Airplanes, Booze and Teenage Drivers
Arrived in Seattle last night after a travel day that started horribly, got a bit better through the introduction of free alcohol and ended in an adrenaline rush.
By the way, in response to my request for anyone with Seattle area gallery knowledge, I've received three emails from local Seattlelites willing to share a beer and a walkthrough of some of the area's galleries. I went to art school here in the 80's but haven't been back here since 1993.
Anyway, I arrived at Dulles yesterday morning at 6:30AM, a little over two hours before my 8:43AM flight to Seattle, only to find the airport packed with families and kids all heading south for the spring break. Although one would figure that the airlines would have by now the a priori knowledge to predict this surge, they hadn't, and it took me nearly two hours just to check in and another 45 minutes to go through security and take the bus to the gates.
Of course I missed my flight (gate C1) and then I had to go to Customer Service (gate C22, on the other side of Northern Virginia), where there's another huge line.
While waiting in the line listening to horror stories about missing ship's movement for all the families going on cruises, I removed my new glasses to clean them, only to have them come undone, and one lens falls out and that miniscule screw disappears into the carpet of Dulles' floors.
Using the camraderie that had developed between the suffering passengers waiting in line (sort of an Airport Stockholm Syndrone, which I've dubbed Airport Stick-it-to-them Syndrome), about four or five of us got on our hands and knees to try to find that tiny screw so that I could attempt to put my glasses back together.
And through a miracle of someone in tune with quantum mechanics, the screw was found and glasses repaired by someone with a lot more finger dexterity than I.
Eventually I make my way to a Customer Service Representative, actually feeling a bit sorry for the hell that these people must catch on a daily basis. I tell her so, and she smiles and tells me how her throat is already sore from talking, and so I hand her a stick of gum, which will have a huge payoff for me later.
As she listens to my story, she taps into her keyboard and with the intensity of a doctor peering into an X-ray, and spends at least ten minutes tapping and searching.
"Mmmm," she says, sounding more and more like my medical analogy.
"What is it Doc, uh I mean miss?" says the patient worried.
"Well.... want the good news first or the bad news first"?
Crap.
"Bad news first," says I bravely.
"The only available flight doesn't leave until 5:45PM, but the good news is that they have one seat left."
Seven hour wait.
"I'll take it," I respond.
I thanked her and ticket in hand I now proceed to finish a couple of books, write a huge review of the Corcoran Biennial (which I had intended to do this week anyway, but I forgot the catalog at home, so unless the Corcoran can FEDEX me one here at my hotel, it will have to wait until I get back for publication) and eat crap food all day.
When finally the boarding takes place, to my surprise I discover that my sore-throated angel has upgraded my cheap seat to first class on a cross country, non-stop flight.
A bottle and a half of a good Sonoma Merlot later, I arrived, tired and boozy, to a gray, rainy and fresh-smelling Washington state night, where my daughter Elise picked me up and immediately revived me thanks to the wonders of the adrenaline charge caused by being driven at night, in the rain, by a 17 year-old-driver.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Airborne today
Somewhat emotionally and physically stressed, I am heading West to spend a week in Seattle for some much-needed rest and relaxation in America's cleanest (and wettest) city, where people don't tan but they rust.
I will keep posting and may even deliver a Seattle gallery walkthrough. If anyone from Seattle reads this BLOG, and would like to email me some info: I'll buy you a beer!
On the flight there I am reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Friday Round-up
In the WaPo, O'Sullivan reviews High Fiber at the Renwick and also Andrea Way at Mateyka.
Principle Gallery in Old Town Alexandria has an opening tonight from 6:30-9PM.
In Georgetown, Addison/Ripley has Patricia Tobbacco Forrester' opening tonight from 6-8PM.
And a few blocks away, the five Canal Square Galleries have their joint openings/extended hours from 6-9PM tonight as well.
I received a really solid kick to the side of my jaw last night in Martial Arts class, so it really hurts to open my mouth (yeah, yeah...), so if I sound funny or am not too vocal tonight, now you know why!
See ya there!
Kudos
The usual 37 cents for an ordinary stamp instead costs 40 cents for this stamp.
But the additional three cents goes to breast cancer research. To date, the stamp has raised more than $34 million for breast cancer research.
Is that super cool or what?
Opportunities for Artists
Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care Annual Art Exhibition
Deadline: April 29, 2005
For the fifth straight year, Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care is hosting its annual art exhibition, featuring the works of local, national, and international artists. They are seeking paintings, photographs, sculpture, textiles, pottery, jewelry, and more for the 2005 Kalorama Artists' Fair, to be held at Mary's Center at 2333 Ontario Road in Adams Morgan from Friday, May 6 through Saturday, May 7, 2005. There is no charge to participate.
This non-juried show includes an Opening Reception for artists, friends, family, and the public. All works are for sale, and proceeds will go to artists and Mary's Center (health care, social services, and education for low-income DC families).
If you are interested in participating, please call Lisa at (202)-483-8319, ext. 226 or send an email to her here.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Opportunity for Photographers
The Washington School of Photography presents the Third Annual Mid-Atlantic Regional Photography show.
Slides are due April 8, entry is $25 for four entries. Photographers must reside in: DC, MD, PA, VA, DE, or WV. Cash prizes will be presented.
Entry forms can be found here or with SASE to:
WSP/WGP
4850 Rugby Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814
301/654.1998
Art Job
The Washington District of Columbia Jewish Community Center is looking for a Gallery Director for the Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery (a 600 square foot space in an urban Jewish Community Center).
The Gallery Director will curate three to four shows annually, work collaboratively with other arts professionals to bring related public programming and classes, oversee fundraising, oversee all administrative aspects of the gallery, and develop a long-term exhibition plan. Previous gallery experience required. Knowledge and understanding of Jewish traditions and history preferred. Position start date is April 15th, 2005.
This is a full-time position that includes benefits and free gym membership.
Email resume and cover letter describing experience to josh@dcjcc.org or fax 202-518-9420. No phone calls.
For more info:
DC Jewish Community Center
Joshua Ford, Washington DCJCC
1529 16th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
f: 202.518.9420 or josh@dcjcc.org
The Thursday Reviews
The WaPo's Jessica Dawson does her 3rd Thursday mini-review thing today in the Style section.
In the WCP, Louis Jacobson's review of Joe Ovelman at Conner Contemporary brings intelligent humor to the review.
Also in the City Paper, Mark Jenkins looks at The Art of Memory/ The Memory of Art at the Goethe-Institut’s Gallery.
Secrets in the WaPo
Frank Warren, whose Post A Secret project at Art-O-Matic was a huge success, is highlighted today in the WaPo's Metro section.
Send Frank your secrets here.
Gallery Openings
Tonight is the 3rd Thursday gallery crawl around the 7th street corridor. From 6-8PM in most places. Especially interesting seems Carolina Sardi: Over/Under, curated by Rody Douzoglou at Flashpoint. Also Numark Gallery has Shimon Attie: The History of Another, which is well-worth the visit tonight.
Tomorrow, it's the turn of the Canal Square Galleries in Georgetown, as we will all have our new shows opening or extended hours and the openings will be catered by our Canal neighbor, the Sea Catch Restaurant. Elsewhere in Georgetown, Addison Ripley will have the wonderfully busy watercolors of Patricia Tobacco Forrester.
Especially interesting in the Canal Square Galleries is MOCA's Erotic Art Show, a jumble of dozens of artists exploring the moist avenues of erotica.
We will have the brilliant photographs of Lida Moser. This is probably our most important photography show of the year.
Opening tomorrow night and through April 13, 2005, our Fraser Gallery in Georgetown will be hosting the first ever Washington, DC solo exhibition of legendary American photographer Lida Moser, who now lives in retirement in nearby Rockville, Maryland.
