my van, which then some valet in the DC hotel where I am tonight already parked somewhere and thus you will all have to wait until tomorrow to find out who the real good finds in this auction are, and there are some terrific pieces of art being offered.

The Silent Auction and Gala is at 8PM, this coming Friday, April 11, 2008.

Out of Order

MAP’s infamous free-hung benefit exhibition is back! For twenty-four hours, the Maryland Art Place in Baltimore will open its doors to any artist who wishes to exhibit their work in their gallery. Work must be original and ready to hang. They will accept one piece per artist, with wall dimensions not to exceed 5’x5’.

Details here.

It keeps on rolling

The year 2008 Tim Tatetahon just keeps rolling... fresh from the Washington Glass School opening at Charlottesville's Migrations Gallery, Tate now opens a solo show and makes his Santa Fe debut with an exhibition at Jane Sauer Gallery titled "The Vague Haze of the Unconscious" and opening on on April 11 and running through May 6, 2008.

Opening at Migrations Gallery
Next: Philadelphia.

SF Art Institute halts exhibition

Citing threats of violence by animal rights activists, the San Francisco Art Institute said Saturday that it is canceling a controversial exhibition that included video clips of animals being bludgeoned to death, as well as a public forum it had scheduled to address the controversy.

Read the story here.

A Miami mural of Barack Obama generates some buzz

In a weird way - since we all are supposed to want to be governed and taken care of by big government and its inherent burocracy - this makes sense.

Read the Miami Herald story here.

It's all about the galleries

The current issue of Washingtonian magazine publishes something that it should have done ages ago: a superb article on the Greater DC area galleries by the CP's cappo-di-tutti-criticos Cristiano Cappo.

Read the article by Capps here.

Wanna go to an opening in New Jersey?

Greg Minah, who a few years ago made it to quite a few of the Art-O-Matic Top Ten lists that I ran, is having a solo show at Fusion Gallery in Collingswood, NJ about 10 minutes outside Philly.

The show is open now, and the artist reception is being held on April 12th (Second Saturday) from 6 - 10pm and the show runs through May 4, 2008.

Yay!

This just won a Pulitzer Prize and it is a good read - read it here.

Amy Lin at the Art League

Amy Lin's solo show "Interaction" opens this Thursday, April 10 from 6:30-8pm at the Art League Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia.

"Interaction" involves a blending of arts and sciences, but surprisingly, the blend isn't related to Amy's degree in chemical engineering - it relates to her childhood experiences with her Mom, who was a professor at the university doing research in human genetics. Each of the drawings in the show is inspired by a memory from her childhood in the biology labs. Amy is now represented by Heineman Myers Contemporary Art in Bethesda, MD, but some of us recall that she originally got her start at the Art League Gallery.

In the December 2005 Art League Gallery show, Lin was given an award by Anne Collins Goodyear, from the National Portrait Gallery, and it was there that I first saw her work and mentioned it in a review that I wrote for the Crier Media newspapers.

Since then her career and presence have taken out at an astounding pace, with enviable critical coverage in the press and a very hot sales trail.

Lin's drawings at the Art League appear courtesy of Heineman Myers, as "Interaction" was scheduled two years ago before she had signed with Heineman Myers.

"Sacrifice" 45x55 inches, colored pencil c.2008 by Amy Lin
Read DCist's Amy Cavanaugh's interview Lin here.

Buy Amy Lin now.

It's not a good time to be an art critic

It's not a good time to be an art critic. Much of what's written is pale. It is weak and descriptive to no purpose. Or at the other extreme it is pure jargon, laughable if read aloud to the uninitiated. Junk. In fact, if art critics actually believed that anything we said or wrote mattered, we would probably be shooting ourselves in droves.

Read Morgan Meis' really good article here... and if you don't even want to waste a few seconds to click onto the link... read some more:

Even a knowledge of art history antique and contemporary won't help you much. These days art isn't an insiders game so much as a contest in private languages. The artists are often working in their own heads and they don't feel much compulsion to translate.

This puts the critic and the curator in a hilarious position. Stripped of most of our authority, we fall back on tortured syntax and dubious vocabulary in order merely to say, in essence, that it is tough to talk about art these days. Here's a typical sentence from the Biennial catalog: "Charles Long's interest in opposing formal and metaphysical forces informs a complex sculptural lexicon marked by radical stylistic shifts that are difficult to categorize."

The simple translation of this sentence: "Help, I don't really know what Charles Long is doing or why."

Read it here.

Adopt a work of art

The Fine Art Adoption Network (FAAN) is an online network of artists, which uses a gift economy to connect artists and potential collectors.

All of the artworks on view on the site are available for adoption. This means acquiring an artwork without purchasing it, through an arrangement between the artist and collector. Their goal is to help increase and diversify the population of art owners and to offer artists new means for engaging their audience.

Visit them here.

Heartworks Online: Let the Bidding Begin

Nearly 100 contemporary artists from throughout the United States, and London and Paris, are now contributing work and performances for “HeartWorks, a unique, week-long Philadelphia event featuring music, video art, performance art and an exhibition of approximately 100 works of art, including painting, sculpture, glass, photography, jewelry, hats and more.

HeartWorks opens on Friday, April 18, 2008 at Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 Frankford Avenue and continues Saturday, April 19 through Saturday, April 26, 2008 in the Ice Box Project Space at the Crane Building, 1400 N. American Street. Tickets ranging from $10 - $125 are available at 215.546.7824; online at www.inliquid.com/heartworks; or at the Wilma Theatre Box Office, 265 South Broad Street. HeartWorks’ closing event on April 26 is a benefit and art auction for the Mazzoni Center, a Philadelphia health agency serving the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community, specializing in HIV treatment and care.

Curator Christopher Veit (who is from my new hometown of Media, PA) credits the Mazzoni Center with saving his life and is taking the words of his mentor Pierson – “you only get back what you put out in life” – to heart in creating “HeartWorks.”

Veit, whom I met a few weeks ago and is an amazing Rennaissance man, has decided to give the place and people who helped him get well a benefit of works and performances donated by his friends. All proceeds will support the Center. Lifestyle Magazine is a major sponsor for “HeartWorks.”

Some of the artists contributing to “HeartWorks” include painters Elyce Abrams, Dave Bond, Anthony Campuzano, Jeff Elrod, Daniel Gonzalez, Robert Gutierrez, Ian Hokin, Pearl C Hsiung, Jackadandy, Michael Lazarus, Isaac Lin, Jay Schuette, Jeni Spota, Thaddeus Strode, Hiroshi Sunairi and Henry Taylor; sculptors Paul Lee and Jason Meadows; photographers Karl Hahn and Mary Pinto; mixed-media artists Shari Elf, Mark X Farina, Adam Helms, Thom Merrick, Sandeep Mukherjee, Michele O' Marah, Randy Polumbo and John Williams; fashion designers Paul Bernstock, Michael Costiff, Bettina Hubby and Thelma Speirs; jewelry designers Annie Costello Brown and Mikal Winn; video artists and filmmakers Zaina Alwan, who also creates murals, Tom Borgese, Paul Slocum, Jack Sloss and Kim Stringfellow; performance artists David M. Jones, Ann Magnuson, Kelly Marie Martin and Khembra Pfhaler; musician Chad Brown; and Ellie Greenwood, Gia Grosso, Tim Jackson, Daniel McDonald, Ji Shin and Lisa Sitko and yours truly! See all the artists here.

