The Artomatic firestorm rages on!

Joseph Barbaccia responds to Jamie Wimberly's posting:

I wish someone would explain to me why people feel that art needs to be defined, ruled or standardized. WTF?! Doing so is the antithesis of art. Does requiring artistic standards allow people to feel secure? By setting up narrow path to creating art are they defining their own way of creating and trying to impose it on others?

I understand the need for structure. Our lives would be chaos without it. But art, at least in my life, is one of the few remaining areas that are free of standards and rules. I value that fact immeasurably. This one area of unlimited creativity is a rarity in today’s over-regulated world. It allows us total freedom of expression.

My work doesn't have to be labeled Art. I really don’t care what it is called. Call it crap, call it interesting, or call it great. A label does not deny art's existence or its effect. Look at the history. As forms of expression change they must break from "standards" and stand on new ground. Of course, in a matter of time these changes become the "standard" themselves and must be changed again. Look at the history.

Jamie's "standards" are wonderful; for HIM to work under. I believe that setting up a structure, or defining art with a set of rules on a personal level is OK. It’s part of the process. Bring out your scales! Artists do the same with every decision we make when creating a single piece. We define the work by our choices. But I see no reason to lay my creative structure on anyone else. I would no sooner tell a person how to create art than I’d tell them how to be happy. I don’t mind getting a license and taking a test to drive a car, but please, allow me the freedom to make my art the way I believe it should be done. Anything else smells of sour grapes.

Pat Goslee's Artomatic List

Area artist Pat Goslee is a well-known, talented and widely exhibited artist, and she has participated in several past Art-O-Matics, but is not involved in this year's show.

I first came across Goslee's work in 1995 or 1996 when I wrote this small review of her solo show for Visions Magazine for the Arts.

Below is her own unique list of finds and awards in the 2004 edition of Art-O-Matic (after several visits).

KARMA AWARD = Charles Sthresley

REGARDING BEAUTY AWARD = Linda Hesh + Ami Martin Wilber

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AWARD = Dylan Scholisnki

RECYCLING AWARD = Elizabeth Lundberg Morisette

BEST VAGINA AWARD = Elena Patiño

FLOP AWARD = Dave Savage

SYCOPHANT AWARD = Thomas Edwards

BEST TITS AWARD = Nicolas Syracuse

SAFETY AWARD = Bridget Vath

SCULPTURE AWARD = Stephon Senegal

CICADA AWARD = Betsy Packard

WELCOME HOME AWARD = Inga Frick

BERLIN AWARD = Marla McLean

BEST BARGAIN = Denise Juliano “Funny Farm” $45

RENWICK AWARD = Tim Tate

SOUL AWARD = Michael Platt

BEST USE OF SPACE AWARD = Ira Tattelman

PRIORITY MALE AWARD = Kelly Towles

PORTRAIT AWARD = Ian Jehle

VOWELESS NAME RECOGNITION AWARD = dns ynko

A friend emailed me a note about the Sunday NY Times article about JT LeRoy and LeRoy's words about the first time that he was reviewed:

"I cut the article out and put it on my stomach like it would heal me," Mr. LeRoy said in a twang left over from his West Virginia childhood. "But it didn't heal me. The thing about attention is it's like drinking. One drink is too many, and a million isn't enough."

My friend also adds that "as humans, we are responsible for tending to our own wounds. Is anyone really looking to Blake Gopnik to heal them? Art can heal, but one must do it for one's self. Now turn off the computer and go to the studio!"

Leigh Conner's Top Ten List

Leigh Conner, the hardworking gallery owner of Conner Contemporary, easily one of the best galleries in the region, walked Art-O-Matic last Wednesday and picked her top ten picks. She matched a few from mine and offers her own selections in alphabetical order:

Overall top pick: The Union Station Music Stage Room + Main Entrance

- JTW Black
- Alan Callander
- Richard Dana
- Liz Duarte
- Matt Dunn
- Linda Hesh
- Michael K. Ross
- Tim Tate
- Kelly Towles
- Ami Martin Wilber

Photographer James W. Bailey steps into the Artomatic firestorm with the following very inventive note:

Is Blake Gopnick possibly sending the art world a coded message about Artomatic 2004?

Anterograde Amnesia

Anterograde amnesia is a selective memory deficit, resulting from brain injury, in which the individual is severely impaired in learning new information. Memories for events that occurred before the injury may be largely spared, but events that occurred since the injury may be lost. In practice, this means that an individual with amnesia may have good memory for childhood and for the years before the injury, but may remember little or nothing from the years since. Short-term memory is generally spared, which means that the individual may be able to carry on a conversation; but as soon as he is distracted, the memory of the conversation fades.

It is now becoming apparent that while anterograde amnesia devastates memory for facts or events, it may spare memory for skills or habits. Thus, an individual with amnesia can be taught a new skill, such as how to play a game or how to write backwards. The next day, the amnesic individual will claim to have no memory of the prior session, but when asked to try executing the skill, can often perform quite well - indicating that some memories have been formed. It is an important area of current research to document exactly which kinds of memory can be formed in amnesia, and how this may be used to help rehabilitate amnesic individuals.

Is it possible that Mr. Gopnick suffered a severe trauma incident at Artomatic 2002 that has resulted in him being unable to form post Artomatic 2002 memories?

Is it also possible that Mr. Gopnick has formed the new ability to write backward and that his review on Artomatic 2004 was thus written backward?

I have taken the liberty, inspired by William S. Burroughs’ Word Cut-Ups method, and repositioned Mr. Gopnick’s paragraphs in what I believe to be their proper sequence.

I believe Mr. Gopnick may be trying to send us all a coded message.

Hanging Artomatic 2004 Is Good for It, Too
By Blake Gopnik
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 11, 2004

Artomatic costs more than $100,000 to put on, drawing funds from the artists themselves as well as from the public and private sectors; it absorbs major gifts in kind and vast amounts of volunteer time; it gets plenty of media coverage and pulls in tens of thousands of visitors. And all the money and resources and attention that go Artomatic's way are, by definition, not going to serious art that needs a boost, and deserves a higher public profile. Artomatic isn't only good for nothing. It's bad for art that matters.

It's not as though we are a society that fiercely discourages the making of art, one that needs an Artomatic just to make sure anything gets made at all. More art schools turn out more trained artists every year, and they all have to compete for a slice of the same meager pie of patronage, funding and public attention.

What the District truly needs is more displays of carefully selected, quality contemporary art, so that local emerging artists -- and, just as importantly, their public -- would have more and better examples of how serious creativity can work. As things stand, too many local artists, as well as a few of our dealers, get attention they wouldn't get in any city where they faced some decent, savvy competition. The region needs its artistic bar raised another notch or two. Whereas Artomatic, of course, removes the bar entirely and invites anyone and everyone to stroll on in and strut their stuff.

Despite public perceptions, the art world isn't anything like a closed shop: Curators, dealers and critics are always on a desperate hunt for new makers of new kinds of art, and they'll take it absolutely anywhere they can get it. Well-known mid-career artists are the ones who tend to face neglect; the hot young things that no one's seen before are where the action is. I guarantee that anyone with talent who might be discovered at a show like Artomatic would have had a fine chance of being discovered anyway.

After all, there are already lots of institutions dedicated to finding and displaying novel talent in the arts. Several alternative and artist-run spaces in the Washington area -- DCAC, Flashpoint, Transformer and others -- consider almost anything that comes over the transom. Their organizers tell me that the problem isn't a surplus of submissions; programming tends to suffer because they have too few options to choose among.

There may be a remote chance that such a person has been laboring unrecognized in a garret somewhere in Washington and that only Artomatic could have coaxed him out of hiding. But it's about as likely as finding a genius cavity-filler lurking in our dental open house.