This 85-year-old photographer is not only one of the most respected American photographers of the 20th century, but also a pioneer in the field of photojournalism. Her photography is currently in the middle of a revival and rediscovery, and has sold as high as $4,000 in recent Christie's auctions and continues to be collected by both museums and private collectors worldwide. In a career spanning nearly 60 years, Moser has produced a body of works consisting of thousands of photographs and photographic assemblages that defy categorization and genre or label assignment.
Additionally, Canadian television is currently in the process of filming a documentary about her life; the second in the last few years, and Moser’s work is now in the collection of many museums worldwide.
A well-known figure in the New York art scene of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s,a portrait of Lida Moser by American painter Alice Neel hangs in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Neel painted a total of four Moser portraits over her lifetime, and I believe that one of them will be included in the National Museum of Women in the Arts' "Alice Neel's Women" coming to Washington, DC this October.
Lida Moser's photographic career started as a student and studio assistant in 1947 in Berenice Abbott's studio in New York City, where she became an active member of the New York Photo League. She then worked for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Look and many other magazines throughout the next few decades, and traveled extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
In 1950 Vogue, and (and subsequently Look magazine) assigned Lida Moser to carry out an illustrated report on Canada, from one ocean to another. When she arrived at the Windsor station in Montreal, in June of that same year, she met by chance, Paul Gouin, then a Cultural Advisor to Duplessis government. This chance meeting led Moser to change her all-Canada assignment for one centered around Quebec.
Armed with her camera and guided by the research done by the Abbot Felix-Antoine Savard, the folklorist Luc Lacourcière and accompanied by Paul Gouin, Lida Moser then discovers and photographs a traditional Quebec, which was still little touched by modern civilization and the coming urbanization of the region. Decades later, a major exhibition of those photographs at the McCord Museum of Canadian History became the museum’s most popular exhibit ever.
She has also authored and been part of many books and publications on and about photography. She also wrote a series of "Camera View" articles on photography for The New York Times between 1974-81. Her work has been exhibited in many museums worldwide and is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, the National Archives, Ottawa, the National Galleries of Scotland, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, the Library of Congress, Les Archives Nationales du Quebec, Corcoran Gallery, Phillips Collection and many others. Moser was an active member of the Photo League and the New York School.The Photo League was the seminal birth of American documentary photography. It was a group that was at times at school, an association and even a social club. Disbanded in 1951, the League promoted photojournalism with an aesthetic consciousness that reaches street photography to this day.
This will be her first solo exhibition in Washington, DC and it will run from March 18 through April 13, 2005.
An opening reception for Ms. Moser will be held tomorrow night, Friday, March 18, 2005 from 6-9PM as part of the third Friday openings in Georgetown. The reception is free and open to the public.
See ya there!
Koons Job
Courtesy of Todd Gibson's wit, this great gem of a job opportunity for artists:
Computer design
Jeff Koons LLC
(New York NY)
Computer design expert wanted to work with leading contemporary artist. Excellent color correction skills and mastery of mac based design programs including Photoshop and Illustrator required. 3-D rendering skills a plus. Please send resume with images of work to JK92106@yahoo.com with "Computer" in subject line.
Salary: Based on experience.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Style Editor Answers Questions Online
Deborah Heard, the WaPo's new Style section editor, answered questions online today.
Unfortunately I was at the Corcoran press preview today and missed the opportunity to ask Ms. Heard anything, and since I didn't know ahead of time about her online schedule, I missed the opportunity to announce it here ahead of schedule.
Someone did ask this question:
Washington, D.C.: When are gallery reviews going to start running every week again? Are you currently seeking a new freelance galleries critic?That's the most reassuring thing that I've heard on this sore subject in a long time from the WaPo.
Deborah E. Heard: Reassessing our coverage of art galleries is on my list of things to do. I've already heard from quite a few folks about this so I know it's a pressing issue for some. But give me some time; I've only been in the job for a few months.
Read all the questions and answers here.
Biennial Part II
Last night's preview of the The 48th Corcoran Biennial, which opens to the public next Saturday at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and runs until June 27 was fun, and a veritable Who's Who in the rarified upper crust and middle layers of the Washington art scene, at least most of our scene's universe which wears ties.
Today I am heading back to cover the Biennial press preview for ArtsMedia News TV, and will interview the co-curators: Stacey Schmidt, the Corcoran's Associate Curator of Contemporary Art and Dr. Jonathan P. Binstock, the Corcoran's Curator of Contemporary Art.
More later on my impressions of the artwork chosen by Schmidt and Binstock.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
The Biennial is Coming
The 48th Corcoran Biennial opens next Saturday at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and runs until June 27.
I will cover the Biennial press preview on Wednesday for ArtsMedia News, and will interview the co-curators: Stacey Schmidt, the Corcoran's Associate Curator of Contemporary Art and Dr. Jonathan P. Binstock, the Corcoran's Curator of Contemporary Art.
I am really looking forward to this exhibition, as it marks a return by the Corcoran to looking in "its own backyard" for talented artists. Included in the exhibition are our own area's Colby Caldwell, James Huckenpahler, and Jeff Spaulding - and it's no coincidence that two of those three artists have been finalists in the Trawick Prize.
By the way, the deadline for the 2005 Trawick Prize is April 8, 2005.
My kudos to Schmidt and Binstock for taking the time to look close to home; more later as I see what they have chosen.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Moral Soup
Kriston over at grammar.police is stirring the moral soup pot again with a posting where he expresses uneasiness about my contributions to DCist.
Kriston feels that "you really can't don the critic's cap when you're a producer in the community." In other words, that because I am the co-owner of two galleries in the Greater Washington area, I shouldn't write art criticism (other than in my own DC Art News).
Because I have been writing about art for nearly three decades now (and specifically about the Washington, DC area since I moved here in 1993), when we opened the first Fraser Gallery in Georgetown in 1996, and because of the huge void that existed in visual arts coverage (and it's worse now), I felt that I could and should continue to write about Washington area art and artists. I thought and still think that this can be done without it being a conflict of interest with my co-ownership of the galleries.
I feel that the best thing for art galleries is more art galleries; the best thing for artists' success is more artists being successful, and in order for that to happen, there has to be writing about what our artists and our galleries are doing. And thus I continued to write in as many as 20 different magazines and newspapers, and talk on the radio, and now on TV, about our area's galleries and artists.
And everyone of those editors knows who I am and what I co-own, and no issue was ever raised before. And judging by the monumental number of emails that I get from fellow gallerists, artists and other media, no one has so far seen this as an issue before.
But it has been raised now, and I respect Kriston's opinion, which has now been echoed and endorsed in the comments to the posting by Tyler Green, who adds that "sites/publications that publish criticism/show promotion by gallerists have a serious integrity problem."
So a stone has been cast by Green, and now suddenly there is a "serious integrity problem" as an added spice in Kriston's moral soup.
When DCist and I first started discussing how we could work together to raise awareness of the visual arts scene in our area through such regular postings as the Tuesday Arts Agenda, the issue of my co-ownership of the galleries was immediately raised and discussed, and we all felt that by being completely open with a full disclosure at the masthead of any postings that included my contributions, everything would be clear and above reproach.
Apparently not, for Kriston writes "It's bitchy of me to say—and I don't know the extent to which Lenny Campello of DC Art News contributes or what Cyndi Spain has to say on the subject—but I twitch whenever I see a feature with Lenny's name attached on DCist about work on display at the gallery he operates."
I think that in editing the Tuesday Arts Agenda, the editors at DCist obviously realized that if you mention the second Friday gallery openings in Bethesda, it would be unfair to their readers to always exclude any mention at all of Fraser Gallery.