Mazzoni Center focuses on the healthcare needs of Philadelphia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, and specializes in the treatment and care of HIV / AIDS. For more information regarding Mazzoni Center, go to www.mazzonicenter.org.

You can view the art auction and bid on the artwork here and you can bid on my donation, a charcoal drawing titled "Superman Flying Naked" here. It is a charcoal drawing, 9x13 inches matted and framed to 16x20 inches.

Artists' Talks: Cara Ober

Randall Scott Gallery in DC has special Saturday afternoon discussion featuring Kriston Capps, Brandon Fortune and Cara Ober discussing Cara Ober's new work, and whatever else pops into their heads.

Saturday, April 5th, 5pm to 6:30PM.

Philly opening tomorrow

Florence Putterman “Noir et Blanc” and Elizabeth Bisbing “People / Places / Paper” open tomorrow in Philadelphia's Projects Gallery.

This is the second solo exhibition of Florence Putterman at Projects. Known for her textural paintings and bold, earthy colors, Noir et Blanc features works in only black and white, focusing the exhibition on Putterman’s keen image-making. In Projects Room they also will present Elizabeth Bisbing in her first Philadelphia solo exhibition entitled "People / Places / Paper."

Both open First Friday, April 4th with an artist reception from 5-8 p.m. and continues through March 26, 2008.

Virginians at ComicCon

Greater DC area artists Carolyn Belefski and Joe Carabeo will appear in Artist Alley at New York ComicCon on April 18-20, 2008. Artist Alley is a special exhibitor space forprofessional artists to display and sell their work.

NYCC will take place April 18-20 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City and will host more than 400 exhibitors, hundreds of artists and over 150 special events.

Opening in Richmond tomorrow

Claire Watkins (kinetic sculpture, drawings), Joe Deroche (mixed media paintings and Rosana Barragan (performance) open tomorrow at Transmission in Richmond, VA. Performaces by Rosana Barragan will occur on the opening night at 8 and 9pm and the show runs April 4-26, 2008. The opening reception is from 7-10PM. Transmission is at 321 Brook Rd. (between Broad and Marshall St.) in Richmond, VA.

Watkins is one of the most talented artists that I have seen in quite a while. She has written about her work:

'The digestive system turns food into eyelashes. I am in awe of the minutiae and delicate actions that make up everyday life.

The machines I build reflect this awe and wonder. My work is intimate, curious and mesmerizing in its gestures. The translation of energy is both a functional and conceptual part of my work...With movement, I make machines that become creatures. I am fascinated by systems found within the body and the parallel structures located outside of it; the human brain and circuit boards, nerve systems and trees. How is the brain a computer and how is it an electrical storm?

The affects of electricity are curious. Neurons fire in your head with the memories of your life. Your toast gets burned. Electricity has a visual presence in my work, traveling through motors, lights, wires microcontrollers and drawings that are circuit boards. I want to expose the invisibility of electricity, a physical reminder of its presence.'

Closing on Sunday

Eric Finzi's terrific solo "My Double Life: musings on Sarah Bernhardt" at Heineman Myers Gallery in Bethesda closes on Sunday; don't miss this show!

Philadelphia Airport

It continues to perplex me how bad Philadelphia Airport is and how spoiled I was when living in the Dc area to have choices of airports and such a well-oiled machine in BWI or Dulles, or even Reagan National.

Of the dozens of flights that I have taken out of this airport in the last couple of years, one has left on time, and I have heard the most amazing excuses for delays, including one where someone forgot to charge a plane's batteries overnight.

This major airport also lacks a cell phone wait area, and as a result, cars double park on the offramp from I-95 - a rather dangerous and illegal issue.

And there seems to be a lack of electrical outlets, a serious issue in this age of laptops.

This airport sucks.

Denver to Launch Biennial of the Americas

In the historic tradition of Venice and Sao Paolo, the world's newest international contemporary art biennial is coming to Denver, Colorado.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper announced the city has received a $2 million grant from the Colorado-based Boettcher Foundation to help launch the Mile High City's inaugural Biennial of the Americas. Scheduled for the summer of 2010, the two-month-long curated event will be a celebration of contemporary art and ideas from throughout the Americas. The Biennial will feature two major cultural exhibitions, one focusing on the contemporary arts of the Americas and a secondary program, an "ideas pavilion," that will explore themes ranging from science to urban planning. Each program will be led by a respected curator.

Read all about it here.

Trouble in Reston

Bailey reports that there's art trouble in Reston, Virginia as Linda Hesh's "Stop The Conflict" posters that are part of the "Conflict" exhibition at the Greater Reston Arts Center and which were placed around Reston Town Center yesterday by GRACE staff have been ripped down and torn up.

Details and images here.

Update: GRACE sent out this note to the "Conflict" artists:

Dear Artists,

We would like you to have the correct information about an incident related to the exhibition.

As many of you know, Linda Hesh’s posters saying STOP THE CONFLICT have been torn down from the construction fence across from GRACE. Our director, John Alciati and I have met the individual and talked with him about why he has done this. (He torn them down twice) He claims to be working for the company that owns the fence and says that he was directed to do this. The fence is owned by the development company, Kettler, who has given us permission to use it to promote our exhibitions. In the fall we used the fence without incident for over 2 months with posters about FLOW: The Landscape of Migration.

We do not know this person’s motivation and we do not know who he really works for but we will try to gather more information. He does not work for the property management company and he does not work for Reston Town Center. Please do not say that he is a town employee. We are not sure who his employer is.

In the interest of dialogue we prefer to not make assumptions about this individual. On one positive note, during the second encounter he did tell John that he knew our intentions were good. Let’s not make assumptions about his intentions until we have further conversations with him.

We look forward to a wonderful opening tomorrow night. The show is fine testimony to your integrity as artists and your courage to speak the truth.

Best wishes,

Joanne Bauer
Exhibitions Director
Greater Reston Arts Center

Airborne again



Heading to Boston to do a studio visit here. More later...

Plein Air Easton

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 think 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.

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 seaside village. All the details are here.

Artists' Talks: Bethesda, MD

On Saturday, April 5th, Marie Ringwald's really cool Neptune exhibit (I saw it recently through the gallery windows) ends with an artist’s talk at 5 PM.

There are some nice installation shots here.

Fair Report: Arteaméricas 2008

I hear that Arteaméricas 2008, the sixth edition of this international art fair focusing on Latin American Art broke all kinds of sales records.

Miami's Cernuda Arte, which focuses on vintage and some contemporary Cuban art had total sales that surpassed 800,000 dollars, including a landscape painting by Tomás Sánchez, a Wifredo Lam oil on canvas, and works by René Portocarrero, Mariano Rodríguez, among other Cuban masters and contemporary artists.

Tomah High School District... tsk, tsk

Time for this Wisconsin High School to be embarrassed nationally:

A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.

The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw "demonic" images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional.

"We hear so much today about tolerance," said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. "But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message."

Read the AP story here and read the complaint here.

