Child prodigy? Feh!

Mikail Akar doesn't flinch as the cameras click around him. Born in 2012, the German artistic prodigy has spent half his life in the limelight.

With his striped jumper, goofy grin and dreams of becoming a professional footballer, Akar seems just like any other seven-year-old boy.

Yet the Cologne-born youngster is actually an expressionist whizz kid who has taken the international art scene by storm.

Dubbed the "pre-school Picasso" by German media, Akar's paintings now sell for thousands of euros (dollars) to buyers from across the world.

Read the full article in Yahoo News here. 

This cycle of "child prodigies" seems to recycle itself ever few years... anyone remember child prodigy Alexandra Nechita from a few years ago?

To me this is the standard for dubbing someone a child prodigy in art - see the master here.

Call for local artists

Spotlight Art Series@Touchstone Gallery 2020
CALL FOR LOCAL ARTISTS
JURIED SOLO EXHIBITION OPPORTUNITY
Spotlight Solo Exhibition Dates: June 3 – 28, 2020
Juror: Adah Rose Bitterbaum, Owner and Director, Adah Rose Gallery

Deadline: Monday, February 3, 2020 11:59 PM Eastern Time
Entry fee: $45

Spotlight Art Series 2020 is an opportunity to have a solo exhibition at the Touchstone Gallery. A successful applicant will enjoy a front window 90 sq. ft. wall exhibition space in our street level gallery located in downtown Washington DC. If you don’t get selected for solo exhibition, you still get to exhibit one artwork, no larger than 12” in any dimension, in 2020 as part of Local Guest Artists Group show at a date to be specified.

For a full prospectus and to apply visit www.touchstonegallery.com/spotlight

Touchstone Gallery is an artist-owned gallery located at 901 New York Ave NW, Washington DC, close to several major national galleries. Since its founding in 1976, Touchstone has maintained a reputation for exhibiting contemporary work of high quality and innovation. Touchstone’s mission is to exhibit diverse contemporary visual art and to promote artistic talent in the DC region.

Scientists Have Solved One of History's Weirdest Leonardo da Vinci Mysteries

Scientists may have solved one of the great Leonardo da Vinci painting mysteries – why the glass orb in the Salvator Mundi painting (dated to around 1500 CE) shows no signs of the refraction and reflection of light that might be expected.

The answer, according to computer models run by a team from the University of California, Irvine, is that in the painting Jesus is holding a hollow rather than a solid orb, which would have appeared the way that da Vinci depicted it.

Details here. 

Cuban actress to play Monroe

Then this...

Collider reports that Ana de Armas (Blade Runner 2049, Knock Knock, War Dogs) is in early talks to star in the film, which could begin shooting as early as this summer. The Cuban actress would be taking over the role last attached to Jessica Chastain, then Naomi Watts before her.

On the anniversary of a hero's death

Five years ago my father died on this day... here's my eulogy from that date:

"Hoy se ha caido otro roble en la selva del amargo exilio" is how I always thought that my father's eulogy would begin once he died.

"Today another oak falls in the jungle of bitter exile," began the eulogy for the man whose bloodlines my children and I carry on.

Florencio Campello Alonso died today at age 90 in Miami, the heart of the bitter Cuban Diaspora. Like many Cubans of his generation, he was the son of European immigrants to Cuba. His Galician parents left the scraggy mountains of northern Spain's ancient Celtic kingdom and in the first decade of the 1900s migrated to the new nation of Cuba upon its liberation from Spain.

Galicians have always been uneasy subjects of the Spanish crown, stubbornly hanging on to their ancient Celtic traditions, to their own language and to their bagpipes, so it is no historical surprise that they left their mountain homelands en-masse and headed to the new tropical paradise of Cuba, free from the heavy hand of the Spanish monarchy.

And thus it was never a surprise to me that my father was both a fighter against heavy-handed rulers, a lover of freedom, and one who was never afraid to re-start a life for the better, even if it involved discarding the old. 

My father could have been one of the privileged few who currently rule  atop the food chain of Cuba's Workers' Paradise. But instead of accepting the benefits of oppression, this most valiant of men chose the harsh path of right over wrong.

And he paid for it dearly (he spent years in Concentration Camps), but when he died, his soul was clean.

In his youth, my dad worked the brutal hours of the son of an immigrant who was slowly building a small financial empire in eastern Cuba. My father was pulled from school as soon as he learned to read and write, and like his two other brothers and eight sisters, he was expected to work and contribute to building a familial empire.

