I'll be damned if Glenn Dixon didn't surprise me today with his reviews in the "Galleries" column at the Post.

We've all been waiting for Dixon to review Fusebox, which for whatever reason, has never been reviewed by Jessica Dawson, even though we all know that Fusebox is one of our city's top galleries and certainly one of the hardest working galleries. And we also know that Dixon is a well-published Fusebox enthusiast. So it's no surprise that Fusebox and Dixon would come together.

And yet, surprisingly enough (to me), in today's review, Dixon throws a well-deserved wet-blanket upon James Huckenpahler's photographs, which may have gone to the same well once too often. Bravo Glenn!

Dixon is a bit more positive about Maggie Michael at G Fine Art:

"Maggie Michael keeps it new for us by keeping it new for herself. A couple of years ago she was an American University graduate with a passable gimmick. Since then her work has developed at a rate that is little short of astonishing. Right now she is one of the best painters in town."

From gimmick to astonishing in a couple of years... at least we are getting a positive review about a painter (and a good one) in our town.

There’s such a dichotomy in this name; such a contradiction of stereotypes: Lucy, soft, feminine and flowing.

Hogg: heavy, masculine and powerful. And once you discover her artwork, you'll realize that seldom has a person been so aptly named.

Hogg is a tiny person, almost elfin-like; a complete reverse of what pops into the mind when it tries to visualize someone named Lucy Hogg. My mind came up with two characters: The first was as a sister or close kin of that big, fat, greasy character (Boss J.D. Hogg) in the Dukes of Hazzard TV series.

Because Hogg is Canadian, the other image was that of a secondary character in Robertson Davies’ fictitious small Canadian village of Deptford. A village that he creates superbly in The Fifth Business (part one of the Deptford Trilogy).

And this dichotomy, this Ying Yang of words and mental imageries, translates well to Hogg’s American solo debut currently on exhibition until October 30 at Georgetown’s Strand on Volta Gallery.

Hogg recently moved to Washington from her native Canada. She has exhibited widely in Canada, Asia and Europe, and in a town [DC] where most critics and curators continue to preach the death of painting as a viable contemporary art form, she brings something new and refreshing, pumping some new energy to the ancient medium.

Let me explain.

Salvador Dali once said that "those that do not want to imitate anything produce nothing." This is the Ying of Hogg’s exhibition.

And George Carlin added that "the future will soon be a thing of the past." This is the Yang of her show.

Titled "Sliding Landscapes," the exhibition consists of nearly twenty paintings segregated into two different canvas shapes: oval shapes on the gallery’s left main wall and rectangular shapes on the right wall. Each set of paintings deliver individual ideas, and although tied together by the subject matter, they nonetheless express superbly two sets of thoughts and impressions that I think Hogg wants us to see.

Hogg’s imagery are copies of Old Master paintings, "sampled" (a new word introduced into art jargon from rap music’s habit of using other people’s music or someone else’s lyrics in your music) from a series of capriccios, or fantasy landscapes by 18th century Venetian painters Canaletto, Francesco Guardi and Marco Ricci.

"Fantasy" in the sense that the landscapes only existed in the artists’ minds until created by them and re-invented two centuries later by Hogg.

I must clarify from the very beginning that these paintings are not "copies" in the same sense that you see people sitting in front of paintings in museums all over the world, meticulously copying an Old Master’s work, stroke by stroke.

Therein lies another dichotomy in this exhibition: Reading a description of Hogg’s subject matter brings that image to mind; seeing them destroys it. This is one show where the most erudite of news release spinmeisters will be challenged to separate the two visions.

So what are they?

Hogg starts with a capriccio painting that she likes. I suspect that she works from a reproduction, even a small one, or from an art history book or catalog, and thus cleverly avoids the pitfall of becoming a true copier rather than a sampler.

She then re-creates the capriccios in their original format (rectangular), but completely replaces the color of the original with a simple tint or combination of tints.

Simple enough... Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

It isn’t simple at all.

What Hogg has cleverly done again is to offer us two visual main courses. Sure, she's recreating the original painting, overly-simplified and yet still complex with the seed of great painting and composition planted by the original Masters. But she has also provided herself with a radical new vehicle to flex some very powerful painting and creative skills of her own.

The overly simplified paintings offer her ample room and opportunities to bring a 21st century perspective to these works. Not just her very modern colors (cleverly incorporated into the titles such as "Fantasy Landscape (pthalo green/chrome oxide green) 2004"). Her scrubby, energetic brushwork is everywhere, especially the open skies of some of the works, and where 18th century masters would have reacted in horror, a modern audience takes their middle age glasses off so that we can better try to absorb the quality of the brushwork and peer at the under layers, often left exposed, that reveal the virtuosity of being able to deliver an exciting painting with a very limited palette.

Even within these rectangular recreations, Hogg has a Ying Yang thing going. A group of the pieces are truly monochromatic, using only ultramarine blue or yellow ochre.

In these, the simple associations of cool and warm colors mapping to respective emotions is what anchors our responses to them. But there are some pieces where she has ventured into two distinct colors (such as violet and burnt sienna orange). In these, the opposite position of these hues on the color wheel, and their well-known association with eye-brain responses in creating tension and movement, position these works as a very successful venture into the exploration of color, never mind the landscape that is the vehicle.

Vision two of the exhibition are the oval paintings. Here we again see the same explorations in color and painting that Hogg offered us in the rectangular pieces. But then she opens a new door for us; perhaps even a new door for contemporary painting.

I would have dared to write that she has opened the lid in the coffin of painting, but that would lend tacit approval to the claim that painting is like a "vampire that refuses to die." So I won’t.

In the oval paintings Hogg introduces us to a combination of two (again with the two) elements: the re-visualization within a limited, psychological palette plus a new methodological visual cropping and angling of compositional elements within the original paintings, placed in a new format (oval) and haphazardly hung at crazy angles on the gallery’s left wall. By the way, at the risk of becoming too pedantic, I didn’t like the tilted, askew, haphazard hanging of these pieces. It was a bit heavy handed and went too far to push the fact that they are indeed "sliding" landscapes.

Suddenly we discover two effects (i.e. she has another duality thing going here for the dimwits in the audience): Combine the psychological effect of color with a reorganization of the actual image's presentation and you have suddenly changed the entire character and effect of the painting!

This is the punch to the solar plexus that every artist hopes to accomplish in any exhibition. It is the moment when you stand in front of a piece of artwork, riveted to a sudden discovery that this, whatever "this" may be, has never been done, at least not this well, before.

Here is what I mean.

In the oval pieces, Hogg repeats the paintings from different perspectives or angles; suddenly her choice of colors is not the main driving force; but the relationship between the choice and the subject and the perspective and angle is the new driving force(s).

For example, in one oval piece she offers a calm, cool agrarian view, somewhat disorienting us by the angle and crop, especially when we try to find her source on the left wall's rectangular paintings. Within this painting, a horseman rides up an incline. He is deftly rendered in cool, quick brushstrokes to deliver a placid Sancho Panza character before he had the misfortune of meeting Don Quixote.

Slightly above and to the right of that painting there's another painting, which although it is exactly the same scene, and because it is offered from a slightly different perspective and in a completely different palette, it takes us a minute or two to realize that it is the same scene.