Real, worthwhile art, the kind that says something that hasn't been said a million times before, requires carefully honed, hard-to-acquire skills -- sometimes manual, always visual and intellectual. Almost all artists worth the time of day know what's come before them, understand what's being made around them, and then -- against the odds and with terrifically hard work -- manage, every now and then, to make an art object that can contribute to the larger cultural conversation.

But somehow, over several decades now, we've bought into the nutty idea that fine art matters so very little, and is such easy stuff, that everyone and anyone can make it. (Actually, the idea has disappeared almost entirely among the kind of art professionals and intellectuals who suggested it in the first place, around the turn of the last century. The idea of art-by-anyone at first met with stiff public opposition, even ridicule; I'm only sorry it finally managed to catch on.)

For almost the entire history of Western culture, art was not conceived as something just anyone could or should make. Imagine living in Renaissance Florence and telling one of your Medici pals that you were going to have the family altarpiece painted by Joe Blow the baker, who felt like giving it a try. It would have seemed a joke. An Artomatic would have seemed sheer lunacy. Ditto if you had lived in Rembrandt's Amsterdam, Gainsborough's London or the Paris of Monet. For most of the last 500 years, dentists have been seen as less professional a bunch than artists.

Or worse. A show like Artomatic, in theory organized and stocked by lovers and supporters of fine art, is actively insulting to all the genuinely talented artists who have managed the long slog to a professional career.

You'd think that the purpose of a public exhibition would be to give the public a fair chance of seeing interesting art. Or you might think that it could serve emerging artists, too, by giving them a chance to learn from the best work that's out there. But what useful purpose is served in showing work by anyone who wants to have it seen, however awful it may be? How can an art exhibition be counted as anything other than a dismal failure when it's so bad overall?

I don't blame the people who made this work, bad as it mostly is. This is, as they say, a free country, and if someone wants to mess around with art supplies at home, then only their nearest and dearest have the right to complain. It's the basic premise of this show that is so badly at fault.

There may just be a few decent things hidden in the mix -- with so many thousands of objects on display, the law of averages says there must be. But three hours' worth of looking didn't spot too many. Some of the glasswork looked all right. (Glass is such a gorgeous medium it's hard to screw it up, and you need some basic training even to begin to work in it.) There were a few political one-liners that had some heft. But with works hung pell-mell and cheek-by-jowl in every corner of five floors of shabby rooms and corridors -- lighted by fluorescent tubes and the cheapest clip-on floods -- anything good was bound to get obscured by mediocrity. There's not even an attempt to keep like works together, or to craft oases of somewhat more polished art.

I won't dwell on the art. And I certainly won't name names. No one needs to know who made the wallfuls of amateur watercolors, yards of incompetent oil paintings, acres of trite street photography and square miles of naive installation art that will be polluting this innocent old building for the next three weeks. There's something for everyone to hate. The rest are works only a mother could love.

The result is the second-worst display of art I've ever seen. The only one to beat it out, by the thinnest of split hairs, was the 2002 Artomatic, which was worse only by virtue of being even bigger and in an even more atrocious space, down by the waterfront in a vacant modern office building.

After all, it could hardly be more excruciating than this year's Artomatic, the fourth edition of the District's creative free-for-all, which opens tomorrow. Organizers have gotten about 600 local "artists" -- anyone who could ante up the $60 fee and 15 hours of his or her time, in fact -- to display their creations. They're on show in the sprawling, scruffy building in north Capitol Hill that once housed the Capital Children's Museum and several charter schools.

I'll be at the front of the line.

Here's a fine idea. Let's find an abandoned school and then invite local dentists to ply their trade, free of charge, in its crumbling classrooms, peeling corridors and dripping toilets. Okay, so maybe we won't get practicing dentists to come, but we might get some dental students, hygienists and retirees to join in our Happy Tooth festival. What the heck, let's not be elitists here: Why don't we just invite anyone with a yen for tooth work or some skill with drills to give it a go. Then we can all line up, open wide and see what happens.

MY [Bailey's] WORDS:

Let’s not be too rough on Mr. Gopnick. Antereograde Amnesia can be terribly debilitating and frequently leads to a great deal of confusion when communicating with a person who has lost the ability to form new memories.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey

The Washington Post's online forum on Artomatic and Gopnik is finally accepting new comments. See them here.

J.T. Kirkland over at Thinking About Art steps into the Artomatic firestorm and gets an earful from his commenters. He also challenges Victoria McKernan's dismissal of Dan Flavin.

This is all a measure of Artomatic's success no matter what you think about the art. Both the BLOGsphere and the lamestream media are full of letters, comments, articles, etc. about the show.

This says that (regardless of how you feel about the art and the artists), this is the most important art event that happens in DC every couple of years.

And who knows whom the undiscovered jewels in this year's Artomatic are?

I have several top ten lists in the wings waiting to be published. Past Artomatics have given us people who are now well-known respected artists such as Dan Steinhilber, Tim Tate, Adam Bradley, Dumbacher Brothers, Richard Chartier, Scott Hutchison and many others.

Victoria McKernan jumps into the Artomatic debate:

Blake Gopnik's review of Artomatic was so sensitive and insightful.

I'm looking forward to more.

What is he planning to take on next? - handicapped greeting card art? Nursing home poetry collections?

Such Diogenic wit ought not to be wasted.

Of course this is a big, sloppy, mish-mash exhibit full of trite and naive dross.

Hello! - welcome to our species.

Overwhelming mediocrity punctuated with occasional genius is our pattern in everything from art to politics. The brilliant thing about art is that it is not a finite universe where bad work pre-empts or excludes good. The human brain is not some shoe rack in danger of being filled up by one giddy splurge at Payless.

"What is the useful purpose," Gopnik asks, "of showing work by anyone who wants to have it seen?" Oh gosh, maybe something like opening up a door to a world beyond homogenized drone existence; indulging in something called a creative spirit, and suggesting that spirit is present in each of us, and with some exercise, coaxing, or just play, could possibly flourish?

Could you run that one by your exhaled committee Comrade Gopnik?

Perhaps that flourishing will only ever produce lame paintings and bad collage but is that such a threat to fine art that it ought to be so vigorously repressed?

I envision troop storming the aisles of Michael's crafts, carpet bombing Towpath painters and raiding cubicles across America to snatch away Aunt Maggie's watercolor pansies!

Does he know about knitting clubs springing up all over town?

Joe Blow the baker was not painting during the Renaissance because paper and pencil, let alone paint and canvas, were largely unavailable to the unwashed masses. It could be that four years of Artomatic have not yielded a single brilliant artist, but 400 years of European civilization have given us only a handful.

I wonder how many Reubens or Raphaels could simply never get their hands out of the kneading trough?

This is not only a grudging and mean-spirited screed, it is fundamentally wrong to suggest that a dozen Michelangelos are starving now because of the diversion of public funds to support Artomatic. How much money did the National Gallery spend to mount the current Dan Flavin show, which, in my humble, plebian opinion could have been constructed by chimps raiding the lighting department at Home Depot?

It would be great if more "established" artists would participate in Artomatic, but for whatever reason they choose not to. It would be great if more people supported more artists in general, but they don't.

It would be great if everyone in the world were supremely enlightened and shared Mr. Gopnik's exalted artistic standards, but I'll settle for the glorious mess of artistic play that results in so many people participating in a show like this.

I sincerely hope Mr. Gopnik has no children, or at least no refrigerator.

For the record: Past and present Artomatics have yielded artists who have been subsequently selected for the Whitney Biennial, for the Corcoran Biennial, and for DC area galleries such as Alla Rogers, Conner, Fraser, Fusebox and Numark, as well as museums such as the Whitney, Hirshhorn and the Renwick.