And he did, as my mother relates the stories of my father's childhood in the fields of eastern Cuba, a blond creole in a land of jingoist natives... he trying to out-Cuban the "real Cubans"... how he organized a labor union of the exploited Haitians who worked almost as slaves at the Los Canos Sugar Mill, how he joined a group of bearded rebels in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra in the fight against a tyrant, how he ran for the leadership of the Sugar Workers' Union and beat the Communists to the post, and how he spent years in a Castro Concentration Camp, jailed for the crime of refusing to join the Party, because he believed in Democracy and not Communism. 

And because of that stubbornness, in the 1960s he was offered the bitter pill of exile, and this brave man decided to choose family... and left his birth place, and thus became another immigrant within two familial generations and brought his wife and child to another new land.

And it is to him that I owe the greatest gift that a father can give a son: the opportunity to grow in freedom in the greatest nation in the history of this planet.

It is because of my father's courage that I was raised in this country and not in a land bloodied by brutality and oppression.

It is because of my father's teachings that I was raised with the conviction that freedom is not free and never to be taken for granted; after all, he fought for freedom and then Castro, the man who inspired  the fight, ended up being a worse dictator, eventually destroying all notions of freedom for all of his people.

It is because of my father that I was taught that every citizen owes his  nation some form of service, and that's the main reason that I signed (at age 17) to serve in the US Navy.

It is because of my father that I despise anyone who hides behind the mask of victimism to excuse failures and shortcomings.

When our family arrived in New York in the 1960s, my father began to work in a factory three days after he landed at the airport; my mother (who came from a privileged Cuban family and had never worked a day in her life) found a job as a seamstress five days later. That pattern was repeated for decades as they worked their way in a new nation.

"We thought we'd be back within a few years," was the answer given to me when I once asked the question about leaving their birthplace. When that didn't materialize, they became fierce Americans in the "United States of Americans" sense... these were the "America None Better!" set of immigrants, and in my Dad's case, you better be ready to fight if you dissed the USA.

"Americans"!

Always a fighter he was... and always for the right reasons.

Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation because we  recognize its singular and unique greatness; perhaps it is because our forebears had the same chance at greatness and blew it.

And my Dad loved this nation even more than he once loved Cuba... perhaps it is the genetic disposition of the serial immigrant. After all, his father had left his own ancient Celtic lands and kin for a new land... which he learned to love dearly.

My father always wanted to make sure that I knew that I was an "Americano" and not another forced-on label.

"Labels," he'd say, "are just a way to separate people."

By labels he meant "Hispanic" or "Latino" or anything with a "-" between two ethnic words.

I also remember as a kid in New York, when he bought a huge Hi-Fi record player-color-TV console... that thing was huge. He bought it "lay-away" and he'd pay $10 a week to the store and him and I would walk all the way from our house on Sackman Street to the store on Pitkin Avenue to make the payments every Saturday - he never missed a single payment, and that taught me a lesson.

It was soon playing my Dad's favorite music, which oddly enough was Mexican music (Cuban music was a close second)... and he knew all the words to every charro song.

Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna... 

Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna...Me he de comer esa tuna 

Me he de comer esa tuna.... aunque me espine la mano.

That Jorge Negrete song... being shouted often on weekends at the top of his lungs from our apartment in a mostly Italian neighborhood in East New York in Brooklyn must have raised some eyebrows.

My dad and I watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon on that TV set... we also watched loads of Mets games... and in 1969 and 1972 went to Shea Stadium to see the Mets win in '69 and lose in '72. He really loved baseball and he really loved those Mets!

When I joined the Navy at age 17, my first duty station was USS SARATOGA, which at the time was stationed in Mayport in Florida, so my Dad decided to migrate south to Florida and moved to Miami... just to be close to me.

He and my mother spent the next 40 years in the same apartment while I was stationed all over the world.

When I visited him today in Miami, he looked good and freshly shaven... this is a good thing, as my father was a freak about hygiene... and that's a common "creole" trait.

The Hospice nurse almost teared up when I told her that my parents have been married for 60 years.

I looked at this old "gallego"... his skin as white as paper, his eyes as blue as the sky, and his head (once full of blond hair) as bald and shiny as the old Cuban sing song ("Mira la Luna, mira al Sol... mira la calva de ese.....") and I saw the generations of Neanderthals, Denisovans and Gallego Homo Sapiens that led to my bloodlines... the generations of fighters, of strugglers, and of tough guys who didn't take no for an answer and who made a better place for others. 

