Neptune reopens in Bethesda, MD
Gallery Neptune will reopen October 22nd in the brand new PeriPoint Building in downtown Bethesda, Maryland. PeriPoint has applied to become Bethesda’s first Silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building as certified by the US Green Council. It is designed by award winning architect Michael Belisle AIA. PeriPoint is located at 5001 Wilson Lane, at the busy crossroads of Wilson Lane, Old Georgetown Road, Arlington Rd. and St. Elmo Avenue.
The corner site has been a landmark in Bethesda since 1927, serving first as the Sanitary Grocery store, later as USO Headquarters during World War II, and most recently as a vacuum repair shop. Today, the 80-year-old structure has been renewed, embracing the 21st century while maintaining the defining geometry of the building’s early 20th century shell.
Opening Exhibition: “David Wallace: Begging the Question”
October 22 – November 15, 2008
Reception for the artist: November 1, 7 PM
Also open for the Bethesda Art Walk, November 14, 6-9 PM
Friday, October 17, 2008
This is funny...
Post debate moment...
But this is not...
There's a local fuss in Philly because when Gov. Sarah Palin recently showed up, protesters wearing "Sarah Palin is a Cunt" T-Shirts also showed up to greet her. The guy who makes these was on a Philly talk show yesterday and is apparently making a mint selling them.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Bankable Art
Actually, no one quite knows what Lehman Brothers, the financial services firm that filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15, will do with its 3,500-piece art collection, but with works by such bankable artists as Jasper Johns and Andreas Gurky, it is likely to be on sale at a major auction house near you.Read the WSJ report here.
Sausage Art
I'm getting pretty suspicious as to what Jeffry Cudlin has been reading lately, but I couldn't pass on relaying the following:
Read all about it here
"The sausage art is now popular in Russia. They have made some major masterpieces out of sausages and wurst and put on display so that anyone can eat them."
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Prices
Artprice, an auction database, says unsold works at auctions held since September 1 this year rose to 39.2 percent against 36.8 percent last year in the same period. On October 1, prices had slipped 4.45 percent in a year and there were 20.5 percent less auctions in the last six weeks.Read all about it here.
And auctions early this month in Asia and London were "disappointing", with more than half of works up for sale left unsold at times, according to specialist insider newsletter The Baer Faxt.
"Masterpieces," said Curiel of Christie's, "are seeing excellent prices, but sales will be more difficult for less exceptional works or those believed to be over-rated. Before this summer, it was never a problem to issue a high or very high estimate. But now it is."
Opportunity for Artists
The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH), in collaboration with the Department of Transportation (DDOT) and the Adams Morgan community, is looking for an artist or artist team to design, create and install a permanent outdoor installation at the corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road, NW, Washington D.C.
The objective of this project is to create a "distinctive art piece that communicates the history and current character of the surrounding community and commercial district. The work will reflect the cultural diversity of the neighborhood and enhance the pedestrian experience."
To download the prospectus please visit, www.dcarts.dc.gov or for further questions contact Deirdre Ehlen at 202-724-5613 or by email Deirdre.Ehlen@dc.gov.
Cudlin on Gopkinism
Blake Gopnik’s remarks were interesting (yes, I’ll stick with interesting). He claimed that the problem with painting now is that painters don’t address their work directly to art critics. This is an odd thing to say, but it's pretty much in sync with other sorts of observations Blake likes to make about the art world. Like, for example, when he asserted that art is better when developments in the market aren’t leading or influencing museums—and museums can be left to do their job in peace.Read the whole Jeffry Cudlin post here.
At the time, I thought this was simply a bizarre misunderstanding on Blake’s part. But Blake is a smart guy, and hearing this new curious notion has made me realize that he has a remarkably consistent viewpoint — albeit one not even remotely grounded in reality. He seems to be wandering through a utopian socialist shadow art world, one in which painters don’t try to sell their works, and collectors are shooed away from the boardrooms of institutions, or from contact with curators.
A History of Dogs And Witches
New work by Laurel Hausler opens Thursday October 16, 2008 from 6-9 pm in DC's Nevin Kelly Gallery.
Gallery Nights in Philly
Philly's Center City District will be having one of their fun Gallery Nights this coming Friday, Oct. 17 with 15+ art galleries and art venues hosting events.
I'm particularly interested in the Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design where there's currently a terrific show of drawings by 20th century icon Alice Neel, a Philadelphia native and alumna of Moore College of Art & Design, and a brilliant artist who bucked the abstract trends of her time and established herself as one of the top American artists of the century. And today, Wednesday, October 15, starting at 11:15AM, author and art historian, Sarah Powers, discusses the complexity of artist Alice Neel’s life and process in her drawings and painting.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
True Believer
"True Believer." Charcoal on Paper. c. 2008, framed to 24x18 inches.
