The Weekend Review

Michael O'Sullivan has a superb review of the Arlington Arts Center's re-opening show.

Read it here.

Info needed

I've received a series of emails in reference to the comments about the DC Warming Panel made by Anon. It has been called "near fiction."

I could really use some help from any of the forty-plus people who were there to please comment on what is fictional or made up in the posting. I asked for comments and feedback when I posted it, and I renew that call.

Update: Sharp as always, Kriston nails it. I owe him a beer.

Update Two: I've now received a series of emails from people who attended the panel, and the only thing that seems to be in question about Anon's facts (I stress "facts" and not "opinions," which are his/her right to make) was the issue of the Pollan question and how/if it was answered.

DC Warming Report Three

Kriston has it over at Grammar.police

The Thursday Reviews

Jessica Dawson has several mini reviews today in the WaPo. Read them here. Still no news from the WaPo as to who will be hired to augment Dawson's twice-a-week reviews. Something new in Jessica's writing (at least new to me):

I also loved Galo Moncayo's installation "So far, I do not know," with its garden of stereo speaker cones arranged faceup like lily pads emitting belches and pops.

At the WCP, Jeffry Cudlin reviews Adam Fowler at Flashpoint.

DC Warming: First and Second Reports

I received the below report from one of the people who was present at the DC Warming Panel. It was sent anonymously, and so I debated posting it here.

However, it does raise some interesting points and hopefully some debate. It will also hopefully come across as intelligent and constructive criticism, which is nearly always good. I'd love to hear more reports and present all sides, if there are any more sides. Here it goes:

This panel started off like all the other panel discussions that have ever happened before on the DC art scene: A comparison of DC to some place else. Oh the insecurity! Will it always be THE defining essence?

DC is the District of Columbia. There is no place else in the United States of America that compares.

The District of Columbia is not a state. It's not even really a city. It's located below the Mason Dixon line but refuses to be called southern. It's a town, filled with people from somewhere else. It is accustomed to a slow moving pace of the bureaucratic cogs.

There is no rotting industrial core for flies to dwell.

DCAC has always provided a stable for flies off the fetid alleyway.

There is a curatorial convenience of plunking Washington area artists into a regional box, and since this panel was being led by a Washington area curator, the discussion began inside the box.

Henry Estada was a refreshing new voice outside the box. Estada glowed with the confidence of a professional and the perspective of the outsider, the Latino "other". He repeatedly opened up doorways and attempted to lead the group outside of the box, but in the box they remained. And a group discussion never really evolved. Instead of a moderated group discussion, we had a direct question and answer panel, which is fine, but frustrating when panelists refused to answer the direct questions that they were given.

The most irritating panelist was "critic" Tyler Green. First off, one has to wonder why he is even on a panel about the DC scene when his interests seem to lie anywhere else but the District of Columbia. Andrea Pollan asked an important question that he was unable to answer: Why does he focus so much energy on criticizing the critics?

Could the answer be because it is easy? What DC artist has Tyler Green championed, that was not already championed by someone else?

Tyler Green revealed his ignorance of the DC scene by making a point that no artists in DC make political art or that there is no history of political art in DC.

Oh really? Well, what was Steven Lewis doing? Excuse me, that was political art. What was Tom Nakashima doing (the other local who happened to receive a Joan Mitchell grant?) That's political art. Kendall Buster's husband Siemon Allen makes political art. But some might argue that Siemon Allen isn't a Washington artist anymore.

What about Hemphill's exhibition of Eduardo del Valle & Mirta Gomez, Cornell Capa, Bob Adelman, Eve Arnold and others. Does it really matter if these artists live in the Washington area or not? Well, Tyler Green claimed he had to go to Marfa, Texas to see political art.

It is simply not true.

It's even easier to argue the point and bring up racial and sexual political art that is being made here.

What is Jefferson Pinder making? Political art. Nekisha Durrett is making political art. Oh, you don't think that is what Tyler Green was talking about, eh?

Well, it cannot be denied that current flashpoints of national political debates include race, homosexuality, and religion.

An audience member asked a legitimate question to the panelists, where do they (the experts) see the next trend in Washington area art? Pause. Mouths drop open and Pollan finally spews sarcastic with "what'ya think we're FORTUNE TELLERS?"

Well, that type of response is a real conversation killer. You get more flies with honey.

Is sarcasm kind or is it mean-spirited? Could that type of response be born of an insecurity? Could a kinder response, while perhaps lacking the charge of mean-spirited humor, been more productive to the arts community as a whole? More productive to outreach efforts that, in fact, could sustain the local market in the long run?

Where is Tyler Green's critical response?

Flies overhead were privy to audience members whispering about content driven craft as being the next big Washington trend. Perhaps the sarcasm from the experts rendered them reticent.

Jerry Saltz coined the term "The Super Paradigm."

The Super Paradigm has overt weaknesses, including its vastness, lack of positive charge focused around change, an inability to form coherent groups and a tendency to undervalue the local. Other art centers are scenes more than worlds; they generate artists in clumps and clusters and are enormously supportive of their own. The Super Paradigm processes everything individually. It is so large that it's hard to get a fix on what's going on in it.

The upside of the Super Paradigm is that while more bad art surfaces, everything is potentially viable within it. Artists over 35 have a chance. This is creating permutations and anomalies.

Where does Washington, DC fit into The Super Paradigm? What permutations and anomalies are arising? What (or who) is proving to be the positive charges focused around change? Obviously, Philip Barlow, Henry Estada, and Victoria Reis are some. Had there been more focus on developing a group discussion, perhaps these panelists could have shown themselves to be the real "outside the box" thinkers that they are.

Artists make the work they are compelled to make, then they usually start to bump into members of their "tribe" all over the place, becoming aware of kinships formally or conceptually with other artists (or writers, etc.). Geography really has nothing to do with it.

It is more like shared webs of sensibility/influence/intuition/concern that are much larger than the immediate physical geography. An artist may find their local "tribe" first from sheer convenience, but that doesn't mean it ends there, or that the local connections will end up necessarily being the strongest at the end of the day.

There was an audience member who made a statement that political art was possibly the only path by which DC could distinguish itself and have a recognizable "movement." BUT, more importantly - in our globalized world & (art)world, why would such a specific, place-bound reference (politics) be the "only way" DC could stand out? We need bigger webs, man, bigger webs.

MORE HONEY = MORE FLIES

We need wide angle thinking among our (self-anointed) "movers and shakers."

The first way to conquer the insecurity is to honestly admit to it.

Anon

Comments and responses on this piece are welcome.

A second report was phoned in by Joseph Barbaccia, an artist currently showing in our Bethesda gallery, who started by making the observation that there were "a lot of flies, all slow and groggy from the cold," and to Joe it underscored a point in that he felt that the evening's discussion was more akin to "DC Freezing" than warming!

Joe expressed the point that he feels this way because no arguments or heated discussions on the subject of the panel was ever raised. However, he noted that he expressed this to Tyler Green, who convinced Joe that no arguments are needed to assure the vitality of the DC art scene.

Joe further adds that "there was no vitality in the panel or audience," and because there were eight panelists, a lot of time was consumed in just introductions, and that the two hours went by very quickly. He also noted that he had heard that some of the panelists were not aware that a $20 entry fee was being charged.

Barbaccia also pointed out to me that "Tyler Green was the only one saying anything of substance that addressed the DC Warming theme," and that Green made the point that "when people in Los Angeles or New York look at DC, they only think of museums and not so much of galleries."