It bothers me that a question about the integrity of DCist (and by inference, every magazine, newspaper and site that has published or echoed my writing since 1996) has been raised because of me, but especially gnawing since DCist's editors were so adamant and careful to take specific steps to avoid it, and as a result of these comments I will cease to contribute directly to DCist.
DCist is a powerful and strong new voice in our area, and I sincerely believe that they are reaching the kind of public that our ignored visual arts community truly needs to reach.
Now, there's no excuse for their integrity to be questioned.
But... about "art producers as art critics," as I noted in the comments to Kriston's posting:
"And it was and is quite clear to me that what Kriston meant to say, and what Green now re-affirms, is that gallery-owners should not write criticism or about art, because any publication that would then publish that writing would have a have a serious integrity problem.In any event, DCist is looking for new voices to help them augment the coverage of our area's visual arts. Contact Mike Grass if you are interested; I really hope some of you are motivated and start contributing to DCist and help to create an important digital footprint about our artists, our galleries and our art scene.
Sort of like a guy who owns a bookstore, or an editor in a publishing house, or a literary agent reviewing books.
I guess we could also extend this so that people who create art shouldn't also write art criticism? After all, they're often connected to a gallery, and it would appear a tenuous link in logic implies that the same integrity issues could be raised.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Prizewinners
Connie Imboden stopped by the gallery today to pick the prizewinners from the 4th Annual Bethesda International Photography Competition. Here they are:
Best in Show
Maria - Mother of a Chernobyl Liquidator
by Gabriela Bulisova
First Prize
Sex Education No. 4
by John Borstel
Second Prize
Deer Pelvic Bone No. 1
by Tim Castine
Third Prize
Untitled
by Rita Maas
Honorable Mention
Untitled
by Elena Volkov
Honorable Mention
Succulent
by Linda Lester-Slacks
Honorable Mention
Blue Wall, Taipei
by Leah Oates
Three new mags
A few days ago DC Style magazine had its launch party, and the new glossy will be available soon. I have been asked to contribute to this new magazine and will do so randomly as time allows.
Two other magazines are launching later this year: DC from the Chicago-based Modern Luxury group and Capitol File, published by NYC's Jason Binn, who is the brother to our own Jonathan Binstock, the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Corcoran.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
It's Important that we all do this
I am pleased to report that the artists' bill making it possible once again for artists to receive a fair market value deduction for donated works is making its way through the legislative process. The bills have been reintroduced in both the House and the Senate and we once again need everyone's help to enlist co-sponsors for both bills.
Currently, when an artist donates a work of art, the artist can deduct the cost of the materials; however, if anyone else (but the artist) donates the work, they can deduct the actual fair market value of the work.
We need everyone to contact your Congressman and Senators.
BILL NUMBERS: HOUSE BILL H.R. 1120 "ARTISTS' CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN HERITAGE ACT" Introduced by Congressmen Jim Ramstad (R-MN) and Ben Cardin (D-MD).
SENATE BILL S. 372 "ARTIST-MUSEUM PARTNERSHIP ACT" Introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Robert Bennett (R-UT).
If you do not know your legislators' name go to this website and at the top of the page is a link to House and Senate.
Below is a sample letter, feel free to cut and paste and edit:
I urge you to become a cosponsor of [insert House or Senate bill number and name], which would allow artists to deduct fair-market value for self-generated works donated to a non-profit institution.
Passage of this legislation would enable museums, libraries and archives to solicit original works from artists, writers and composers who are both regional and national and help us strengthen the collections in [name your community or institution].
Currently, an artist, writer or composer can only deduct the cost of materials to create the work, which is not a large incentive to donate, particularly since the majority of artists, writers and composers in this country earn very little. Since the law allowing artists to deduct the fair-market value of self-generated works to a museum or library was repealed in 1969 there has been a dramatic decline in the number of such gifts offered to institutions.
Many national and important regional artists, writers and composers sell their original works to private collectors or abroad, which effectively keeps them from ever being seen by the American public. We are, in essence, deprived of part of our cultural and artistic heritage.
I look forward to hearing that you have become a cosponsor of this most important cultural legislation.
For Monday Night
The Americans for the Arts Emerging Leader Council is hosting an Emerging Leader Reception in order to to meet and network with other young and/or emerging professionals working for arts or other culturally minded organizations.
Monday, March 14, from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., Biddy Mulligans Bar, Jurys Washington Hotel, 1500 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Free admission. Cash bar.
In conjunction with Arts Advocacy Day, the Emerging Leader Reception will follow the 18th Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy, given by Ken Burns. For complimentary tickets to this lecture at The Kennedy Center, please visit this website.
Buses will be available to take attendees from The Kennedy Center to the Emerging Leader Reception. The Emerging Leader Program seeks to identify and cultivate the next generation of arts leaders in America. For more information on this program, please visit this website or contact Mia DeMezza at mdemezza@artsusa.org.
Booksigning Today
You are invited to a booksigning for Family, History, and Memory: Recording African-American Life by Deborah Willis.
Date: Saturday, March 12, 2005
Time: 3-5 pm
Location: Parish Gallery - Georgetown
Canal Square
1054 31st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007
Collected for the first time are Deborah Willis's one-of-a kind photo quilts, her provocative and moving photo essays, and her important and revelatory critical essays about the vital contribution African American photographers made and continue to make to the advancement of photography. Willis is a winner of the MacArthur Award and a Professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.
Art Jobs
Artists Circle Fine Art (located at 11544 Spring Ridge Road, Potomac, MD 20854), a consulting firm, is looking for a part-time gallery aide to assist with art inventory, filing and organizing and special art projects. Computer literacy is required. $10-$12 per hour depending upon experience. Please send resume to Stephanie Gleichsner at stephanie@artistscircleonline.com or call 301-921-0572.
Rockville Arts Place is hiring teachers for Summer Classes. Please e-mail Debra Moser at execdirector@rockvilleartsplace.org or call 301-869-8623 if you are interested in teaching.
Create Arts Center, 816 Thayer Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910, is looking for part time teachers for school age children. Opportunities available to teach the visual arts at Create Arts Center, and to teach for Create visual arts at other schools. 301-588-2787.
The Cultural Development Corporation (CuDC) is currently seeking a highly organized, detail-oriented Gallery Associate to coordinate the Gallery at Flashpoint. Knowledge of contemporary art, experience in a related field, and the ability to efficiently manage multiple tasks is required.
As part of CuDC's mission to engage artists and arts organizations in community development and economic revitalization, Flashpoint is dedicated to nurturing arts professionals. Hourly salary commensurate with experience. 30–40 hours/week, Tues–Sat.
Responsibilities: Coordination of exhibition selection process and liaison to curatorial advisory panel; Coordination of all gallery exhibitions, including season schedules,- exhibitor contracts, exhibit installation, special events, sales and de-installation; Management of marketing and publicity for exhibits; Reception of Flashpoint visitors and gallery patrons; Gallery upkeep and maintenance; Coordination of monthly 3rd Thursday event; and General administrative support, as needed.
Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Art History or Arts Administration preferred; Knowledge of contemporary art and experience mounting visual art exhibits; Comfortable working in a cooperative environment that represents a broad range of artistic, cultural and social points of view; Willingness to work in every aspect of gallery management and maintenance, including receptions and evening programs; Excellent written and verbal skills, strong computer skills.
To apply, submit a resume with cover letter to: Cultural Development Corporation Gallery Associate Search, 916 G Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 or Fax 202.315.1303
Expressive Arts Programmer.
This position, in the Recreation Division of Arlington County is responsible for the development and leadership of recreational expressive arts programs, with an emphasis on drama, movement, music. In this setting, Expressive Arts is used as a tool for community building and not clinical purposes.
