ArtHelps Report

The ArtHelps silent auction last night was packed to the rafters with elegantly-dressed people, and there was tons of great food and good wine and beer, and bids were abundant and redundant and all for a good cause (benefiting Food & Friends and DCAC).

I ran into the fair Kathryn Cornelius, and for quite a while I was in a bidding fight for her donated work, until a tiny (and well-known DC area art activist and art organizer and all-around good person) threatened me with bodily harm if I continued to outbid her, so I retreated quietly into the background.

The auctioned artwork is online here by the way.

I also ran into the fair Heather Russell from Irvine Contemporary (their gallery donated quite a few pieces to the auction - well done!) and her cute sister from Richmond. Heather was also bidding madly on a few pieces, including this early Andrew Wodzianski oil (from when he was an MFA candidate at MICA). The painting received at least a dozen bids and went to a very excited couple.

This oil by Sondra Arkin was also attracting a lot of attention, going way over its estimated price.

This signature glass heart by Tim Tate also received fast and furious bids, which extended onto the back of the bidding form, and kept coming even as the deadline approached. It also caused a little controversy, as when the bidding forms were removed from the floor, apparently an extra bid was added on the way down to deliver the bid forms. The loser was heartbroken (pun intended), but it all ended well (I am told) because Tate agreed to donate a second heart and thus everyone is a winner.

The steal of the night?

This amazing sculpture by NYC artist Josh Levine was won by the fair Kristina Bilonick, gallerina for DCAC for let's say... a steal!

Good eye Kristina!

Read Alexandra Silverthorne's report here.

See Anne Marchand's report and many photos here.

Tape Dude in Paris

Mark Jenkins' work has a double page feature in December issue of the Paris-based mag "Etapes."

See it online here.

Art volunteers needed by two projects

There are a couple of art events brewing in our area that are looking for volunteers to assist with the art event itself.

First of all, for the last few months Catriona Fraser has been curating our first exhibition of 2006. That show, titled "Interface" seeks to present an exhibition of what happens when art and technology meet.

Several new works have been commissioned for the show, which includes work by Kathryn Cornelius, Claire Watkins, Scott Hutchison, Thomas Edwards, David Page, Philip Kohn and others.

One of the artists in the show, David Page (who was the 2004 Trawick Prize winner - one of his projects is pictured above) needs two volunteers 5'8" or smaller, weighing 160lbs or less. They should not be claustrophobic, asthmatic and should be in general good health. Contact David at david@davidpageartist.com.

And the Hirshhorn is seeking help with a Directions project that they are hosting at the Hirshhorn on Saturday, April 29, 2006. They are in the process of recruiting 40 to 60 residents of the greater DC area to be part of a performance organized by New York-based artist Oliver Herring (b. Heidelberg, Germany, 1964). The group of volunteers will perform simple, creative tasks on the Hirshhorn plaza over the course of eight hours.

The museum need volunteers who are interested in exchanging ideas and developing a sense of community through the arts. They hope to build a group ranging in age from teenagers to seniors and representing different professions and interests. They are looking for both artists and "non-artists."

To learn more about the project please visit this website. There is also a link to project information on the Hirshhorn home page.

If someone is interested in participating, all they need to do is fill out a short form available at the link above. Please feel free to contact Assistant Curator Kristen Hileman at the museum if you have any questions about the project.

If you would like to learn more about the artist, you might visit Oliver Herring’s page on the Art 21 site.

Power of the Web

The Wednesday snail mail delivered a dedicated copy of the 2006 Whitney Biennial catalog!

I am being asked to give video a chance (probably in response to this).

Gee... thanks!

Unclothed Political Art

Nekkid with a Camera has a great discussion going on about political art...

This is why newspapers' days are numbered: Immediate discussion on an interesting issue.

Join in here.

Go Sam! (oops! I mean Samantha)

Video Feedback

David A. Ross, the President of the Artist Pension Trust reponds to my Video Killed the Radio (and Art?) Star posting with the following:

As a curator working with video since 1971, I have encountered your argument several time before. As you may imagine, since the early days of video, the concern -- voiced in the Wash Po piece and in your response, has been the same: "Why watch video in a gallery when it is best viewed at home?"

On a certain level, that is true, if the work is intended for the social context provided by home viewing (on line or on TV). Or, if the work does not demand the formal support of a sculptural space (i.e. multiple monitors, live video components, projected work with complex sound elements, etc. etc.).

But finally it is also the social context of an environment that is not a theater and not a living room, but some other space generally (or formerly) reserved for the quiet contemplation of art objects that appeals to some artists using video to place information some may deem non-artistic (like documentary footage of everyday life). The friction of this mismatch is often a central element of the work, and not just a curatorial or artistic conceit.