But what a different scene it is! The sky is now a turbulent hellish nightmare of cadmium red and quinachrodne red exaggerated so that the clouds have almost become flames, and the happy farmers of the companion piece are now haggard, beaten figures toiling in a new Dantasque level of hell, where the Sancho Panza horseman is now tired, beaten and barely staying atop his poor horse.

And this is all happening in our mind. Because all that this gifted painter has done is change the perspective and offer us colors that complete different neural paths that create different reactions in our brain.

And the best thing of all is that she didn’t need a video, or an installation, or dioramas of two-dimensional works, or ten pages of wall text to explain the concept. And in these pieces, the finished works are as interesting and successful as the concept itself; not a trivial accomplishment by the way.

All she needed were superbly honed painting skills, a deep understanding of the relationship between color and emotions, an intelligent perspective on composition, and a grab at art history to offer us (yet again) something new and refreshing from that never ending source of surprises: the dusty coffin of painting.

Bravo Lucy! ... Well Done Hogg!

Those of you who have met me know that I sport a Dali-type moustache (most of the time).

And although I met Dali several times when I lived in Spain (once he asked me if I could help him fix his phone); and I curated the Homage to Dali exhibition in 1999; and I am a great, unapologizing fan of the great Catalan, my moustache is not because of Dali - if you want to know, next time you see me, buy me a beer and I'll tell you about the Druze.

Anyway, Alan Riding has a terrific article in the New York Times that discusses Dali's powerful impact as perhaps the 20th century's second most important artist (Picasso being the first) and two ongoing exhibitions on the centenary of his birth: "Dalí and Mass Culture," which tracks his impact on today's visual language, was shown in Barcelona this spring and Madrid this summer and will be at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla., from Oct. 1, 2004 through Jan. 30, 2005. And "Dalí," which focuses on his paintings, is at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice through Jan. 16 and will be presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from Feb. 16 through May 15, 2005.

DCist tips us that WTOP has a contest to re-name the Montreal Expos baseball team once they move here next year.

Enter your suggestion here.

My suggestion? The Washington Ex-Expos.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline October 15, 2004 and April 15, 2005

Exhibition opportunities at Howard County Center for the Arts, a 27,000 sq.ft. facility located in Ellicott City, MD.

They are seeking proposals from artists and curators nationwide for solo and group exhibits for the 2006-2007 gallery season. All original artwork in any media, including installations, will be considered. The Arts Council is also accepting slide submissions for two specific upcoming exhibits: Illuminations, a juried exhibit of artworks with light/illumination as the primary medium, and an untitled exhibit of book arts.

Work previously shown will not be accepted, nor will work previously submitted. No fee to apply. Artists must be at least 18 years old. Submit up to 20 slides with an accompanying slide list, an artist/curator statement, resume and application to exhibit, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope with sufficient postage for the return of materials.

Call 410-313-2787 for an application. Deadlines in the next two reviews are October 15, 2004 and April 15, 2005. A calendar of upcoming HCCA exhibits can be found on their website. Or email Amy Poff at amy@hocoarts.org if you have questions.

Curated by Alexandra Olin, the WPA\C has a group exhibition titled CORE 13, from September 7 - October 29, 2004, and they're hosting a reception this coming Tuesday, October 5, from 5-7pm.

Artists included in the show are: Joseph Barbaccia, Jonathan Bucci, James Calder, Deborah Ellis, Mike Fitts, Adam Fowler, Karen Graziani, Ryan Hackett, Mimi Herbert, Miriam Horrom, Scott Hunter, Flora Kanter, Rogelio Maxwell and Chris Saah.

CORE is located at 1010 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Suite 405 in Washington, DC 20007 (Georgetown).

As part of "Gyroscope" (the Hirshhorn's on-going experimental display of the collection), nine of Washington, DC-born sculptor Martin Puryear's sculptures and works on paper are on view on the third floor, along with the sculpture "Bower" on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

And on September 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the Baird Auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History (across the Mall from the Hirshhorn), the Hirshhorn presents "Meet the Artist: Martin Puryear."

Washington, DC, native Puryear and Hirshhorn Director Ned Rifkin will engage in a dialogue about art and ideas that place the artist's work in context.

DCARTNEWS reader and fellow artist Michelle Banks brings this New York Times story about a four-year-old artist to my attention.

"In all, Marla has sold 24 paintings totaling nearly $40,000, with the prices going up. Her latest paintings are selling for $6,000. Some customers are on a waiting list."

I now share it with you. Read it and weep.

I've been thinking about taking this class:

The Washington Glass School offers a class titled "Beginner Glass Lovers' Weekend."

This class is for those of us who damned near flunked glass in art school or are just starting out or who just want to make some cool stuff out of glass. You learn all the basic stuff over a weekend, and this weekend is the Beginners Glass Lovers' Weekend and the class is being offered.

Not only do students learn several ways to work with glass, but they also will make four glass pieces (bowls, etc.) while learning at the same time. For more info or schedule of other classes, contact the school at 202/744-8222 or via email at WashGlassSchool@aol.com.

Jacqueline Trescott, writing in the Washington Post, reveals that the National Gallery of Art is finally dedicating permanent galleries to photography, giving prominence to the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Paul Strand and Ansel Adams.

I hope some women photographers also find their way to the permanent galleries.

Sarah Greenough, is the curator and director of the department of photographs at NGA, and three shows a year are planned for the new galleries. The coming shows are by Roger Fenton, Andre Kertesz and Irving Penn.

Photography is certainly very hot, and at least 50% of our sales are photographs from the fifteen photographers that we represent.

And next November 13, beginner collectors have a great opportunity to start or add to a collection through the Annual "Auction in the Park" being held by PHOTOWORKS At Glen Echo Park.

All tickets include one entry in an art raffle, entitling every guest to a work of art from the raffle collection. In addition, a silent auction will feature photographs by well-known contemporary photographers, on-location shooting with respected commercial photographers, funky photo equipment, and trips and workshops with photography-related themes.

For more info, contact Alexandra Walsh at 301/523-3318 or Emily Whiting at 301/213-7763.

The George Carlin quote for September:

"I'm desperately trying to figure out why Kamikaze pilots wore helmets."

OK... ready for some info about some openings to go and see over the next few days?

On Wednesday, Sept. 29, from 5-8 PM, Zenith Gallery's space at 901 E Street, NW, showcases The Reflection Series, a recent collection of stunning photo-realistic oil paintings by Washington DC artist Joey Manlapaz. I am familiar with Manlapaz's works and she has refined her skill to a level where I consider her amongst the best photo-realistic painters that I've seen in the last few years and certainly around here.

This coming Friday is the first Friday of the month. So boys and girls: what does that mean?

Answer: The Galleries of Dupont Circle are having their opening receptions or extended hours. It all happens from 6-8 PM this coming Friday. I'll be there! Come and say hello if you see me.

On Sunday, October 3, from 3-5 PM, four very good area artists are having an open studio (for the grubs in the audience: they will have Champagne and Hors d'Oeuvres).

They are Rosalind Burns, Susan Hostetler, Michele Montalbano and Jeneen Piccuirro. Their studio is at 411 New York Avenue, NE and you should RSVP to 202/546-9584.

Later that day, Lucy Hogg has an artist's talk at Strand on Volta on Sunday, Oct. 3rd from 7-9 PM. I've seen this show and it is well worth a visit. I am now finishing a review of the show and will be pimping it to the various newspapers and magazines that sometimes publish my reviews. Once it is picked up and published I will also have it here.