Here is the offending drawing:

If there's actually a class policy "prohibiting religion in art" that worries me a lot; does that policy extend to the teaching of art and art history? If so that would leave out most of the ground floors of most of the planet's art history and several floors and the basement of art itself.

What a stupid, narrow-minded, ignorant, barbaric policy! What sort of troglodytes are these policymakers? (My apologies to Cavemen/women everywhere).

It gets worse... apparently the below two drawings got a passing grade.


and


I think that all three of these works - as art - are pretty bad and pretty much what one would expect out of your typical High School student.

I also think that perhaps the art school teacher - or whoever made the decision to censor and fail the first drawing - must have skipped his or her Sunday School classes, or his religion classes in college, for aren't devils and demons also religious art?

They are aren't they?

Satan in his many names and incarnations and depictions (of which the above two are truly bad, especially the one in which he sorta looks like Gene Simmons from KISS) are also part of multiple religions, including playing a major, Oscar-winning role in Judeo-Christian religion.

So why were the depictions of Lucifer OK under the school's idiotic prohibition of religion in art, but not the one incorporating both Christian imagery and text into the artwork?

The case can be made that all three pieces could come from Biblical references - in fact, they almost look like they could have come from the same artist, don't they?

I am sure that they don't, but you get my point.

It leads one to wondering to what would have happened if the student had used his average art skills to depict something from the old Norse pantheon, or from Buddhism, or Native American beliefs, or God forbid (pun intended) from Islam?

Nothing probably, as I suspect that since the average member of the Tomah High School Art Censorship Board seems to have skipped "World Religions 101" in their educational background, a crude drawing of Loki would have received a pass in this class rather than a fail for depicting religion in art.

What else or specifically is prohibited in art classes at this High School? According to the lawsuit: "violence, blood, sexual connotations or religious belief." Also "drugs, gangs or religious symbols." Also according to the lawsuit (see page 13), there is apparently a host of other religious artwork by students floating around this High School's halls and walls.

This makes my head hurt...

Also in C'ville

Rob Tarbell's "No Mirrors: new smoke work" opens in Charlottesville's Les Yeux du Monde Gallery this coming Friday April 4th, 5:30 - 7:30 pm.

Questioning Jasper Johns

Read Robert Zaller's essay on Jasper Johns' place in American art history here.

WGS opens in Charlottesville

Erwin Timmers, Michael Janis and Tim Tate, the driving forces behind the Washington Glass School make their debut in Charlottesville this coming Friday, April 4, 2008 at C'ville's leading gallery, Migrations. The opening reception is from 5:30pm - 8pm.

"Synchrony" Opens at Delaplaine Center‏

"Synchrony," a sculptural installation by Workingman Collective, will be on exhibition from April 5-27 at The Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center in downtown Frederick, MD.

This motion-driven installation will be created by regionally-known artists, Tom Ashcraft, Janis Goodman, and Peter Winant, who make up the Collective. Goodman and Winant appear on the WETA program "Around Town."

Cuban Art: Four Key Women Artists


This is the poster for the grand opening of a new fine arts gallery in Norfolk, Virginia, Mayer Fine Art, which opens on April 12, 2008 with an exhibition curated by yours truly.

For Mayer Fine Art I selected the work of four of the leading contemporary Cuban artists in the world: Sandra Ramos, Aimee Garcia Marrero, Cirenaica Moreira (all of whom live and work in Havana) and Marta Maria Perez Bravo, who currently resides in Mexico, where she teaches.

"Maleficio" by Marta Maria Perez Bravo
Much like Migrations did for Charlottesville, I think that Mayer Fine Art will go a long way to put the Tidewater area on the fine arts map from an independent commercial fine arts gallery perspective.


"La Libertad es una palabra enorme" [Freedom is a huge word] by Cirenaica Moreira
More on the exhibition and the trails and tribulations and expenses of getting contemporary Cuban artwork -- especially the kind not vetted nor approved by the Cuban dictatorship -- on American soil later...

Daphne

"Daphne," charcoal on paper, c.2008 by F. Lennox Campello, 7x10 inches
Read the myth of Daphne here.

Exhale

If the Armory Show was supposed to be a test of how the art market was faring amid tumultuous finan­cial markets, initial results revealed that the fair more than passed—and exceeded the expectations of many of the more jittery dealers.

Now that many have made sales, dealers readily admit that they arrived on Pier 94 with butterflies in their stomachs. “If I had applied two weeks ago instead of a year ago, I wouldn’t have come,” said Andreas Brändström of Brändström & Stene (118) in Stockholm. “The collapse of Bear Stearns is a huge issue in Europe,” he said. But by the second day, he said: “My sales are even better than last year’s.”

Read the whole article from the Art Newspaper here.

Conflict Opens at GRACE



Six artists using conflict as a catalyst open at the Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, VA this Friday: James W. Bailey, Aylene Fallah, Judith Forst, Linda Hesh, Carolina Mayorga and Matt Ravenstahl.

Opening Reception: Friday April 4, 6 -8 pmand Artists' Perspective Thursday April, 10 7pm. Exhibition: April 4 - May 3, 2008.

Artists' Interviews: Cara Ober

DCist's Amy Cavanaugh has an excellent interview with Baltimore artist Cara Ober. Read the interview here.

Curiously though, and unusual for DCist, comments are not enabled for this interview?

Update: DCist tells me that "Comments are never enabled on our interviews, out of respect for the person who granted us their time." Makes sense to me!

Henderson & Taylor Open in Alexandria

Sofia Silva opens in Baltimore

Kirkland on Kehinde Wiley

JT on Kehinde Wiley at the SAAM/Portrait Gallery's Hip Hop show. Read it here.

Arts on a Budget

The Washington Post's Dan Zak pops in with a really interesting article on collecting artwork on a budget; read it here.

My best deal ever? I bought about four small original Ben Tolman paintings a few years ago at DCAC's annual "Wall Mountables" show for about $20 a piece.

Money makes the art world go 'round?

"You can whack them with a shovel. You can shoot them, poison, stab or throttle them. You can threaten their families and you can hound them in the press; you can put them down any way you like, but some artists refuse to stay down. What does this tell us? That artists are the undead? Or, worse, that criticism is in crisis?

At almost every international art fair over the past few years, there has been a panel discussion about the crisis in art criticism. I have found myself talking about the topic in London, Madrid, Berlin and Miami. Wherever critics are paid to gather (you wouldn't catch us in the same room otherwise), they go on about the crisis. These debates have become an occupational hazard - but they also pay well. If I had known there was money in it, I would have invented a crisis myself."

Has big money replaced the art critic as the true authority in the art world?

Read this very interesting article by The Guardian's Adrian Searle here... and then read this clever piece by blogger Alex Needham here.

Artomatic Registration Now Open

Registration for AOM visual and performing artists is now open. Click here to register and reserve your space.

Wanna hang around with some sculptors in DC?

The Washington Sculptors Group invites you to join them to meet and chat with fellow sculptors and sculpture lovers on the last Monday of every month at 6:00 PM (March 31, April 28th, May 26th, June 30th etc.).

Meetings take place at Gordon Biersch Restaurant in DC.