But of course, when an artwork fails then all bets are off, and it can be revealed as lacking in many ways-- including it's use of gallery space.

David A. Ross

MSNBC

DC Art News on MSNBC (scroll down... way down)

What to do and see this week

Wednesday: Time for the ArtHelps Silent Auction from 5pm–10pm at the offices of JAM Communications. Cocktails and hors d'ouvres will be served and it's all free and open to the public. See the donated artwork here.

Also on Wednesday, from 6-8pm, Art-O-Matic is hosting a happy hour at Warehouse Galleries and Theatre complex. The swirl for the 2006 show is beginning! They’re gearing up for a 2006 event. Catch up with friends and like-minded artists. Find out how you can be a part of the 2006 AOM sensation. Special beer prices.

Thursday: There is an artist reception on Thursday evening 6-8PM, at Studio Gallery in Dupont Circle. The title of the show is "Classical Themes/Contemporary Artists" (an image of Michael Janis' glass piece Amnesiac is to the left). Also, in order to raise money for this not-for-profit artist collaborative, the rear gallery at Studio features artwork available for a tax deductible donation (starting at $200) to the gallery - a chance to collect some of the Studio artists work at bargain rates!

Also on Thursday, Provisions Library hosts Provisions 101, a special reception from 6-8 pm. This is an opportunity to meet the Provisions staff, find out more about what they do and see their current exhibit (DeeDee Does Utopia: Propaganda Collage by Deborah Faye Lawrence). Refreshments will be served. Their hosts for the evening are Dru Ryan and Lalitha Gopalan. Dru is Editor of The Journal of Hip-Hop and teaches at George Mason University and Lalitha is Associate Professor at Georgetown University specializing in film and cinema studies. Dru and Lalitha will share their insights into alternative education and the links between art, activism and academia with special emphasis on film, media and visual culture. RSVP to Katy Otto at kotto@provisionslibrary.org or call 202-299-0460.

And at the McLean Project for the Arts' Emerson Gallery, Seeds: Gail Gorlitzz and Karin Birch opens on Thursday with a reception and gallery talk from 7-9PM.

Friday: This is the second Friday of the month and thus it's the Bethesda Art Walk with 13 participating venues and with free guided tours. And we will have our annual Winter Group Show, featuring an entire gallery full of new work by the artists that we represent ("Not Kansas" by New York painter David FeBland -- he's our best-selling American painter and the guy in the ballcap driving the car -- is to the right).

Also on Friday, there's an opening reception for "i found your photo" from 6:00 – 9:00 PM on the 2nd Floor of the University of Phoenix Northern Virginia Campus at 11710 Plaza America Drive, Reston, VA 20190. For directions, please see the League of Reston Artists website. The "i found your photo" exhibition is a special benefit exhibition of donated found photographs that is presented by the League of Reston Artists. All found photographs that have been donated to this project will be placed into a handmade photography book after the exhibition closes. This book will be designed and created by photographer and book artist, Melanie De Cola. The one-of-a-kind "i found your photo" photography book will be auctioned on E-bay in May 2006 to fund a photography scholarship through the League of Reston Artists. The scholarship will be awarded to a Washington, D.C. area at-risk high school senior who aspires to be a photographer, to help him or her attend art school.

And back in DC, Irvine Contemporary has and opening for Sean Foley and Gina Brocker from 6-8 PM, and there's also an artist's talk on Sat. Dec. 10 starting at 2 PM.

And there's also an opening at the Capitol Hill Arts workshop this Friday for a "budget-priced-for-the-holidays" show entitled Wrap it Up. The opening is Friday from 5-7pm, and the all day sale is Saturday from 10 am-7 pm.

Saturday: A.Salon has a holiday art show from 5-8PM at Willow Street Gallery (6925 Willow Street, NW in DC).

Also on Saturday, December 10 and Sunday, December 11 from 12:00 - 6:00PM, Hemphill Fine Arts has booksignings for recent publications from fine art book publisher Nazraeli Press. William Christenberry, Joseph Mills and Tanya Marcuse will be in attendance for book signings on Saturday, December 10 from 12:00 - 2:00PM. Hot Cider and Cookies!

The Urban Arts Gallery at the Pierce School Lofts is having the opening for "Pattern" on Saturday, December 10 from 4-7pm. This month’s featured artists are Roberta Glick, Amy Lin, and Emily Dean. The Urban Arts Gallery is located on Capitol Hill at 1375 Maryland Avenue NE, Washington, DC and "Pattern" will be on exhibit through December 30, 2005.

