Medal of Honor
A day of silence here in honor of Lt Michael Murphy, US Navy, who was awarded (posthumously) the Medal of Honor today for his extraordinary valor in Afghanistan.
Fair winds and following seas mate.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Blog B'day
October 16, 2003 was my first ever blog post as I began to learn the nuances of Blogger.com and began to gather readers for this effort.
The blog's anniversary passed and I forgot all about it until someone emailed me today to wish me a blogaversary - it's been four fruitful years and well over a million readers!
Loads more to come in the next forty years!
Two Princes
Two influential art critics review Richard Prince's retro at the Guggenheim and, as if often happens, come away with wildly different opinions.
Read the WaPo's Blake Gopnik here.
Read the New Yorker's Peter Schjeldahl here.
Guess Who?
Just back from the weekend fair and not only did I sell around 40 drawings, but also was awarded a nice four-figure Helen G. Gifford Foundation Best of Show award.
More later; I haven't checked email in three days and Hotmail seems to be having log-in issues this morning!
Friday, October 19, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Deadline Approaching
The deadline for receiving applications for the 2008 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival is December 15, 2007. This festival draws around 30,000 to 40,000 people to the streets of Bethesda and has rapidly become one of the top fine arts outdoor festivals in the Mid Atlantic.
For more information and to download an application form, visit this website.
New Spaces
"The Metropolitan Center for the Visual Arts, formerly Rockville Arts Place and now known as VisArts, has moved into its flashy new quarters in Rockville Town Center. The new galleries are spread across the second floor, including a large but divided main space, and two smaller spaces along the corridor. Filling these at the moment is the inaugural exhibit 'Zapp! Comic Books and the Arts,' created and curated by gallery director Harriet Lesser."
Read the entire review by Dr. Claudia Rousseau here.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Cowboys, the rich, and buying artwork
I was listening to the radio today and heard some amazing statistics from a recently released report on who pays what taxes on this country. A Wall Street Journal writer was discussing the stats from the latest release of Internal Revenue Service data on individual income taxes and (I think) a WSJ article will discuss them tomorrow in an editorial.
One of my pet peeves is the fact that in super wealthy areas such as Bethesda, Reston, Potomac, and generally most of the Greater DC area, it still takes a lot of work to get the same people who don't think twice about dropping a few grand for a sofa, to spend a couple of hundred bucks for a fine arts photograph.
There are nine million people in the United States who are classified as millionaires. If memory serves me right, there are around 125,000 of them living within the Greater Washington, DC area.
Don't believe everything that politicians tell you - from neither party! According to the WSJ reporter summarizing from the IRS report, the top 1% income earners in this nation pay 39.4% of all income taxes - an all-time high.
And they're not all the uberrich getting away with tax murder via offshore investments, blah, blah, blah, that politicians from both parties are always so fond of discussing.
The dirty little secret is that most of this 1% are folks who make $350K a year or higher and 2/3 of them are small business owners.
The top 5% (people who make $175K or higher) pay 59.5% of all income taxes. The bottom 50% of Americans, or half of all income tax payers below the median, pay 3% of all income taxes in this nation.
Those are hard, cold facts - not party-colored slogans burying the truth in search for votes.
And here's an idea for that top five percent of Americans carrying almost 60% of the American tax burden; specifically to the business owners in the bunch: support your local galleries and local artists! There's a tax benefit in there for you.
Instead of hanging motivational posters and pretty reproductions in your offices and factories and workplaces, buy original artwork from your local galleries and artists and that expense is not only a tax write-off, but also helps to kindle the local arts in your hometowns and neighborhoods.
Willie Nelson sings "Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys; Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks; Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such..."
And then let them use their doctorin' and lawyerin' dough to buy some local artwork for their offices and support their local artists.
And cowboys can buy Western art.
WPA Membership Meeting
On Monday, October 29th at 6:30 PM the Washington Project for the Arts is having an important meeting - open and free to the public. The details are here. RSVP to info@wpadc.org.
The event will focus on membership, Art File Online, the WPA\C's separation from the CGA, and their new website.
Missa Pro Pace Forum
A forum discussion accompanying Prof. Chawky Frenn's solo show "Missa Pro Pace" exhibition at the Arlington Arts Center will take place tomorrow, Oct. 18th from 7 to 9 PM at the Arlington Art Center.
If you have not seen Frenn's brutal socio-political works, this is a good chance to see them and also listen to the GMU professor discuss them.
The forum also has uberprintmaker Rosemary Covey discussing her amazing "0 Project," the interactive cross-disciplinary project that she debuted at the AAC this month. Robert Parrish (Hoppervideo.net) will also screen his video documentary of Bosma Dance performing in front of what is undoubtedly The 0 Project’s most visible component: the 300 foot long, 15 foot high banner currently encircling the AAC’s historic Maury school building.