Barbaccia also noted that the panel rarely addressed the DC art scene "warming," but he feels this was mainly because there were just too many panel members, the audience was never engaged (only 6-8 questions were asked from a crowd of 40 or so people). Joe wants to know: "where are the facts?"

Sounds like we need DC Warming Part II! (A smaller panel perhaps?)

Anyway, I applaud both DCAC and ArtTable for organizing this panel, kick-starting some discussions (at least here) and maybe they can get a round two to have the panelists react to these commentaries and suggestions in version two?

Tomorrow Kriston at grammar.police has promised to put up his personal observations of the panel in his most excellent Blog.

Anyone else who was there and who would like to add their two cents, please email me.

P.S. One of the panel members was identified in the ArtTable news release as "Henry Estada." Is that his correct last name or is it "Estrada"?

Update: It is "Estrada" and not "Estada." And for the record, in my opinion there's no such thing as "Latino/a Art."

Update Two: Andrea Pollan, moderator of DC Warming responds:

Dear all,

I was the moderator of the panel that Faith Flanagan kindly organized for ArtTable. It was a broad mix of panelists including an artist, a collector, arts administrators, curators, an art consultant and an arts journalist. Naturally with such a broad range of interests, and so many panelists, and so little time, I could only scratch the surface of such a rich and fertile terrain.

To the Anon contributor, certainly you have a right to your perspective and opinions. My comment about whether we see new trends developing in Washington, DC was certainly not meant to be sarcastic. As I recall, I smiled and said, "You mean fortune-telling?" It was intended to be light-hearted and certainly not mean-spirited. Sorry if you felt it was a conversation killer, but I recall it raised the discussion about political art. (And that's such a rich subject-plenty of material for another panel.)

Any curator knows that one should always take cues from the artist and the artistic output and not try to impose an artificial framework upon a city. Zeitgeists come and go. I see such a huge diversity of artistic output and aesthetic strategies among this city's artists, that I cannot say that I see a stylistic trend that is unique to this city. If anything, the artists of thiscity are becoming aware of global trends and want their work to enter that important context.

The idea of DC Warming had more to do with the growing level of interest in contemporary art that seems to be emerging (there's that word) across the city. Not a "Who's Hot" panel. If it had been a "Who's Hot" panel, it would have been called that. Personally I tend not to like those kinds of panels because they tend to serve the market and media more than the artist in the long run.

ArtTable is a wonderful national organization of women arts administrators from all kinds of backgrounds, not just contemporary art. The programs are meant to edify the membership and allow us to know what directions are occuring in other museums, galleries, educational institutions, and publications. I was happy that ArtTable opened this panel up to the public.

On a personal front, I have dedicated the better part of my life to making DC an exciting art city working with over 2000 artists, 80% of whom live in this area. And I won't even mention the 24/7 I have put in trying to do outreach to develop new audiences for contemporary art. So, I hardly feel that your characterization of me as elitist is appropriate. But then again, I believe in freedom of speech. So that's why I choose to work with interesting and provocative artists.

Andrea Pollan

DC Warming

If anyone took any notes or has any comments on the DC Warming Panel and discussions, please email them to me, as I'd like to give that panel's comments and observations wider exposure here.

Inaugural Installation

Because of the Presidential Inauguration, DC is in a state of security lockdown, and the last thing I want to do today is to be anywhere near downtown Washington. But unfortunately I have to install the new show that opens tomorrow, so I think that I'll be hanging that show later tonight.

Listen Missy

Listen Missy is a new (to me anyway, as it has been around since 2000) DC Blog with interesting photos and commentary. Some good shots of her visit to MOMA here.

Visit often.

The Tale of an Art World Lawsuit

This excellent article by Walter Robinson is one of the main reasons why our only "backers" or "investors" are Mr. Visa and Mr. Mastercard.

One of the basic laws of Cryptology is that there are no coincidences... and our Richmond neighbor ANABA seems to have found quite a few coincidences in a possible "insider art trading" issue.

Read about Douglas Fogle, a Mehetru painting, and an intelligent Blogger waiting for a clarification.

Thinking About Art has a few good reviews from J.T.'s gallery walk-through last Saturday.

Tomorrow and Friday I will be hopping around the 7th Street corridor and the Canal Square galleries and will discuss some of those shows.

Mark Jenkins' virtual tape men invade the Mall. Read it here.

Guest Editorial: Does the absence of an arts movement mean art is not... moving?

Guest Editorial by Malik M. Lloyd

"The art of any society emerges from the beliefs, attitudes, organization and structure as well as the inherent creativity and energy of that society. The truths and standards generally accepted are also those which underlie all artistic expression.

We are at the dawn of a new millennium. The 21st century has come bringing with it the new age of technology, terrorism and war. Modern technology has transformed the way we communicate, conduct business and for some us, it has changed the way we do art. Terrorism and war have forced us to take a closer look at not only other cultures and religions, but to examine those things in our own religion and culture that shape us and make us what we are today.

If it is true that art is reflective of the beliefs, attitudes and structure of society, when the history books are written about the current era what will they say about the art of the new millennium?

Popular music, unlike the visual arts, has a distinctive array of current trends and movements with the sounds of hip-hop, rap, gangster rap and neo-soul. Like most arts movements of the past, these musical forms were met with hostility and apprehension. History has taught us that revolutionary change often comes with a high price tag.

In art, there are numerous examples of arts movements that were not accepted by the masses when the work was first exhibited. In his work titled, Modern Art, Trevor Copplestone points to this same lack of acceptance regarding Impressionism, Futurism and Surrealism in the 20th century.

When the Impressionist first exhibited in a group show in 1874 their work was ridiculed, compared to the scribbles of a child, called wretched and insulting.

Copplestone writes this about Futurism: 'In 1909, the Futurism manifesto was published, extolling the beauty of speed, the virility of the new machine-based society and the possibilities inherent in the nascent scientific age of a new dynamic humanism. On the whole the movement was met with ridicule that its activities deliberately invited.'

In 1924, the first surrealist manifesto was issued. Surrealism appeared in many different artistic forms, including poetry, fiction, music and films. Surrealism is often thought of as an attitude to life and society as opposed to a style in art. During the 1930s, surrealist work was put on display in most countries. Without fail, these exhibitions were met with incomprehension. Moreover, the mainstream press vilified surrealism. Copplestone notes when the 1936 International Surrealists Exhibition opened in London that the Daily Express wrote that it was 'unfit' for the public, which was probably due to the overt sexuality used extensively in the early surrealist works.

Many art historians have argued that pop art was one of the most accepted by the public from its very onset, which was due to it being the first art form in which the lifestyle of the popular culture dictated the art. In the late 1950s in London and New York, pop art took as its subject matter from the common imagery of American culture as defined by the advertising industry. Pop art addressed trendy fashionable images. The qualities desirable for pop art was popular, low-brow, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous and big business. Pop was anti-art, or at least, anti-high art.

Currently, in the visual arts, diversity seems to be the operative word. Depending on the which gallery one steps into, regardless of the city, state, country, you can readily view abstract art, impressionistic, cubism as well as a variety of other styles and mediums. No particular style, method or medium has dominated the art scene in the first few years of the new millennium nor has any group of artists developed manifestos declaring new artistic intent or motive.

Via chose or as a result of an absence of a current artistic style, fashion or 'movement' visual artists appear to be more focused on things that interest them on a more personal or individual level. They appear to be working more within themselves and producing work that is connected to their own personal experiences, interest, influences, heritage or history. A kind of 'individualism' appears to be the constant theme within the art of the new millennium.