Jesse Cohen from ArtDC delivers ArtDC's List of Top Artomatic artists:

In Franklin North Carolina, there is a historical tradition with roots in emerald mines. As a tourist, you can visit, view the real veins, and then buy a bucket of dirt. Hours are spent sifting your dirt at a sleuth to find sapphire chips, and ruby specs, “salted” by the local tourist industry. Occasionally, as I did, one lucky summer day, I found a 100 plus karat sapphire.

A trip to the ’04 Art-O-Matic lent the same feeling, sifting through, and recovering great beauty. It will take several passes through the water to uncover the wealth. Starting on the 5th floor, we ran into the Glass Attic, a group of fine glass artisans; full of colors, patterns, and appeal.

Half way through the bucket, we found Stephon Senegal. I was shocked by the mortality of his sculpture. His booth is worth a second visit.

Through the journey of the veins, more goodies were found, along with nice collections of photography. Such as, Gay Cioffi, and her Glass Quilts, an excellent study of form. Along with Frank Fiorentino who produced a collection of, well, Barbie Porn; dolls in suggestive poses. I’ve seen this by other photographers at Conner Contemporary art, but less suggestive.

And then there was Thomas Edwards, Sycophant Head, and School of Fish Pain installations. The annoying slum head that follows you around the room, and the fish dying out of water. Original: The one word sums it up.

Finally, as we were pushed out for closing, I entered John Aaron’s Congressional Confessional, brilliant, with a sense of humor. I cast my vote in the journal, and chatted with John and Andrea. I’m glad to see politics roll into AOM.

15 minutes into our trip, we found our 100-karat stone. The atmosphere, and environment created by piling 1000s of artists, spectators, collectors and friends in one space with a reason to be there made the show valuable. It was, a happening.

Far from a list of ten, six stood out from a 2-hour time period through the sleuth. With more time, there will be no problem uncovering many lists of 10.

Tracy Lee is a very, very good photographer who recently decided to go for her MFA at GWU.

She responds to Jamie Wimberly's posting as follows:

My two-cent quick and dirty reply to Jamie Wimberly - without having seen ArtOMatic but just commenting on his points (which I appreciate and mostly agree with -- It's refreshing to hear other artists also feel the same.):

1) I believe contemporary art is devalued because no one except the artist and the gallery elite are interested in it. This is not art that the masses can understand or appreciate. It's not art that even I - a person with an art degree and background - can always understand or appreciate. I believe that the lack of focus on technical and the complete focus on the concept is the downfall of contemporary art. "That's not art, I/my kid/my dog could do that" is a common response to contemporary art. For me and others there needs to be at least an appearance of skill behind the work. This puts me at odds with my professors.

2) Art schools & teaching art. I'm in a grad program and I'm being taught concept and no technical skills; the medium doesn't matter. My technical prowess doesn't matter. All that matters is the idea behind my work. I'm not being taught how to fine tune my skills to better get my message across, I'm being taught that I should feel free to drop my chosen medium and pick up anything else if I feel it can better represent what I'm trying to say - regardless of my familiarity or skill level with any other medium; this bothers me a lot. I can agree that I shouldn't feel restricted to only be a photographer, that I should use whatever is at my means and not feel restricted to try something new. But I also know that unless I invest the time and effort to learn the technical side of another medium that my crossover work would suffer from inexperience and look amateurish and sloppy.

4) Public apathy: See #1. I"m certainly not advocating creating art for the WallMart masses, but I feel that the pendulum has slipped so far to the elitist side. No one understands what they are looking at anymore, but there is a "the Emperor has no clothes!" attitude and most people are afraid to acknowledge (let alone voice out loud): Wow, that art really sucks! That's silly, that's just stupid, my dog could do that! I feel that the elitist art world needs a slap of reality and told to "get over yourself!" Also going along with #5

6 - Superstar artists. It's all about the message; doesn't matter who does the work, it's about who had the idea. My Old Skool traditional art background fights this but it is the present day attitude.

7 - Artists get laid? What a second!

And to his points about what she thinks The Art World Needs - I'd just like to say that the first two are things that I'm being taught *against* in school, especially Aesthetics. "Beauty" is a four-letter world. You aren't allowed to say that anything is "nice" or that, heavens forbid, you "like" it! The horrors! It must be visual interesting, stimulating, thought provoking, disturbing, disgusting or invoke any other such reaction but the word "Beautiful" must be avoided at all time. That Is Not Art. Too simplistic. Too easy.

P.S. About what is art and the idea that everything is art....

To quote from mainstream entertainment: "Everyone's special, Dash."

"Which is another way of saying that nobody is."

and

"And when everyone is super, no one will be." (From The Incredibles).

Also along the lines of the Kurt Vonnegut short story Harrison Bergeron - "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else."

And Ann Rynd's Fountainhead series: When everyone is special then no one is.

When everything is art then nothing is.

Give them hell Tracy!

I've received nearly 200 emails in the last two days or so dealing with Artomatic; either dealing with the Gopnik root canal of the show or with the diversification of "lists."

Loads of interesting postings will be coming in the next few days (time permitting)... keep checking, and please go visit Artomatic: the show.

Last night I made my third visit, and spent about five hours re-visiting the show together with Prof. Chawky Frenn from George Mason University. I managed to find quite a few artists that I had missed during my first three visits, although I still haven't found Colin Winterbottom!

By the way, those people who have emailed me bitching about Gopnik's review of Artomatic - please remember that it is his right as a critic to express his opinion, and as much as I disagree with it, I will defend his right to express it.

If you disagree with Blake, respect his right to write his opinion, and then send a letter to his boss to express yours!

Letters should be sent to:

Arts Editor
Style Section
The Washington Post
1150 15th St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20071

Emails should be sent to Arts@washpost.com.

In your letter or email you need to include a daytime and nighttime phone number and an address, and the letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Area artist Jamie Wimberly steps into the Art-O-Matic debate ring with the below note:

"Well, Sacha and Blake really stepped into it . And now I go into the void. With reluctance, I may add since I will probably get blasted for it. But I have to agree with the general criticism made by Blake. Not necessarily about the Art-O-Matic show or the pieces in it, because I actually think the Jeff Koons and Damien Hirsts' of the world are much worse, but the need for standards in art.

There is a general perception that everything is art and everybody is an artist. This thinking came out of intellectual arguments on the most central question in art - what is art? - dating from Duchamp (R. Mutt toilet) and Warhol (15 minutes of celebrity, commercial images as art given a certain context), and really before them. But the thought process has been lost and now we simply have the rotten fruit. That there is no "bad" art and every hobbyist deserves to have their work up in public. Turned on its head, logically speaking, that is the same as saying: Nothing is art and nobody is an artist. After spending oodles of money and time in art school, in the studio, hitting the streets, etc., I, as an artist, absolutely reject that notion.

Given that there does not seem to be any definition to art, a vacuum has been created. And as everyone knows, nature abhors vacuums. So, I would argue non-art values have been filling that void - celebrity, propaganda, political correctness, marketing, corporate affiliations, art as commodity, shock/ outrageousness/ spectacle, or in the case of many of the respondents so far, a chance to party, to name a few. There are very real consequences to this state of affairs, including but not limited to:

1) Art - all contemporary art at least - gets somewhat devalued. And it is very hard - almost impossible - to make a living as an artist. Contrary to the depiction of galleries as ogres with their 30 to 50 percent commission structures, I would add that most galleries as well are struggling mightily. I would not want to be in that business.

2) Art schools have virtually stopped teaching art.

3) True patrons are an increasing rare breed. There are simply buyers of art.

4) Public support for spending on art is scarce due to public boredom/ disgust what is being purveyed as art, so companies are increasingly relied on for funding/ buying art with their own agendas.

5) Criticism - especially strong criticism - does not occur. And when it does, as with the case of Blake's piece, it is declared "elitist" and less likely to be repeated.