The communities served are diverse in age, culture, economic status, language and ability. Duties include program planning, design, leadership & delivery; purchasing & budget oversight; coordination, oversight & training of staff, interns, volunteers; and program evaluation. Work involves high level of collaboration with other program leaders within the agency.
This position is part of a team of recreational art programmers and requires the ability to work well in both team situations and in a self-directed manner. For a more complete description, salary and application info, go to this website.
In spite of the rain
Last night's opening and the art walk was packed! We actually ran through two batches of Sangria (each is 6 gallons). This is always the key marker of attendance, at least for us.
And as previously discussed, the previous Friday's openings at the Dupont Circle galleries was also packed.
Next Friday is the Georgetown Canal Square galleries' openings; let's see how that goes.
Friday, March 11, 2005
DCist First Friday Walkthrough
By Cyndi Spain
DCist Arts Editor
DCist headed out on Friday with F. Lennox Campello of DC Art News to check out the new exhibits in the Dupont Circle area galleries. We were particularly impressed by Peter Charles' new work at Irvine Contemporary Art.A professor at Georgetown University, Charles is from the D.C. area and received his arts training at Yale and Rhode Island School of Design. His new show includes miniature houses outfitted with their own LCD televisions.
We were surprised to find out that each screen shows live television, chosen and controlled by the owner of the artwork via remote. Like those on the larger scale, the televisions dominate the houses they inhabit and can be seen from outside the home by the all-too familiar and enticing blue glow.
The exhibit of abstractions by Andrea Way at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery was also well worth the visit. This show is Way's fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. Her meticulous work - created through an intense process of dropping colored inks into blobs of water on a level surface or by dripping colored water onto the paper - is evidence of
her patience and attention to Zen practice.
We were also pleased to see the exhibit of Molly Springfield's art at JET Artworks, located at Elizabeth Roberts' old space at 2108 R Street. Springfield, a superbly talented painter, last wowed area visual art lovers a couple of years ago with a spectacular show at the Arts Club.
Her work combines the technical wizardry of trompe l'oeil ("fool the eye") painting and drawing with intelligent compositions based on collected objects, notes, and word imagery. We really enjoyed the way the exhibit continued from one floor to the next through the text written directly onto the wall.
First Friday Walk Through
Last Friday, DCist Arts Editor Cyndi Spain and I visited a few of the Dupont Circle area galleries, which were having their usual First Friday extended hours.
We started our visits at Washington Printmakers Gallery where Rosemary Cooley's hangs until March 27, 2005. As with the vast majority of the gallery's cooperative members, Cooley is a master printmaker, with elegant dual-themed prints, usually associated in some form with fish or marine imagery.
Next we walked a few steps on Connecticut Avenue to Conner Contemporary, where Leigh Conner, as usual, greeted us with a bright smile in her even brighter gallery (Leigh paints the gallery with a fresh coat of white before every opening).
Conner is showcasing Joe Ovelman's "Snow Queen" series, which are also framed in white and brightly lit, lending them a sequential, out-of-sequence film look as the images of a drag queen's antics (Ovelman) in the snow in a New York park, develop before our eyes. 
LC: "So Joe, we noticed that all the men that you are giving a blow job to are wearing the same coat."Ovelman is a very young, very shy, and very brave photographer, with a clear vision of where he wants to take his work, and as usual Conner Contemporary proves why they're not only one of the best galleries in the area, but certainly one of the most courageous as well.
JO: [Somewhat agitated, but barely whispering] "Yes?"
LC: "Is that important? I mean, what is the relationship or story behind that jacket?"
JO: [Very quietly] "It's very important."
We followed the crowds that were now beginning to form and gathered at Irvine Contemporary Art where Prof. Irvine has assembled one of the first great surprises of the night: A really memorable exhibition showcasing the marriage of technology and intelligent thought to create really interesting work (by the way, check out this really good photo of the gallery by Fur Cafe).
On exhibit at Irvine Contemporary Art are the interactive sculptures of Peter Charles, who is a is Professor of Art at Georgetown University.
When I was a kid, my family was one of the first families in my neighborhood with a TV, and every night, around 8PM people from around the neighborhood, would gather in our living room to watch TV. Additionally, there were always a few neighborhood street ruffians who would watch the TV from the outside, through our windows.
Charles has constructed these clever small, house-like sculptures, and inside each one is a real mini-TV screen, actually working and with an antenna, so that the finished sculpture smartly marries the technology of the mini TVs with the creativity of the sculpture, and the interactivity of the user (each sculpture comes with a remote). It is a very good exhibition and an intelligent show. Also, Prof. Irvine told me that he intends to switch from a four week show format to a six week show format in the near future.
While at Irvine we ran into Kristen Hileman, the talented Assistant Curator for Contemporary Art at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, who introduced us to the fair Rachel Coker, who is the assistant to Hirshhorn Chief Curator Kerry Brougher, who wasn't there. It is great to see our local museum curators visiting our galleries.
Bravo Hileman and Coker!
Walked to R Street, and by now the crowds are definitely larger as we make our way into Marsha Mateyka's narrow doorway to see the new works by District powerhouse artist Andrea Way.
In her fourth solo exhibition at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery, Andrea Way returns to working on paper in the intricate detailed beautiful abstractions for which she has made herself a name as one of our area's best abstract painters.
But unlike her past work, Way is now creating, deliberate, controlled work, as opposed to the beautiful and luminous paintings that became her trademark in the 90s. In these new works, a controlled artist emerges, and the results are almost Moorish, Arabesque mosaics of colors and lines and works that easily fit into the most modern of postmodern collections as well as on the wall of the Alhambra at its height. I was totally enamored and seduced by her new works, and this show ranks as one of the best I've seen so far this year.From the sublime to the BLOGsphere, and we ran into J.T. Kirkland and Bren; Kirkland told me not to miss Molly Springfied's debut at JET Artworks (Duh!). Props to Kirkland for visiting the shows, as he routinely does; if you're going to write about Washington art, you got to go see Washington art!
The next surprise of the night came at Alex Gallery.
On exhibition at the main gallery is a set (from a private collection) of small (around 8x10 or 11x14 inches) paintings by Jackson Pollock from 1950 and 1951. These paintings are a Pollock I never knew; an unlikely and unusual "small" Pollock, working in canvasses so small and intimate that his large signature (oddly enough signed in gaudy silver or gold pen) often takes half or a third of the bottom of the paintings, causing a bit of distractive damage to the actual paintings.And these small Pollocks are like miniatures of the massive Pollocks that we all love or hate. But they are all painted with the paint so diluted and thin, almost like 90% turpentine and 10% paint... so "thin" in fact, that if Saint Clement ever saw them, it could have been the springboard for his famous "painting should be thin" nonsense that gave birth to the Washington Color School.
And guess what else is hidden amongst these tiny Pollocks? A drip painting that offers us a representational Pollock, using his formulaic drip paint method, to deliver a small painting of a tree.
But the surprises don't end there! Go to the back of the gallery, and we discover a Keith Haring from the period when Haring was an art school student. It is a painting of a bird, as one sees in most Florida and Annapolis galleries; and yet, there's a certain visual smell of Haring already there.
And for probably the first and only time in the Universe, Haring shares the back gallery with several small Norman Rockwell watercolors and sketches. It is yet another proof of the veracity and tenacity of Chaos theory.
And old Norman manages to deliver a few surprises of his own.
Only Nixon could go to China and only Rockwell could document in his artwork the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, as we all discovered in the huge mega hit Rockwell retrospective that swept the nation a few years ago. But I have never seen a nude by Rockwell.
And in the Rockwell exhibit back there, we discovered a small watercolor sketch, where several women (all nude) do the Can Can a-la-Rockettes, and as the Brits say, are showing their "bits." Bawdy Old Norm!