Regardless of which direction that we decide to travel, history books will be written. It is up to you to create the text."

Malik M. Lloyd
FIND ART Information Bank

2004 Bloggies

Hey! I've been asked to be a voting panelist for the 2004 Bloggies! Too late to try to bribe me... I've already voted.

Opportunity for Artists

Washington, DC personal trainer Colin Shah will be opening his own gym soon in the Foundry Building in Georgetown. He would love to display work by local artists on a monthly (possibly longer) basis in his reception area/lounge.

Any artists who are interested in exhibiting their work should send a CD or printed images of their work (no slides please!) along with a SASE to:

Colin Shah
1900 35th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007

Legal Issues for Arts Professionals

Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2005 (snow date Tuesday, February 15, 2005)
Time: 1-4pm. Location: Morgan Lewis Washington, DC
1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Presenters: Elena M. Paul, Esq., Executive Director, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and Alexei Auld, Director of Legal Services.

Description: As creators of intellectual property, arts professionals should be aware of issues affecting their work. This workshop provides an overview of legal issues in the arts and the three areas of the law that affect all arts professionals: copyright, contracts, and entity formation. An additional threshold issue faced by arts professionals is choosing the right legal entity for their business, including answering the basic question of whether the right structure is a for-profit or not-for-profit model. Registration required. Email staff@cultural-alliance.org with name, address, phone, email address. Free for Cultural Alliance Individual and Affiliate Members. $25 for Non-members; the fee can be applied to membership.

Send me your words

In the past I've asked readers to email me your reviews of visual art shows that you'd like to see published here. The best thing for art is more art, and in 2005 I want to expand DC Art News to include more reviews from diverse voices.

So let me encourage you again to email me your reviews.

A couple of reminders

Today is the DC Warming panel at DCAC. It starts at 6:30PM.

The Synergy Art Project will have a meeting for interested artists at Karma Restaurant on January 24, at 6PM. Karma is at 19th and I, NW.

Next Thursday is the 3rd Thursday of January, and thus the 3rd Thursday extended hours for the 7th Street corridor galleries. From 6-8 PM.

The following day on the 21st, is the opening night for the Canal Square Galleries in Georgetown. From 6-9PM.

Tentacles (A man, an axe and a doctor: A tale of pain and art)

Someone who was raised in Brooklyn shouldn’t own, and much less, try to use an axe.

What follows is a true tale of horror, of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics, of chaos and order, of the laws of the universe, of near death, of irony, of music, and ultimately of a new form of art. All of the characters are real, and if I could remember their names, I would name them.

I begin.

The back of my house has a rather wooded large area with many trees, and it also backs into an even larger wooded common area that I share with my neighbors. I am really a big fan of warm cozy fires, and during the winter I usually light one up every night.

A while back I went around and collected a lot of wood from fallen branches and also a lot of wood from a tree that had fallen months earlier. This wood had been cut, but needed splitting, so I bought an axe to split the wood myself.

How hard could this be? After all, I remember how President Reagan, while he was in office, was so fond of being filmed splitting wood in his ranch in California. If an 80-year-old President could do it, and make it look so easy, then surely a virile 40something could do it as well.

So I went to my local hardware store and bought an axe.

Act One, Scene I

It was a day much like many other balmy December days we’ve been having this winter. There was a little chill in the air, but more like a spring day than a winter day. I had gathered quite a haul of neatly cut sections of the tree trunk, each about nine to twelve inches in diameter, and had placed them to the side a large tree stump, which I planned to use as the base to split the firewood.

The ground was wet and the grass was moist, as it had been raining the previous few days, but although the radio had announced that there would be rain later, I thought I would have a couple of hours to split all the wood before it began to rain.

I would be good exercise as well.

Gloves in hand, I placed the first piece of wood on the stump, took one or two slow –motion practice tries, just to get the motion and aim right, and then took my first mighty swing of the axe.

There are some instances on this planet, when the laws of gravity seem to take a couple of nanoseconds off. Like when one is walking down a path, and a rock, as if by magic, jumps from the ground and lands inside your shoe. How does that happen? Is it evidence of magic? Time travel? Even if one considers a viable explanation, the most common of which is that the other shoe kicks the rock into the partner shoe, it takes some extraordinary physics and flight acrobatics to imagine a rock being kicked by one shoe, flying sideways through the air as you walk on and sliding into the other shoe. I prefer to believe that the rocks jump straight up and floats into the shoe.

Anyway... back to my story.

The violent action of swinging the axe to split the firewood must have caused a ripple in the time space continuum, for otherwise I cannot imagine or recreate what followed next.

For one thing, I completely missed the firewood waiting to be split and barely nicked the edge of the tree stump. But this bare touching of the tree stump must have caused a tremendous vector change in the arc of the axe swing, and to add more physics to the event, the brand new axe, (with its nice slippery handle, aided by my brand new - and even more slippery - cotton gardening gloves (I should have used leather work gloves)) slipped away from me.

And aided by the wet grass under my feet, I lost my footing and slipped towards the oncoming axe. At some point, I suspect that both the axe and I were completely airborne and approaching each other in perfect flight synchronicity.

And in some incomprehensible act of flying physics, the axe went in a perfect flight pattern back towards me and between my legs.

Act One, Scene II

The axe blade missed my family jewels – barely.

I know this because I still have balls and because the tip of the blade nicked the small of my back. But I came as close to being a eunuch as anyone in the history of mankind has come; but the blade missed.

But the top of the handle didn’t miss and it crushed my balls.

Before I describe the pain, let me tell you that I've been kicked in the balls more than once. I have been an avid student and practicioner of the martial arts since I was 13 years old, and have competed in many full contact tournaments, and have been accidentally kicked in the balls many times. I have also had my share of juvenile and drunken sailor fist fights, where someone's foot or fist has delivered a painful blow to my genitals. And it does hurt intensely!

But this axe handle crushing my privates was a new dimension in pain.

And this new pain took on a new meaning as I collapsed onto the wet, muddy ground.

It was an almost exquisite pain, with shape, form, smell and incredibly enough, fireballs of vivid color dancing to music. During this time, I had a vision of how Christ and Jimmy Hoffa truly died; in fact I learned how every fucking thing in the Universe has died, and how every living entity in this Universe and the other infinite Einsteinian numbers of Universes will die. And in all cases, their death involved or will involve an axe.

Time ceased to flow, or perhaps it simply slowed down in order to make my agony more intense, which by the way, would have been impossible, as I had already maxxed out the agony scale for mankind.

And I know this is silly, but I swear that I heard the music from Guns & Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine emanating, in perfect tune to the pain, from my brutalized gonads; especially the part where the bag pipes come in.

Thus I do not know how long I agonized on the forest floor. A wet tongue belonging to Yoda, my neighbor’s dog, whimpering as he obviously felt my pain, resuscitated me.

I opened my eyes for the first time since I fell, and looked at Yoda’s handsome face. "Yoda," I whispered between clenched teeth, "kill me." He looked at me with his intelligent eyes and licked my face again. "Please bite my neck," I begged. "Kill me now!"

Yoda twisted his head in that almost human way in which dogs do, and walked away. For a minute there I thought that the stupid beast had gone to fetch a stick to play with, as he loves to fetch sticks. Had he done this, I would have kicked him in his balls. But he just vanished from my sight and then started to bark outside my neighbor’s back door.

By now the pain had diminished to a white searing pain on a planetary scale equivalent to a thermonuclear device being exploted at the core of the Earth, so the word diminished is quite bogus in this sentence. But, I sincerely wanted to find out how much damage I had done, and since by now my pants were quite soaked from the wet ground and the mud, I needed to check to see if I was bleeding.