6) Superstar artists have become producers and do not actually touch the work themselves. They direct or design.

7) Art has become an excuse and platform - as therapy, to get laid, to party, to become a celebrity, etc.

8) Art has become a marketing exercise with as a commodity to market around.

I could go on. But I wonder what kind of legacy we are leaving in regard to art of this generation. What can be considered "important" art - which, to me, means what will influence future generations? Not much, I am afraid.

I would argue that there is a clear need for standards in art - not in regards to medium (with the conceit that "painting is dead"), or style, or substance/ content. But there needs to be a new/ old way of evaluating art. I offer four suggested standards:

1) Craftsmanship - How well is the piece made? Is it archival? Does the artist show mastery of their chosen medium? Most art today is sloppy and falling apart.

2) Aesthetics/ Beauty - Does this artist deal with the question of beauty in the work - even if the piece is intended to be off-center or even ugly? This is particularly important in regard to painting. Art today is oftentimes willfully ignorant of aesthetics.

3) Spirituality - What I mean here is what Kandinsky referred to as spirituality in art. Does the artist put something of themselves in the work? Does the work have essence? Art today can be awfully sterile.

4) Influences/ History - It is important to know what preceded you. What/ who influenced the work? What is the work trying to contribute? Traditionally, with guilds, a long apprenticeship was required before an individual artist would even be allowed to put that one touch or flourish that was their signature mark. Today's art seems to be very post modern in orientation - trashing history to always be creating the "new new". This is a race to the bottom.

Finally, I would add the all important ingredients of artistic success: hard work, discipline, talent, striving for excellence and luck.

Not everyone is an artist, and not everything is art.

Jamie Wimberly

You can email me responses to Jamie's points if anyone so desires.

Art-O-Matic Top Ten Lists

As you know, I spent seven hours walking Artomatic's halls, passageways and rooms in order to select my top 10 artists from that show. That list is here. I have begun to receive other people's top ten lists and will post them here soon.

I am also working on the following "other" lists:

(a) Copyright Infringement List
(b) Porn List
(c) Hannibal Lechter Art List
(d) Funniest Art List
(f) Top Ten Artists I Had Never Heard Of List

Some advance notice on those lists:

(a) has been won in a close race by Robert Steel. I applaud his courage to take on THE Mouse.

(b) has been won by Iver Olson's photos of lesbian fisting.

(c) has been won by Ira Tattelman's really disturbing installation. Someone best put an ankle tracker on Ira ahead of time.

(d) is still up for grabs... more visits needed.

(f) is still a work in progress... more visits needed.

Sorry folks, there won't be a "Best Dicks in the Show" list, although there are plenty of entries in that stiff category as well. If anyone wants to email me such such a list, I will gladly post it here.

Fun with Lenny and art...

If you haven't visited Art-O-Matic yet, then please do so over the next few days. The show runs until December 5, 2004.

Meanwhile, you can view a lot of the artwork online here. In that online library of artwork, artist Dana Ellyn Kaufman sends this response to Gopnik's review with the painting to the right.

ArtDC and Thinking About Art have both joined the storm caused by Gopnik's rootcanalization of Art-O-Matic. I still think that Gopnik's review will be better for Art-O-Matic in the long run and also reveals his disdain for nearly all things that involve Washington area artists and galleries.

Over at Jesse Cohen's ArtDC, Thomas Edwards (who has one of the most creative pieces at the Artomatic wonderland) writes:

"I'm sorry - I simply don't believe in the hierarchical theories of art criticism. Like a lot of the social sciences, it is mainly BS. Good art speaks for itself, and I believe art critics should talk more about artwork and less about their BS theories and trying to predict what art historians will theorize about in 50 years."

One of ArtDC's commenters writes: "Oh well, I guess the clown couldn't pass up the opportunity to insult 700 people at once, instead of the one or two he usually gets to criticize."

That is funny!

The Washington Blade reviews Art-O-Matic and offers a slightly different viewpoint and in the process re-affirms the true power of this event: the tremendous artistic energy that it generates.

Alexandra Silverthorne and Scott Lassman both note at Thinking About Art that:

In view of Blake Gopnik's overarching dental school analogy, I thought this quote from the Washington Blade article was pretty humorous:

"This is the first major exhibition for gay painter Fortunato “Forty” Dela Cruz, who is finishing his art degree part time at University of Maryland, University College, while working full-time as a dental lab technician."

Maybe Blake was on to something . . ."

Nice catch Scott...

"My sources in the Post tell me..." (does that sound pretentious or what?)

Anyway... the Blake Gopnik root canal of Art-O-Matic is getting so much heat and complaints at the Post, that the world's second most influential newspaper has opened a forum for people to discuss Art-O-Matic, Blake and associated angsts.

Visit the forum and express your opinion.

And let us not forget, that as much as we may disagree with Gopnik's carpet bombing of this most democratic of art shows, it is his right as an art critic to express his opinion.

And let's not forget that if given the choice between no review at all, or a murderous review such as this one, it is manna from heaven to have such a biased, short-sighted, blindfolded review as Gopnik's was.

Why? Because dental surge of anti-provincial negativity will help to drive people by the hordes to Art-O-Matic.

All of the Art-O-Matic artists should send Gopnik thank you notes!

Art-O-Matic Top Ten List

This was not easy to do: 600 plus artists in a maze of rooms and corridors involving over seven hours of walking during the last two nights. Later I will post the top ten lists of several other gallerists, dealers, curators and artists. Email me your top ten list and I will also post it here. They are listed in alphabetical order:

Joseph Barbaccia
Margaret Dowell
Matt Dunn
M. Rion Hoffman
Michal Hunter
Michael Janis
Mark Jenkins
Syl Mathis
Allison B. Miner
Tim Tate

Of the ten artists listed above, I was familiar with the work of all but M. Rion Hoffman, Syl Mathis and Mark Jenkins. We, of course, represent the work of Tim Tate.

Note that four of the artists on this list do not have a web presence (at least that I can find). I find this astounding in this day and age.

Even after all the hours spent so far at Art-O-Matic, I am pretty sure that I've probably missed quite a few artists, as sometimes the building can get quite disorienting.

I am also preparing the following lists:

(a) Copyright Infringement List
(b) Porn List
(c) Hannibal Lechter Art List
(d) Funniest Art List
(f) Top Ten Artists I Had Never Heard Of List

And, no... I've decided not to publish my "Somebody Please Burn This" list. Sorry...

Right on cue for all the Friday night gallery openings and parties scheduled tonight: the rain arrives.

Yesterday the Post's Arts Beat column discussed some artwork stolen from a Dupont Circle area gallery as well as giving kidos to area artist Tim Tate (represented by us) and reports that:

"The gay magazine Out has included glass sculptor Tim Tate on its annual "Out 100" list of notable people. Tate, a founder and co-director of the Washington Glass School, was named an Outstanding Emerging Artist earlier this year at the Mayor's Arts Awards. He joins a mix of established and rising figures in the visual arts section of the "Out 100" -- including pop art icon David Hockney, sexually provocative photographer Anthony Goicolea and Korean interdisciplinary artist Erica Cho."

That newsbit was first discussed here two weeks ago.

Also yesterday, the new issue of the Washington City Paper has a fascinating story by Chris Shott and John Metcalfe on the effects upon the National Gallery of Art's guards to the continuous exposure to Dan Flavin's bright artwork.

"Ever since the gallery’s Oct. 3 opening of “Dan Flavin: A Retrospective,” staffers watching over the sprawling display of 44 illuminated works by the fluorescent-tube-obsessed minimalist have complained of headaches, anxiety, and nervousness—all allegedly brought on by excessive wattage. A combined 48,600 watts, to be exact. One staffer is said to have passed out."

Man do my feet hurt...