The WCP's Bidisha Banerjee profiles artist Candace Keegan, whose current show at Wohlfarth Galleries runs until October 10, 2004.

I got the feeling (in reading between the lines) that Banerjee was a little uncomfortable with the visual content of the work, and it translated into the profile.

This show is on my list to try and see and discuss this coming week. It has been extended to October 10.

Keegan is currently an MFA candidate at Catholic University.

Remember the whole debate about pandas as public art?

New York had apples, Los Angeles had angels, Norfolk has mermaids, Baltimore has fish - or it is crabs? and a bunch of cities around the world have had cows. And now San Francisco has hearts!

Regardless of how you feel about the pandas being "art," I think that our pandas will soon go on auction and proceeds will help fund grants to DC artists. More info here.

Today's Sunday Arts in the Washington Post gives me yet another opportunity to vent two of my primary pet peeves against the world's second largest newspaper.

The first is why their Chief Art Critic is identified as "Washington Post Staff Writer" instead of "Washington Post Chief Art Critic." I know, I know... it's a Virgo thing, but I think Gopnik deserves to be separated in title from the guy who writes the obituaries, or stories for the Kid's Post. I betcha it has something to do with some silly union rule about all writers being equal.

The second peeve is why The Washington Post's Chief Art Critic seldom if ever writes about Washington, DC galleries. Today he does a magnificent job of writing about New York galleries.

Hey! The New York Times already does a great job of doing that, and I am glad that Blake is affording us to chance to get a view of what's going on around New York galleries.

But.

How about a quarterly article like this one about Washington, DC galleries?

Dupont Circle, Georgetown and downtown DC are a lot closer than Chelsea, and I seriously doubt that the New York Times will send their Chief Art Critic to DC to do a round-up of DC galleries.

Darth Vader Grotesque in the National Cathedral

I kid you not.

Grammar.police has a really funny posting discovering that there's a grotesque of Darth Vader in the National Cathedral!

I didn't know this!

It was sculpted by our own Jay Hall Carpenter (who is a damned good sculptor by the way), carved by Takoma Park's Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral.

Makes my head hurt.

I have to eat some crow in reference to some of the issues raised in my earlier posting defending Art-O-Matic; I've since corrected those particular issues. My recollections as to the sequence of events and causes involving Glenn Dixon's on-air comments on the Kojo Nmandi show and the reasons for his subsequent review of the show in the WCP were incorrect, and Dixon pointed this out to me.

I have apologized to Dixon, corrected the posting, and below now publish Dixon's email to me in order to clarify the issue:

Dear Mr. Campello:

I'm writing regarding your posting yesterday about Art-O-Matic. Although you didn't identify me by name, it is no secret that I was the Washington City Paper critic who spoke about the 2002 exhibition on the Kojo Nnamdi Show in November of that year.

You are guilty of misrepresenting my comments and distorting the facts.

That I had not yet attended that year's Art-O-Matic was not something I hid from listeners. In fact, I prefaced my comments with a disclaimer:

"I've gotta say, I have not seen the current Art-O-Matic yet, but I've been to the first one, and it nearly killed me. There is a serious quality issue. It's not a very kind show to viewers. You have to wade through a lot of dross to get a few gems. The first year there were maybe two or three artists out of all of them that I really cared about."

I hadn't intended to weigh in on Art-O-Matic, but found myself in a situation where to keep mum would have been to offer tacit approval to the rather boosterish comments of my fellow guests, Joe Barber and Peter Fay.

By the time my 2002 wrap-up appeared in City Paper in late December, I had seen Art-O-Matic--not at the urging of my editor or because of some supposed scandal, but because I wanted to know if my misgivings were justified. What I wrote was this:

"After dragging myself through Art-O-Matic the first year, I vowed I'd never repeat the experience. But I went again, largely because I felt a little guilty about warning Kojo Nnamdi Show listeners off it sight unseen (although I was upfront about not having visited the exhibition at that point). I needn't have been so scrupulous. If anything, Art-O-Matic, as a visual-art event, had gotten even worse, more sprawling and more amateurish."

Again, note that I was completely forthcoming about the fact that I hadn't seen the show at the time of the broadcast.

The fact that streams and tapes of the Kojo Nnamdi Show and full texts of my writing for City Paper can easily be accessed or ordered online suggests that you made no attempt to check your mistaken recollections against the facts.

This little flap is indeed the result of an ethical lapse, but it is yours alone. You owe your readers a retraction and me an apology.

Sincerely,

Glenn Dixon

Want to go to an opening tonight?

Curated by Faith Flanagan and Allison Cohen, and opening tonight at Dot Projects & Artwork (501 Ninth Street - NE, Washington, DC Phone: 202-546-0334) Saturday, September 25, 6:00pm to 9:00pm is a preview of the exhibition Hot Damn - Fresh Art featuring work by:

Noah Angell, Virginia Arrisueno, Ken Ashton, Lisa Bertnick, Christine Carr, Franck Cordes, Kathryn Cornelius (performance at 7:30 p.m.), Mary Early, Djakarta, Kevin Kepple, Peter Loge, Jayme McLellan, Dylan Scholinski, Trish Tillman, Kelly Towles, Leigh Van Duzer, and Joan Van Sledright.

---

And next Saturday, the Museum of Modern ARF in Arlington has an opening reception on October 2 from 6-9 PM for "Breaking the Silence II: Questioning Power Now More Than Ever."

The show, which runs until November 14, includes work by Martyn Turner, Claudia Olivos, Helen Zughaib, Scott Brooks, Steve Lewis, Kathleen Stevenson, Negar Assari Samimi, Richard Notkin, Jim Magner, Ruth Trevarrow, Mark Planisek, Tara Campbell, Joroko, Roger Cutler, Ruth Kling, Chris Britt, Chad Allan, John Aaron, Eliza Brewster, Daniel Penaloza, and Young Artists from Palestine and Israel.

The Museum of Modern ARF is located at 1116 N. Hudson St. Arlington, VA 22201 and can be reached at 703/528-4800.

Ionarts has a terrific recap of the Peter Schjeldahl (art critic for The New Yorker) lecture at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium as part of this year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art.

Downey writes:

"One of Schjeldahl's major points on the topic he chose ("What Art Is For Now") was that the snob appeal of art is one of the "underestimated engines of culture," that for now he has "no desire to swell the size of the tent" of those who love art. In his view, there is no reason to bring art to the masses. Those who want it will find it, and "if somebody doesn't want art, bully for them." However, as Schjeldahl also noted, the audience for art worldwide may be larger now than it ever has been, and the art market is a booming business. This may help explain the gulf that can be observed between major art critics and the art-going public, in the case of the J. Seward Johnson sculptures at the Corcoran, for example (see [his]post from September 14, 2003)."

Defending Art-O-Matic

I've been mulling Christ Schott's Sept 3, 2004 "Show and Tell" column in the WCP titled The Artsy Thing That Swallowed DC on the subject of Art-O-Matic.

Two letters in the current issue (one by Judy Jashinsky and one by Philip Barlow) express their disagreement with Schott's view of Art-O-Matic.

Let me start by saying that I am not very objective when it comes to Art-O-Matic. I think that it is the best thing that happens to the Washington visual art scene every couple of years; whatever is in second place is a distant second.