Act One, Scene III

So I unbuttoned my pants, lowered them in agonizing ecstasy, and reached down to feel the state of my boys.

Which is precisely the moment that my neighbor, apparently being brought to the scene by Lassie-wannabe Yoda’s barking, made her appearance, as I am feeling my bruised sacs.

My neighbor is a very nice old lady who has a remarkable likeness to Grandpa Munster, and I think that she’s originally from Sweden, and she has a lovely and thick accent, and from the expression on her face, I realized that she was slightly concerned at finding a muddy man, laying on the wet ground, pants down to his ankles and fingers probing around his privates.

So I rationalized (the brain is an incredible asset) that I'd better explain, although the last fucking thing that I wanted to do at that moment was to chat with this Grandpa Munster look-a-like. But I figured that if I didn’t explain, she’d make a bat-line to her phone and report me to the vice squad.

And being the super nice lady that she is, she tried to hide her laughter, and understood, and asked me if I wanted her to call an ambulance. "Tentacles," she said (and she did say "tentacles" instead of "testicles"), "are very fragile."

"No shit Grandpa Munster," I felt like saying, but instead I moaned to her that it was OK, and that I’d drive myself down to the hospital.

It had begun to sprinkle, so she wished me luck and went back to her house.

And then it really began to rain; hard, cold rain.

And then the act of crawling back to my house became another exercise in agony, as I discovered that (a) I couldn’t walk because of the pain and (b) I couldn’t crawl on my knees, because of the pressure on my jewels.

So I sort of "rolled" towards my house, and then developed a sort of walking on all fours, legs quite widespread and putting most of the weight on my hands, as the rain fell on me.

So I finally make it to the house, thoroughly soaked and quite covered in mud. And (of course) the day before I had cleaned my house from top to bottom, and the thought of the irony of this alignment of misfortunes dawned on me as I muddied the floor of my pristine home.

I debated whether to change clothes or not, and decided that it would be impossible for me to physically remove my shoes, as my boys had by now begun to swell to an impressive size, and any pressure on them caused me to yelp like a newborn child. So I grabbed a towel from the laundry room, crawled to my van, put the towel on the seat, and climbed in to an internal symphony of new pains.

And I began the drive to the hospital emergency room.

Act Two, Scene I

Sometimes the lights on Democracy Boulevard align in timing so that one can go all the way from Seven Locks to Old Georgetown Road without hitting a single light.

Other times, a driver hits every goddamned light on the road.

Guess which of these two cycles of light synchronicity was to be my fate on that painful day?

Yep! Stop at every light, and to make matters worse, I couldn’t really "sit down" and was actually driving while holding most of my weight on one hand pushing against the car seat in order to attempt to float me above it, all the while leaning forward, sort of the way that scary old people in Florida drive.

I eventually pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, and of course there is not one single parking spot available on the ER area, so I have to park in the lot across the street, and do my crawling on all fours routine, in the rain, across the road, which as some of you may know, is quite a busy road. However, since Yoda had failed to kill me, I was somewhat hoping that I’d get run over by a car, and mercifully have it put an end to my agony.

But no one ran me over, although several cars did slow down, but I suspect it was so that they could get a look at the idiot crawling on all fours across the road, in the rain.

But in due time, I did arrive at the entrance to the ER, and at the very last minute I almost did get run over by an ambulance, bringing in someone with a medical emergency.

And so I finally enter the ER, muddy, wet, cold and still in spectacular pain.

Act Two, Scene II

I imagine that most ER personnel have seen just about everything that humankind has to offer in terms of shock, but by the alarmed expression on the male nurse at the check-in station, it was clear that he was somewhat concerned by my appearance and by my manner of movement on all fours; I also noticed that the security guard was also somewhat alarmed (and armed).

He asked me what the problem was, and as I explained what happened, both this Gaylord Focker wannabe and the guard, who had drifted within earshot, actually had the gall to burst out laughing.

And I made a silent promise to myself that in a few weeks, if I survived this ordeal, I would hunt Nurse Focker-wannabe and kick him in the nuts.

So after the whole delay of data input and insurance verification, Nurse Focker tells me to have a seat, and wait, as the doctors (plural) are all attending the patient who had just come in via the ambulance.

"What’s his problem?" I asked, not out of concern, but thinking that there are precious few emergencies in the world that could take precedence over my distress.

And Nurse Focker explains that the patient is a 96-year-old-man who’s having a heart attack.

And I’m really close to start debating that at 96, he’s had a good life, and he's probably caused his own heart attack because of Viagra, so let this geezer go and assign me a doctor, preferably well armed with a needle full of painkiller. But I hold my tongue, and wait in my own private water puddle.

Several ice ages later, Nurse Focker says that I am to be seen, and asks me if I have a preference for a doctor. In retrospect, I think that he was asking me if I wanted a male or female doctor, but by now my social graces had completely vanished, and I told him that I’d like Dr. Kavorkian. He didn’t laugh.

I am then taken to the back, and told to undress, put one of those silly robes that show your ass, and sit on the bed and wait for the doctor. Somehow I managed to undress on my own, and laid on the bed, with my legs bent and wide open, much like a woman waiting for her gynecologist.

A little while later, the curtains open and the doctor comes in: A female doctor, of course, probably picked by Nurse Focker to make my life more miserable.

And not just any female doctor, but probably the only female doctor who had also been a body extra in Baywatch. And to my utter amazement, in the middle of this intense agony, my sick male brain still finds time to align a couple of thought patterns that whisper inside my head: "WOW, she’s hot!" before resuming sending new and novel pain patterns to my groin area.

"What have we got here?" she asks using the imperial "we" that annoying doctors like to use.

"We, doc," says I, devoid of any social skills by this point, "have a serious fucking case of smashed balls, and an even more serious need for some potent pain killer." And I begin explaining what happened.

And just like Nurse Focker and the rent-a-cop a few minutes earlier, Dr. Carmen Electra, Medicine Woman bursts out laughing while she’s probing and feeling down there, hands encased in latex gloves.

Laughter induced watery-eyes and all, she then tells me that it looks like there’s no internal injuries, but that she’ll order a scan to double check, and that I need to ice down my groin area in order to reduce the swelling. "You’ll be OK in a few days."

Pheeew!

I thank her, and ask about a shot for the pain. To my astonishment she says that just a couple of Tylenols should do the trick. "Doc," I plead, "I am in really in some aggravating bad pain here."

"Don’t be such a baby," she responds, "You should try childbirth if you want to know what real pain is."

She’s lucky she’s a woman; otherwise I definitely would have kicked her in the balls.

Act Two, Scene III

A few days later, and things appear to be back to normal; I’ve been telling people that I have a back pain, and thus the strained walk.

And at some point, it dawns on me that the whole sequence of events, with the improbable occurrences, the diverse set of characters, and the Three Stoogian physicality of the act, is a new kind of art; a new kind of performance art that is, where really spectacular true events of common daily life assume astronomic personal presence and thus cross the border into a personal artistic quality, the like of which will never be repeated by any other soul on this planet.

So my performance piece is over: I call it Tentacles (not Testicles).

J.T. has a good report on the Caio Fonseca talk that occurred last Thursday at the Corcoran. Read it here.

And over at Angstbabe, Tracy has had it with the GW MFA program and is switching to GMU's. Read her reasons here.