It's one AM... and just back from spending about four hours at Art-O-Matic to do the "art dealers top ten" pick.

Ran into several gallerists walking the halls and rooms of Art-O-Matic, including Sarah Finlay and Patrick Murcia from Fusebox, Steve Krensky from Light Street Gallery and others.

Later today (after I get some sleep) I will post my list of top ten artists in the show, and then later I will post some other people's top ten.

If any reader visits the show, email me your top ten and I will post here as well.

Tonight we have the opening of Cuban Artists: Three Generations at Fraser Bethesda, with new work by Sandra Ramos and Jacqueline Zerquera Tejedor, as well as work from the Estate of Carlos Alfonzo.

Mojitos, Sangria, Cuba Libres and Cuban music to go along with the Cuban art will be available as part of the opening from 6-9 PM.

After my opening I'm heading down to the Art-O-Matic opening party.

See ya there around 10 PM!

Surprise, surprise...

Blake Gopnik brutalizes Art-O-Matic in today's Washington Post.

Don't worry... I'll give you guys a real, objective review in a few days, rather than one that (in my opinion) was pre-conceived in his mind and perhaps even his word processor before this eloquent man stepped into the building.

Read it here. The good side of the story is that brutal reviews such as this one is tend to actually benefit the show being destroyed by the critic. I bet that in the coming Sundays, the Post's Sunday Arts will have plenty of letters both agreeing and disagreeing with Gopnik.

And that dialogue is good for the show, for the artists, and for Washington. If you want to send a letter to the editor about the review, learn how to do it here.

So, I actually think that this carpet bombing of Art-O-Matic will be good for the show. It is actually a lot better than a lukewarm review.

Natalie Koss reviews Gehry at the Corcoran and Malone at Fraser Georgetown.

Just back from the press preview of Art-O-Matic, and if anything, it is by far the best one ever! I have sensory overload, after all there are well over 600 artists present, but first impressions are very good, especially as it pertains to the fabulous building.

Lots of familiar faces tonight at the press preview, including Conner Contemporary's hardworking owner Leigh Conner, who was picking out her ten top Art-O-Matic artists list.

Leigh's list will join several other art dealers top ten lists (including my list, Fusebox's Sarah Finlay and Fraser Gallery's Catriona Fraser, which will be used by Art-O-Matic to promote the event.

I will visit Art-O-Matic several times over the next few days (tomorrow I will pick my top ten) and then write a review for the CrierMedia newspapers and one for NPR.

You can read my 2002 review of that year's Art-O-Matic here, and a second review here and a segment from my review of the 2000 show here

I'm not holding my breath waiting for the NGA to answer my question about the cost of their latest acquisition.

Back in 1993 or 1994, I wrote a piece about a Cy Twombly piece that they had acquired and then inquired as to its total cost. My piece ended up getting picked up by a couple of newspapers, including the Washington Post, and it received quite a bit of publicity. I then asked the NGA via letter for the cost of the Twombly acquisition. Ten years later I am still waiting for an answer.

Here's that piece just for fun (if you are a Twombly fan: my apologies for MY opinion about his work):

Twombly over Picasso? The National Gallery of Art's latest acquisition of an exceedingly boring painting by Virginia painter Cy Twombly succinctly brings to light a perfect example of the sort of poor decisions made in the seclusion of museum walls which exemplify why the general public is often at odds with our arts intelligentsia.

Cy Twombly's "Untitled (Bolsena)" was acquired on Friday the 13th of October by the National Gallery of Art at a cost of about one million dollars. The gallery's Collector's Committee also considered a Picasso, a Giacometti and a Baselitz before choosing the Twombly painting, which was aptly described by Washington Post art critic Paul Richards as "evoking the butt-end days of New York action painting. Or a wall besides a public pay phone."

Although it is clear that the Twombly piece will now join the National Gallery's ever growing "Gee, Mom, I can do that!" collection of art, what isn't clear is the rationale for picking Twombly over Picasso or Giacometti. It has been said that Twombly's main claim to fame is his early associations with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg; if this is his main springboard into the walls of the National gallery, then it is clear to me that a pathetic mistake has been made by the gallery's Collectors Committee. As a matter of fact one would be hard pressed to pick a Johns or a Rauschenberg over a Picasso!

A new Picasso acquisition would have brought the National Gallery some more public interest, and a price tag of a million dollars seems almost a bargain for perhaps the greatest painter of all time. Whatever his detractors, Picasso is a recognized entity which would attract people who both like and dislike his work. I suspect Twombly's "champions" are not enough to prevent this latest acquisition from being ridiculed by the public and dismissed by the critics.

It is also clear that the piece was vastly overpriced, as a similar Twombly sold less than two weeks ago in New York for $167,000. It would be interesting to see in which basement of the National Gallery this scrawling will gather dust in a few years. When it is put into storage, I hope it is well marked as a piece of art, or it may accidentally resurface on a wall next to a pay phone at the Smithsonian Metro Station.

Thinking About Art's posting on Kirkland's disappointment with DC Artists (vis-a-vis their response to his project) has generated a lot of good comments.

One comment discusses the "extremely high cost of digital media. In order to participate, one would need to somehow digitize several works of art so that they could be viewed on your website."

This is incorrect.

The best way to start out in the digital world and avoid the "high cost" is simply to take your own photos of your work, any film type and take it to your corner film developing store and ask them for digital images on a CD ROM.

Or even better, and what I do, is to ship the film to Photoworks and for a very reasonable price (under $25) you'll get two sets of slides, two sets of photos, negatives, a CD ROM of digital images and a webpage on their server (password protected for you) where they store your digital images and you can email them around, or copy them to your PC as needed.

I've been using Photoworks since I was in Art School (1977-1981) and they were called Seattle Filmworks. They are fast and efficient, and this digital service can't be beat.

Next excuse?

Kriston over at Grammar.police has some interesting words on the acquisition of Rachel Whiteread's "Ghost", which as Paul Richard put in his piece last weekend in the Post is "a signature piece of the "YBAs," the chic Young British Artists, and of London's soaring rise in the international art world, and of all that that implies."

Richard suggests that the piece cost in excess of a million dollars and that the billionaire who came up with that money is a local one: Mitchell Rales, who lives in Potomac, and who is an art collector.

The sculpture is on the mezzanine of the East Building, and just like Kriston, I must have walked past it without noticing it (if it truly was there over the weekend). I guess that's a true triumph of minimalism.

I'd like to know how much the piece cost, and frankly since the NGA is a government institution, it should not be a secret. After all, Mr. Rales will get a well-deserved tax write-off (that he can spread over the next five years) for his generous donation. Our kudos to him.

So Dear NGA, we're curious: How many sheckels did this thing cost?

Opportunities for Artists

Deadline: November 13, 2004. Baker Arts Center National Juried Art Exhibition. $8500 in prize money. 2 and 3-dimensional original Fine Art including Photography completed within the past 2 years. For More Information call 620/624-2810. For prospectus send SASE to:
Baker Arts Center
624 N Pershing
Liberal KS 67901

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Deadline: November 16, 2004. A new Chicago gallery is organizing artists and themes for upcoming Winter and Spring programs. Interested established and emerging artists please submit digital images (jpeg), slides, photos etc. along with artist statements, bios, proposals etc. All correspondence to:
Sacha Warholic
LUX Gallery
3036 N Lincoln Ave., Suite 3A
Chicago IL 60657

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Deadline: November 20, 2004. The Masters's Mystery Show, a high profile exhibition and sale of original artist's postcards to benefit the Florida International University's MFA program, will take place at the MB Ritz Carlton concurrently with Art Basil MB '04. The project will follow a format wildly successful in Europe. Works donated by established artists, including some international stars, will be shown along with famous architects, designers and celebrities. All works will have a fixed size (6" x 9") and will be sold at a fixed and very affordable price. The Mystery is that while the names of the participants will be widely publicized, the artists will not be identified during the exhibition, and the signature on each work will only be revealed after the sale is completed. So the public has to "play detective." If you want to participate, please contact them via this email or call 305/490-4852. They will provide the blank cards and return envelopes. All artwork must be received by November 20, 2004.