I am also rather sick and tired of the way (because of its size, energy and open attitude towards hanging any and all artwork as long as the artist is willing to help run the show) that it gets bashed by some in the lamestream media, the alternative media and even the BLOGosphere.

Such as when a WCP writer cruelly bashed the 2002 Art-O-Matic on the Kojo Nmandi Show. He admitted that he had not actually been to that year's exhibition (and thus pre-formed an opinion about that year's Art-O-Matic based on his dislike of the previous one). In his defense, he then felt guilty and actually visited the show, which he then brutalized again on paper.

And much like the current CBS Rathergate, some of the past Art-O-Matic bashing didn't really pass the journalistic ethics test.

Such as when a Washington Post art critic wrote a dismissive small pre-opening review, again without actually ever setting foot in the place.

So, I think that it is not just the bad art that they dislike; I believe that they also resent the democraticization of the art process, the joyfulness and uniqueness of the event, the huge public success that it enjoys and the fact that it takes place in our own backyard.

And they miss the key ingredient that the event adds to our cultural tapestry: an incredible amount of artistic energy and a vast amount of attention to the visual arts. Anytime that you get over 1,000 artists to organize something of this magnitude, the footprint and its impact will be vast.

And, as far as I know, there's nothing like it anywhere else in the nation, possibly the world. And here's where the key to Art-O-Matic bashing lies: If the event took place in London, or New York, or Madrid, or LA or San Francisco or even Chicago, it would be lauded as a good thing for contemporary art and artists. I can see the headlines now: "Los Angeles' Art-O-Matic is The Place to Discover the Next Generation of LA's Artists."

So what if it is growing? The 2002 version brought out 40,000 visitors; can we envision a future Art-O-Matic where it is an international open show, where artists from all over the world can participate and a quarter of a million visitors from all over the planet converge on DC to see the exhibition? I can.

So what if it is non juried? That way it allows people like me to go and see work by artists and artist-wannabes that otherwise I would never see because they are way off the radar of our curators and galleries. Granted, a lot of the work in past Art-O-Matics I have found amateurish, bland and forgettable. This puts Art-O-Matic in the same company as many recent shows in the Hirshhorn, the Corcoran and the last few Venice Biennales and Whitney Biennials.

And unlike those exhibitions, and as Barlow eloquently points out in his letter, many of today's top DC artists have Art-O-Matic in their resume: Manon Cleary, Dan Steinhilber, Adam Bradley, Scott Hutchison, the Dumbacher brothers, Renee Stout, Tim Tate, Michael Clark, Allison Miner, Jordan Tierney, Richard Dana, Graham Cladwell,Judy Jashinsky, Richard Chartier, and many, many others.

I am looking forward to Art-O-Matic 2004, and 2006, and 2008...

Louis Jacobson reviews Antonia Macedo at Touchstone Gallery in the current issue of the WCP.

The same issue has picked up my bit about the grubs and has it in their Letters to the Editor.

Just found a great new BLOG: Grammar.police - please go visit often.

One of the most eloquent and qualified art critics in our region, Dr. Claudia Rousseau, delivers a third review of our current exhibition of paintings by controversial GMU Professor Chawky Frenn.

Read the earlier Washington Post review here and the Washington City Paper profile of Frenn here.

AJ points to a story in The Guardian that reveals that Dinos and Jake Chapman are about to rebuild one of their dioramas that was destroyed in the Momart storage unit fire in London last May.

That makes an analysis I made a while back about the infuriating "high art" double standards (applied not only to artists, but also to processes and art). These double standards are even more infuriating as one discovers more and more variations upon the same theme. Here it is again:

The Theme:
J. Seward Johnson is a very rich man and his "art" has been brutalized by the press everywhere. I don't like Mr. Seward's work, but the main reason given in the reviewing of his work is not that Seward is a bad guy (he's very generous with his wealth towards the art world) or even a bad sculptor, but that his concept of taking someone else's two-dimensional art works - in Seward's latest case the Impressionists - and making them into a three dimensional "new" work is both kitschy and reprehensible.

The Hypocrisy:
1. As I whined about it before, the British artist brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman's best known works are based on the famous Goya etchings Disasters of War. Initially they used plastic figures to re-create Goya in a miniature three-dimensional form, and like Johnson (later on), one of these 83 scenes became a life-sized version using mannequins. Yet the Chapmans are darlings of the art world and were favorites in the last Tate show.

2. Whitney Biennial selectee Eve Sussman's "art" is to take Velasquez's Las Meninas and turn it into "ten minutes of a costume-drama feature film." It was actually quite good by the way.

3. Jane Simpson is one of Artnet.com's Artists to Watch for 2004. Her stellar reputation in the artworld has been acquired partially by her creation of sculptures based on Giorgio Morandi paintings.

Am I the only one who sees that all of these people are essentially working the same generic concept as J. Seward Johnson - but unlike Johnson, they are being lauded and praised?

What am I missing here?

Take the Encarta Art Quiz here.

Today's Washington Post has a really.... uh... odd Roxanne-Roberts-type article by "Galleries" critic Jessica Dawson about "Tony and Heather Podesta [being] a Study in Power Collecting."

"But the Podestas' stock of artists know well the benefits of securing such politically connected patronage. Uniquely capable of advocating for their artists using the lobbying skills of their day jobs, Tony and Heather can secure access, lend advice and connect artists to curators and coveted museum shows. It's backing more valuable, at times, than dollars.

...To keep themselves in pictures, Tony and Heather jet to art fairs and biennials from Sao Paolo to San Sebastian -- often just for the weekend. Theirs is a life led breathlessly, moving from airport to dinner party. The art is an extravagance that occasionally gives Heather pause.

... During last year's Venice Biennale, they threw parties night after night, renting out their favorite restaurant and packing it with artists and a gallerist or two. Here in Washington, they've hosted art parties with Patricia Puccini, Cathy de Monchaux, Anna Gaskell, Frank Thiel, Annee Olofsson, Nikki Lee and others. Curators from the Hirshhorn Museum and Corcoran Gallery of Art, top Washington collectors and the city's best dealers regularly show up. Podesta parties are where connections are made."

So that's where those Hirshhorn and Corcoran curators are hanging out!

Anyway... inside the Style section, Jessica then delivers a surprisingly bland[ish] review of Avish Khebrehzadeh's show at Conner Contemporary Art, calling it "sweet and bracingly sentimental" with a weird tie-in to her Podesta article.

The review left me thoroughly confused. I've seen this show and to me it simply reflects the sudden discovery by the upper crust "high art" world of world-class artists that can actually draw.

Curators and critics here seem to be still trying to catch up to the fact that drawing is hot!

Pilfered from DCist:

The Washington Post seems to be having a comic strip racial controversy!

Gene Weingarten's online chat at the Post's website discusses that:

"The Washington Post has decided not to run this week's episode of Boondocks, instead substituting an old sequence. Moreover, when this chat requested permission to LINK to the censored material, which is available to any and all on the Boondocks website, permission was denied.

The Washington Post has decided that it is inappropriate to disseminate this material in any way. Personally, this chat takes no position, pro or con, on this ruling, inasmuch as taking a position would amount to insubordination, a quality abhorrent to this chat."

You can view the controversial comics here. The censored series started on Sept. 20 and goes throughout this week, so after viewing the first set of strips, click on "next date" to see the others.

It is not the first time that the Post has decided to cancel Boondocks because of perceived offensive content.