Artists Interviews: Doris Colbert Kennedy

Boston

Next week I am going to Boston for a studio visit and also to visit an arts-related business looking for some "new" online presence(s) advice and work.

Any Bostonians out there with a "must see" exhibition - drop me a line...

Artists' Websites: Rosemary Feit Covey

Dark Summer, c.1990, 15 x 13 by Rosemary Feit Covey
If there's a better wood engraver on the planet, I do not know who he/she is... as far as I am concerned, no one is better than this modern master, who continues to surprise me, gross me out, enlighten me, and always impress me with both her enviable technical skills and her super-sharp ability to cut deeply into my psyche.

Visit her website here and check out her new work here.

Words that count, or counting... period?

Earlier this week, GrammarPolice scribe and Washington City Paper gallery critic and good friend Kriston Capps and Washington City Paper museum art critic (and Arlington Arts Center curator) and also good friend Jeffry Cudlin -- joined in a little by the dynamic Philippa Hughes) -- hashed out the significance of Capp's words and counting skills in Capps' CP piece on "Collectors Select" at the Arlington Arts Center.

Specifically, the online chatterfuss is about the parts of Capps' review that deal with Philippa Hughes and Tim Conlon; Capps wrote:

[Daniel] Lavinas shows [the work of León Ferrari] without pretension: His biggest intervention is to have the gallery painted a deep shade of cherry-lambic red to match the heliographs. Philippa Hughes went further. The least experienced collector in the group, Hughes invited some graffiti artists—Tim Conlon, Bryan Conner, RAMS, and the Soviet—to tag her room. The intervention is the work here. But Hughes is bursting through a door that's been open for nearly three decades. There's still room for innovation in graffiti, but graffiti in a room isn't innovative alone (even if it shares the room with floor-to-ceiling Tiffany windows, as it does here). Context notwithstanding, the work by Conlon (which takes up most of the room) is dull in any formal sense. As tags, they're not particularly intricate or witty; as abstraction, they don't offer much.

Regardless of how you feel about Capps' words, opinions, advice, and counting skills in the review, this discussion is interesting to me because (a) it shows the blogsphere ability to challenge a writer's words and if needed correct his errors and (b) because it puts my good friend Jeffry Cudlin on the receiving and thus defensive end of a review which may not be in synch with what he perceives to be the real story or guts of an exhibition.

It tears me a little in both directions, because I am of the opinion that any review is a good review, and considering the dearth of art criticism in the Greater Washington DC area, Cudlin does give his colleague props for making his way to Arlington (Capps doesn't have an automobile, and it's a nice walk from the Metro stop to the Arlington Arts Center).

In the past, whenever someone has reviewed either my own work or a show that I have curated, even if there have been glaring mistakes, I have nearly always resorted to biting my lip and thanking the critic for the review.

On the other hand, when in reviewing someone else's show not-my-own, and a critic makes a mistake, or just gets something about the artist or exhibition plainly wrong, as a third party I'm glad to call them out on it.

But most gallerists, and a large percentage of artists and curators, have learned the hard way to just bite their lip, sigh and maybe bring up the error or the real "mark" - if the missed mark or error is egregious enough - in private to the writer.

I'm sure that Cudlin, in his capacity as a critic has received his fair share of complaints about his own writing - I myself have both chided and praised his words in the past -- but now it is interesting to see him react when he feels the criticism has missed the mark when the words are aimed in his own direction.

Was the substance of the complaint big enough to merit the fuss? I'm not sure, but it's a brave and interesting teen-aged world out there, where both valid and sock puppet commenting all add their own weird dialogue to the discourse and leave a new digital footprint for art exhibitions, artists, critics and opinions about their opinions.

A new model for the new Internet model?

For the first five years, the Jen Bekman Gallery, near the Bowery, lost money — and Bekman didn't have much to lose. She drained her 401(k), and racked up debt on her credit cards. Sometimes she slept in her mom's living room so she could sublet her apartment. Last year, when she couldn't pay the electric bill, the gallery's lights were cut off.

But Bekman stubbornly clung her basic idea: "There are a lot of people out there who want to sell their art, and a lot of people who'd like to buy it," Her job was to introduce the emerging artists to the emerging collectors.

An Internet person, she did Internet things. She blogged (personism.com). She started an open-to-all-comers on-line competition called "Hey, Hot Shot!" (heyhotshot.com) — one that gave the winner a shot at a gallery show, in Bekman's bona-fide New York gallery. (This is not the kind of thing that regular galleries do.)

Last year, she got the idea for 20x200. IM-ing each other, a few of her Internet friends put together a clean, cool Web site for what little Bekman could afford. It went live in September — and soon after, broke even. Sometimes 20x200 editions sell out within a week, or even days.

About half the purchases, Bekman says proudly, are from repeat customers some of whom grow brave enough to spend more than $20. And the site's success has spilled over, attracting new collectors to Bekman's traditional gallery.

Bekman, who once couldn't get an Internet job, has become a star in the digital universe. At South By Southwest this month, her old Internet friends bestowed on her the coolest adjective in their lexicon: "Disruptive." Her Web site, they said, is changing the way the art world works.

And that's impressed the art world, where once she was an outsider. For Christmas, a Museum of Modern Art curator bought 20x200 Christmas presents for his staff. American Photo Magazine named her its Innovator of the Year. And this month, she's mentioned in both Wired and Redbook — surely the first time anyone has appeared simultaneously in those magazines.

Read more about Jen Bekman and her radical website 20x200 in this terrific article by Lisa Gray.

The Tribulations of a Ruined Gallerist

“Our society now values a Warhol for three times as much money as a great Rembrandt,” he thunders, referring to the latest auction reports. “That tells me that we’re fucked. It’s as if people would rather fuck than make love.”

He says the last sentence slowly, emphasizing each word.

“That’s the difference between the Warhol and the Rembrandt,” Salander continues. “Being with Rembrandt is like making love. And being with Warhol is like fucking.”

Read this really interesting feature by James Panero in New York Arts here.

Student Shows at the Corcoran

The 2008 Corcoran School BFA Senior Thesis Exhibitions consist of a series of week-long, rotating exhibitions in Gallery 31, featuring photojournalism, photography, graphic design, digital media design and fine art produced by members of the graduating class, grouped by major. Seniors in the College’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program are responsible for all aspects of their thesis exhibitions.

The exhibits are on display and changing weekly now.

The individual shows culminate in May in the 2008 All-Senior Exhibition, a dynamic exhibition installed in four museum galleries, representing all disciplines and featuring work by every student in the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program.

Meet the Artist - DC

Rick Nahmias, L.A. photographer and creator of “The Migrant Project,” which was first a photo exhibit and activist project and is now a book, will be welcomed by the Mexican Cultural Institute in DC on Monday, March 31, from 6-9 pm. Come talk to Rick about the slow food movement, migrant workers, and what Americans can do to change attitudes about what we eat.

There is a book signing and reception at the Mexican Cultural Institute, 2829 16th St. NW, Washington D.C. Exhibition of photographs from The Migrant Project runs from February 21 through April 14.

Manon Cleary

There's a great interview of DC area artist Manon Cleary in The New Gay.

Read it here.