We then headed to see Molly Springfield's long awaited debut at JET Artworks, where we met Erin (who is the "E" in "JET" - her husband and her business partner are the "J" and the "T").
And Molly Springfield did not disappoint! In fact, this is painting like no few painters can deliver or have painted before; the closest that I can up with is Richter, but there's no Richter that looks like a Springfield; she's creating new illusionism by taking trompe l'oeil to a new road.
How to explain?
Let's start by saying that a couple of years ago I reviewed Springfield when she exhibited at the Arts Club. This is a different, more profound Springfield.
Springfield new work is supposed to be all about "notes."
Words passed on paper between furtive hands in High School; perhaps a love note, or a cheat crib for Algebra. We never know, because Springfield has cleverly hitched her formidable painting skills to the latest war wagon in the painting dialogue: the marriage of abstraction with realism.
But Springfield brings this dialogue to a sensual whisper. These are hyperealistic paintings that deny us the ultimate voyeurism: to be able to read the notes. In fact, the folded papers can, at the right aspect, become muted abstractions, suddenly popping into maddening realism, but never yielding their ultimate secrets.
Much like their creator, they are delicate, waif-like works, softly speaking visual words into our senses, denying categorization, and also offering an intelligent beauty that restores that maligned adjective to its proper context when describing art. This is without a doubt one of the best painting shows of the year.
Bravo Springfield!
Warning Cyndi that we were about to enter a time warp, in the sense that once Marc Zuver got a hold of us, it may be hours before we escaped his loquacious and warm personality, we entered Fondo del Sol, but the hard-working Zuver wasn't there (he's in New York).
So we walked downstairs to the Studio Gallery, and found that the talented Michael Janis has joined that artists' cooperative and has a few pieces on display. They are very good work, already showing the imprimatura of the Washington Glass School. Janis is definitely a sculptor to keep your eyes on.
Cyndi had to leave, and as 8PM was approaching, I headed for a quick visit to Kathleen Ewing and then to Gallery 10 for a quick peek at the latest work of Mary Virginia Langston.
Overall, the crowds were quite large, and I came away quite impressed by new discoveries offered to me by two masters and two new emerging would-be masters.
The best thing for art is more art.
The Friday Openings
No lame excuses tonight... time to go see an art show!
Second Fridays belong to Bethesda, where the Bethesda Art Walk takes place, now with two separate free guided tours.
These are the Bethesda art venues that participate. Most of the artists are present, openings are catered and it is all free - 6-9pm.
Elsewhere, if you want to stay in the District, then Zenith has an opening honoring the 25th anniversary of neon art (congrats Margery!). From 6-8pm.
Across the street, Touchstone also has an opening of Sonya A. Lawyer's photographs from 6-8:30pm.
We will host the Bethesda International Photography Competition, juried and curated by Connie Imboden and featuring the work of 27 photographers from around the nation and the world.
Imboden will do a gallery talk at 7pm and then award the competition's cash and exhibition prizes.
See ya there!
Thursday, March 10, 2005
The Thursday Reviews
The Washington Post has nothing.
The Washington City Paper has Louis Jacobson on Max Hirshfeld at Hemphill Fine Arts and Jeffry Cudlin is back with an excellent take of "The Drawings of Ed Ruscha" at the National Gallery of Art.
The Georgetowner has a new critic (Robin Kohlman Fried) who looks at Seth Rosenberg at District Fine Arts, Andrea Way at Marsha Mateyka and Max Hirshfeld at Hemphill.
Thinking About Art has Joe Ovelman at Conner and yesterday Kirkland had Andrea Way at Mateyka.
Art Bloggers Making News
Philly art bloggers Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof making news in their hometown.
Read their BLOG here.
Hypertemporality: A Discussion of Internet Art
On Tuesday, March 15th, 2005, the University of Richmond Museums will host a panel discussion titled "Hypertemporality: A Discussion of Internet Art" to accompany their hypertemporality exhibition.
The panel discussion will be webcast live, then archived for later viewing. The address to watch the webcast is here.
The panelists will be Whitney Museum of American Art curator Christiane Paul and hypertemporality artists Peter Baldes and Alexander Stewart.
Heading North
I'm driving back to DC on Thursday night... more later. Loads of great openings this coming Friday in Bethesda (see DCist).
If you are a photography fan, then you'll enjoy the 27 photographers selected by Connie Imboden, who curated the 2005 Bethesda International Photography Competition. Imboden selected about 40 photographs from over 1,000 submitted for her review.
The opening reception starts at 6PM at Fraser Bethesda, and Imboden will discuss the selected works and award the prizes at 7PM. Join us this coming Friday!
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Opening Tomorrow
Wanna go to an opening tomorrow? Over/Under presented by Carolina Sardi and curated by Rody Douzoglou. Opening Reception: Thursday, March 10 at Gallery at Flashpoint, 916 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20001. Nearest metro: Gallery Place/Metro Center. Tel: 202.315.1310.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Advise to fellow gallerists
Kriston, over at grammar.police notes in a recent posting that "tell a gallerist in the know that you're a blogger and more often than not she will visibly recoil. God in His Seat in Heaven forbid that you mention you're there to review a show, at which point the scornful glances are likely to make a greater impression than the art on display."
For a gallerist to react like that to a blogger (or for that matter to anyone else trying to get some publicity for an art show, even a High School newspaper editor), is both ignorant and shows lack of understanding of how the media has been revolutionized in the last handful of years.
As Art and other general BLOGs mature and develop, and make mistakes, and get scoops, and generally spread the word and gain readership, I believe that they/us/we stand at the brink of becoming (actually have become) a powerful new voice, adding diversity and volume, to our art scene.
And some gallerists do get it; last Friday as DCist Arts Editor Cyndi Spain and I made our rounds of the Dupont Circle area galleries, for the most part she was warmly received in all but one gallery, where usually anyone can see their own breath anyway.
In one gallery, the director actually pulled out a stack of color copies of the DCist's Arts Agenda from a couple of Tuesday's ago and gratefully thanked Spain for mentioning the gallery and the artist online. "Where can I send you news releases?" she then asked.
I think DCist is getting around 10,000 visitors a day and growing, and sites like this one and grammar.police, and J.T. Kirkland's Thinking About Art and Tyler Green's MAN and Jesse Cohen's Art DC have a loyal readership of hundreds of daily visitors interested in art.
And so, any smart gallerist worth his or her salt should not have to be advised or cajoled into treating a blogger with any less courtesy and interest than any other potential source of publicity, opinion and most important: a digital fooprint.
DCist looking for arts contributors
DCist is looking for contributors to augment its coverage of the visual arts. Email Mike Grass if you are interested.
The more voices we get discussing our area's art scene, the better for all of us.
Meanwhile, check out the Tuesday Arts Agenda here.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Kirkland Looks at Springfield
Thinking About Art has a review of Molly Springfield's debut at JET Artworks.
I'm working on a multi-review of several Dupont Circle galleries at once; it will be published soon. Meanwhile read JT's thoughts on Springfield here.
On the Road Again
I'm driving down to the Tidewater area today and will be there for the rest of the week for a couple of panels and lectures.
Keep coming back; there will be hotel-based late night posting!
And since I'll be passing through Richmond, a cyberspace wave to ANABA's Martin Bromirski, who lately has been trading posts and comments in a BLOGoversy created by his post on painter Alison Fox and her one-woman show at the East Village’s ATM gallery that sold out before opening night, and Martin's opinion that it sold out because of her husband's (gallerist Zach Feuer) hidden influence.