Call for Public Art

Deadline: October 4, 2004

Kansas City Convention Center. Kansas City, Missouri's One-Percent-for-Art program is seeking artists or artist collaborations to develop innovative, original artwork for the Kansas City Convention Center renovation and expansion. The Convention Center spans eight city blocks in downtown Kansas City.

Interested artists should submit qualifications by Monday, October 4, 2004, at 5:00pm Central Daylight Time. For more information related to this project and to download the complete Request for Qualifications, please go to this website.

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Opportunity for Artists - $44,000 in awards

Deadline: December 15, 2004

The Art Renewal Center seeks applicants for its 2nd Annual International Salon Competition. Over $44,000 in cash awards; $10,000 Best in Show, and featured online gallery.

Send #10 SASE for prospectus to: Karen McCormack, Art Renewal Center, Box 837, Glenham NY 12527; E-mail: arcprogram@aol.com

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Design Competition - $2,500 Prize

Deadline: OCtober 15, 2004.

The National Symphony Orchestra is seeking an artist or graphic designer to create original visual art to commemorate its 75th Anniversary Season in 2005-2006. The NSO is coordinating this competition in partnership with the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

The competition is open to all artists and graphic designers; however, preference will be given to residents of the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

The winner will receive an honorarium of $2,500. Applications and additional information are available at this website. For additional information call: Jennifer Leed, Special Projects Manager: 202-416-8112.

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Grants for Painters

Deadline: October 15, 2004

The George and Helen Segal Foundation is accepting applications for grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 for painters only. Applications may be found on the Foundation's website or you may contact the Segal Foundation, 136 Davidson's Mill Rd., N Brunswick, NJ 08902.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has a very interesting exhibition of "casta" paintings detailing racial mixing among eighteenth-century Mexico’s native Indian, European, and African populations.

The exhibition reflects what many upper-class Spaniards thought about race, class and skin color during the 1700s, when Mexico was a colony of Spain.

Another sign that some sanity may be returning to contemporary art:

The 2004 Jerwood Drawing Prize actually went to... a drawing!

An actual, real drawing won, despite "the judges declaring that they were prepared to stretch the definition to breaking point."

Past shortlisted entries have included drawings in dust, string, and moving light recorded by a video camera.

But this year, the first prize of £5,000 went to a real drawing by Sarah Woodfine.

See all the prizewinners here.

For Women Photographers

The next Secondsight meeting will be held this coming Thursday, September 23 at 6.30pm in Bethesda, MD. The guest speaker will be Amy Lamb, a very successful fine arts photographer and highly respected scientist. For more information, visit www.secondsightdc.com or call Catriona Fraser at (301) 718-9651. Meetings are free for members - $10 for guests.

Secondsight is an organization dedicated to the advancement of women photographers through support, communication and sharing of ideas and opportunities. Secondsight is committed to supporting photographers at every stage of their careers, from students to professionals. Each bi-monthly meeting includes an introductory session, a guest speaker, portfolio sharing and discussion groups. Each photographer will have the opportunity to present their work within a small group of other photographers, ask for constructive criticism, gain knowledge or simply share their artistic vision and techniques.

Tonight, Annie Adjchavanich, Executive Director of WPA\Corcoran, will present an overview of the Artist Directory and Artfile, the organization's most recent publication, the "2004-2005 Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran Artist Directory," the 540-page, full-color publication lists 500 artists living and working in the DC, Maryland and Virginia region. Its usefulness as an invaluable resource for finding art, locating artists to create commissioned work will be addressed. Some artists included in the directory will be available to talk about their artwork (bringing a sample with them) and share success stories with the WPA\C and the Artist Directory.

September 21, 2004 6:30pm-9:00pm
Design Within Reach Georgetown Studio
3307 Cady's Alley, Washington, DC 20007
(Near Hemphill Fine Arts) - FREE
RSVP: wpainfo@corcoran.org

Fifteen artists around the Dupont Circle and Logan Circle areas of DC are opening their studios to the public this coming weekend; great opportunity to meet the artists!

The artists participating include:

The Vastu Studios (1829 14th street, 14th street between T and S - enter through Vastu Gallery):
Kristina Bilonick
Colin Winterbottom
Brian Petro
Saturday and Sunday - noon till 5 PM

In the studios next to Maison 14 (1327 14th street)
Gary Fisher
Charlie Jones
T Santora
John Talkington
Glenn Fry
1 pm - 4 pm Saturday and Sunday

In the studio of Sondra Arkin (1764 Church Street)
1 pm - 4 pm Saturday and Sunday

The studios of Kelly Towles and Virginia Arrisueño at 1643 13th street, NW, #1
Sunday 1- 4 PM

The studio of Nicolas Shi (1500 P street, NW)
Saturday and Sunday 10am - 5 PM

The studio of Robert Cole (1714 15th street)
Saturday and Sunday 1 - 4 PM

The studio of Peter Alexander Romero (1320 Wallach Place - between T and U)
Saturday 12 - 5 PM
Sunday 12 - 4 PM

The studio of Gina Miele at Raven Arts (1833 14th street, #201)
Saturday 11 - 6 and Sunday 11 - 5 PM

This website has some really good advise for artists on how to apply for grants.

By the way, there's no better resource in the world for connecting artists and grants than the Foundation Center, which happens to have a local office here in Washington, DC.

They also offer a CD ROM (for $75) titled Guide to Greater Washington D.C. Grantmakers that features profiles of over 2,500 grantmakers located in the DC region and funders in 40 different states that have an interest in funding DC-area projects.

DCARTNEWS reader and photographer James W. Bailey, after reading the posting about the Washington City Paper's article on the grubs, writes in with his own memoirs of them:

" ... had to email you about "the grubs" after reading the Washington City Paper article and your post.

During my 2 ½ years at the Greater Reston Arts Center, they never missed any of our openings, including fine art openings in the main gallery, Market Street Bar & Grill openings for solo artists at Reston Town Center, children’s art openings for the children who participate in Summer Art Camp and GRACE’s Art-in-the-Schools Program, it didn’t matter. If we had an opening that included wine and food, you had better believe they were there.

When I was new to Reston, several Restonians told me that they were one of the original new town pioneer couples who moved to Reston during the early 1960’s; that they had fallen on hard times and that the only thing they had left was their $600,000 Lake Anne home and were struggling to survive on their last $200,000 in the bank.

Having lived in New Orleans for 20 years - New Orleans being the poorest American city per capita - I know a thing or two about real poverty and people really down on their luck and doubted the accuracy of many of these Reston tales about them. Again, being from New Orleans their eccentric behavior and dress would merit them about one quarter of one nano second of attention in the Big Easy where Bank Officers, Corporate Executives and Baptist preachers parade around dressed like something out of a Mardi Gras nightmare. However, in Reston, they were obviously something of a spectacle. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me and I just flat out asked them who they were and what they were all about while they were munching away on imported English cheese and crackers at one of our openings.

They were kind enough to share the history of their lives and experiences (pretty much per the article) and, yes, their art interests, with me. This conversation took place in probably October or November of 2002. Later in 2003 they attended one of our catered functions at Market Street Bar & Grill (a very very popular venue for them because the Hyatt puts on quite an impressive seafood spread with decent wine) and I told them about being notified that I had been selected for a solo exhibition at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center for October of 2004.