DC Warming

DC Warming is a panel focusing on "Movers & Shakers" and the new energy in the DC contemporary art scene. It will be held this coming Tuesday, 18 January 2005 at 6:30 p.m. at the District of Columbia Arts Center.

Cost for this event: Members $15, Guests $20. This program is limited to 50 people. Please RSVP to Mary Beth at dc@ArtTable.org or telephone 202.332.0099.

Panelists include:
Andrea Pollan, Director, Curator's Office (Moderator), Jayme McLellan and Victoria Reis, Co-directors, Transformer Gallery, Maggie Michael, artist, Allison Cohen, art consultant (Sightline) and IP lawyer (solo practice), Tyler Green, art critic for Bloomberg News and blogwriter, Modern Art Notes, Philip Barlow, art collector and DCAC Board Member, and Henry Estada, independent curator.

AOM Top Artists Opening

Yesterday the WaPo gave the three-gallery Top 10 AOM Artists exhibitions their Hot Pick of the Week and last night we had part two of the three-opening night sequence.

I've discussed this before, but there's an interesting phenomenom that I've noticed vis-a-vis press coverage of gallery shows: It is clear to me that we seem to get a lot more people show up to the gallery based on a small Hot Pick mention than a full review.

And last night was huge!

We actually ran out of Sangria within the first hour (ten gallons of the stuff was consumed in an hour!) and had to make an emergency liquor store run, which in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Montgomery County, is not a trivial thing to find at 7PM on a Friday night. Anyway, we ended up running through 20 gallons of the stuff by the time we ended the opening night festivities.

Our Bethesda show featured some of the work previously exhibited by the invited artists, as well as new work such as a couple of terrific new plastic men sculptures by Mark Jenkins (as well as four new pubic hair tapestries), several new sculptures by Alison Sigethy, new glass sculptures by Michael Janis and Tim Tate, and a new installation by Ira Tattelman.

And next Friday, from 6-9 PM, is the third set of openings, when our Georgetown gallery will showcase photographs by Matt Dunn and Denise Wolff and paintings by Margaret McDowell, and our Canal Square upstairs neighbor, the Anne C. Fisher Gallery hosts Anne's list of her Top 10 AOM Artists.

Later today is the opening of J.W. Bailey's Stealing Dead Souls from 5:00 - 7:00 pm at the Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Maryland.

And then later tonight is the opening of Scott Treleaven at Conner Contemporary from 6-8 PM.

Go see art.
P.S. Opening night photos courtesy of Guy Mondo.

Congratulations are on order!

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund of Washington, DC, has awarded artists Charles Ritchie, Yuriko Yamaguchi (represented by Numark Gallery) and Steven Kenny (winner of our 2001 Georgetown Fine Arts Competition) individual grants of $15,000, $20,000, and $15,000, respectively.

The grants, first started in 2002, are earmarked for living artists over the age of 40 who work within 150 miles of DC.

A Sacrifice for Art

Tonight we have the opening for the AOM artists in our list.

The show looks great, and I must admit that with the right lights and a white cube environment, the whole aspect of artwork changes. I will post some photos later. This somewhat bothers me.

Anyway... now I've listened to Edwards' talking fish a few hundred times and they're still really funny!

But let me tell you something: Tonight our opening is from 6-9 PM, and that means that I'll be getting home around 11 PM.

And tonight the SciFi Channel has the series premiere of the new sexy Battlestar Galactica series, and as an acknowledged, testified, bonafied Science Fiction geek (NOT Sci Fi), it hurts me deeply to miss this premiere and to have to look for the VCR's guide (I hope I can find it) to figure out how to tape the damned show so that I can watch it later.

I did watch the two-part pilot movie, and it was great! Sexy characters, and some news-making heresy in the changes from the original TV series.

But... what happened to all the Black people?

It reminds me of the Richard Pryor joke about Logan's Run. In the original Galactica, both Col. Tigh and Boomer were Black; in the new Galactica one is White and the other is Asian.

In fact the only main character who (I think) may be Black is Petty Officer Dualla.

PS - And although the Virgo in me is crying out for it, I won't even begin to obsess on how they mix Naval ranks with regular ranks (some people in the ship are Petty Officers and Commanders, while others are Colonels).

The Thursday Art Reviews

Jeffry Cudlin at the City Paper reviews Martin Kotler and John Dryfuss at Hemphill Fine Arts. He nails the analogy between Dreyfuss' sculptures and Atlas Shrugged; it hadn't occurred to me, but its a perfect analysis of the works! In fact, mentally I've already placed them not only in the book, bit also in the great B&W movie with Gary Cooper (or was that The Fountainhead?)

Also in the WCP, Louis Jacobson reviews "The Tao of Physics" at the National Academy of Sciences.

At the WaPo, Jonathan Padget reviews Morten Nilsson at Ingrid Hansen Gallery.

Critical Alignment (Part III)

Last Sunday I commented on the fact that all of a sudden (and again) critical voices are aligning to proclaim the fact that painting (which a few cycles ago they were all saying was dead), is not only alive and kicking, but hot!

This repeating and never-ending cycle of "discussion" amongst critics is really a waste of words, and soon an U-turn will happen and a few years later, a new reversal, etc.

But it does reveal more evidence of critical alignment, as another critic suddenly reveals that "painting has never been out of the picture. Rather, it has often been work on canvas that proved the most provocative."

There's a lot of bull and incomprehensible art jargon in this article, but read it anyway... the article is here.

And now I wonder when we'll see some words on newsprint from our local painting-hating critics as they align with this new groupthink.

German Garbage Collectors Punished with Modern Art Lessons

(Thanks AJ) What is it with janitors, garbage collectors and cleaners in general with their desire to destroy modern "art"?

Some zealous German street cleaners in Frankfurt cleared and incinerated what they thought were abandoned building materials. It was in fact an art installation done as part of a city-wide exhibition of modern sculptures by artist Michael Beutler.

Thirty of the city's garbage collectors are now being sent to modern art classes to try to ensure that the same mistake never happens again.

I kid you not! Read the story here.

Yesterday I discussed the very generous grants of the Anonymous was a Woman program and wondered how two non-New York artists had sneaked through the New York only filter.

And this morning I got an aswer in the email! One of the two non-NY artists was J. Morgan Puett.

A friend writes:

J. Morgan Puett used to have an incredible arty line of natural fiber, un-ironed clothes, baggy dresses with a baroque southern hipster flair, vaguely Amish looking too

J. Morgan Puett used to have a place in 1992 called Skep at 527 Broome St in NY. In 1992 she was 35--so she is 47 or 48 now. She was born in Hahira, GA. Suzanne Vega, the folk singer, did her opening benefit show at Skep. Syd Straw, the famous singer, used to model for her sales brochures. Michelle Shocked was also a shareholder in Skep, and Jane Pratt, the editor of Sassy magazine, was involved. I think Natalie Merchant used to wear her clothes too.

Skep is an old woven beehive and Puett comes from four generations of beekeepers. Her brother Garnett Puett is an artist who works with bees.

I went there in 1992 -- the building was an old screw factory (if she owned it and then sold it, she probably made a fortune and moved to the country in Pennsylvania).

She would recycle the coffee grounds from the coffee shop and use them upstairs to dye the clothes. Extremely cool clothes -- but EXPENSIVE!! Pirjoj used to sell them in her Georgetown store-- $800 one-of-a kind looking pants dye-stained with tea, coffee grounds or grass and beet juice with all sorts of cool buttons and flaps.

J. Morgan Puett is VERY connected

And thus a New York connection for this gifted artist, and the New York only filter worked!