Zach Feuer has courageously come to the defense of his wife, and so far 38 comments (and a second posting) have been traded back and forth as this has developed into a BLOGoversy. Read it here and here.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
New Gallery in the District
DC Art News welcomes a new gallery in the District: Shigeko Bork MU Project, which is dedicated to contemporary Asian art.
And the new gallery has a reception for Hiroshi Kobayashi next Tuesday, March 8 from 6-8PM. The new gallery is at 1521 Wisconsin Avenue, NW #2 in Georgetown and can be reached at 202/277-2731. Hours are Tues-Sat from 11-5PM.
Welcome! Get a website soon!
Saturday, March 05, 2005
The New Factory Artists
Once a year, the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria puts out a call for artists who wish to be considered for a studio space in Alexandria's most famous and popular artists warren.
This year 72 applicants entered the annual jury process, and of those, seven were accepted. The jurors for the 2D work were Jeffrey Allison (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts), Walter Kravitz (George Mason University Prof. of Art) and Lee Newman, a superb printmaker and a member of the Fine Arts Faculty at the Holton Arms School.
The 3D jurors were Bruce Hoffman (Director, Snyderman Gallery in Philadelphia), Lenore Miller, (Director of the GWU Galleries), and Winifred Owens-Hart, a Prof. of Art from Howard University.
Joining the wait list for a studio space at the Torpedo Factory in 2005 are Xiao Sheng Bi (Ceramics), Christine Cardellino (Painting), Judith Coady (Printmaking), Rebecca Cross (Ceramics), Janae Michelle (Fiber), Kathy Udell (Photography) and Donald Viehman (Enameling). A representative sample of their work is currently on exhibit at the Target Gallery, on the ground floor of the Torpedo Factory.
Of these seven new Factorists, two immediately stand out: Rebecca Cross, who is already one of the best known multi-talented (not just ceramics) artists in Washington, with a long string of succesful exhibitions at Addison-Ripley Gallery and the Ralls Collection most recently, and her work is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery; and a newcomer (at least to me), Christine Cardellino.
Rebecca Cross' work needs little introduction; she's a painter who has mastered her skills and conquered a second genre by being one of the region's premier ceramicists for the last 25 years. The three pieces on exhibit are samples of Cross' platters and shaped ceramic objects.
A couldn't find a website for Christine Cardellino (tsk, tsk...), but the work that I saw on display immediately tells me that Cardellino may be the keystone to the "future" of the Torpedo Factory "artist." In her paintings I saw elements of what I would commonly associate with a "more modern" flavor to the king of the fine arts genres.
I mean that in the super positive sense of a painter, clearly at ease with her genre, superbly trained, with a good eye for the sensuality of the paint and its direct associative qualities with the brushwork plus a clever eye for marrying representation and abstraction to deliver fresh new offerings to the dialogue of painting.
Geez... was that art babble or what? My kingdom for an image!
Suffice it to say that I hope Ms. Cardellino gets a studio space at the Factory within the next hundred years; with all due respect to many of the present Factorists whose work I superbly admire, they could still use some new blood.
New Art BLOG
Matt Hollis has a BLOG!
Visit Enough for All often.
For Matt: You better start posting more!
The Shape of (Some) Things to Come
The Art League Gallery is currently (until Monday) having their annual Student/Faculty show, which is a perfect opportunity to look at the work of art students of all levels, ages and backgrounds in one of the area's largest galleries, and certainly one of the more popular art schools.
I decided to focus on the work of the students, at the expense of not discussing the work of superbly talented teachers such as Danni Dawson, Jacqueline Saunders, Scott Hutchison (represented by us) and many others.
Instead, I turned my eye for quite a while to the students, hung salon-style on all three of the The Art League Galleries on the ground floor of the Torpedo Factory.
The first piece that stood out was a small, superbly painted self portrait by Marjorie Forgues (taught by Danni Dawson). I don't know Forgues' formal background, but in this small elegant piece she shows brushwork and technical skills that will revive feelings of envy from painters of all levels of expertise and experience. It is a delicate and yet vigorous application (and understanding) of paint, and light, which makes Ms. Forgues small self portrait jump out from a sea of 2D work.
Two drawings caught my attention next: An untitled pencil drawing of a difficult subject (a seated, clothed bearded man) by Leslie Chekin (taught by Priscilla Treacy) and an elegant female nude charcoal by Linda Wharton titled "Horizontal," from a class taught by Robert Liberace. They both show remarkable understanding of that most diverse of subjects: the human figure.
A small, delicate painting titled "Pear Pairs" by Cathy Messina (taught by Joe Kabriel), a watercolor titled "Evening Colors" by Meg MacKenzie (taught by one of my favorite area watercolorists: Susan Herron) and an amazing chalk drawing by Laura Kipple titled "Claire," (taught by Liberace again), completed my selections as the best from a very good crop of student artwork.
Prices are incredibly low for the most part, starting at $60 for a framed original watercolor!
Monday is the last day of this show... hurry!
Wanna Go to an Opening Tonight?
Gallery West is having an opening reception tonight from 6-9PM. On exhibit is Elsa Gebreyesus' "Meditations," a solo show of mixed-media paintings by Gebreyesus, whose work combines modern materials and techniques with universal themes and ancient African symbols.
Gallery West is located at 205 South Union Street, in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Tel:703-549-7359.
See ya there!
Bethesda Magazine
The new glossy Bethesda Magazine has a multi-page spread on the gallery scene now developing in Bethesda. Written by Virginia Myers Kelly, it is armed with interesting observations such as "Bethesda is home to more than a dozen galleries - but fewer art buyers than you might expect."
There's a large panoramic photo of one of our openings which captures some of the Art-O-Matic artists that we had a couple of months ago, including a great shot of one of Chris Edmunds' sculptures and background images of Mark Jenkins "Pubic Hair Tapestries," John Bata's landscape of New York City and a Michal Hunter painting.
On page 103 of the same issue there's a terrific profile (by Dr. Claudia Rousseau) of legendary photographer Lida Moser, now in her late 80s and retired in Rockville, and whose first ever DC area solo show will be our next Georgetown show, opening on March 18.
Gallery visits
Yesterday I dropped by the Art League Gallery in Alexandria to look at their Student Show, and then to the Target Gallery to see their crop of new Torpedo Factory artists, and finally Factory Photoworks (now re-named Multiple Exposures) to see their current membership show.
Later that night, Cyndi Spain, Arts Editor for DCist, and I visited most of the Dupont Circle Galleries, which were having their extended First Friday hours; several terrific surprises there!
More on both later today.
Friday, March 04, 2005
The Usual WaPo Bashing
Today's Style section has a large and bright article by WaPo fashion critic Robin Givhan.
It's one of nearly 100 fashion reviews a year that Givhan produces for the Style section. Usually brightly accompanied by a color image of some gaunt, sour faced woman, wearing funny-looking clothes and walking oddly.
And yet, this same Style section, in the world's second most powerful newspaper, deems it acceptable to only offer their readers about 25 gallery review columns a year. That's from a potential pool of around 1,000 visual art gallery exhibitions that occur per year in the Greater Washington, DC region.
If you don't get it, you don't get it.
I sincerely hope that the new Style editor gets it. Her name is Deborah Heard, and her email is heardd@washpost.com.
And the Rare WaPo Praise
An editor who does get it for the most part, is Joyce Jones, who is the editor of the Weekend section of the WaPo.
In fact, I submit that Weekend now offers a much better view of the area art scene than Style. And Michael O'Sullivan certainly is the only WaPo art critic who is actively involved and an integral and knowledgeable part of our area's art scene. By the way, read his excellent take on "Modigliani: Beyond the Myth" at the Phillips here.
Although... Weekend... ehr... could be better. I mean, they do capsule mini reviews for theater, and for movies; why not visual art shows?
Why not?