Student Show

Anne Arundel Community College will exhibit a student art show from April 4 through April 27 in the Pascal Center for Performing Arts Gallery, 101 College Parkway, Arnold, Maryland. Hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 .m. to 4 p.m. Fridays. Free. 410-777-222188 or www.aacc.edu.

Another blow?

"Not all in the art business are convinced by the investment rationale for art from Asia, a region notorious for fakes, poor authentication and high transaction costs,” says Mei Jianping, former New York City professor and the creator of Mei/Moses index, which tracks prices of western art.

Read "The Art Fund Racket" here.

Opportunity for printmakers

Deadline: 26 May 2008.

Washington Printmakers Gallery announces the eleventh annual small works exhibition, Washington Printmakers National Small Works 2008, juried this year by Ann Shafer, Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Baltimore Museum of Art. All artists residing in the USA and 18 years of age or older may submit original, hand-pulled, artist-made prints in any media; photographs and digital prints are ineligible.

Entry fee: $30 for up to 4 images. Preliminary selection will be made from slides or digital images (JPEG files no larger than 5 inches, 200 dpi). Entries accepted for exhibition must be archivally matted and framed under Plexiglas, wired and ready to hang. All entries must be for sale. First place award: a solo show at Washington Printmakers Gallery in August 2009; 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th prizes are merchandise awards from major art suppliers. Prospectus or further information may be downloaded from www.washingtonprintmakers.com, or by contacting Washington Printmakers Gallery at 202:332.7757 (e-mail wpg@visi.net).

GMU

As I walked up to the The Fifth Annual Visual Culture Symposium, “Intended to Provoke: Social Action in Visual Culture[s]” at George Mason University in Fairfax, the greeting bronze of the university's namesake had been decorated with a bozo wig and some sort of red Superman cape.

Mason's statue is at the street level, where creative students can get to it. In my old alma matter (University of Washington), they know better, and the other George is on a pedestal 20 feet or so above the crowd, where one needs a tall ladder to get to him.

Artperk

A new website where artists can locate display opportunities and gallery openings was launched last week, www.artperk.com. Based in the metro DC area, but listing national opportunities, this site does a few things most other websites of this type do not. You have the ability to search for opportunities by media (nice for sculptors and photographers, sometimes not allowed in juried shows), by location (if you’re partial to show your work only near your home), and other search parameters.

Also, it allows you to save the items you have found in our searches and receive emails as reminders. The site is free for artists, galleries, and everyone else. Galleries can create listings for a fee if they’d like front page placement and a few other advantages.

The owners of the site have reported that they will be adding new features weekly, including new types of opportunities such as jobs and residencies for artists, and articles on business and marketing.

Visit them here.

Spring 2008 Shows at the American University Museum at the Katzen

Jack Rassmusen has lined another excellent set of offering at AU...

Personal Landscapes: Contemporary Art from Israel (Tuesday, April 1–Sunday, May 18) This exhibition, which coincides with the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, is a collaboration between the American University Museum, the Center for Israel Studies and the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation. The exhibit features works from fifteen emerging Israeli artists that reveal the physical, emotional and intellectual landscape of contemporary Israel.

Willem de Looper (Tuesday, April 1–Sunday, May 18): Born in 1932 in The Hague, Netherlands, Willem de Looper studied under Ben L. Summerford and Robert Gates at American University and was the long-time curator of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. This one-person show examines de Looper’s unique contributions to color field abstraction developed during the past fifty years.

American University Art Department: Student Exhibitions (Tuesday, April 1–Sunday, May 18) American University’s Department of Art showcases work by undergraduate (April 1–6), first year MFA (April 10–15) and MFA thesis students (April 19–May18). Painting, prints, sculptures, design and video installations will be included.

Photos from the Prague Quadrennial 2007 (Tuesday, April 1–Sunday, May 18): This selection of 35 photographs from the 11th International Exhibition of Scenography and Theatre Architecture—Prague Quadrennial 2007— showcases the excitement and vibrancy of the festival that celebrated its 40th anniversary with a record-breaking number of 35,000 visitors from more than 70 countries.

William Christenberry: Site/Possession: Tuesday, Feb. 5–Sunday, May 11 (**note new closing date, originally scheduled to close March 22) Organized by the University of Virginia Art Museum, this exhibition features 50 of Christenberry’s rarely-exhibited drawings and the Klan Room Tableau, which includes over 200 works. According to Christenberry this body of work describes his “visceral reaction to this wholly and abhorrently American phenomenon, which, although officially excised from the public, still exists and arouses intense feelings in all areas of the country.”

Washington International Print Fair

Saturday and Sunday April 5 and 6, 2008, Saturday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

At the Holiday Inn - Rosslyn Westpark Hotel, 1900 North Fort Myer Drive, Arlington VA, 22209; Free Parking. Just over the Key Bridge from Georgetown. One block from the Rosslyn Metro stop.

Details here.

75%!

Halcyon Gallery, which opened its new 7,000 sq. ft gallery on Bruton Street last month, is suing one of its former artists, Sarah-Jane Szikora. As part of the dispute, it has emerged that Halcyon has taken up to 75% on Ms Szikora’s sales of original work.

Read the story here.

Most commercial galleries have a 50% commission, some cooperatives and non-profits have a 30-40% commission rate, but there are already some NYC galleries at the 75% commission level.

MFA at MICA

Friday, March 28– Sunday, April 6
Decker and Meyerhoff galleries, Fox Building
Reception: Friday, March 28, 5–7 pm
Gallery Talks: Wednesday, April 2, 1–4 pm

MFA I Featuring: Becky Alprin (Mount Royal), Beth Blinebury (photo), Lauren Boilini (Mount Royal), Ryan Browning (Mount Royal), Andrew Buckland (photo), Katie Cirasuolo (Rinehart), Anna DiCicco (photo), Meaghan Harrison (Mount Royal), HyunSoo Lim (graphic design), April Osmanof (graphic design), Becky Slemmons (Mount Royal), Mary Tait (Mount Royal), Yue Tuo (graphic design), and scrapworm (c. wrenn) (Mount Royal).

Fair Trouble

Not only are some art fairs both in the US and abroad (Germany and UK) cancelling - like artDC did for DC area - but another sign of fair troubles is the fact that many US art fairs have and are extending their deadlines for gallery applications.

That possibly means that not enough galleries are applying. And when the fair organizers actually call you to talk you into applying, that's certainly a bleak sign of harsh times ahead.

This is where the market decides who floats and who sinks. It will be interesting to see what Armory week looks like this weekend in NYC.

Cuban Art is Caliente!

From the Wall Street Journal:

With art from Asia and Russia in demand, some in the art world are betting on Cuba to be the next hot corner of the market. Prices for Cuban art are climbing at galleries and auction houses, and major museums are adding to their Cuban collections. In May, Sotheby's broke the auction record for a Cuban work when it sold Mario Carreño's modernist painting "Danza Afro-Cubana" for $2.6 million, triple its high estimate.

Now, with a new Cuban president in power and some hope emerging for looser travel and trade restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba, American collectors and art investors are moving quickly to tap into the market. Some are getting into Cuba by setting up humanitarian missions and scouting art while they're there. Others are ordering works from Cuba based on email images and having them shipped.