And I felt at peace and grateful.

And as my father died tonight, after an extubation,  all that I can think  to say to him is "Thank you for your courage... from me, and from my children... and soon from their children. You opened a whole new world for them."

I love you Dad... Un Abrazo Fuerte! Thank you for your gifts to me and my children and it is no coincidence that you died on El Dia de Los Reyes.

Photographs by Frank Van Riper at Waverly

WAVERLY STREET GALLERY

A TALE OF FOUR CITIES — New York, Paris, Venice and Washington

Photographs by Frank Van Riper

January 5 - February 8, 2020  

Opening Reception: Friday, January 10th, 6 - 9 pm
Artist’s Talk: Sunday, January 19th, 1 - 3 pm

Journalist and documentary photographer Frank Van Riper will present work spanning four great cities and more than five decades in this solo exhibition.

“In these photographs, I have tried to avoid visual clichés,” Van Riper said. “For me, a photo of any beautiful or dramatic place always is improved by the people who are in it.” The earliest photos are from Van Riper’s hometown of New York City, followed by images he made during extended visits to Paris in the 1980s. The New York-Paris work is featured in his new book of photographs and essays, Recovered Memory: New York and Paris 1960-1980 (Daylight Books). His Venice photos were made over six years beginning in 2000 during a documentary photography project with his wife, photographer and sculptor Judith Goodman, that ultimately produced their bestselling book Serenissima: Venice in Winter (Grafiche Vianello Libri).

Waverly Street Gallery
4600 East West Highway
Bethesda, MD 20814
301-951-9441

Open Wednesday-Sunday, 12-6 pm
Ample parking in the county lot next door: park free on the weekends.
The Bethesda Metro takes you almost to their door.

The Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant

The Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant is awarded annually to under-recognized American painters over the age of 45 who demonstrate financial need. The mission of this grant is to promote public awareness of and a commitment to American art and to encourage interest in artists who lack adequate recognition.

WHO: U.S. painters aged 45 years or older at the time of application. A need for financial support must be clear and demonstrated. Applications must be submitted by an individual working artist or collaborators in an artist group; organizations cannot apply.

FIELD: Painting. For the purposes of this grant, painting is considered the application of various wet media (oil, acrylic, gouache, ink, tempera, watercolor, egg tempera, casein) on paper, canvas, fabric, or wood. This excludes mixed media, encaustic, collage, pastels, digital paintings, prints, and work in graphite or drawings. The use of multiple paint mediums is allowed (i.e. mixing acrylics with oil paints).

AMOUNT: Awards include a cash grant, ranging from $5,000 to $35,000 and an exhibition at PAAM.

DEADLINE: April 1, 2020

Full grant information and the online application is available at www.paam.org/grant.

Wanna go to an artist talk on Sunday?

Artist Talk featuring Eve Stockton and Kyujin Lee

at McLean Project for the Arts

Sunday, January 12

2-4pm

Join MPA on Sunday, January 12 from 2-4pm as they kick off the New Year with an artist talk featuring Eve Stockton and Kyujin Lee. 

Ms. Stockton and Ms. Lee will discuss the thoughts and processes behind Eve Stockton: Origin Stories and Replay and Reshuffle: Paintings by Kyujin Lee, currently on display in MPA's Emerson and Atrium Galleries, respectively. 

This event is FREE and open to the public. 

RSVP now.

About Eve Stockton and Kyujin Lee

Known for large-scale woodcut prints, Stockton's works are inspired by a close observation of nature and an eclectic interest in science. Combining her prints and stone sculpture, she works to create an atmosphere that can subtly envelop the viewer. 

Combining the spontaneity of surrealist automatism with refined illustrative skill, Kyujin Lee draws on the world of fairy tale to compose paintings exploring dreams, identity and personal transformation. 

Origin Stories and Replay and Reshuffle run through February 29, 2020 at MPA@MCC.

“The Year of the Woman” in Maryland

Our great Governor Larry Hogan recently proclaimed 2020 as “The Year of the Woman” in Maryland, as the state prepares to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. 

“Our state’s history has been shaped by extraordinary women leaders, and our administration remains committed to empowering and advocating for women in Maryland,” said Governor Hogan at the announcement, held at The Lightbox Studio in Annapolis. “I look forward to the many events taking place statewide to commemorate the Year of the Woman.”