They both gave me this profoundly disappointed look and said that they had stopped going to that venue because the artists themselves cater their own receptions and the quality of their past experiences was appalling. I promised them that being from New Orleans I could guarantee that they would leave my reception dancing in the streets with joy over the spread I would be importing from some of the finest restaurants in Louisiana. They said they would consider it as my show got closer.

On the day of my reception, 9-11-04, I was starting to panic around 2:45 pm. My reception was scheduled to run from 1:00 – 3:00 pm. During the process of taking down the food and beverage tables, along with "The Death of Film" installation piece designed by a friend of mine and fellow Board Member of the LRA, Robyn Spence, suddenly I looked up and there they were... with a look of calm hunger on both their faces. They proceeded to filter through various food items that had already been packed into the ice chests. I was so relived. I told them that I too would have considered myself a failure had they not attended my reception.

They didn’t buy any of my work. They never bought any work while attending GRACE functions to my knowledge either. It’s really a wonderful pleasure to know that there are people in this world who love art enough to protect the value of their wallets. I’m not sure just what that means that I just said, but I do know that they have promised to come to my January 2005 solo show in Reston, even though I’m not catering food and wine for that one!"

DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities: Money For DC Artists 18 to 30 Years Of Age

Deadline: Tuesday, October 12, 2004

The Arts Commission recognizes up and coming DC artists with The Young Artists Grant Program, which offers grants of up to $3,500 to DC artists between the ages of 18 and 30. For more information and an application, call 202-724-5613, or visit this website.

John Metcalfe's "The Hunger Artists" in the current edition of the Washington City Paper is one of the most readable and funny articles that I have read in ages.

I had always heard that they "bought" work, but in over 100 shows between the two Fraser Galleries, they've eaten a ton of food and drank gallons of Sangria, and yet never, ever even feigned remote interest in any of the artwork - now I know why: we don't show colorful abstraction.

But they still come to every opening, devour whatever is on the plate, and head straight out to the gallery next to us.

And let me tell you: These guys know this city's art scene (as long as there's food) better than anyone else! They could give even the most seasoned of gallery goers and every art critic in this town a lesson on art spaces and where they are and what food they serve.

And I don't know how they do it, but they are also at every embassy, restaurant opening, etc. I've seen them as far south as Virginia Beach.

In Canal Square we call them "the grubs." There are several others in the locust pack besides the ones mentioned in the article.

Worst story I've heard allegedly about them: A now defunct gallery in Leesburg actually had some of Coxe's works in a group show (she's a stained glass artist); the whole gang was there, and apparently it was the daughter's birthday.

To the gallery owner's dismay, he discovered that once all the food and drinks had been devoured in the main gallery, and before he noticed, the grubs all went to the backroom area, and ate all the food that was stored inside the refrigerator there plus two cases of beer.

When he took them to task for doing this, they responded that they were celebrating the daughter's birthday!

I was told that he was so upset that he had her remove her work from the show and threw them out!

It takes all kinds to make a city's art tapestry: Even the grubs!

Opportunities for Artists at University Galleries

None of these have any application or review fees...

Deadline: October 1, 2004

Monterey Peninsula College is currently reviewing slides by U.S. artists for new exhibitions for the 2005-2006 season. Send up to ten slides and supporting materials to:
MPC Art Gallery
Monterey Peninsula College
980 Fremont St
Monterey, CA 93540
(831) 646-3060

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Deadline: October 15, 2004

Valdosta State University's fine arts gallery is now reviewing proposals for solo and small group shows for the 2005-2006 season. Open to all U.S. artists. No sales commission. Send proposal letter and 20 slides, resume and statement to:
Valdosta State University
Dept. of Art
1500 N. Patterson
Valdosta, GA 31602
(229) 333-5835

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Deadline October 23, 2004

Cecilia Coker Bell Gallery at Coker College is reviewing proposals for five solo shows in 2005-2006. No sales commission. Send ten labeled slides, slide list, statement, resume and SASE to:
Larry Merriman
Gallery Director
Cecilia Coker Bell Gallery
Coker College
300 E. College Avenue
Hartsville, NC 29550
(843) 383-8156

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Deadline November 30, 2004

Edinboro University's Bruce Gallery is reviewing proposals for inclusion in small group shows for 2005-2006 season. Send letter of intent, eight slides, resumes, statements and supporting materials to:
Gallery Director
Bruce Gallery
Art Department
Doucette Hall
215 Meadville Street
Edinboro University of Pennsylavania
Edinboro, PA 16444
(814) 732-2513

The best thing that happens to Washington, DC visual arts is Art-O-Matic and there will be one in 2004!

This is Nirvana for visual artists... if you don't know what Art-O-Matic is then, visit their website and then read my review of the 2002 show here and a second review here.

Over the three Art-O-Matics that have taken place over the years we have picked several artists for our galleries by visiting Art-O-Matic.

Artists such as Adam Bradley, Erik Sandberg, Scott Hutchison, Brad Rudich, Tim Tate, Ardath Hill, and others first came to our attention through these huge, wonderful shows.

This review discusses a new medical theory that tries to explain that the 17th century Dutch master may have had one misaligned eye.

Apparently "the eye on the right side of the painting tends to look straight ahead and the other eye deviates outward," according to a letter published in the Sept. 16 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Apparently this is known as "stereoblindness" and has the same effect as closing one eye, which is what artists do as they try to create three-dimensional images on flat surfaces.

Advantage Rembrandt!

More here.

Art Jobs

The Rockville Arts Place, a non-profit arts organization located in Rockville, Maryland seeks a Director of Development to provide strategic direction and vision during a time of transition as the organization prepares to become part of Rockville’s downtown development project and move into a new facility.

To apply, please submit cover letter, resume, names of three references, and salary requirements to: Debra Moser, Executive Director, Rockville Arts Place 9300 Gaither Road, Gaithersburg, MD 20877 by September 15. You may also send information by fax at 301-869-9173 or by e-mail to execdirector@rockvilleartsplace.org.

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The Baltimore Museum of Art is seeking a part-time Special Events Coordinator whose primary responsibility is the planning and implementation of events for the Development Division, including exhibition openings, receptions, and meal functions. The Special Events Coordinator also manages a limited corporate rental program. This position reports to the Deputy Director for Development.

The schedule for this contract position is three days per week in the Special Events office, plus event coverage. The successful candidate will be creative and detail-oriented and will have strong organizational and budget management skills. The ability to manage multiple projects at the same time is critical. Excellent word-processing, spreadsheet, database, and internet skills are essential. Special events experience and a college degree are required.

Please send resumes to: Judith M. Gibbs, Deputy Director for Development, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, Maryland 21218.

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The Village of Arts and Humanities is seeking a Managing Director who oversees and manages the financial planning for the organization and assists in the management of all Village program activities and related staff development. Duties include overseeing financial planning and monitoring of program budgets, actively participate in planning and development of strategies, guide and support managing staff.

Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field, Masters preferred, at least 5 years experience in non-profit management position, knowledge of computer systems and equipment (PC and Mac). $38,000+ (depending on experience), plus full benefits, starting September 2004. Email a cover letter, resume, and writing sample to village@villagearts.org Attn: Managing Director Search.

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The Textile Museum in DC invites applications for the position of Director to provide vision and leadership for dynamic institutional growth. Primary responsibilities reflect the Museum's strategic priorities: programming that promotes public appreciation of the textile arts; expansion of local, national, and international audiences; and fundraising to address current and future needs.