The change of leadership at the Greater Reston Arts Center that I reported about on Monday makes the news locally.

Anonymous Was A Woman $25,000 Grants

Ten female artists have received $25,000 grants from the Anonymous Was A Woman foundation in its ninth annual round of awards.

This year's recipients are Janet Biggs (video installation, NYC), Moyra Davey (visual artist/photographer, NYC), Liz Deschenes (visual artist/photographer, Brooklyn), Jessica Diamond (visual artist, Bronx), Joy Garnett (painter and media artist, NYC), Elizabeth Lyons (sculptor, Rochester, N.Y.), Sarah McEneaney (visual artist/painter, Philadelphia), J. Morgan Puett (transdisciplinary artist, Beach Lake, Pa.), Alison Saar (visual artist/sculptor, NYC), Carmelita Tropicana (performance artist, NYC).

I wonder how the two Pennsylvania artists sneaked through the New York-only filter? I suggest that this generous foundation change its name to Anonymous Was A New York Woman or spread its generosity outside the Empire State.

Anonymous Was a Woman awards "no strings" grants to women, age 35 and over, at a critical juncture in their lives or careers, to enable them to continue pursuing their work. Anonymous Was a Woman awards operate like the MacArthur Foundation "genius awards" in that artists do not apply for them but rather are nominated, usually without their knowledge.

I don't know who this year's nominators were, but I am pretty sure where they all live.

Lauren Katzowitz Shenfield is executive director of Philanthropy Advisors in New York. And according to this article, "she advises the donor behind the New York-based Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation, which makes unattributed annual $25,000 grants to women artists whose work has been underappreciated by the market. The benefactor, says Katzowitz Shenfield, is an artist herself, and she was concerned about what the gifts might do to her relationship with other artists if they knew she was behind the grants. 'She also finds it enormously thrilling to do this kind of philanthropy,' Katzowitz Shenfield adds."

Bravo Anonymous Donor! Ms. Katzowitz Shenfield: Advise her about the other 48 states and our District.

Kriston over at Grammar.police has an interesting post involving art, hypocritical artist, copy-cat art and gunfire. Read it here.

What goes around comes around.

As Cyndi Spain points out in DCist, the 20th Mayor's Arts Awards were awarded last night at the Kennedy Center.

Congratulations to all the award winners.

PS - But sourgraping: I think that Fondo del Sol got ripped off.

Starting this month, a new syndicated TV arts program will hit the airwaves around here, soon nationally, and then it is planned to go onto an international audience (it has been picked up by the BBC World News).

It is ArtsMedia News: a weekly television program delivering a fresh, vibrant overview of what’s happening in the arts. ArtsMedia News, produced by Global Program Ventures Group LLC, will deliver a robust collection of stories, features, updates and interviews – and provide exposure, promotion and access to the people and organizations who have something to show and tell. Each show will include:

• What’s Happening Where — Notable performance and visual exhibition openings
• Arts News — The latest news in theater, opera, and the visual and performing arts
• On Site Discussions with prominent curators, artists, collectors and critics
• Unique regular features
• Updates from the major auction houses
• The business of art
• How artists create

In January 2005, ArtsMedia News will commence a half-hour weekly program on Thursday nights on MHz Networks, along with the interstitial newsbreaks. National distribution of ArtsMedia News is planned for Spring of 2005.

I will be hosting the visual arts portion of this program, focusing on both visual art shows, interviews with curators, artists and reviews of art shows, as well as the updates from the major auction houses.

Two of the trial programs that I recorded a while back have already been shown extensively both locally and by the BBC. I hope to make this another means to help expand our area's art scene onto a national and international platform.

The best thing for art galleries is more art galleries; the best thing for art is awareness that there's art to be seen and experienced - let's see what happens if this works out.

Post-AOM Part II

Last weekend the Anne C. Fisher Gallery opened an exhibition based on Anne's pick of her top 10 AOM artists.

And now part II...

This Friday our Bethesda outpost will open an exhibition showcasing the work of the AOM artists who made it to our lists.

The opening will be from 6-9 PM, as part of the Bethesda Art Walk and features both some of the key artwork exhibited at AOM as well as new work created specifically for this show, such as Ira Tattelman's new installation titled They Sheltered Me From Harm and several new pubic hair tapestries by Mark Jenkins (as well as some new plastic men).

Part III the following Friday at Fraser Georgetown as part of the Canal Square Galleries third Friday openings and extended hours.

Opportunity for Artists

Dumbarton Concert Gallery
Deadline for submissions: June 1, 2005

Dumbarton Concert Gallery call for artists for art exhibitions for 2005-2006 season. Deadline for submissions: June 1, 2005. Dumbarton Concert Gallery is accepting applications from MD, DC, and VA artists for the 2005-2006 concert season. The Concert Gallery is operated in conjunction with Dumbarton Concerts, a series of chamber and jazz musical performances held in Georgetown's historic Dumbarton Church.

The artist's opening occurs in conjunction with a one-night concert performance, with an average attendance of 350 people. The exhibit stays up for one and a half weeks, during which time the gallery is open by appointment. Artists can submit slides independently or as a group. Decisions are made by jury. Eight shows will be installed, October 2005 through April 2006.

The gallery takes a 25 percent commission on sales. Submission requirements:
1. Ten to twenty images, on slides or CD
2. Name, address, phone, email, and curriculum vitae.
3. Dimensions, price, and medium of each piece (if pieces shown on slides are not available, they must be an accurate representation of the type of work that will be hung).
4. Enclose SASE for return of materials.
5. Only work that can be hung on walls will be accepted--no free-standing sculpture.

Mail to:
Eric Westbrook
2325 42nd St. NW #419
Washington, DC 20007

Questions? email: Eric here. Notifications: After July 1, 2005

Another GRACE Director bites the dust

Edie McRee Bowles, President and CEO of the Greater Reston Arts Center, has been fired by the Board of Directors.

Former Fairfax County Board of Supervisor, Kate Hanley, has been named interim director of GRACE.

I think the world about GRACE, which is a cultural jewel in that wealthy suburb, and I have curated a show for them, and their Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival hosted 180 artists and attracted over 60,000 visitors last year, and it is one of the best fine arts festivals in the nation (I am participating in the 2005 version next May).

But there's something wrong at GRACE, or maybe within its Board of Directors (I don't know), as this is their fourth director since Anne Brown was released in August of 2002. That's a clear indication that someone or something (besides the directors) is/are doing something wrong.

It has nothing to do with the visual arts, but...

Congrats to DC area Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lorraine Adams, whose book Harbor, was rated Fiction Book of the Year in the Entertainment Weekly Best of 2004 issue.

Bravo Ms. Adams!

Opportunity for Artists

Hispanic Heritage Poster Contest
Deadline: February 11, 2005

Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia artists throughout the metropolitan area now have the opportunity to compete for the $2,500 grand prize of the First Annual VEGA Hispanic Yellow Pages Poster Contest sponsored by the VEGA Hispanic Yellow Pages, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and The Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs. The deadline is February 11, 2005.

The poster theme should be the artist’s interpretation or rendition of Hispanic Heritage in the Greater Washington DC Metropolitan Area.

The winning poster will be featured on the front cover of the VEGA Hispanic Yellow Pages. The design may also be used for other promotional items such as billboards, T-shirts, programs, etc. Only one work may be submitted per artist.

For more information contact Jose Dominguez at (202) 724-5614 or email Jose here. You can also download the prospectus here.

Artists need not be Hispanic/Latino/Latins/Spanish/Latin-American/Spaniards/Iberians in order to submit entries (I hope).