The collectors are taking advantage of a little-known exception to the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba: It is legal for Americans to buy Cuban art.

I will be curating two Cuban art shows this year: one in Norfolk opening next April 12 for Mayer Fine Art and another in Maryland later this year for H&F Fine Arts.

One thing to be careful about: there will be chaos when the Cuban dictators finally step aside, and I suspect that "government sanctioned artists" will not be at the top of their game - if anything, collecting dissident Cuban art is the key.

I've been telling all of you for years now: Buy Cuban art!

Will this ever end?

To the untutored eye, they are simply huge rectangular panels - reds, yellows, blues, greens - that have hung like oversized Post-it Notes on the walls of the cavernous federal courthouse since it opened a decade ago. Hundreds of people pass them daily; few seem to notice.

In fact, the fiberglass-and-aluminum panels are among the most valuable works of art in Boston by a living artist, commissioned at a cost of $800,000 in tax dollars, and probably worth millions today. The revelation usually leaves visitors to the John Joseph Moakley courthouse incredulous or bemused.

Read the Boston Globe story here.



Leads me to wonder: what's the most expensive piece of public art in New York, or Philadelphia, or Washington, DC, or Topeka, Kansas?

Most expensive doesn't mean most popular... For popular, in DC I would guess the Viet-Nam Memorial; in Philly the Rocky Statue; in NYC, maybe the Statue of Liberty?

Any ideas or suggestions?

Opportunity for Artists in McLean, VA

Deadline: April 11, 2008

The McLean Project for the Arts has announced a Call for Entries for Once Again, Again: Rhythm and Repetition. Artists notification: Late April. Exhibition Dates: June 19 - July 26, 2008. Juror: Annie Gawlak of G Fine Art.

Eligibility: All Mid-Atlantic artists (DC,VA,MD,DE,PA,NJ,WV) artists are invited to submit up to four digital images (jpegs) of 2 or 3 dimensional, installation or video works completed within the last two years and not previously exhibited at MPA.

Works that employ multiple images or repetition as concept and/or technique will be considered. Works that move beyond traditional forms and media are encouraged. Works must fit through 81" x 65" doorway. Awards: Cash prizes totaling $1500 will be awarded by the juror. Decisions are final. Entry Fee $25. Fee waived for current MPA members. Fee includes one-year artist membership to MPA. For more information and entry form, go to this website.

Opportunity for Artists in Philly

Deadline: April 27, 2008

Vox Populi, a member-run artist collective, founded in Philadelphia in 1988 to support the work of emerging artists with regular exhibitions, lectures, gallery talks and related programming, is currently accepting submissions for the gallery's annual juried exhibition.

Solid Gold will be on exhibition at Vox from June 6 through June 27 and is being juried by Adelina Vlas, Assistant Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Sarah McEneaney, visual artist. Artists of all media are invited to submit 3 or 5 examples of works. All work submitted for consideration must be available for exhibition.

Fee: $20 for 3 submissions, $30 for 5 submissions.

For more detailed information, requirements and submission form, please visit here.

Wanna go to a DC opening this Friday?


The artists featured in this month's Longview Gallery in DC were selected by Stephen Bennett Phillips (formerly of the Phillips Collection) for the New American Paintings publication, Volume No. 69. I've heard all kinds of great stories from artists whose selection to that publication has led to good gallery attention.

And here is a real life example!

Robert Sparrow Jones' works are loose and energetic, relying on a bright and forceful color scheme to evoke an emotional response.

Jamie Pocklington’s subjects come mostly from internet photos albums and image search engines. He is drawn and appropriates images that have universal qualities that he then collages into new scenarios, out of context of the original photos.

The opening reception is Friday, March 28, 5-8pm.

Congrats

To DC area artist Tim Tate, whose Chicago debut in a cool four person show opened in the middle of a Chicago snowstorm last weekend in Chicago's ubergallery Marx Saunders.

Five years ago or so, you could have acquired a piece by Tate for around $600 bucks - at this show, his work is going for as high as mid 20s.

Details of the Chicago show here.

This week

This week Dr. C. Everett Koop, Dr. Gary Vikan, Mr. Fred Lazarus, myself and others -- will be jurying the artwork for the The Innovators Combatting Substance Abuse Program in Baltimore.

Then on Thursday I'll be at The Fifth Annual Visual Culture Symposium, “Intended to Provoke: Social Action in Visual Culture[s]” will take place at George Mason University on Thursday, March 27, 2008 as I have been invited to participate.

I will be discussing the emergence of a significant number of visual art blogs at the turn of the new century. This emergence was almost immediately ignored by both the mainstream media and the fine arts world. Just a few years later art blogs not only challenge the mainstream media in the reporting and discussion of the arts, but often lead the way in in-depth announcement, discussion, imagery and promulgation of socially challenging, subversive or political art, as well as presenting historically bound street art, such as graffiti and street installations to worldwide audience.

In this presentation I will discuss the emergence of visual art blogs and offer examples of how blogs have taken over the lead from other sources and venues, as the leading proponent, critic and publicist for art intended and created in order to provoke. The presentation includes discussion and examples of work from artists from places such as Cuba and Iran, which was only recognized and discovered by a worldwide audience through those artists’ own illegal blogs or discussion of their work in other blogs or through the process knows as the “blog roll.”

Questioning accepted literary styles, the visual art bloggers also became part of the social reaction towards established art criticism, and in a way also provided a way to criticize and dissect the critic him/herself. I draw on a variety of widely read visual art blogs to establish bloggers initial discordance and break from formal art criticism and reporting conventions and the eventual alignment of many of them with the same conventions as their influence grew. As a visual arts multi-political and international force they now wield a powerful impact on what is considered an “intentionally political work of art,” such as the Abu Ghraib paintings by Colombian artist Fernando Botero or the chalcography etchings by Cuban artist Sandra Ramos Lorenzo.

The day-long Symposium is being held at the Johnson Center Cinema at George Mason’s Fairfax Campus. The day will end with a reception in the art gallery on the first floor of the Johnson Center, Gallery 123.

Schedule - "Intended to Provoke:Social Action in Visual Culture[s]"
March 27, 2008
George Mason University

9:00 – 9:30a.m. Introduction & Video

9:30-11:00a.m.
Panel 1:
1. Robles & Stein (Community Art)
2. Wolpa (Visual Culture education)
3. Cohn (Design School)
4. Campello (Art Blogs)

11:15a.m. – 12:15p.m.
Panel 2:
1. Derr (Walking/Chance)
2. Namaste (non-violent intervention)
3. McCoy (bodies in China)

12:30 – 1:00p.m.
Dance Performance

1:00 - 2:00p.m.
Panel 3:
1. Johnson (Crises & the everyday)
2. Greet (Ecuador)
3. Campbell (culture jamming)

2:00 - 2:15p.m.
Mark Cooley and Art Exhibit Selections

2:15 – 3:15p.m.
Panel 4:
1. Clements (childbirth)
2. Slavick (R&R/altered images & things)
3. Okunseinde (Fugitives)

3:30 – 4:15p.m. Keynote/Debate

4:30 – 5:30 p.m. – Art Exhibit/Reception

Wreckfest

Easter

El Greco's "Resurrection"

Congrats!