Qualifications: knowledgeable and enthusiastic about arts, textiles and cultural history; ability to envision and articulate exciting, innovative programming; 6-8 years senior-level administrative experience, including strategic planning and fundraising, in museum or comparable organization; outstanding communications skills to interact effectively with diverse internal and external constituencies. Advanced degree preferred. Full position announcement available at this website. Apply in to: Director Search Committee, The Textile Museum, 2320 S Street, NW, Washington, DC 20008 or searchcommittee@textilemuseum.org.

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Curator of the Art Gallery: American University – DC. The American University, College of Arts and Sciences announces an open position for Curator of the art gallery at the new Katzen Arts Center. This position will be responsible for artistic and creative direction of the gallery including: overall planning for gallery collections, collection development, conservation, management, operations, and exhibitions and programming.

Duties include coordinating press and public relations, seeking donations for art collections, assisting in capital fundraising, working with academic units to integrate students and curricula into gallery operations, developing proposals for program enrichment, and planning for the opening of the Katzen Arts Center. Qualifications required include graduate degree in art history or related field, PhD preferred,and curatorial/exhibition experience.

Salary: Commensurate with qualifications and experience. To apply, complete an application in person or send your resume to: American University, Office of Human Resources, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20016-8054. e-mail: careers@american.edu. Fax: 202-885-1737. Applicants may also download an application from their web site.

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Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation seeks a Development Officer who will be responsible for the initiation, oversight, planning, implementation, and management of a development program that secures significant financial resources from government, foundations, corporations, and individuals to support the Foundation's mission.

Qualifications include: a bachelor's degree in business, marketing, communications or a field related to the arts; two to three years of progressive experience and responsibility in development in an arts or cultural agency; strong research, planning, writing, grantwriting and budgeting skills; and proficiency in computer technology including the ability to use various software applications for project and data management (especially Access and Excel).

The starting salary for this position is in the low $40's. A full benefits package accompanies the position. Send letter of application, resume, writing samples, and names and addresses of three references to: Development Officer/ Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation/ 201 N. Charles St., Suite 401/ Baltimore, MD 21201. For more information, visit their website.

Tonight is the 3rd Friday of the month and thus the openings of the new shows at the five Canal Square Galleries in Georgetown. The openings are catered by the Sea Catch Restaurant and run from 6-9 PM. See ya there!

The Washington Post's art critic Michael O'Sullivan reviews our current show of George Mason University's controversial professor Chawky Frenn's show at Fraser Gallery Bethesda.

O'Sullivan writes:

"Frenn is equally comfortable with ambiguity, a quality that's obvious in three paintings depicting disquietingly androgynous nudes. Yet it is not bare flesh -- at least not human flesh -- that makes up his most disturbing, and, to my eyes, most satisfying, work. Based on photographs taken in butcher shops during trips to his native Lebanon, Frenn's latest and best paintings depict decapitated sheep's heads and beef cattle at various stages of slaughter.

Like all of Frenn's art, they're an attempt to take something ugly and turn it into something beautiful, or, as he says, "to transform manure into new life, [excrement] into fruit." In addition to their shopworn memento mori message, though, that reminds us subconsciously of our own mortality, Frenn pushes other readings of his work. One of his carcasses, after all, is called "Kosher or Halal?" in a reference to the futility of killing in the name of religion (halal refers to Muslim dietary laws)."

Jeffry Cudlin of the WCP, has an excellent review of the current (and next to last before she closes) show at the Elizabeth Roberts Gallery.

Glenn Dixon has several mini reviews in today's Post, including one of "Baltimore's Betsy, the Finger-Painting Chimp: A Retrospective of Her Work" at the American Dime Museum.

From New Orleans, photographer James W. Bailey sends me this great link detailing the true story of an artist and a curator and an exhibition cancelled at the last minute.

Read "Why The Exhibit Was Cancelled."

In what I think is one of the most original ideas that I have been aware of in many years, Linda Hesh, whose work eloquently discusses questions of race, ethnicity and gender issues, takes her artwork to a new public level with the "Art Ads" project.

Her pieces start with a photograph of a friend, or couple, taken at a commercial portrait studio, which gives the work a common, commercial look. She then adds a statement underneath the image, or digitally changes the image itself. Hesh’s work has been shown nationally and is in the collection of the Library of Congress. More work can be seen here.

In "Art Ads", Hesh now takes her work to a new national public level and anyone can be part of it and help deliver its important message. To find out how, visit this website.

Today is the 3rd Thursday of the month, so tonight you can go and visit the 7th street corridor art galleries and art venues as part of the 3rd Thursday Gallery late hours.

Also tonight, the The Art Museum of the Americas of the Organization of American States has its inaugural exhibition of the season with an opening reception from 6-8 PM for a group show titled "Artists of the Americas." The exhibit runs until January 16, 2005.

And tomorrow is Georgetown's turn for gallery openings.

I just found out that there's a new gallery in Georgetown's Canal Square and thus we have a new neighbor and now five galleries in the Square.

The Anne C. Fisher Gallery moved from Wisconsin Avenue and its Canal Square inaugural show will be work by Beth Cartland in an exhibition titled "Moving Forward - Looking Back."

The opening reception will be from 6-8 pm on Friday, September 17th as part of the Georgetown Third Friday openings and there will be an artists' talk and reception on Sunday, October 3 at 2 pm.

In addition there will be a workshop: "Cycles of Your Life: An Exploration through Art and Movement" on Sunday, September 26th from 1-3:30 pm. Call the Gallery for registration and information at 202/625.7550.

Welcome to the neighborhood!

When one can't fight the system, then one tries to take over the system.

The well-known and documented dislike of contempory painting by most museum curators and mainstream media art critics infects all levels of the art world.

In Canada, when the first biennial $50,000 Sobey Art Award was announced two years ago, not one of the five finalists were painters, and the 2004 finalists only included the silly doodles of Marcel Dzama.

So what did the Canadians do?

They established the Plaskett Foundation Award, one of the largest visual-arts awards in Canada, with a purse of $25,000 and open only to painters!

We need something like that around here.

Call for Artists - Homage to Frida Kahlo

Deadline: The active dates for submitting artwork to this exhibition are September 15, 2004 through January 31, 2005.

As discussed earlier, Art.com has a call for artists in an Homage to Frida Kahlo curated by yours truly with the sponsorship of the Mexican Cultural Institute.

All entries will be done online. There is no fee for artists and the following prizes will be awarded:

1st Prize: Airfare, hotel and expenses for 3-day/3-night trip for two to the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City , Mexico. (Total package valued up to $2,500.)

2nd Prize: $1,000

3rd Prize: $150 towards a Print on Demand order through Art.com Original Art & Photography

To enter, visit the website here.

The New York Times review of Peter Steinhart's "The Undressed Art: Why We Draw" makes an earlier posting I had a while back relevant again.

So here it is with some revisions...

A while back, Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik discussed the work of John Currin and his success in the art world.

Apart from the silly and erroneous headline, this is actually a very readable article, and as posted by me earlier, I somewhat agree with Gopnik's puzzlement as to Currin's success in the art world.

However, I think that Blake gets most of his supporting arguments wrong, when he discusses why Currin has been so successful.

This is a perfect case where this eloquent art critic lets his personal beliefs and tunnel-visioned agenda (formed by the belief that painting is dead) get in the way of being remotely close to objectivity.