Critical Alignment II

In response to my thoughts on Critical Alignment, a friend emailed me a very interesting essay by Dave Eggers (co-founder of the now-defunct Might Magazine and editor of McSweeney's, and author of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius").

It is too long to post in its entirety here, but the essence of it can be beautifully distilled to:

"What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips's new album is ravishing and I've listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210.

What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who's up and who's down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say.

Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes."

Bravo Mr. Eggers!

DCist has a nice write-up of the new AOM artists show that opened last weekend at the Anne C. Fisher Gallery in Georgetown.

This is the first of a triple gallery show about AOM artists. Next Friday we will open most of the artists from our lists with a show opening Friday, October 14 from 6-9PM at Fraser Bethesda, and the Friday after that opening at Fraser Georgetown.

And wait until you see the installation that Ira Tattelman has done in our Bethesda gallery!

And (Yawn) Painting is Hot Again...

Because Blake Gopnik firmly believes that painting is dead, he is going to hate this, but like it happens every few years, all the critical voices are aligning again to say: "sorry, we were wrong and painting is not dead... so sorry."

Tap, tap... Critical alignment happening here... Watch for art critics and curators who have dismissed painting over the last few years now try to re-invent themselves and desperately try to catch up. And art mogul Saatchi has already publicly chastised Blake Gopnik for having such a traditional and outdated view of painting's death.

This Telegraph article discusses that:

To suggest that painting has triumphed over other media would require a rather outdated notion of hierarchy. But it is certainly receiving a flurry of attention. The art periodicals Contemporary Art, Flash Art and Modern Painters all broke with regular practice and ran large special issues on it last year. Remarkably, it was Modern Painters' first ever issue devoted exclusively to painting.

Even painters themselves, who won't admit that painting ever went away, agree that it is back in focus. "There are always artists making interesting paintings – sometimes they attract little attention, sometimes, as now, a lot," wrote Michael Craig Martin in the New Statesman this month.

"There's certainly a lot of talk about painting being back," says Pablo Lafuente, curator of a much smaller painting show than Saatchi's now on at London's Haunch of Venison gallery. "It suffered a lot during the 1990s, but in the last few years it's been changing: there's a buzz in both the market and museum worlds. Before, painters used to explain that they also worked in other media. Now, there's an unapologetic-ness."

Read the whole article here.

Critical Alignment

One fact that has been quite evident to me for many years (at least from anecdotal evidence), is that fact that in almost all genres of the arts, more often than not, popularity tends to have an equally inverse relationship with formal critical acclaim.

If you are an extraordinarily popular visual artist with the masses, such as Jack Vettriano is in Great Britain, then usually you are either ignored or maligned by the critical world. In Vettriano's case it has actually worked to his advantage, making him even more popular, and he currently has the record for the highest price for a Scottish painting ever to be sold at auction.

I guess our equivalent here would be Norman Rockwell, although his "re-discovery" in the last few years has somewhat surprised me. But for most of my life, Rockwell has been tremendously popular with the American public, but snobbed and disdained by the critical mafia.

But when art critics do focus positively on someone, as they did for a while on John Currin, it appears to me that they tend to cluster in a communal group think about an artist. Conversely, when a "reversal" or negativity about an artist begins to surface (such as for John Currin now), it certainly appears, at least from the ten thousand foot level, to be a "group U-turn" and we all begin to savage the new victim.

I could be wrong, and it is clearly an observation not cast in concrete nor backed up by scientific and numerical facts, but it is how it appears to me.

But I also recall that in Peter Schjeldahl's (art critic for The New Yorker) 2004 lecture at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium as part of that year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art, and according to Ionarts:

"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."

And now David Sterritt, who is the film critic for The Christian Science Monitor, is concerned because so many of his choices for the best films, year after year, match so closely with his fellow movie critics, but often are never aligned with the public's choices. He writes:

"Don't get me wrong. The last thing we critics should do is try to echo the taste of some hypothetical 'average moviegoer' or twist our 10-best lists to mirror the box office. What concerns me is that there's so much agreement among reviewers, whose goals ought to include challenging one another's tastes, habits, and assumptions."

Read his article here.

Kelly Towles is hot!

A friend at the Washington Times tells me that the Times' senior art critic, Joanna Shaw-Eagle, will be reviewing Kelly Towles debut solo at David Adamson.

This is good not only for Towles, but also for our area art scene, to see three major art critics all focus on one talented artist. With three major endorsements like O'Sullivan, Dawson and Shaw-Eagle, Towles has gotten off to a spectacular start, following his also stellar Artomatic debut.

This is a strong signal to our museum curators (Brougher and Hileman at the Hirshhorn and Binstock and Schmidt at the Corcoran) that perhaps this "local" artist deserves some of their attention as well.

And if Kelly moves to Brooklyn, then maybe Blake will also write about him.

Anyway... Bravo Kelly!

Gallery looking for new members

Touchstone Gallery, one of the oldest and largest artists' cooperatives in the Greater DC area, is looking for new members. Interested artists should contact Touchstone Gallery at 202/347-2787.

A couple of new photography shows to open soon

January 9 - February 1, 2005
Glenview Mansion Art Gallery

Prescott Moore Lassman will be exhibiting 15 to 20 photographs from his "Domesticated Animals" series in a three-person show at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery. The exhibition, which also features artists Elke Seefeldt and L.S. King, runs from January 9 through February 1, 2005. There will be an opening reception on Sunday, January 9 from 1-4 p.m., in conjunction with a jazz concert by The Lovejoy Group from 2-3 p.m. There will also be an artist's talk on Thursday, January 20 beginning at 7:30 p.m.

---

January 12 - February 11, 2005
"Stealing Dead Souls"

Rough Edge Photography by national award-winning experimental Mississippi photographer, James W. Bailey, which explores the concept of photography and its mystical ability to steal the life of the non-living. Opening Reception on Saturday, January 15, from 5:00 - 7:00 pm at the Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Maryland.

The Top 100 Artists

(Thanks AJ) A British website, ArtFacts, has come up with a way to rank artists by the exhibitions they've been shown in since 1999.

The Artist Ranking reflects the artists exhibition career from 1999 to today as seen from the perspective of the organizing curators of museums and private galleries.

Basically the artist ranking weights exhibitions by a special algorithm. Each exhibition gains automatically a certain value. See the ranking system explained here and the current Top 100 here.

The Super Art Thief Goes on Trial

Thirty-something French waiter Stephane Breitwieser has admitted stealing 239 works of art (including several priceless masterpieces) in seven European countries between 1995-2001.

It gets better... His mother is also on trial for having destroyed more than 200 of the works stolen by her son, who apparently stored them at her home.

Read it and weep.

P.S. Does anyone named Breitwieser live in Reston?

The Thursday Reviews

The WaPo's Jacqueline Trescott usually writes about museum news and issues. Today she has a piece that covers some museum going-ons dealing with special exhibits around Dubya's inauguration.

Jessica Dawson does something that rarely happens in the WaPo: She reviews an artist who was already reviewed last week! No doubt that Kelly Towles is hot! The review is (as usual) all over the place, sometimes doling out the feeling that it is a good review, other times throwing a bucket of cold water all over the reader. She also covers and offers a description of Time and Materials at Irvine Contemporary Art.

I'd like to see the WaPo's first threepeat and hereby call for Blake Gopnik to also review this show. Maybe a second visit to a single and talented Art-O-Matic artist will cause a shift in Blake's rootcanalization of AOM?