Happy new decade

My son was born in 2009 - that means that he has now lived in three decades... sounds weird uh?

Let me start 2020 with some questions:

Dear artists who read this blog: this is the year to stop whining about lack of opportunities and do something! For art sake's! (Your art) - if you live in the DMV then come to one of my free seminars (thank you PG County) and revolutionize how you make sure that your artwork ends up in other people's walls! The next free seminar is April 18 - details here.

Dear Art League, Greater Reston Art Center, Rockville Art League, Fill-in-the-blank artists' group/league: I keep giving you hint after hint: When are you guys gonna reach out to me and ask: "Hey Lenster, how do we take this artist group to the next level in this new century?" (instead of still operating in the 20th century model). 

Dear DMV museum directors and curators (except for the Katzen): I've been asking this question since 1992: "When are you going to look at your own backyard for some museum shows for area artists?" Does anyone recall that last time that a DMV area art museum (other than the Katzen) had a full museum show for a DMV artist?

Dear art fair organizers: Thank you for trying to make an art fair work in the DMV - in the last decade the people who run Art Miami and the Superfine! people, as well as the (e)merge art fair stint, all tried to make a successful art fair around the DMV - after all, this area is the second highest concentration of wealth on the planet... and yet. But there are a few key things to try which no art fair organizer has ever tried.

"What about you Lenster?", you might be asking... "whatcha got goin' in 2020"?

For 2020 I'm planning to be doing the Art on Paper fair in NYC, then one of the two Affordable Art Fairs also in NYC, and then the Pulse Art Fair in Miami Beach during Art Basel week.  I've also got two major curatorial projects brewing - one will revisit the theme of Superheroes in art, and the second one (to open during January 2021 actually) will curate a three-gallery show on the 20th anniversary of my Survey of Washington Artists show that I organized in 2001 and which was one of the most popular shows of that year and one which marked a key point in my curatorial trajectory.

More on both of those later... meanwhile, have a great 2020!

Great artist opportunity

From Artists and Makers Studios:

If you would like to become an Artist Affiliate, annual membership (Jan-Dec calendar year) pay just $100 for membership that includes a listing on our site, and participation in our twice yearly open studio event, along with special notices and opportunities in a private Affiliate FB Group.  

Contact Judith for more details via this email

Wanna go to a gallery opening?

MK Gallery Presents: Suh Yongsun & Kathleen J Graves

'Midtown and Beyond'

From January 4 to February 4, 2020.

Opening Reception on Saturday, January 4, 4-6pm.

Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday: 12 pm-6 pm, Saturday & Sunday: by appointment

MK Gallery
1952 Gallows Rd. #202
Vienna, VA 22182
703-734-7777/ 571-215-3029

Open call

This year, MSAC will present four seasonal open-call exhibits in their gallery space!

They are kicking off the year with "Dear Mom" – a non-juried show that features visual art and written messages between children and mother-figures in the form of greeting/postcard art. The exhibit celebrates and embraces the relationships between artists and their mothers and/or mother-figures through a compilation of visual art and written communication. 

Submission deadline: January 6, 2020

Exhibition period: January 9 - March 19, 2020 

Please follow the instructions here to submit.

The Hopper Prize

The Hopper Prize is offering multiple artist grants totaling $5,000 awarded through an open call competition juried by leading curators. Grants are dispersed twice annually. 

WHO: Artists worldwide, 18 and older

FIELD: Any field

AMOUNT: five artists will each receive $1,000

DEADLINE: May 19, 2020

They award 5 individual artist grants in the Spring and 5 in the Winter. There are no restrictions on genre, subject matter, or media. They accept entries in all media. Learn more here.

DELICACIES opens in January

DELICACIES

Paintings by Marcie Wolf-Hubbard & Photographs by Aphra Adkins

Artists' Conversation: SUN, JAN 19 from 6-8PM

Exhibit runs through JAN 31 at 

Takoma Beverage Company
6917 Laurel Ave
Takoma Park, MD

Boynes Emerging Artist Award

DEADLINE: February 1, 2020

The Boynes Emerging Artist Award is an online art award that occurs every three (3) months, with a reward of cash and marketing. They are a 2D award, accepting paintings, drawings and photography of any size or support.