And Union Printmakers Atalier has OH HO 05: A Holiday Exhibition of Contemporary Art opening on Saturday from 6-9PM. The group show brings together many well known artists from the Washington, Maryland, and Virginia area along with some new faces to the area's art scene. Expect to see prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture and photographs reflecting a variety of styles and approaches to each medium through January 28th, 2006. Lots of very talented artists participating including: Julia Bloom, Joseph Barbaccia, Chantal Bernicky, Iona Brown, Rosalind Burns, David Chung, William Christenberry, Warren Craghead, Dymph de Wild, Ben Ferry, Susan Finsen, Jenny Freestone, Pat Goslee, Susan Hostetler, Pauline Jakobsberg, J.T. Kirkland, Andrew Krieger, Judith Kahn, Alex Mayer, Kerry McAleer-Keeler, Michele Montalbano, Jody Mussoff, Robert Nelson, William Newman, Judith Nulty, Turker Ozdogan, Betsy Packard, Margaret Adams Parker, Randall Packer, Michael Pierce, Beverly Ress, Charles Ritchie, Russel Richards, Beverly Ryan, Clarice Smith, Terry Svat, R.L.Tillman, Helga Thomson, F.L. Wall, Mark Wamaling, Max-Karl Winkler, Ellen Winkler, Frank Wright and Scip Barnhart (the director of Union Printmakers and one of DC's top artists and art professors).

Art Show/DC Surfrider has a fundraiser at FC Gallery 7pm-2am ($5 suggested donation). The gallery is located at 916 Blagden Alley. Featured Artist: Steve Olson (LA Underground/Skateboard Overlord). Also features a massive interactive installation piece by Ben Ashworth, Anthony Smallwood and Dan Zeman; music, food and drink provided.

Also on Saturday and Sunday, The Arlington Arts Center has a Holiday Art Bazaar from 11-4PM. Drop by the AAC to find the perfect piece of art or craft for a holiday gift from 19 artists in the greater metropolitan area. The diverse media represented include ceramics, photography, jewelry, fiber, and much more.

And on Saturday Transformer hosts an opening reception from 7-9PM for "Little Creatures" through January 14, 2006 and featuring Marci Branagan, Julie Jenkinson, Thomas M. Lowery and Maki Maruyama. There's also an artists' talk on Saturday, January 7, 2006, at 4 pm.

Studio One Eight presents "Fully Loaded: New Work by Lisa Marie Thalhammer." The opening reception is on December 10th from 7-10 PM. Thalhammer has created, using her stylized approach to portraiture, an army of DC women that embodies the subjectivity of the contemporary American female.

Sunday: Carolyn Dutky Romano has an opening from 2-4PM for "Eye on the Underground" at The Art League Gallery in Alexandria. There's also an artist talk on Thursday, December 8 at 7PM (the show actually opens on Dec. 8).

I am sure that I missed some events... if so email me the details.

Arts Journal Expansion

Arts Journal is one of my daily must-reads, and often the source of stories, comments and links here in DC Art News.

And now it's undergoing a site face lift and major expansion right before our eyes.

Visit them often.

Arts Agenda

DCist's Arts Agenda is up.

Read it here.

DCist has been looking for months for someone to write about the visual arts and augment the weekly arts agenda.

So far they're doing an outstanding job of covering music, theatre, sports, restaurants and politics, but they are still lacking a voice to write some art reviews.

It's not easy uh?

Interested writers and would-be art critics should contact DCist at dcist-core@googlegroups.com

Busy Week

There are loads of openings and visual art events happening this week. Check later and I'll be posting them.

Congratulations

To our own Tim Tate, whose "Positive Reliquaries" series of three glass sculptures has been acquired by The Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"Positive Reliquaries" consists of a set of three hand blown domes with spun glass nests and dotted eggs inside. The eggs in the nests are dotted to mimic the dots on dice, and signify the gamble of Tate's daily challenge with being HIV positive; the nests themselves are a recurring theme in his work representing rebirth and hope. The crown of each dome is topped with a red cast glass "positive" (+) symbol.

Etched onto the surface of each reliquary is the story in three parts of Tate's discovery of his HIV status 20 years ago and how he emerged from that reborn into a new identity. These words create a cage which surrounds the entire piece... forever freezing them in that history. It was the first and only time that the artist has ever recorded the events leading to his discovery of being HIV positive in 1984. It ends with the line "This is the only record."

This is one of Tate's most personal and painful pieces. It speaks not of sorrow, but rejoices in rebirth. Most of Tate's works deals with healing in this manner: employing difficult moments in his life and using them to springboard into the future.

"Positive Reliquaries" is one of his finest examples of his content driven glass as Tate continues to drag glass away from the vessel and into the narrative context. Tate's current solo show at our Fraser Gallery Bethesda ends this coming Wednesday.

Opportunity for Unrepresented Artists

Deadline: On-going

The Center For Emerging Visual Artists is currently accepting applications to join their Regional Community Arts Program (RCAP) Artist Registry.