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Deadline: November 30, 2004. Juried Exhibition - Written Word IMAGINESTATION presents the first of its juried exhibitions for 2005. The theme of this juried on-line show is Written Word. Text must be incorporated into the piece. Artists are invited to interpret this theme in 2 or 3 dimensions in any media. November 30, 2004. Exhibition Dates: January 15 - February 28, 2005. Application Fee: $12 - Members, $15 - Non-Members. Send SASE to: ISQ105 - Written Word
C/O IMAGINESTATION LLC
Box 20326
Lehigh Valley PA 18002-0326

Web site: here or email them here.

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Deadline: January 31, 2005. Art.com and Cultural Institute of Mexico, AN HOMAGE TO FRIDA KAHLO, curated by yours truly. Inviting works in photography, painting, watercolor, drawing and mixed media that feature new portraits of Frida Kahlo, or images influenced by the artist, her life or her work. Prizes include paid trip to Kahlo Museum in Mexico City, cash award and print-on-demand package.

Potential exposure to more than five million art lovers every month. No entry fee, and easy, online image upload and submission process. DEADLINE JANUARY 31, 2005. Virtual collection displayed April 5 through July 6, 2005. For more information, visit Art.com, or email originals@art.com or call toll free 866/308-8597 (US and Canada) or 919/831-0015, x3135 (international).

As an art dealer, one of the things that I have discovered (as the web progresses and artists and artwork become an integral part of the Global Information Grid), is how adept the new young, savvy collectors are at detecting emerging young artists by the art of Googling them.

It is easy to see that lamestream media reviews are slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past, and what's more important (at least to a collector who is not familiar with an artist - but attracted to the work), is the digital footprint that the artist in question has on the Web.

Some, many artists do not seem to understand this yet... some do. Many gallerists certainly don't understand this. I know that our success as a gallery is a puzzle to many elitist people in this area who think they know a lot about art and galleries and yet have never ran one or sold any artwork. I was recently asked by a very important museum curator: "So, you guys are doing pretty good... getting a lot of press and making museum sales... who is your backer?"

She probably thought that I was kidding her when I answered that for our first couple of years it had been "Mr. Visa and Mr. Mastercard."

But I meander... look at your computer screen and see the future of art history. And the meat of selling art (and selling the artist).

The above rant was triggered by the failure of DC area artists and galleries to respond to Thinking About Art's call for artists to discuss their work and ideas and thoughts in 100 words or less. Several have responded and yet Kirkland is justifiably astounded as to the apathy which his project has encountered.

Sometimes I think that the "A" in Art around here stands for Apathy; and yet, now that Thinking About Art has opened its project to all artists (not just DC area), we should see a surge in interest from national artists, and a kick in the ass to our area's artists.

Our Fraser Gallery of Bethesda, Maryland, has an opening this coming Friday Nov. 12 at 6-9 PM. We will host a show titled Cuban Artists: Three Generations which will include new works by Sandra Ramos and Jacqueline Zerquera Tejedor, as well as works from the Estate of Carlos Alfonzo.

These artists represent three generations of Cuban contemporary artists. Alfonzo is regarded as one of the most important Cuban artists in recent years (he died of AIDS in 1991), while Ramos is without a doubt the most talked-about and one of the most collected contemporary Cuban artists alive today (in the collection of many American museums already).

Zerquera is a very respected Havana artist who is now emerging in the international scene.

Opening reception on Friday, Nov. 12 from 6-9 PM. In addition to our famous Sangria, we will also have Cuban music, Mojitos and Cuba Libres.

The opening is part of the Bethesda Art Walk, which now provides free walking tours of the various participating galleries. Free and Open to the public.

See ya there!

WCP vs WP

The Washington City Paper has taken a swing at the Washington Post Sunday Source.

Ben Watson writes: The Washington Post’s Sunday Source section offers light and bubbly how-to’s on burnless dinner parties, easy outings, and mistake-proof craft projects. As the typical young, urban reader whom the section caters to, I thought it would be good to put the Source—and my skills—to the test. I decided to take on Laura J. Vogel’s craft column, “15Min.” Could I find all those craft supplies without a car? Could I assemble them into something cute and useful? Could I do it all in 15 minutes?

It's quite funny! read the whole thing here.

What I don't understand is why this guy was naked...

Art Jobs

The Textile Museum, 2320 S Street, NW, Washington, DC is currently looking for a Director, an Accounting Manager, and a Assistant Curator for Eastern Hemisphere Collections.

The Textile Museum is an international center for exhibition, study, collection and preservation of textiles with a mission of furthering understanding and appreciation of mankind's creative achievements in the textile arts.

Full position announcement and qualifications here.

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The Creative Arts Center at Community College of Baltimore County is seeking Artist-instructors and they are needed in dance, art history, vocal and instrumental music, visual art, design, photography, theatre, writing, and culinary arts. For more information, please contact the Creative Arts Center at CCBC at 410-780-6533

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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

Magazine looking for freelancers

Starting January, 2005, Urbanite magazine will be published in color on a monthly basis. They're looking for illustrators and photographers to do paid freelance work.

Urbanite wants images that are "edgy, artsy, and challenging."

Interested artists should send samples to:

Ann Wiker
Art Manager
Urbanite
1431 Patapsco Street
Baltimore, MD 21230

Or email Ann at aeartdealer@aol.com or call her at 410/404.3587

As everyone knows, the Elizabeth Roberts Gallery has closed since Elizabeth married and will move soon to the Left Coast.

The gallery space is for rent and it would be great if someone started a new gallery (or two!). Here are the details:

Two floor gallery space located in Dupont Circle’s historic gallery row: 2108 R Street, NW

There are two floors (approximately 1200 square feet each) of space, and they could be potentially divided into two gallery spaces.

Available in 2005.

Anyone who wants to find out more information or is interested in renting should contact Elizabeth at: elizabeth@elizabethroberts.net

Tonight is the first Friday of November and thus the extended hours for the Dupont Circle area galleries.

Openings from 6-8 PM generally...

See ya there!

New Gallery in Town

Washington Chapter of the Women's Caucus For Arts is holding a Holiday Art Show at the newly created gallery at the Chevy Chase Community Center.

The opening reception for the artists will be held on Saturday November 6, from 2-4 pm.

The new gallery is in the Chevy Chase Community Center at 5101 Connecticut Avenue (across from the Avalon Theater) in Chevy Chase.

Chan Chao's new work opens at Numark

Numark Gallery presents "Echo", Chan Chao's newest body of work. The show opens today and runs until December 18, 2004, with an opening reception on Friday, November 12, from6:30 - 8pm.

Cheryl tells me that Chan is again photographing his subjects at close range, front and center, and returning to a subject that he dealt with earlier in his career - the female nude.

I am for one, very glad of this return to the nude, as I was not a big fan of Chao's previous body of work, which (of course) received wide critical acclaim (I am talking about the Burma: Something Went Wrong photographs), and allowed Chao national exposure as they were prominently featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

The Art League is one of the nation's largest arts group with several thousand members from our area. They are sponsoring a couple of interesting panels and shows in the coming days:

In November, The Teacher as Artist show will showcase the artwork of both present and former Art League faculty members including well-known Washington artists such as Gene Davis, Paul Reid, Lou Stovall, and Jay Hall Carpenter.

This All-Media Membership Show is dedicated to all the outstanding artists who have been, and still are, the League's teachers.

The opening reception is this Sunday, November 7, from 3:00-5:00 pm and the show runs until Monday, December 6, 2004.