WHO: Emerging artists worldwide

AMOUNT: $50 - $500

This award is about giving talented emerging artists around the world a platform to launch and/or grow their career. For us to help you do that we need your best, we simply require that you submit what you consider your best work to be, the work that is really the greatest representation of your portfolio.  

Learn more here.

A Christmas Story

This is from Christmas Eve 2015:

Those of you who know me... know that I am not a what would be described as an overly religious person; that's not a disclaimer, but a fact.  

I went to a Catholic elementary school (Our Lady of Loretto in Brooklyn), but my family was also not religious at all.  

For 2015, we wanted to get Anderson an outdoor basketball hoop. As there are dozens of them around our neighborhood, we asked our neighbors if anyone wanted to pass one on, and one of our generous neighbors did.  

"We actually inherited the hoop from another neighbor," they said, "And our kids have moved on."  

As the hoop was going to be a Christmas present from Santa, and in order to sneak it into our yard at the last possible minute, last night, around 8PM, I trekked to their house, about a quarter of a mile away, preparing to drag the hoop over to our house.  

I vastly under estimated the weight of the hoop (pole, base and backboard), which has small wheels at the front of its base to allow for relocation movement, but clearly not designed to be dragged by one man for that long of a distance.  

About five minutes into the ordeal, and already soaked in sweat and breathing heavily, as I passed one of the light poles on the street heading to our street, I was startled by my own shadow.  

My shadow, stooped over and carrying the heavy basketball hoop, with the backboard on my shoulders and the pole dragging behind me, startled me because it looked exactly like a man carrying a cross.  

"I wonder what any neighbor who sees this from their house would think," I thought. In the dark of the night, with just some peripheral light from the light poles, it would be easy to confuse me with some zealous penitent carrying a cross.  

I struggled on, my shoulders really aching now, and my sweat pouring from my brow, and my baseball cap being crushed into my eyes by the backboard, so that I had to stop and take my glasses off, and re-adjust the red Nats cap..  

As I stopped and lost the momentum, and I was on a slight uphill, it became really hard to get the hoop going again.  

"What I need now is a Simon to help me," I thought. The "Simon" being Simon of Cyrene, of course... the man who according to the Bible helped The Christ to carry the cross.  

Almost immediately a tall, gangly, dark-haired young man stepped out of the shadows, his hair full of tight black curls.  

"Sir," he said, "Can I help you carry that?"  

"Thank you!" I almost shouted as he put his shoulder to the backboard and together we trudged along; the task a lot easier now.  

"I really appreciate it," I told him as we carried the hoop side by side. "This is for my son," I explained. "Do you live around here?"  

He told me that he was a visitor, and was visiting his girlfriend, who lived in our neighborhood.  

We carried the hoop to our cul-de-sac, placed it in the right spot, and shook hands.  

"Thank you a million times," I said to him. "My name is Lenny, Merry Christmas."  

"My name is Simon," he responded as he walked away into the shadows..."Merry Christmas."  

I walked back into my house, soaked in sweat and breathing heavily, and then, and only then, it dawned on me.

Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, Inc. (BOPA) is proud to announce the 15th edition of the Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize. The prize will award $25,000 to a visual artist or visual artist collaborators living and working in the Baltimore region. Approximately six finalists will be selected for the final review for the prizes; their work will be exhibited in the Walters Art Museum. Finalists not selected for the Sondheim Prize will be awarded an M&T Bank Finalist Award of $2,500 each.

New for this year, they will also be awarding a Sondheim Creative Residency, a six-week-long fully-funded residency at La Civatella Ranieri, in the Umbria region of Italy, to one of the remaining five finalists not selected for the Sondheim Prize.

Additionally, an exhibition of the semifinalists’ work will be featured in a large exhibition during Artscape (July 17-19, 2020). 

Submit your 2020 application today.

Call to Artists: Art Auction 2020

Entry deadline: January 20, 2020

HoCo Arts in MD is currently seeking artists to participate in their juried Art Auction, one of the highlights of their Celebration of the Arts gala, to be held on March 28, 2020.  Artists working in all styles and media are invited to apply. Click here for more information and to apply.

Request for proposals

The Howard County Arts Council, located in Ellicott City, Maryland, is currently seeking proposals from artists with public art experience for ARTsites 2020, a one-year outdoor sculpture exhibit on display in Howard County, Maryland from August 2020 to July 2021. Selected artists will be awarded a $3,000 grant to participate in the exhibit. Deadline to apply is February 28, 2020.

Complete guidelines and submission information is available here.