To Tyson's Corner Habatat Gallery which is celebrating its first year anniversary with a terrific exhibition of figurative work by artists such as Bertil Vallien, Mary Van Cline, Robin Grebe, Clifford Rainey, Rick Beck, Patti Warashina, Dan Dailey and Janusz Walentynowicz.

They are having an anniversary party on the evening of March 27th. If you are interested in attending you must RSVP to lindsey@habatatgalleries.com.

Artists' Websites

"Next Generation" by Erwin Timmers
Erwin Timmer's work embraces concepts and principles of using sustainable resources to convey ideas about the relationship between industrial and natural resources; his philosophy aligns with concepts and elements of the emerging "green art" movement.

Erwin is also one of the founders and directors of the Washington Glass School in Mt. Rainer, MD and works with recycled materials, primarily glass and metal. His most recent works focus on the use of recycled materials to convey ideas about the relationship between human craft making and industrial technology.

Timmers is interested in identifying partners who share a commitment to using sustainable resources to contribute to the quality and craft of the architectural spaces in which art exists.

You can view Erwin's background and work at www.ecoglassart.com.

New Strauss Fellowships for Individual Artists

Deadline: April 15, 2008

The Fairfax County Arts Council announced a new grants program for individual artists from Fairfax County in VA called the Strauss Fellowships. Named for Bill Strauss (1947-2007), gifted writer, cofounder of the Capitol Steps and the Cappies, the Strauss Fellowships support and encourage Fairfax County’s finest creative artists in all disciplines and recognize professional working artists’ achievements and their demonstrated history of accomplishments; they promote artists’ continued pursuit of their creative work.

Strauss Fellowships are an investment in the sustained growth and development of the arts in Fairfax County as well as a way to honor artists’ commitment to an artistic discipline, their professional activity in Fairfax County, and their contributions to the quality of life in Fairfax County. Guidelines and application materials are available online at www.artsfairfax.org. The application deadline is April 15, 2008.

Job in the Arts: WPA Looking for Program Director

DC's Washington Project for the Arts is looking to hire a Program Director. The PD initiates and supports WPA, and WPA-partnered, exhibitions, programs and projects, coordinates the activities of all WPA interns and volunteers; oversees projects initiated by the WPA Executive Director, WPA Board of Trustees and the WPA Artist Council.

Salary and benefits is commensurate with experience and skill and at a minimum is $35K.

The ideal candidate will have a B.A. in Arts and Sciences, Art History or Museum Studies, or a B.F.A., (M.A. preferred), a broad knowledge of and experience in the contemporary arts in the region, across all art forms, past work experience with outreach initiatives or public programs in an arts organization,
excellent organization, writing, administrative and technology skills.

For details call 202/234-7103.

Prices

I've just had an interesting email exchange with a very well-known artist, whose work I have sold many times in the past, and whose work I hope to sell again soon.

She was giving me prices for her new work, and checking up with me and all her other dealers I assume, because she noted that some galleries were selling a particular older limited edition etching for $3,000 each, when the gallery price should be $5,000.

I've never seen this work listed for under $5,000, but I digress.

She affirmed that the gallery price for that particular work was $5,000 and that only she could sell her own work in her own studio for $3,000.

What?

This is a harsh lessons that most artists need to learn very quickly: An artist cannot afford to compete with him/herself when it comes to prices.

The exact same editioned work can't be sold for $1000 in DC, for $4000 in London, for $300 in Brazil and for $500 bucks in your studio. The same size painting cannot wonder all over the price scale depending where it's being sold.

See what that does?

1. It can damage the reputation of a dealer. Imagine the collector who pays $4,000 in London when he sees the same work for $500. The immediate reaction is "that dealer ripped me off," not realizing that the artist is the one who is ripping everyone off by creating price confusion and trying to pass the gallery commission off to the collector. A good artist and gallery relationship is a symbiotic one, not a money struggle.

2. It will damage the reputation of the artist and will always bring the "real" price of the work down to the lowest price, when the idea is for art dealers and artists to work together to raise demand and thus prices; not have prices wondering all over the scale.

This is very different from the secondary art market, where auction prices can wonder wildly all over the place.

But artists must be consistent in their pricing and swallow the bitter pill that if they are going to work with an art gallery or art dealer or many of both, then they can't have them competing with each other and also with the artist, because a good art dealer's job is to protect both the artist and the collector.

Of course there are nuances to this process... both dealers and artists should have a specified leeway to give collector's discounts to ahhh... collectors, and also offer discounts to multiple buys when someone buys several works at once.

But not discount your own work by 50% just because it is being sold out of your studio.

That just drags your prices down and will cause your art dealer to scold and educate you, or even drop you.

Of course, like some artists that I know, if you do not need an art dealer and can sell your own work all the time, then -- since you are the only one selling it -- you control prices and can do whatever you want, and hopefully won't be having art "sales" where you'll be "discounting" the work that you sold to collectors a week earlier for a specific price, to a much lower price.

It's a little complicated at first, but once you truly examine the issue, then it should be clear to see that the idea and goal is to expose your artwork, get it seen, commented upon and -- if that's your goal -- sold for a fair and reasonable price, and letting the laws of economics take it to where it should be.

But definitely not under the "blue light special" of your own studio.

Sandra Ramos Lorenzo

Later this year I will be curating two exhibitions of art by Cuban and Cuban-American artists for Mayer Fine Arts in Norfolk, Virginia and H&F Fine Arts in Maryland.

One of my favorite contemporary Cuban artists is Havana's intelligent and courageous Sandra Ramos Lorenzo, whose American commercial gallery debut took place at the original Fraser Gallery in Georgetown a few years ago.

Cuban artist Sandra Ramos is considered by many to be the leading Cuban visual artist of her generation, and it was a surprise in the case of that Fraser show because she was not allowed to visit the US for her opening.

Since she had previously visited the US many times, both for museum shows in other American cities and for museum art conferences (as invited speaker), and since her work is in the permanent collection of many prestigious American museums, such as The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston, it came to her as a shock when her visa to attend her Washington, DC opening was denied a few years ago.

Her work, which often delivers visceral commentaries dealing with taboo issues in Cuban society such as racism, mass migration, freedoms and liberties and the impact of Communism on the Cuban psyche, has placed Ramos at the very leading edge of a group of young Cuban artists who use their art as a narrative medium to describe, criticize and export the harsh realities of Cuban life and the world in which they live and work.

One of Ramos’ most poignant works, in the collection of MOMA in New York best exemplifies the work that has made her famous. Titled in Spanish “The Damned Circumstance of Being Surrounded by Water,” Ramos transforms her image (as a little girl) onto the shape of Cuba, her body pinned to the island by bright red Royal Palms (the national tree of Cuba) changed from its natural color to the color of the Cuban Revolution. This mixed media print sells for $5,000 USD and I am told by Ramos that she's about to run out of the edition (edition of 50 as I recall).

This is one of those key Cuban artists who should become better known once Cuba's Communist sentence ends and Cuban artwork can become easier to obtain and show in the United States.

Buy Sandra Ramos now!