Then on Thursday, November 11, 2004 from 7:00-9:00 pm, Carol Dupre (who was savaged in the Washington Post a couple of years ago) will lead a panel of past and present Art League teachers in a discussion: Refuting the Taboo on Artistic Intelligence. Among other issues, she will explore the taboos that lurk, often quietly, in every classroom.

For event information, call 703-683-1780.

Washington Print Club's Panel Discussion of Print Collecting and Contemporary Printmaking.

On Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004 from 10:30 to Noon, and in celebration of the 40th anniversary of The Washington Print Club, the WPC and Georgetown University Art Collection are sponsoring a panel discussion of print collecting and contemporary printmaking.

The panel will be moderated by WPC Advisor Dr. Alan Fern, former director of the National Portrait Gallery, and curator of prints at the Library of Congress. The panel will include WPC founding members Mary Hewes and Herbert Franklin; Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art at the National Gallery of Art; Scip Barnhart, printmaking instructor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design; Jane Haslem, Jane Haslem Gallery; Clifford Chieffo, emeritus professor of art at Georgetown University; Donald Saff, senior curator of prints and drawings at the Solomon R.Guggenheim Foundation; and Mrs. Martin Atlas, collector.

The panel discussion will be held in McNeir Auditorium, on the main campus of Georgetown University.

More details here. Admission is free and the event is open to the public.

Want to Ask Jeff Koons a Question?

For the January-February 2004 issue, Flash Art is giving you the opportunity to interview Jeff Koons. As they've done twice this year (first with Vanessa Beecroft, then Maurizio Cattelan), the magazine is soliciting questions from people. They will present the best of these questions to Jeff Koons, and he will respond to them in an interview published in the Jan-Feb 2004 issue.

Please e-mail all questions to francesca@flashartonline.com Thursday, November 11, 2004.

James W. Bailey has of course already sent in a question: "Mr. Koons, at exactly what point in your "art" career would you admit to selling out your soul to the devil for the almighty American dollar, as well as any other international currencies that you have benefited from by selling your "art" work?"

Later today I will be in MHz TV discussing the recent Christie's and Sotheby's art auction sales as well as a couple of area art exhibitions.

New Painting Prize Announced

In June 2005, the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, a non-profit organization, will award $14,000 in prizes to painters from Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

The Bethesda Painting Competition will be one of the largest cash awards in the United States given to a painter, with a $10,000 award for Best in Show. This competition will be an annual event that will bring much-needed media and critical attention to artists from this region.

In 2002, the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District created The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, a juried art competition awarding $14,000 in prize monies to contemporary artists in the Greater Washington, D.C. area.

The founder, Carol Trawick, is committed to annually honoring contemporary visual artists with this award. Ms. Trawick has generously made the same commitment to area painters. With the creation of the Bethesda Painting Competition (also funded by Ms. Trawick), they now have the opportunity to specifically recognize and honor area painters as well as build on Bethesda’s reputation as a well-respected arts community.

The search for jurors who are qualified to jury painting is now on, but this is great news for our area artists!

Van Gogh's great grandson murdered in Amsterdam

Greg Allen reports that Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who is the great grandson of Vincent Van Gogh was murdered on an Amsterdam street yesterday, apparently by Muslim extremists because of a short film by Theo titled "Submission" which had been broadcast on Dutch TV.

Per Allen, "Van Gogh and the film's writer, an "ex-Muslim" member of parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, had received numerous death threats and accusations of blasphemy."

James W. Bailey has the following words on this brutal murder:

Another Saint in the art world has given his life in the pure pursuit of his art.

Yesterday's savage and brutal murder in Amsterdam of filmmaker Theo van Gogh represents another direct assault by extremists on the universal concept of freedom of artistic expression.

The first line of protection that an artist, photographer, curator, musician, singer, dancer, choreographer or any other person involved in the arts enjoys in support of their art, is acceptance within the art world of the basic principles of freedom of artistic expression.

It is absolutely critical that every person in the arts, and more importantly, that every arts organization on the planet, subscribe to and advocate for a consistent definition of freedom of artistic expression that applies equally to every single artist.

Every voice in the art world needs to speak out condemning the slaughter of Theo van Gogh.

Every voice in the art world also needs to speak with clarity, firmness and resolve in support of a universally accepted definition of freedom of artist expression for every artist in this world.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey
Experimental Photographer

Congratulations to President Bush on his victory. Now let's move on.

We'll get back to the world of our area's art scene later today. Come back.

Please go vote today.

And please, whoever wins tonite, or next week, or whenever the damned lawyers allow anyone to win, let us unite as much as possible and start bridging our divisions.

I'm going to vote today, and I hope that my candidate wins, because I fear that the other guy will be a disaster for our nation and the world. If the other guy wins, then I hope that I am wrong.

But whoever wins; let's stop the hate for the person and let us agree to disagree and move on to the future.

I, for one, plan to give our President (new or re-elected) a chance and clean slate to lead our nation.

Thanks to AJ

This is how the upper crust of the art world sticks a knife in your ribs when they can't figure out how an artist makes it big without their stamp of approval.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: Wednesday, 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

For more info:
The Art Renewal Center
Email: arcprogram@aol.com or visit www.artrenewal.org

Painting is dead... right guys? I mean... "ancient medium" and all that.

US Museum curators got together and decided to pick the US artist to represent the nation at the next Venice Biennale.

They picked a painter!

Not only that, but this is a second time returnee! The US choice for 2005 was also the US choice for 1970, when he contructed "Chocolate Room," a visual and sensory art experience where the Venice visitor saw 360 pieces of paper impregnated with chocolate and hung like roof shingles so that they smelled like chocolate; sort of like "scratch and sniff art."

But now he's just an "ancient medium" devotee.

Most local curators and Blake: read it and weep.

October (Art) Surprise: Tonight!

Curators Andrea Pollan and Nora Halpern have an October Art Surprise. Sponsored by Furioso Development Corporation, Metropolis Development Company, and G Fine Art, and in cooperation with Glen Construction (am I done with the credits?) they present: Jenny Holzer: Xenon for D.C.

Internationally acclaimed artist Jenny Holzer comes to Washington, DC to launch her first public art project here. The project consists of one of her first Xenon projections in the U.S.

Jenny Holzer's Xenon projections have captivated audiences around the globe from Buenos Aires to Paris to Berlin. She now presents them for the first time in the United States.

Tonight you can see the projections against the facade of the new 1515 14th Street Arts Building (near the corner of 14th & Church Streets NW between P & Q Streets).

On Monday, November 1, 2004, at the Gelman Library on the campus of George Washington University, Holzer will project poems, as well as declassified documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act and the work of the National Security Archive.

Congratulations to Washington area artist and co-founder of the Washington Glass School, Tim Tate who has been announced as one of New York City's Out Magazine 100 Most Remarkable People of 2004.

Tim will be hanging out in NYC next month gathering his award and hanging with celebrities like Ellen deG and others.

This is an important recognition no doubt based on Tate’s string of artistic accomplishments in the last couple of years, such as being recognized as the 2003 Mayor’s Arts Awards Washington Artist of the Year, two sold out shows at our two Fraser Galleries, major reviews in both national and international newspapers and magazines and his selection as the design winner for the International AIDS Monument to be built in New Orleans.

New Arts Based TV Show

GPV Group is an organization that provides assistance to program networks looking to expand.

They have started an arts news television program called ArtsMedia News. The program is starting off initially as newsbreaks airing seven times a week on MHz Networks in the DC area with further distribution to public television stations nationwide.

Starting in January they will be expanding to a half hour weekly program to air at 8:30 PM on Thursday nights on MHz with further distribution nationwide as well.