By F. Lennox Campello
You can buy this drawing from Projects Gallery in Philadelphia, where it will be part of that Northern Liberties gallery's "Paper" show coming up soon. The show will run from Nov. 19 through Dec. 20 with an opening reception on Friday, Dec. 5, 2008.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Seen on the drive from Norfolk
As you drive up from Norfolk to the Philly area, you drive through the Coastal Highway up through Virginia's eastern shores and into Maryland's eastern shore. And just before you cross the state border into Maryland, the below sign warns you that:
On the other side of the road, as you enter Virginia from Maryland, the same signs tells you that "The South Begins Here."
They should put some signs halfway through all the bridges and tunnels leaving Manhattan saying "The Artworld Ends Here." At least according to Newyorkistas...
Go to this DC opening on Wednesday!
Gallery 101 over at Georgetown University has a must see show opening tomorrow with an opening reception on October 15 from 5:30-7PM.
It is Introspection, animated portraits by Scott Hutchison.
Hutchison has been working for years now in his animated portraiture, where he combines portrait painting and traditional animation techniques with digital capture and editing tools. Essentially Scott analyzes facial expressions and then paints each moment of the expression frame by frame.
Yep... each frame of his videos is an original painting. Then these hundreds of small individual portraits become the cels for looped animations that truly open up the personality of the sitter.
This is the sort of innovative work that for years now has been building the bridge between traditional painting and video, and which in most other cities would have already come up to the attention of local museum curators.
If you want to see something truly different and new, check out Hutchison over at Georgetown.
Gallery 101 is located in the Walsh building of the University, between N and Prospect Streets in Georgetown. The show runs through December 5, 2008.
"Overlap" 100 5"x7" paintings on paper and video by Scott Hutchison
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Tim Tate opens in London
At London's Steps Gallery with a public openings 17th October - 26th October 2008. You all know what I have been preaching about Tate for years...
Mellema on Glass and Photos
Kevin Mellema over at the Falls Church News Press reviews the current three person show at Maurine Littleton and also Frank Day at Addison Ripley Fine Art.
Read the reviews here.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Tim Tate opens in LA today
Tim Tate: A Look Into a Video Mind opens at Billy Shire Fine Arts with an opening reception on Saturday, October 11th, from 7-10 pm.
This will be Tate's solo debut in Los Angeles. You can see some of the videos online here.
Lecturing today
As I noted before, last week I juried the current show at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in DC, where I looked at about 100 works of art and selected 35 for exhibition and handed out six awards (three honorable mentions).
The opening is today, Saturday, Oct. 11 from 5-7PM.
I'll be there giving out the awards and also doing a talk with tips to artists on how to improve their chances of getting accepted into juried competitions. The opening and my talk is free and open to the public, so come by and say hi.
The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop is located at 545 7th Street, S.E. Washington DC, 20003 (the corner of 7th and G Streets, SE). If you take the Metro, they are two blocks south of the Eastern Market metro plaza, which is on the orange and blue lines. After exiting the metro stop, walk down 7th Street (there’s a CVS on the corner) two blocks, away from Pennsylvania Ave. The Arts Workshop is located at the corners of 7th and G Streets, SE, entrance on 7th Street.
Driving directions here.
The power of art
Powerful art elicits powerful emotions, and when those emotions are tied to strong political sentiment, it is even more powerful and sometimes dangerous.
Heather Goss over at DCist relates the story of DC area artist Dana Ellyn and what happened when some of her anti Sarah Palin artwork got exposed to political sentiment in a DC area store. Read it here.
Winston Churchill once said that "any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
Having been both a very dangerous leftwing nut in my young years, and a complacent conservative in my middle years, I am now very happy in my current incarnation as a happy independent, and I am now always puzzled by people who (on both sides of the political spectrum) try to muzzle or interrupt the other side's opinion, such as the idiots in this DCist story or the jerks who crash the other party's convention, or heckle the other politician's rallies, etc.
Nations where only one side of the political spectrum is allowed to express their views are called dictatorships: Cuba, North Korea, China, Iran, etc. and more and more Russia and Venezuela.
Artists: keep painting all the anti-Palin, and anti-McCain, and anti-Obama (is Joe Biden even in the news?) art that you want, for art is a powerful tool of political expression. And never forget that an anti-Castro painting in Cuba gets you 20 years in the Isle of Youth, and you'd probably get whacked in North Korea if you did an anti-Elvis painting there...