First Fridays
Tonight is the Dupont Circle Gallery Crawl, with extended hours from 6-8PM.
See ya there!
Donation Well Worth It!
MAP’s annual free hung benefit exhibition and auction returns. It is titled "Out of Order" (OOD) and it is open to all area artists, who are invited to hang one piece of artwork during a 24-hour installation period. Artwork will be available for sale (50%/50% split with MAP) in a silent auction during the gala.
Exhibition Dates: April 6-8, 2005
Hanging Dates: 9 am, April 6 through 9 am, April 7, 2005.
Gala Event and Party: Friday April 8, 8 pm-1am at Maryland Art Place (party time or what! At 8 Market Place, Suite 100 in Baltimore)
Visit www.mdartplace.org for more information about tickets and information for exhibiting artists.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Gossage on the Cover
Denise Wolff points out that the current issue of Photo-Eye, in addition to her superb interview with Chan Chao, also features a cover by DC area photographer John Gossage, and there's a nice "About the Cover" piece by Jim Stone here.
It discusses Gossage's new book Berlin in the Time of the Wall.
The Thursday Reviews
The WCP's Louis Jacobson reviews our current Mary Lang show in Georgetown and makes some excellent points on Lang's tranquil photography.
Over at the Gazette, Dr. Claudia Rousseau delivers a superb review of Metro Clay at the Rockville Arts Place, and lauds Margaret Boozer, whose show at Strand on Volta last year was one of my Top Ten Shows of the Year. Dr. Rousseau writes:
Among the 57 pieces by 13 artists who live and work in the metro area (hence the exhibit title "Metro Clay"), Boozer's work is probably the most dynamic. "Out of the Fire" is set into a large wooden box frame hanging on the central wall of the gallery, its dark brown color easily dominating the space. The piece is part of a larger series of clay wall works entitled "Land/Marks." These show the results of a working process that deals as directly as possible with the medium's essential nature. Boozer begins by spreading mounds of clay on the floor, then stomping, tearing, carving and otherwise pounding it. Buckets of slip are then splashed onto the broken surface. Thus set into motion, the natural processes inherent in clay take over. As the medium dries, it warps and cracks, taking on the appearance of earth as geologic material.Over at the WaPo, Jessica Dawson has an excellent review of Mexican Report at the Cultural Institute of Mexico. Miss Dawson prefers the video artists, but also makes an excellent point on the issue of the adjective "Mexican." This is sort of the same arguement that I have been making for years now about art and ethnicity, specifically the so-called "Hispanic" ethnicity, which I submit is a cultural and not an ethnic or racial term.
It is a fascinating idea, with unforeseeable outcomes. When the artist moves these pieces from the floor to the wall, they project the process they record, emphasizing the idea of the persistence of the earth and a sense of memory. There is, as Boozer herself has said, a visceral appeal to these works, connecting directly to the viewer's own identification with clay as earth.
For the exhibit, Boozer has launched another of these works in the gallery space. "In Process Porcelain Landscape" is a thick slab of creamy white porcelain clay, carved and manipulated, and set on a low base. Over it, the artist has poured slip of the same medium that collects in a pool on top and drips onto the floor. It is cool and moist to the touch at this writing, but by the end of the exhibit, will have changed into a craggy moonscape of dried clay.
In her penultimate paragraph, it's apparent that Dawson has missed the memo that painting is hot again when she slams the "predominantly retrograde cache of paintings and drawings [that] hangs at Meridian International Center" and states that their the "predictable and anachronistic work that results is particularly forgettable."
Overall an excellent review of a show that I still have to go see and is in my "must see" list.
Bravo Dawson!
By the way, tonight The Cultural Institute of Mexico will hold a roundtable discussion on trends in contemporary Mexican art starting at 6:30. Participants include exhibition curator Santiago Espinosa de los Monteros, art critic Anthony Harvey, Hirshhorn programs manager Milena Kalinovska and Curator's Office director Andrea Pollan. The Cultural Institute of Mexico is at 2829 16th St. NW, in DC. I wish I could make it tonight, but I have karate class on Thursdays!
The deadline for the inaugural Bethesda Painting Awards is rapidly approaching, and painters from the DC, Maryland and Virginia region have until Friday, March 11, 2005 to submit their applications. With $14,000 in cash prizes, this is one of the largest painting awards in the country, thanks to the incredible generosity of Ms. Carol Trawick, who also sponsors The Trawick Prize (that deadline is April 8, 2005).
Once the jurors have selected the finalists, we will exhibit them in our Bethesda gallery, where the final four will be awarded $14,000 in cash prizes based on the actual work. $10,000 will be awarded to the top prize winner, $2,000 to the second place winner, $1,000 to the third place winner. Additionally, a "Young Artist" award of $1,000 (artists born after March 11, 1975) will also be given.
Elsie Hull at Spectrum
By John Anderson
M Street in Georgetown is a noisy place, bustling, and energetic. There are many bars and boutiques to duck into, if one wants to escape the hysteria. Another choice is Spectrum Gallery, around the corner on 29th street, where a very quiet exhibition of photographs by Elsie Hull are currently on display. The space is small and serene, and perhaps the perfect setting for these black and white images.
"Photography has always been my first love," Hull declares enthusiastically. Trained as a painter at the Corcoran, where she earned her BFA, Hull did not fully engage photography until beginning her MFA in film and video production at American University. "I took a photography class at the Corcoran, but I thought it was too easy... I didn’t fully engage it then," she admitted.
The body of work is easy on the eyes and inviting. The title of the show, Portals, lends nicely to the imagery. Each image appears as a window into another environment, partially from the quiet activity within each image, and also through the physicality imposed by the camera. Hull uses a Holga camera, a simple, inexpensive, medium format camera sometimes used by schools to introduce photography to students. The final image is circular, something uncommon with most forms of photography. "You never know what you are going to get; you might end up with double exposures or artifacts."
Through constant use, Hull’s familiarity with how the camera functioned gave her an educated guess as to the final product, but the lack of total control has kept the process fun for her.
But there is a dichotomy found within her process. Hull approaches her subject from behind digital cameras and Hasselblad medium format cameras. All three cameras share the same generic wide angle lens, impulsively purchased from a New York photo store. Through careful dissection of several Holga cameras, Hull was able to find a way to attach the lens to that camera, and eventually to all the cameras she uses in her work. All her images are later scanned into a digital format and manipulated in Photoshop. "I use very basic Photoshop stuff, dark room techniques. Photoshop allows you to be very specific whereas a darkroom doesn’t unless you are doing large prints." Beyond that, Hull prefers not to do any further manipulation beyond canceling out the black "vignette-ing" that occurs through the process of exposing medium format film.
Because the final image is circular, Hull has addressed each image with a unique presentation. Mounted on matte-board and Velcroed to multiple, small, primed canvases, Hull is able to arrange the framing of each piece in such an articulate manner that it neither distracts from the image nor questions specifically what is the correct way to frame a circular photograph; it is simply interesting.The supports alternate, sometimes depending on the subject of the photograph, sometimes related to a series of pieces. One wall possesses a rhythm of large and small support compositions that pull the viewer along the wall to examine each piece. Some arrangements address specific aspects of the form within the photograph. In the corner a man dives off a cliff into a pool below. In free fall, his body is erect, his arms hang casually against his sides, and his toes point straight outward. The canvases intend to enhance the verticality of the male subject, alluding to his descent into the water below. In one instance the support is a bit cliché, a cruciform supporting an image of a cemetery. "I don’t see a problem with that. Photographs of cemeteries are sort of cliché too." Such a comment suggests the artist willfully intended a bit of subtle wit.