They've approached me to introduce some of the art newsbreaks that focus on DC-based art news and I will be doing my first one next week. This newsbreak will focus on the current exhibition Tradition in Transition: Russian Icons in the Age of the Romanovs currently on display at the Hillwood Museum and Gardens through December 31.

This is good news for our area's cultural tapestry!

Andrew Noyes has an excellent article in today's Voice of the Hill on the subject of the public art project that DC artist Marsha Stein has been organizing for the last few weeks.

The article is on page 32, and describes Stein's project as well as generous comments from the Washington Post's Chief Art Critic Blake Gopnik and from myself.

A novel concept that Stein has introduced to the world of art is the fact that she has a videographer working with her, and documenting everything in a reality TV approach. The videographer hopes that this project will be the seed of an art-based Reality TV series to pitch to the networks.

Interested artists should contact Marsha Stein at Marshasart@aol.com.

Venezuelan photographer Luis Gomez makes his DC area debut with "Cities," a 32-photo exhibit at Candida’s World of Books at 1541 14th Street N.W. (14th and Q).

The exhibit runs through November 15 and focuses on inner, urban cores —one of Gomez’s favorite subjects— and offers glimpses of architecture and streetscapes, as well as their people. The photos will take viewers to cities that include Amsterdam, Chicago, Havana, Madrid, Prague, Santiago, Sydney and others.

Cynthia Young defends the "grubs" in a passionate letter in this week's Washington City Paper.

And Jeffry Cudlin writes another really good review (why isn't Cudlin writing more often in the WCP?).

This time he reviews "Inventions: Recent Paintings by Caio Fonseca" at the Corcoran and damned near convinced me that Fonseca was not just another hack painting the kind of safe, unintelligible art that cannot remotely offend anyone and that one routinely sees in hotels, airports and furniture stores. Not really art but "wall decor."

Thusday is the day the Style section of the Post reviews galleries and today Glenn Dixon reviews Kenny Hunter: Works in Colour at Conner Contemporary Art.

There's also a theatre review and a music review in today's Style.

The Washington Post finally picks up the story of Philip Barlow's woes with the WAP/C first reported here over two weeks ago.

The Arts Beat column adds little to the story that hasn't been discussed to death already by DC Artnews, J.T. Kirkland, Tyler Green, MetroBlogging and others.

Other than this great quote from the new OPTIONS 2005 curator:

"I've been forgiving of artists who've painted dreadful cows in my part of the country," adds Lumpkin, "so I can be forgiving of artists who've painted dreadful pandas in your part of the country." "

I've been out all day, and arrived home, picked up the email (I am by now used to getting one letter a week from either/or United or American Airlines pleading with me to sign up for their credit card), cooked dinner, got ready to watch the World Series, and then... read my email.

I was a bit taken back by the huge number of emails that I've received from artists commenting on the new WPA/C OPTIONS curator. But I think that we need to let the waters settle and see how things develop.

Last weekend the Washington Times gave our current Bethesda show (David FeBland), their "Hot Pick" of the week.

Transformer tells me that they will have Ken Grimes, Laura Craig McNellis, Judith Scott, and Melvin "Milky" Way in a show titled Cryptic Communications: Work by Four Self Taught Artists. Show opens November 6 and runs through December 4, 2004.

In Alexandria, Pa Dian Accents presents Women of Color, Style and Expression, a collection of more than 40 works by five contemporary artists from the D.C. area, from Saturday, November 13 through Sunday, November 21. The featured artists in this show found their visions in a variety of ways. Edith Graciela Sanabria’s art began as a response to a difficult childhood with an authoritarian father. Donna Boozer was inspired by the birth of her daughter. Chela Sanbria, Edith’s daughter, found healing from a crippling illness through painting vibrant colors and Jennifer Jin Seaver began her artistic career as a child in Korea.

New York realist Mikel Glass is at Old Town Alexandria's Century Gallery. The exhibition is on view until December 1, 2004. I saw Glass’ show at Century a couple of years ago and Glass is a spectacularly talented painter whose works have been called "a battle between Rembrandt and Freud."

And in Georgetown...

"Ebb and Flow," recent paintings and drawings by Washingtonian Janis Goodman, (who teaches at the Corcoran) explores the universal theme of constancy.

Goodman's new series is devoted to water and its insistent repetition, even as the rest of the world is in flux. Her intelligent renderings of water capture the artist's intense devotion to observation and meditation.

"Ebb and Flow" will be on view at District Fine Arts from November 5 through December 11, 2004.

New OPTIONS 2005 Curator Named

The Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran Association (WPA\C) has announced that Ms. Libby Lumpkin has been named as the WPA\C OPTIONS exhibition curator to replace fired curator Philip Barlow.

Libby Lumpkin is an internationally noted art historian, critic, and curator who serves as Director of the Museum Studies Program at California State University and Assistant Professor of Art History, Long Beach. She was the founding curator of Steve Wynn's Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas (man... Tyler Green will have fun with that bit of resume news), and has served as Visiting Professor of Art Theory at Yale University, Visiting Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, Visiting Professor of Theory and Aesthetics at the University of California Santa Barbara, and Visiting Lecturer at Umeå University in Umeå, Sweden.

She also served as Assistant Professor of Art History and Curator of the Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Lumpkin is the author of Deep Design: Nine Little Art Histories, as well as Ingrid Calame and Jean-Michel Basquiat: War Paint. She edited and produced the catalogs for the Bellagio Collection, and has authored numerous critical essays on contemporary art and design. Dr. Lumpkin was a contributing editor of Art Issues magazine of Los Angeles, and is a regular contributor to Artforum of New York.

She is founding director of a design institute for the Institute of Modern Letters at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to open in January 2005. After spending two years in Long Beach, she returned to Las Vegas with her spouse, art critic and curator, Dave Hickey.

Ms. Lumpkin has stated that

"The emerging artist scene in the Washington, D.C. area is unexplored territory for me. I look forward to discovering what's out there. I'm hoping that artists of all types who do not yet have gallery representation will respond to the call for submission for consideration so that we can set up appointments to view works. I'm sure most of the artists will be young, but I'd love to hear from artists of all ages, anyone who is presently working outside the gallery system. I'm as interested in the private, eccentric artist as in those whose works are engaged in prevailing cultural discourse. I'd like to end up with an exhibition that presents a lively mixture of types."

Does this mean that Ms. Lumpkin is automatically excluding any and all artists who have gallery representation? Someone better tell the Corcoran Board of Trustees right away before she buys her plane tickets to come visit our area.

The WPA\C will soon announce submission guidelines for artists who wish to submit materials as preliminary research for the benefit of the curator. Because this is not a juried exhibition, there is no fee to submit materials and artists do not have to be a member of the WPA\C to be considered. These guidelines will be posted on the WPA/C website on Nov 1, 2004. Ms. Lumpkin will perform on-site studio visits while working on the exhibition in Washington, DC.

It is a smart move by the WPA/C to hire an outside curator to replace Barlow, but I wonder how much this is costing them; I suspect that curators such as Lumpkin do not come cheaply.

I wish Ms. Lumpkin the best of luck with a most difficult show. It won't be easy, but I am sure that she will do a good job; we will be watching.

Tonight I will be at one of my favorite charity art auctions for a great organization and a great cause.

It is at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (16th & P Streets, NW), the Walker Whitman Clinic will be having their annual Art for Life Auction, in my opinion one of the best art auctions in the city. Viewing from 6:00 pm and the auction starts at 7:30 pm.

See you there!

Driving Force was a national competition to recognize and showcase young artists with disabilities, ages 16 -25, who are living in the United States.

The exhibition is currently on view at the S. Dillon Ripley Center, Smithsonian Institution through November 29, 2004. It will then tour for one year throughout the U.S.

The grand prize winner, Sunny Taylor, is a self taught hand and foot artist (only 22 years old) who is a spectacular painter.