Artists in the registry will be eligible to participate in The Center's Community Exhibition Program, which includes exhibitions in public spaces such as hospitals, schools, parks, and more.

Requirements: Must be interested in exhibiting in public spaces; Must live within 90 miles of Philadelphia; Cannot have a contractual relationship with a commercial gallery; Works submitted must be available and ready to hang/install.

Please send up to 20 slides or digital images, a slide list (name, title, dimensions, medium, and price), and a resume to:

Genevieve Coutroubis
The Center For Emerging Visual Artists
Community Exhibitions
237 South 18th Street # 3A
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 215.546.7775 x11
E-mail: genevieve@cfeva.org

New Mexico Artist and Writer Residencies

Deadline: January 6, 2006.

The Santa Fe Art Institute is inviting artists and writers in all disciplines to apply for their residency program. Application forms are available on the web at www.sfai.org.

Successful applicants will be eligible to spend from one to three months at a preeminent contemporary residency program in the Southwest. Application fee: $25.00.

For details email swilson@sfai.org.

Wanna date an artist?

ArtDC breaking new ground in the online dating service.

Potential artsy dates here.

Secret's Out

Nothing like amazing success to make one's critics eat crow.

Who's got the second highest linked (and thus 2nd highest ranked by Technorati) BLOG in the entire world wide web?

None other than our own Frank Warren!

And the hardcover book by Frank Warren based on the phenomenal PostSecret project started by Frank at the last Art-O-Matic was just released and it's already the 16th bestselling book on Amazon.

The PostSecret Book, "PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives," is now available from Amazon.

Order the book here.

And next December 15, 2005 through January 8, 2006, the WPA\C presents Post Secrets.

Opening Reception: Thursday, December 15, 2005 from 6-10pm
Fundraiser: Wednesday, December 14 from 6-10pm for Kristin Brooks Hope Center ($10 suggested donation)
Location: Former Georgetown Staples Store, 3307 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20007
Exhibition Hours: Wed, Thurs, Fri 6-10pm, Sat & Sun 2-10pm

Borf goes to High School

See it here.

Congratulations

To talented DC area artist Renee Stout (represented by Hemphill Fine Arts), whose monotype "See the Truth" (2002) a work that suggests a hand-drawn sign, has been gifted to the Hirshhorn by well-known DC area art collector Frederick P. Ognibene, who also donated Patrick Wilson's "1 P.M." (2003), a vertical triptych of subtle shades of grey and cream.

The Hirshhorn recently has received fifteen new acquisitions/donations and many of these works are currently on view in the museum as part of "Gyroscope," a program of dynamic, frequently changing presentations of the Hirshhorn's permanent collection.

Stout joins an extremely rare club: DC area artists in the permanent collection of one of DC's premier museums.

Porn Nostalgia

In response to my posting about Video and Art and what happened to porn theatres, a DC Art News reader (who also happens to be a terrific photographer) emails me the following nostalgia:

Your post made me nostalgic for the old porn joints. Benny's Home of the Porno Stars was one of my favorites.

It was one of the "classier" looking porn theaters. As a high school student, I walked by frequently on the way to my mother's job. I never went in but the uniformed doorman always yelled invitations to engage in obscene acts. I always had a creative string of obscenities to yell back at him. I think he really enjoyed that. I know I did.

My high school internship was at the DC Police Dept. As the lowly, stipendless intern, I stood in long lines to fetch lunch for the guys in my office in exchange for free lunch. If I was picking up a particularly big order, one of the guys would meet me on the way back to help carry bags or pick up drinks.

One of the carry outs I frequented was next to a place with $.25 XXX peep shows. From time to time, exiting patrons would follow me down the pedestrian walk way between 7th & 9th Streets and jerk off.

It brought me great pleasure to have a uniformed officer suddenly appear and scare the bajeebas out of the jerk-offs. Since they were office guys, they really weren't going to do anything to the jerk-offs but it was fun to scare them.

Alas, video, the internet and gentrification have changed all that. Even the bath houses and most strip clubs have evaporated. Now everyone gets home made sin instead of store bought sin. It's a shame I tell ya!

Mori at Arlington

I've been hearing good stuff about Mori: An Internet-based Earthwork by Randall Packer, Ken Goldberg, Gregory Kuhn, Wojciech Matusik at the Arlington Arts Center and Jessica Dawson wrote a good piece on the show here.

"Mori" is an Internet-based installation that uses the earth's movement as a living part of the process. In this installation, minute movements of the Hayward Fault in California are detected by a seismograph, converted to digital signals, and transmitted via the Internet to the installation in Arlington.

The Exhibition runs through January 7, 2006 and there's a lecture titled "Network Art" by Randall Packer, this coming Thursday, December 8, at 7:00 pm.