The images Hull has chosen for her show are elegant, ranging from somber landscapes to playful images of children and dogs playing. Her body of work has been influenced by the work of French photographer Henri Lartigue (1894-1986), who spent his career photographing friends and family. "They’re full of life and exuberant," Hull adds.
Having studied some of his photographs through her painting earlier in her career, Hull draws similar influence through subject matter - capturing places she has been and images of friends. They are sensitive, not sentimental. They possess a sense of place that defies a sense of time. As a body of work, they allude to a sensation, a common story without beginning or end that all can relate to. "I don’t necessarily have a specific story in mind when I’m putting together a show; it’s more of an intuitive response to indicate a mood."
Elsie Hull’s Portals is on display through March 13, 2005 at Spectrum Gallery, 1132 29th Street NW. The gallery is open Tuesday–Saturday 12-6, Sunday 12-5.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Chan Chao Profiled in Photo-Eye
Denise Wolff has a terrific discussion and interview with Chan Chao in the current issue of Photo-Eye.
Wolff discusses Chao's recent show at Numark Gallery, and almost right away makes an important point in placing Chao's elegant nudes within the always odd context of nudity in Washington, DC; Wolff goes as far as to describe Washington as a "town generally squeamish with nudity."
Among Wolff's many interesting questions to Chao (which revealed a few somewhat surprising facts - at least to me), I found this one particularly telling:
DW: As I looked at this work, I made a mental list of words that came to mind about the images. But I noticed later that my list didn't include the word erotic. Do you intend these photos to be erotic?This is important, because I think that what makes Chao's display of the female nude stand out hinges on his ability to achieve precisely what Wolff identifies with this question: An ability to take an inherently sensual subject, present it in a manner that doesn't shout erotica, but retains a certain, unavoidable scent of eroticism; it can't be helped.
CC: No. I did not want these images to be erotic. I think it's too easy to create erotic photos. However, since they are nudes, the undertone is always there. And so even though I don't intend for them to be erotic, I do want to create some tension with it, or maybe even discomfort...
The first time that I saw these photos at Numark, I did not see them as erotic at all. And yet, a second visit to them left behind a slight footprint of eroticism in my mind; perhaps the direct gaze of the women - who knows? It's not important as to "why" but that it happened.
This Photo-Eye piece by Wolff leaves us watering at the mouth for more pieces (on national level magazines such as this one is) about some of our area artists; it a great start with one of our own art stars... but more please!
Bravo Wolff!
Olive Ayhens at Watkins Gallery
By John Anderson
Olive Ayhens was born in Oakland and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute during the tenure of Richard Diebenkorn, shortly after the reign of Rothko and Still influenced the department with their teachings of Abstract Expressionism. "I know abstraction well," she mentioned. "It’s all throughout my background."
Despite not using it directly in her work, she is aware that it has influenced her sense of plain, space and color. She recalled the climate of that period. "Berkley wasn’t hiring women at the time... until the Women’s Movement. When I was emerging I was in a lot of women shows." She pointed out how neither then nor now would one find a show entitled Eight Male Artists.
The sexism in the art world wasn't the only hurdle to overcome. Early in her career Ayhens also faced the challenge of racing two children as a single mother. Through various artist-in-residency positions throughout the Bay Area, other parts of California, Utah, Montana and Texas, Ayhens was able to manage artistic and familial obligations. Altering her medium to watercolor when her children were in their infancy forced Ayhens to approach her technique differently.
"I approached watercolor like an oil painter, moving the paint around opaquely. Eventually my technique loosened up." As a result, upon returning to oils, the paintings developed like watercolors, vibrant and juicy, nearly acidic in areas. Layers were constructed through thin washes in places, with thick impastos appearing intermitently. "I just love the paint, like my abstract teachers did. They reached me on that, and I hope that shows. They wanted me to give up my images as a young girl, and just move the paint around. But the images take me places."
In her current exhibition at Watkins Gallery, that place is New York City. "I’ve been in New York for nine years and I haven’t finished my work there." With both children attending college, Ayhens made the move to New York in 1996 after receiving the Marie Walsh Sharpe studio space grant - which afforded her a studio in Manhattan. Though she didn’t think she would stay in New York beyond that grant, she began experiencing modest successes, showing in galleries and having her work appear in Time Out and the New York Times. This was followed in successive years by a Gotlieb, her first Pollock/Krasner, and the World Views Residency through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council on the 91st floor of the Trade Towers in 1999.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Missing Pentagon Art
Last July I wrote a posting on alleged missing Pentagon art and challenged local newshounds to follow the scent of the story. Although the story was picked up nationally by Arts Journal, no one has (to my knowledge) researched this story any further than what was posted here.
Because readers of DC Art News have more than quadrupled since last July, I am re-posting that story below in the hope that some enterprising soul will begin digging into the concerns raised herein:
This article in the Washington Post discusses how "a multimillion-dollar treasure trove of 19th- and 20th-century art has been discovered in basements, boiler rooms, closets and hallways in Philadelphia's cash-strapped public schools."
While the chances of DC area art schools having a hidden art trove is slim to none, let me tell you where I think there's a hidden treasure of artwork - not from the 19th century, but nearly all from 20th century (especially WPA period, and 50s and 60's): The storage buildings where the military's art collection (from the various services and mostly from closed bases all over the world) is "stored."
Not the significant and important art collection on display at the Pentagon, but the stored collection of thousands of works of art that a few years ago were stored in a couple of buildings at Andrews Air Force base. As I recall, there was some sort of investigation that discovered that the Department of Defense had little or no accountability or inventory for many of these works.
Sounds bad, but it is understandable. In fact I would submit impossible to have an inventory of artwork commissioned, donated, gifted, etc. to potentially thousands of U.S. military presences all around the globe in the last two hundred years.
As bases close, often things like artwork find their way back to this area, and they are/were stored at Andrews (at least ten years ago they were... not sure if they are still there). Sometimes they find their way to DLA and the various places where the public can buy anything being disposed of by the DoD (there used to be such as site around Fort Belvoir, Virginia).
But in any event, a DoD employee is/was resposible for maintaining accountability for this art collection, and in the mid 90s she was apparently fired/quit in part because a military Inspector General's team discovered that the works were generally unaccounted for and in many cases improperly stored (leaky buildings, rain, moisture, etc.).
All of these issues I am recalling from memory (I read the story initally in one of those air line magazines), but some things stuck in my head: the number of artworks mentioned in the story as being stored at Andrews (in the 100s of thousands) and the fact that there were many WPA pieces in the storage area, as well as possibly up to six unaccounted Norman Rockwell paintings.
Sounds like a good story for an enterprising Washington City Paper or Washington Post reporter to follow up on, uh? Maybe Teresa Wiltz? or Chris Shott?
I suspect that the accountability problem still exists. In fact I submit that the various services' art curators (each service has an art curator for its own art collection and they all have offices at the Pentagon) do not even have an accurate inventory of the artwork on display at the Pentagon today!
My suspicions were kindled when this story in Art News discussed the fact that US Army curator Renee Klish discussed the fact that four important paintings had been destroyed by the 9/11 attack, but says that eleven other artworks "may have been destroyed."
I am willing to bet that if the Andrews Air Force base artwork storage building still exists, that there are works in there worth hundreds of millions of dollars and maybe still being stored away in improper conditions. I hope I am wrong about the latter.
Update! An alert DCARTNEWS reader also recalls the story I mentioned (published in an air lines magazine in mid 90s) and she even recalled the name of the fired/dismissed/she-quit DoD Art Curator. I have it and will pass it to any enterprising reporters who want to follow up this story - in fact I even have contact info, since I recognized the name as someone still associated with the business of the arts in our area.
Today's Must Read Story
Joe Barbaccia sent me a link to this article in New York Metro and it is absolutely jaw-dropping. Read it here.