Impressionists by the Sea
On Saturday, The Phillips Collection' newest exhibition, Impressionists by the Sea, opens to the public. The exhibition explores the impact of the newly fashionable French seaside on the Impressionists, and traces the progression of the way the seaside is portrayed throughout the 1800s. It is a chance to see how masterpieces by Courbet, Manet, Monet, Renoir and others chartered the dramatic change in the French seaside as it became more and more popular to go the the beach. Through January 13, 2008.
Mark your calendars
Marc Pachter, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, and Thomas Lutz, Head of the Memorial Museums Department at Berlin’s Topography of Terror Foundation, will participate in a discussion on monuments, museums and the culture of memory at the Goethe-Institut Washington on Tuesday, October 30 at 6:30 pm.
Washington is a city of monuments and memorials – and so is Berlin, though by and large the purpose of the institutions in the two cities is quite different, given their vastly contrasting histories. The discussion will focus on why we build memorials, monuments, and museums, and who they are for. The purpose of memorials in the cultural and educational life of two capital cities looking both to the past and to the future will also be addressed.
Free and open to the public, but RSVP to 202-289-1200 ext. 169
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Rivers on Foon Sham
I had never heard of her until this WaPo article came out, but whoever Eileen Rivers is at the WaPo, she really delivered a superbly written and intelligent article/review on sculptor Foon Sham, who is currently showing "Flow" (through Nov. 10 at the Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston - opening reception October 20th 6-8PM)and also exhibiting "Journey," through Nov. 11 at Heineman Myers Contemporary Art in Bethesda.
Read the article here.
Taking it to court
Banksy is pissed off at the Chapman Brothers for allegedly stealing his artistic idea; result: lawsuit! Read the Arifa Akbar article here.
The Power of the Web: Oz
When this opportunity presented itself a while back, I dug around for some doodles that I had done in the late 70s from a series that I titled "Unknown Events in the Wizard of Oz saga," back when all that I really wanted to be was a cartoonist. I showed them here.
Today I received an email notifying me that the below three pieces will be included in "Ozspiration: New Work Inspired by 100 Years of the Wizard of Oz." at the New England School of Art & Design, Suffolk University (NESAD/SU).
They are all pen and inks; one has a little red watercolor in Dorothy's shoes.
"Dorothy Gale, Witchslayer, 'North - you're next!'"
"The last thing that the Wicked Witch of the West said was 'Aw... shit!'"
"How Dorothy Gale really killed the Wicked Witch of the East"
Baltimore Open Studios
Mark your calendars - next weekend, Oct. 20-21, from 5-8PM is the 19th Annual Baltimore Open Studios.
Details here.
Opportunity for Artists
Deadline: December 31, 2007
The Oregon College of Art & Craft has a call for artists' proposals for exhibitions for the 2008-09 season. Contact:
OCAC
8245 SW Barnes Rd
Portland, OR 97225
Or email edebow@ocac.edu.
Jobs in the Arts
Job Opening: Assistant Preparator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC.
BA/BFA degree and two to four years museum work experience in the technical aspects of museum standard art handling practices, storage, installation, and packing. The Assistant Preparator assists the Chief Preparator and Preparator in all technical aspects of art handling with regard to installation, packing/unpacking, and storage of objects under the direction of the Registrar, Conservator, and Curators. He/she assists with the maintenance of the Art Storage and Preparator's Studio and routine maintenance of museum galleries.
Managing Director at Guarisco Gallery - Washington, DC
Guarisco Gallery, a DC art gallery specializing in museum-quality 19th-century art, seeks an experienced Managing Director. The position entails two main areas of responsibility: Gallery Management and Sales. Gallery Management duties include: attending to bills and financials, management of staff, interaction with vendors, and general maintenance of the gallery. Sales responsibilities include cultivating and maintaining client relations, and organizing and participating in national fine arts shows and special events at the gallery. A minimum of five years experience in an art-related business management position is required. Email cover letter and resume to: jpanarelli@mindspring.com
That's what I'm talking about!
In spite of what some people may think, I am a big fan for art critics with a strong powerful opinion, either for or against, and I am, and have been for many years, sick and tired of lukewarm reviews and backhanded compliments.
A critic's opinion is the most powerful weapon in his/her arsenal, and diluting it by being afraid to piss someone off, or worse, by actually passionately liking something, is a sin in some alternative writers' universe.
Don't you wish that we had more art critics like the Seattle P-I's Regina Hackett, whose writing I like, even though I disagree with her opinions almost as much as I agree with them.
But the lady has cojones! She destroys Australian artist Patricia Piccinini in this review:Her work is a cheap thrill, infantilizing audiences back to the time when they worried about who was under the bed. She makes monsters. Big deal. Her drawings are corny, her video portentous and her sculptures a classy form of carnival life. The fact that she represented Australia in the 2003 Venice Biennale is no reason to get excited.
Ouch!
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