I’m on my fourth or fifth visit to Art-O-Matic, my feet are hurting from all the walking and to add insult to injury, I am now lost on the third floor until I find Sean Hennessey (the artist on floor-walking duty) to rescue me. He directs me to a few more rooms, including the one with his artwork. Hennessey has a small room full of surreal paintings that are actually painted wall sculptures, and he also has painted the room itself – creating an unique work of art that will be left behind when Art-O-Matic closes. Mix about 100,000 square feet of empty office space, a variety of very hardworking volunteers in partnership with the indefatigable Anne Corbett of the Cultural Development Corporation, and about 1,000 Washington area artists and the result is the best thing that happens to Washington art every few years: Art-O-Matic. This huge orgy of art, theatre, music, parties, performance, weirdness, solidarity and most importantly a knock-out of a visual punch to those who still think that the Washington area art scene is (pick your choice): conservative, dull, dead, not-like-New-York, blah, blah, blah. The reality is that the Washington area art scene is in high gear and alive and growing The plan for the exhibition: Find a large (read: enormous), empty commercial space (in this case the old EPA offices at the Waterside Mall, 401 M St, SW), get the landlord to give it up for a month or so, and open it to anyone who is or claims to be an artist, performer, or actor. Art for the people The process itself is democratic and doesn’t involve any jurying. At Art-O-Matic anyone and everyone can exhibit their work. As a result, the exhibition delivers a huge diversity of skills, subjects, media, presentations, goals, and ideas. Curiously enough, even the most amateur of artists, with the muddiest of watercolors and kitschiest of subjects is a refreshing change in an art world dominated by reproductions and mass-produced art. Now in its third iterationn (Art-O-Matic takes place irregularly every two years or so), this year’s Art-O-Matic is by far the best. The organizers seem to have been able to reach nearly every strata of Washington area demographics. It’s a show of who we are, with all of our multihued ethnicities, cultures, races, and the wonderful names that challenge the tongue and entertain the eyes as much as the artwork does. This is Art-O-Matic’s greatest asset: the vast and diverse pool of artists from which it can draw. What other city in America (OK, OK, other than perhaps New York), can offer a nearly endless source of area artists from all the cultures and corners of the world? This is Washington’s own Biennale without the nose-in-the-air attitude of Venice or Havana or Berlin or Rio. Speaking of Havana, it seems like every Washington photographer has been there in the last year. However, among the hundreds of photographers in the show, I must single out the Cuban photographs of Kay Springwater, especially a piece titled “Amigos, Viales,” which shows two old Cuban friends -- the pure blood of European Spain clearly evident in their pink Spanish faces and noble demeanor -- as tall and elegant as two nobles from an El Greco painting. Also the work of Matt Dunn, always managing to dig out with his silver gelatin mechanical brush that “odd something” in the most common of subjects. Allen Caredio Jackson, Jr.’s photographs of DC carnival dancers and revelers, covered in mud from head to toe, are lyrical and modern narrative photographs that offer us the marriage of mud rituals from ancient Africa to contemporary hot bodies from DC. Jackson also pushes the media via his unusual presentation, where he uses car parts, including a tire, as his frames.  | | by Allen Caredio Jackson, Jr. |
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Install this The old EPA building is full of small offices and cubbyholes and as such presents great opportunities for installation artists, most of whom lean towards darkened rooms and use light and music to deliver their ideas. My favorite among many strong installations was the collaboration by Jordan Tierney and Marcia Hart titled “Aqueduct.” |