In the WCP, Louis Jacobson reviews "The Staged Body: Contemporary Photography," (which Jessica reviewed December 16) at Andrea Pollan's Curator's Office.

Hemphill Fine Arts has an opening this Saturday, January 8, of two of my favorite DC area artists: Martin Kotler and John Dreyfuss.

These are two of my favorite area artists. I included Kotler a few years ago into a massive show that I curated in 2001 for the Athenaeum in Alexandria. The show was titled "A Survey of Washington Area Realists" and had over 120 artists hanging salon-style in that beautiful Greek Revival building that is so architecturally out of place in Old Town Alexandria. He's an intelligent and gifted painter.

Dreyfuss' sculptures (and the studio where he makes them) have to be seen to be believed, from the massive plum bob that he last exhibited at Hemphill's old Georgetown space, to small, delicate neo Classic pieces that are all over his studio space. He will have seven new sculptures in this show.

The reception is Saturday, January 8, 2005 from 6:30 - 8:30 PM.

SYNERGY: DC Artists Unite!

Call for Artists
Deadline: March 15, 2005

Synergy is a collaborative community art project that will bring artists of the DC/MD/VA area together to create unique works of art. Synergy will revive and inspire an entire new art scene for the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area.

Evolving Perceptions (EP) is seeking teams of 2-4 artists to submit submissions for consideration. A jury panel will select the final teams and each team will receive a stipend for the artists as well as for materials. The teams will be asked to create a work of artwork(s) within a 6 week period.

The process of creation among the team artists’ will be documented and shared as part of the final exhibition. The exhibition will launch in Fall 2005/Winter 2006 at a local gallery in Washington D.C.

ELIGIBILITY: Visual artist(s) working/living within a 50 mile radius of Washington D.C. No age limit, encourage teams to include artists of diverse cultural heritages and artists with disabilities.

ENTRY INSTRUCTIONS: Artists may submit as:
1) teams of 2-4 artists
2) individuals who would like to be placed on a team
3) art organizations, galleries, museums who would like to submit a team, i.e., "the Torpedo Factory team"

To obtain an entry form please email Marsha Stein, Synergy Coordinator at marshasart@aol.com.

Each artist(s) on a team or applying as an individual must submit:
1. Resume
2. Statement about Why the collaborative art process is of interest to you? What do you hope to contribute and gain from this experience?
3. SASE
4. 5 Slides or digital images on a CD-ROM with print outs

POSTMARK DEADLINE: March 15, 2005
Teams announced in May 2005

Please send your submission to:

Synergy
11118 Lakespray Way
Reston, VA 20191

I'll be away most of the day today, and will be posting later in the day. Don't forget that tomorrow is the first Friday of the month and thus the Dupont Circle Galleries will be having their openings and/or extended hours from 6-8 PM in most cases.

Numark Gallery also has an opening tomorrow night from 6:30-8PM: Sharon Louden: The Motley Tails and also David Ryan: Batteries Can't Help Now in the gallery's Project Room.

Sharon Louden's installations and drawings "give character to individual
gestures through the illusion of movement, placement, and direction of marks.
The Motley Tails, Louden's second one-person exhibition at Numark Gallery, features a large-scale installation. A garden of hanging, hairy anthropomorphic and jungle-like forms, assembled with thousands of strands of monofilament (fishing line) clamped by cage clips, hangs from the ceiling of the main gallery space and brushes along the floor."

Las Vegas-based artist David Ryan creates his three-dimensional painted wall
constructions by referencing the design of mass-produced industrial products, automobiles, home stereos and computers.

A couple of days ago I had the honor to jury the annual monthly juried show for the 1600 plus artists who are members of the Art League.

About 600 works in all genres and medias were submitted for my review and I selected 120 of them for exhibition in the Art League Gallery on the first floor of the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria.

Jurying an art show is a very time consuming, and arduous task. There were some absolutely brilliant works, a lot of OK work and a few head scratchers. But the sublime pleasure of being surrounded by artwork from artists of all ranges, ages and skills, is unequaled. This is what the love of visual arts is all about!

As I've noted, seldom is the task of jurying an art show an easy task, and even though I have juried many shows over the last twenty years, I always approach the task with the realization that a lot of effort and work must be delivered in order to do a proper job.

And jurying a show for The Art League must be one of the most challenging tasks that a juror in our area faces. With such a rich pool of artists, by far one of the largest in the nation, abounding with talent, creativity and intelligence, a juror must come prepared to work hard and smartly.

And I’ve prepared for this task for many years and through many ways. As I've noted, I was a member of The Art League when I first moved to the Washington area many years ago, and believe me: I know first-hand the elation of being accepted and the sighs that accompany being rejected.

Then, as an art critic, I have been visiting and writing about Art League shows for many years. I know first-hand the amazing variety of art and artists, of styles and genres, of creativity and intelligence, as well as their weaknesses. And finally, as an art critic and curator, I have curated and organized over 100 shows in our area, and have been thus exposed to the work of many Art League members that way. I was ready for this task.

If you were accepted: Congratulations! It was a challenging task.

By far, you’ll see that most of the work that I selected falls within the representational genre, which I allow to dominate my personal dialogue with art. I admire technical ability, but usually when properly coupled with smart composition, good visual ideas, intelligence and creativity. The award winners all in one sense or another pushed some of these buttons, from the spectacular simplicity and elegance of Jim Steele’s photographs, to the bubbling burst of prowess of the very young Jenny Davis’ watercolors, to Jackie Saunders’ mastery of the figure.

The Art League’s monthly competitions are excellent ways to sharpen your artistic muscles, to learn to accept rejection, and to hone your instinct and experience in the art world. The best thing for art is more art – keep creating!

Oh yeah... the photo on the left won the First Prize!

How to Achieve Instant World Fame

Warning: If porn offends you, even "fine art porn," do not visit any of the links below.

Terry Richardson is one lucky stiff (pun intended) who becomes famous in the rarified upper crust of the art world while getting his fine art porn exhibitied in New York, London and Paris.

I'd love to see what would happen if one of our museums or galleries had a Terry Richardson exhibition around here.

In fact, it would make Richardson world famous on a level achieved by the Mapplethorpes and Serranos and Ofilis of the past. I am sure that the exhibition would be most likely shut down by the DC cops, which would bring the ACLU into action and thus Congress would have a collective heart attack, and start trying to pass all kind of laws, etc. You can't buy publicity like that.

Hey, at least we'd get some bi-partisan work!

A Terry Richardson exhibition in Washington, DC would make the Mapplethorpe controversy pale in comparison, of that I am sure.

In fact, this is such a good idea for a local up-and-coming struggling art space: instant fame through fine art porn!

In fact redux, I've got a couple of tentative places (cough, cough) in mind that could use the bright angry light of the public's ire and salacious mentions in the Congressional record.

Washington, DC making an artist world famous!

Terry baby... call me; I'll tell you how to get a show in DC.

New DC Art Site

Tracy Lee, a superb photographer whose photos are simply too sensual for any DC art gallery to handle (so far), and who is now in the middle of an MFA program at GWU, has a new (to me) and really interesting online journal.

Visit it often; great insight on the mind of a creative photographer struggling to keep her identity through a seminal academic photography program.

I say that Tracy's work is too sensual for any DC gallery to handle simply because of the fact that her work has (so far) explored the sensuality of the nude figure, and we all know what kind of reception nudes get around here (read this and also this).

Artnet Reviews 2005

Walter Robinson has an excellent, sexy review of the 2004 art year at Artnet.com.