States' Arts funding grows in Fiscal Year 2008

We are being told that the economic sky is falling, but the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies' latest Legislative Appropriations Annual Survey reports that appropriations to state arts agencies currently stand at $359.6 million. Between fiscal years 2007 and 2008, state arts agencies gained $9.5 million in state funds, an increase of 2.7 percent.

Note Florida's massive cuts, accounted for "lower than anticipated state revenues."

Also note that the District of Columbia puts out $9.38M, while cheapskate states like Colorado ($1.5M) appear to barely support the state's arts agencies, and even more amazing, DC puts more money towards the city's art agencies than Virginia (which did increase by almost 27% by the way).

Real cheapskate award: California at $4M.

Spending too much for its own good award: New York state is projected by some to have a 6.3 billion dollar budget deficit, yet the Empire State puts out a whooping $51.8M.

Odd state territory out in the list: tiny Puerto Rico, which has an astronomical unemployment rate and pays no federal income tax, but gets to vote in the Presidential elections - while DC residents do pay and until the 23rd Amendment couldn't even vote - puts out $28.3M!

Phoenix Art Lessons for Cities

Here's a model for cities trying to make the arts work for them:

Freedom is the key to economic growth - The City of Phoenix decided a vibrant arts district would be a nifty idea to revitalize its downtown core. Too often, cities are tempted to achieve such a goal by taxpayer subsidies, eminent domain, tax hikes, or draconian zoning requirements. Instead, Phoenix decided to try a different approach --deregulation.

The City is proposing an “arts, culture and small business overlay” that eases zoning restrictions and increases the number of activities that no longer need a special permit in a small area near downtown. New businesses such as art galleries, bookstores, and restaurants will be allowed to operate without special permission. Restrictions on alcohol sales, musical entertainment, and outdoor dining will be relaxed. The City also will make it easier to rehabilitate existing structures.

Read the article here, then someone please print it and mail to the mayors of Philadelphia, DC, Wilmington, Richmond and Annapolis.

Artists' Websites: Eric Fischl

"Bad Boy" c.1981 by Eric Fischl. Oil on Linen, 66 x 96 inches
Eric Fischl needs little introduction, and is certainly one of the most influential artists of that generation that flowered in th 1980s.

Visit his website here.

Cain

"Cain Son of Adam - From him MacCain, McCain, Ibn Cain, MakkCain, McKane, Fitzcain, Cainish, Cainson, Kanesen, Kanesson."
Charcoal on Paper. 9" x 7" c.2008
By F. Lennox Campello

5,000 frames

I've been offered a super sweet deal on 5,000 custom made frames in a spectacular diversity of sizes, mouldings, styles and colors. Each one is a custom made frame that was a mistake (too big or too small for the custom job). Over a couple of decades, these huge framing shop has accumulated several thousand mistakes and now I can get them all for around $3,500... or maybe even less (I've already talked them down from $5,000).

Some are huge, some are small, but they are all high quality mouldings.

But I have no room for 2,000 frames much less 5,000. But if I found 3-4 people, or gallerists, or artists, or cooperatives, or schools, willing to go together with me, so that we each get 1,000 frames or so, then I'd be willing to piss off my wife, and use the water tight storage shed and the garage to get this sweet deal.

Email me if you are interested and I'll arrange a viewing and discuss terms.

Secrets Are More Than Just Secrets, Blogger Tells Fans

So said Frank Warren, 43, creator of the blog PostSecret, to a crowd of nearly 800 at the University of Maryland Tuesday night.

Warren is no stranger to secrets. Roughly 1,000 find their way to his Germantown mailbox each week.

Read the article by Michelle Williams here.

BORF's baaaack!

I am quoting "Family + Friends of Daniel McG":

To mark two years since the arrest of environmental activist Daniel McGowan and the U.S. Government's escalation of state repression of environmental and animal liberation activists on December 7, 2005 - the Brian MacKenzie Infoshop, in collaboration with Washington D.C. based graffiti artist BORF; Just Seeds Visual Resistance Artists Cooperative and Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan have coordinated a new fundraising project to benefit Daniel McGowan.

A limited edition and rare five color print entitled 'Support Daniel' by notorious Washington D.C. graffiti artist BORF is being sold exclusively through Justseeds at www.justseeds.org. All proceeds will go directly towards Daniel's commissary and education fund.

Smoking Fumo

If you'd parlevous Spanish then you'd understand what a cool headline the above one is...

The biggest thing in Vince Fumo’s career may well be the one he refuses to take any credit for.

Easy to find, on page 244

In October 2002, allocations of $100 million and $7 million were placed in the pending Pennsylvania capital budget to facilitate the move of the Barnes Foundation to Philadelphia. There was no public discussion and no debate. The allocations were not very prominently displayed; you have to look them up on page 244. The budget was passed on October 30, 2002.

Read Robert Zalles' "Barnes follies (cont'd.): The Fumo connection" here.

Nice words

A huge thank you to ARTifice for the nice words and comments about this artblog in their recent Top Ten Local-ish Art Blogs list.

They've got somre really good ones on their list by the way - check it out here.

Artomatic is back for 2008

Time for all the art critics and art bloggers who think that an open, all inclusive, unjuried, everything-hangs art show is a bad thing for art to start gritting their teeth.

The NoMa (north of Massachusetts Avenue) Business Improvement District (BID) will host this year's Artomatic, the Washington, D.C. area's homegrown art extravaganza. From May 9 through June 15, 2008, up to 800 local and regional artists will exhibit their works on eight floors of the Capitol Plaza 1 building, located at 1st and M Streets, N.E., just one block from the New York Avenue Metro station.

Held regularly since 1999, Artomatic transforms an unfinished Greater DC area indoor space into an exciting and incredibly diverse arts event that is free and open to the public. In addition to displays and sales by hundreds of artists, the event features free musical, dance, and theater performances; holiday celebrations; films; educational presentations; and much more.

Anyone can become part of AOM. It's a democratic, all open show... and this is what many art critics and writers hate, because they want to see the external hand and discipline of a curator (otr team of curators) applied to such a massive endeavor.

But there's room for both. There are plenty of large curated show and precious little amount of gargantuan art shows such as AOM.

This year’s Artomatic, occupying 200,000 square feet at Capitol Plaza 1, will be the largest to date. Designed by renowned architect Shalom Baranes and owned by an affiliate of The Polinger Company, Capitol Plaza 1 offers 293,000 rentable square feet of Class A office space, with dramatic Capitol and city views from the upper floors.

“We are thrilled to partner with Artomatic in an event that will bring tens of thousands of people to NoMa,” said Elizabeth Price, president of the NoMa BID. “It is a great opportunity to showcase the transformation that is underway in NoMa and infuse it with the energy and creativity of the artistic community.”

"Artomatic has come back to its roots in D.C. with our largest event ever,” said George Koch, Chair of Artomatic. “We are excited about our partnership with the NoMa BID and their help in bringing this new space to our attention. Artomatic 2008 will have an abundance of exhibit and performance space that will be open to all — from recognized artists to undiscovered talents.”

Registration for artists and performers who wish to participate in Artomatic will be open soon. To stay up to date on the event details and schedule, visit www.artomatic.org and sign up to receive the Artomatic newsletter.