WPA Announces New Program
WPA has announced Information Exchange, an informal partnership with the International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, NY.
WPA will bring international curators to Washington to discuss ideas and projects in a public forum, followed by a day of one-on-one critiques or portfolio reviews with WPA member artists. The goal of the program is to expose artists and curators to each other's work, spurring new and continuing conversations, ideas, relationships, and projects which will carry on long after the initial exchange. WPA will launch the program's pilot season with a visit by Miguel Amado of Portugal.
Miguel Amado is curator at the Fundação PLMJ in Lisbon, where he develops a collection of Portuguese contemporary art and organizes its exhibition and publication series. Recently, he served as a Curatorial Fellow at Rhizome at the New Museum in New York. Miguel is an adjunct curator at the Centro de Artes Visual in Coimbra, Portugal, where he organizes its Project Room exhibition series and special projects. He is a regular contributor to Artforum and his critical writing has also appeared in magazines such as Flash Art and numerous books and catalogues.
Admission to the public talk is free and open to the public
Artist Meetings at WPA offices Friday, November 13:
Artists who wish to meet with Miguel must email membership director Adam Griffiths at agriffiths@wpadc.org by November 9. They will randomly select 6 artists from email requests. Artists should bring no more than 5-10 CURRENT samples of work to discuss with Miguel.
Artist-Curator meetings will last between 30 and 45 minutes and will begin on the hour starting at 10:00 am. If artists have a preferred meeting time, please note in the email along with a phone number.
Information Exchange
Public Talk: Thursday, November 12, 6:30 – 8:00pm
Artist Meetings: Friday, November 13, starting at 10:00am
Location of events: WPA, 2023 Massachusetts Ave, NW, WDC 20036
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009
This week the National Portrait Gallery will announce the winners of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009 at an opening reception taking place on the evening of Oct. 22. The exhibition will open to the public Friday, Oct. 23 and will remain on view through August 22, 2010.
The show has been juried from 3,300 entries, down to 49 finalists from around the country. Of those 49, seven have been selected for the short list of cash prizes. The top award will win $25,000 as well as a separate commission from the Portrait Gallery. (In May, the museum unveiled Mrs. Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s portrait by David Lenz, Lenz won first prize in 2006). The exhibition will display the works of the 49 finalists.
“The second Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition represents a significant milestone for the National Portrait Gallery,” said Martin Sullivan, director of the museum. “We opened the entries to all visual arts media and received a wonderful response.”
The competition happens only once every three years and demonstrates the new ways artists are working with the figure and creating portraits. External jurors for the competition were Wanda M. Corn, professor emerita in art history at Stanford University; Kerry James Marshall, artist; Brian O’Doherty, artist and critic; and Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for The New Yorker. Jurors from the National Portrait Gallery were Martin E. Sullivan, director; Carolyn K. Carr, deputy director and chief curator; and Brandon Brame Fortune, curator of painting and sculpture.
Portrait Competition Finalists and Shortlisted Artists (the asterisk denotes the artists on the shortlist):
Mequitta Ahuja, Houston
Jason Shaw Alexander, Los Angeles
Jen Bandini, Queens, N.Y.
Margaret Bowland, Brooklyn, N.Y.*
Benita Carr, Atlanta
Laura Chasman, Roslindale, Mass.
Mark Cummings, Newport Beach, Calif.
Yolanda del Amo, Brooklyn, N.Y.*
Armando Dominguez, Miami
Jenny Dubnau, Jackson Heights, N.Y.
Daniel Mark Duffy, Newtown, Conn.
David Eichenberg, Toledo, Ohio
Gaela Erwin, Louisville, Ky.*
Chambliss Giobbi, New York
David Gracie, Omaha, Neb.
Leor Grady, New York
Anne Harris, Riverside, Ill.
Patricia Horing, Larchmont, N.Y.
Kate Sammons, Los Angeles
Philip Schirmer, Sargentville, Maine
Justin Shaw, Lincoln, Neb.
Satomi Shirai, Astoria, N.Y.
Michael A. Smith, Ottsville, Pa.
Ben Tolman, Washington, D.C.
Jim Torok, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Anna Killian, Pensacola, Fla.
Erika Larsen, Hoboken, N.J.
David Dodge Lewis, Farmville, Va.
Lisa Lindvay, Chicago
Francesco Lombardo, Marshall, N.C.
Perin Mahler, Grand Rapids, Mich.
John Manion, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Bruce McKaig, Washington, D.C.
Pavel Melecky, Arlington, Texas
Sam Messer, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Paul Mindell, Norwalk, Conn.
Matthew Mitchell, Amherst, Mass.
Samantha Mitchell, New York
Austin Parkhill, Arvada, Colo.
Sonia Paulino, Los Angeles
Cliffton Peacock, Charleston, S.C.
Stanley Rayfield, Richmond, Va.*
Emil Robinson, Cincinnati*
Margaret Trezevant, Tampa, Fla.
Lien Truong, Eureka, Calif.
Clarissa Payne Uvegi, New York
Adam Vinson, Jenkintown, Pa.*
Dave Woody, Fort Collins, Colo.*
John Randall Younger, Charlottesville, Va.
I am familiar with the work of the two DC area artists on the list, Ben Tolman and Bruce McKaig. In fact, both of them have exhibited at the Fraser Gallery back in the days when I was a co-owner of those two galleries.
Seeking the scent of a white cube
As I mentioned a while back, we have moved back to the Greater DC area and thus once again I can refer to myself (as The Artists' Blue Book does) as a "active" in the District of Columbia.
So now I would like to re-acquire a local DC gallery to represent my work in the Greater DC area. I already have gallery representation in Philadelphia, PA, Richmond, VA and Norfolk, VA, but the vast majority of my collectors are in the Greater DC area, so it makes sense to re-establish a DC area gallery connection.
Since I moved to the DC area in 1992, away in 2006 and back in 2009, I've had a dozen solo shows (Annapolis, DC and Richmond) in the area, the vast majority of which have sold well or sold out plus have received extensive press coverage from the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Washington City Paper, the Richmond Style Weekly, the Georgetowner, etc. My work gets the press' attention in one way or the other, even if it is to be described as "heavy-handed and irritating", as the Washington Post once did!
My work has also done well in art fairs in New York, Miami, Toronto and Santa Fe in the last few years. In fact, in my last NYC art fair earlier this year I sold about 20 drawings. At Art Santa Fe, which was a really tough fair because of the economy, and with many galleries not selling anything, my work was the only one that sold at the fair by the gallery that took it there.
So I need and want a gallery in the Greater DC area. If you are a gallerist and interested, drop me an email to lenny@lennycampello.com and let's talk.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Quite contrary
Shepard Fairey's claim that he had the right to use a news photo to create his famous Barack Obama "HOPE" poster became a widely watched court case about fair use that now appears to have nearly collapsed.Read the story here. That portrait now sits in the National Portrait Gallery.
By Friday night, his attorneys — led by Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University — said they intend to withdraw from the case and said the artist had misled them by fabricating information and destroying other material.
The National Portrait Gallery had an easy way out of this mess and I offered them the idea here, and even sent it to them, but all that I heard back was this.
Had they taken my idea and run with it, they would be smelling like roses now, rather than having a work in their collection that allegedly violates copyright law.
Number 1 on NYT Best Sellers' List
DC area's own Frank Warren: Check it out here as PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God, enters the hardcover advice and miscellaneous list this week at No. 1.
Congrats to Frank!