And that's somewhat OK, as critics don't have to be objective - but they should be clear about their beliefs rather than appear to speak from an objective pulpit. Gopnik is a smart, intelligent and eloquent art critic - we all know that; but he has a deeply-rooted belief that painting is dead, and realism, as he once put it: "It's like a vampire that refuses to die."

So we all know that Gopnik has clearly shown that he doesn't like painting and above all he doesn't like realism. According to Gopnik's "Long Live Realism - Realism is Dead" lecture at the Corcoran, realism has been done, so why would "serious" artists still waste their time attempting to continue to do it?

Thus, it is understandable that Gopnik would be particularly repulsed by Currin's work - in fact I dislike it too. But he is wrong in attempting to use Currin's success as an example of why contemporary realism is "dead" in his view.

Gopnik writes that "Within the art world, where Currin's career and reputation have been forged, he can get praise as an original not because he's doing anything new or special but simply because some vanguard curators and collectors don't get out enough."

I disagree that this is the main reason, but I certainly do agree that "vanguard curators" (whoever they are, as no star eclipses faster than a "vanguard" curator once his or her show has closed) don't get out enough.

As far as collectors, I do not believe that Mr. Gopnik (or most museum art critics) knows much about art collectors, so these are just extra, senseless words.

However, what Gopnik does not mention, is that some very influential art critics - much higher in the art world food chain than he is - have also praised Currin and his art, and helped tremendously to build this artist's standing in the rarified upper crust of the art world.

Influential critics like the New York Times' Michael "Dia" Kimmelman likes Currin a lot. In fact Kimmelman has writen that "Mr. Currin is among other things a latter-day Jeff Koons, trafficking in lowdown humor, heartless kitsch and ironic smut, while offering up dollops of finesse, beauty and brains. The combination is disorienting and, at its best, thrilling."

And because of Kimmelman's job, even Blake would have to admit that Kimmelman probably "gets out" a lot, especially around first rate New York galleries, rather than the "third-rate commercial galleries across the country" mentioned in Gopnik's piece.

So it's not just "vanguard curators and collectors [who] don't get out enough," that have made Currin's career. It is also one of the most powerful art critics in the world; and many more like him; all colleagues of Gopnik.

Let me re-affirm something again.

I don't like Currin's work either - but his sappy, vulgar work is not to be generalized to cover all of contemporary realism, which is generalized as "shopping mall realists...boardwalk caricaturists... or Sunday-painter surrealists."

So it's not just vanguard curators stuck in their offices, art collectors who don't get out much, but also first class, influential art critics, who have clothed Currin as a modern art emperor. You can also fill in any well-known contemporary artist name (Hirst, Barney, Brown, Chapman, Dean, etc.) instead of Currin.

Let's go back over that key paragraph again:

"Within the art world, where Currin's career and reputation have been forged, he can get praise as an original not because he's doing anything new or special but simply because some vanguard curators and collectors don't get out enough. It's as though the elites of contemporary art are so engrossed in their own world that they're not aware of what's already going on in the American mainstream -- at shopping malls, on boardwalks and in Sunday painting classes."

Wouldn't that logic apply to all artists whose career and reputation have been forged within the "art world"?

I'm not sure if Gopnik gets around to visit any of the "third rate galleries" that he mentions in the review - after all, he just reviews museum shows and I don't think that he has the "pulse" of what's going on in art galleries around the nation.

He certainly rarely gets around Washington, DC area art galleries. I can vouch for that!

But spend a few hours in 3rd, 2nd and 1st rate commercial galleries in Los Angeles, or New York, or San Francisco, or London or Madrid, or Washington and you will see a thousand artists still delivering Rothko-like, Pollock-like, Impressionism-like, Pop, and fill-in-the-blank "like" to any style, genre and idea - not just realism.

In fact, visit any of the garbage "galleries" in the malls or Bethesda or La Jolla or any expensive neighborhood, and weep as you see them selling reproduction after reproduction, gyclee, Iris, etc., framed in expensive baroque frames, and you're apt to find anything from Peter Max to Chuck Close to Warhol to Lichtenstein to Rothko to Pollock, etc.

Conclusion: The appetite for cheap, garbage reproduction poster art is not restricted to the genre of realism, or Currin-like images.

In this paragraph Gopnik tips his hand and his disdain for realism and specifically painting:

"Currin fills a perennial void: The American art world, and especially the art market in New York, is forever hoping for an oil-paint messiah -- for someone who will at last restore credibility to old-fashioned realist technique. Ask dealers or curators and they'll tell you that nothing appeals to collectors and the public like figurative oil painting."

I thought that Gerhard Richter was that messiah? Oh wait! he's German, and the dubious undying appeal of realism to make artists into superstars is an American obsession.... wrong!

And even in trendy YBA land, the BBC says that "No modern artist, not even the likes of Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin, divides opinion like Jack Vettriano." Jack Vettriano is, of course, a painter - sort of the John Currin of Great Britain - but much harsher and romantic and sexual - and although this Scottish painter has sold out every single exhibition that he's ever had, apparently all of them within an hour (including one in NYC), and has a waiting list for his next painting of several hundred names, and famous people and celebrities all crave his work, and the British critics hate his work - he enjoys spectacular success in Great Britain and is one of those artists whose reproductions are sold by the millions in the same mall "galleries" that push out the endless Warhols, Maxes and such.

So it's not just a provincial American "thing" to reserve some of our want for a bit of realism in our art - even if most critics despise it - but if the "public" likes it... then it can't be good art.

I suggest that the Post should change this article's headlines from "Plan to Become An American Art Star? Oh, Be a Realist" to "Plan to Become An Art Star? Oh, Be a Realist."

And then the headline would still make absolutely no sense at all - can anyone send me a list of their top ten contemporary art "stars" that includes a majority of realists? What a load of nonsense!

My final thought on this issue. Both Gopnik and I dislike Currin's work.

But Gopnik dislikes it because he dislikes (a) the subject matter, (b) painting and (c) realism. I dislike it because I think that it is the pushing of the ultimate kitsch button by art curators - the perennial search not for a painting messiah, but for a high kitsch messiah to succeed the tired and jaded Jeff Koons.

One thing doesn't make sense to me though.

At Gopnik's "Long Live Realism - Realism is Dead" lecture at the Corcoran, when asked if he had to buy a painting today, what would he buy, he answered: "A reproduction of an old master."

"Oh Come On!," replied the exasperated questioner, "You surely must have one painter that you somewhat like!"

When thus pushed further, Gopnik flashed some slides by Lisa Yuskavage and explained and defended her work using a lot of the same words and logic that critics use to explain and defend Currin's work.

Does this make any sense?

Am I the only one who thinks that both these painters are singing (and painting) the same tune?

Makes my head hurt.

Nevin Kelly Gallery has a group exhibition featuring five works each area artists Sondra Arkin, Allison B. Miner, Thomas Walsh, Robert W. Saunders and Isabel Manalo. Opening reception on Friday, September 17, from 6 to 9p.m.

Allison Miner is quite a talented painter and I am a big fan of her work, so I will try to drop by and see this show, which hangs until October 3, 2004.

Next door to us in Georgetown's Canal Square, our neighbor Parish Gallery has painter Darnella Davis and photographer Phoebe Farris opening a show as part of the 3rd Friday Canal Square openings on Friday, September 17, from 6 to 9p.m.