Art-O-Matic Opens Today

As I am pounding into your heads by now, AOM, the region's most energetic artist-driven visual arts display opens today at 3PM in Crystal City at 2121 Crystal City Drive, just a couple of blocks from the Crystal City Metro station and also boasting plenty of free parking after 4PM. Expect a huge, multi-party at many levels, set of events to start later in the evening.

As there are around 600 artists, plus bars, music stages, performance stages, etc. it helps that ArtDC has an interactive map of AOM here (thanks Jesse!).

Lately I've fallen into the habit of predicting how the regional DC art press, both online and printed, will react (or not) to particularly interesting shows.

- At the last AOM, the WaPo's chief art critic, Mr. Blake Gopnik, brutalized the show in one of the bloodiest art reviews that I have ever read. And yet Gopnik's review had the usual opposite effect, and it in turn galvanized several hundred artists and WaPo readers against Blake and it also probably delivered several thousand extra curious visitors to AOM, so in the end, the Gopnik review was a good thing for AOM. I think that this year, Gopnik will not venture into AOM at all, since he is conceptually against the concept of AOM. It is a shame that the area's largest homegrown arts event will thus be ignored by the world's second most influential newspaper's chief art critic, who tends to forget that it is also a local newspaper. In the unlikely event that his boss (my good friend John Pancake, the WaPo's Arts Editor), actually tells Blake to go and review AOM, I suspect that Gopnik will once again tear it up, as conceptually, his mind is already made up that this most democratic and liberal of art shows is flawed from the beginning by a lack of a traditional curatorial hand.

- Also at the WaPo, we can pretty much count on a review by art and movie critic Michael O'Sullivan, as O'Sullivan is perhaps the only one in that newspaper that understands that AOM is not just about the artwork that hangs and is presented on the walls, but about the spectacular footprint that it leaves upon the region's art scene and the breath-taking success that it has had over the years in bringing art to the public, and artists to the eyes of collectors and gallerists. Leave it to O'Sullivan's keen eye to spot the potential "new" art star to emerge from this year's AOM.

- The WaPo's freelancer charged with covering DC art galleries is the fair Jessica Dawson, currently a graduate art history student at GWU. If history teaches us anything, it is that Dawson has been pretty regular in covering all the previous AOM's, usually led around by the indefatigable Judy Jashinsky. And so I think that Dawson will once again write about AOM, and probably deliver her standard "what I didn't like" report, mixed in with a couple of lukewarm maybes.

- The Washington City Paper will probably give AOM decent coverage, and I'm sure that we'll see a profile of either the show itself or some of the more colorful characters that inhabit AOM. Art critic Jeffry Cudlin is also an artist, and he participated in the last AOM, but since his name is missing from this year's AOM artists' list, I suspect that Jeffry will review this year's AOM provided that he can arrange his schedule so that he can get his skinny buttocks over to Crystal City (Note to Cudlin: start planning the trip now). As usual, we can expect a brooding, intelligently written review, which (since he was an ex-participant), we hope will explore the impact of AOM on the regional art psyche and public, besides the art on the walls.

- The bloggers I suspect have already made up galvanized minds, and if we liked it before, we'll like it again, and those who hated it before, will most likely hate it again, and already do, even before they set foot in Crystal City. Curious to me is how many of them/us seem to focus on the artwork, and completely miss the true impact of AOM. Also curious to me is how writers who are generally lefty pinkos in almost all they profess, become neoconartcritics when it comes to a massive open show organized by artists, lacking a curatorial Big Brother and essentially a 21st century rebirth of the democratic artistic movement that dethroned the academic art salons of Europe back in the late 1800s.

See ya there!

WOW!

WOW is all that I can say in view of the WaPo's spectacular online coverage that they're giving Art-O-Matic.

Here the Going Out Gurus have put together a slide show and all kinds of good stuff about the painters, sculptors, filmmakers, naked people, fire-breathers and other mutants that we will soon be staring at in AOM.

This is the kind of coverage that separates anemic paper coverage and augments it with terrific online coverage.

A cyberspace kiss and a hug and a "well done!" to the GOGs.

O'Keefe

On a recent trip, in the airplane seat pocket, I found Laurie Lisle's biography of Georgia O'Keefe, which claims to be OK's first published bio.

Compounded with all this recent traveling to New Mexico and Arizona, I read it very quickly and it has sort of kindled some interest in this legendary American painter, and I've just picked up Georgia O'Keefe: A Life by Roxana Robinson as well as the huge copy of Georgia O'Keefe in the West by Doris and Nicholas Callaway.

In all my previous light explorations of O'Keefe, such as museum visits, I've never really been too attracted to her work, but after reading an early biography, and re-looking at some of her work, my eyes are now opening to the fact that perhaps O'Keefe's legacy lies more in the conceptual range of painting, coupled with an extraordinary life and a spectacularly O'Keefe-centric personality, as well as pretty good luck in some instances.

She certainly only had ordinary painting skills and ordinary techniques (surprising considering her training), but perhaps more importantly, an enviable work ethic and a superlative eye for the subject matter, as well as a powerful and skilled champion in Steiglitz, easily the world's first art critic + art dealer + curator + gallerist + artist + art cheerleader all combined into one person.

It is thus her life, her aloofness, and her conceptual view of painting that I now have discovered and find somewhat attractive to read more about.

Art-O-Matic Update

As everyone knows by now, AOM opens this coming weekend in Crystal City at 2121 Crystal City Drive, just a couple of blocks from the Crystal City Metro station and also boasting plenty of free parking after 4PM.

Herewith some updates:

- The Right Reverend Bailey challenges the WaPo's chief art critic to give AOM a fair critical eye (good luck with that!). Details here.

- If you see some naked painted people walking around, don't freak out as I am told that there's going to be some body painting going on around the 6th floor of AOM on Friday.

- After 4pm there is free underground parking in the Crystal City Shops across the street.

Artomatic will open to the public at 3pm, Friday, April 13, 2007. It is free and open to the public (donations accepted).

Busy week

This week (in fact all of April) is shaping up to be a very busy set of days for visual arts lovers along the Mid Atlantic. In addition to the mega opening of Artomatic this coming Friday, the following openings stand out (and I'm leaving out a ton of stuff that I hope to be able to mention later in the week):

In Philly, Nexus has two new exhibitions by member artist Matthew Pruden and a collaboration between member artist Yukie Kobayashi and artist Elasabé Dixon. The opening reception for both exhibitions is Thursday, April 12 from 6 to 9 PM. Matthew Pruden presents his 2nd solo exhibition at Nexus Gallery, titled "Magnetic Sleep." This exhibition of multi-media projects is the result of his research into 19th century spirit photography, parapsychology, and Spiritualism. Yukie Yobayashi has collaborated with artist Elsabé Dixon to create Kumo Cloud Wolk, an installation comprised of hand made paper and silk weavings. There's also a gallery talk on Sunday, April 15, at 2 PM, moderated by Elyse A. Gonzales, Assistant Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art. The exhibitions run through April 29, 2007.

In Baltimore, on Thursday, April 12, 2007, photographers Thomas Struth and Mitch Epstein will be discussing their work at the Baltimore Museum of Art as part of BMA's "Conversations with Contemporary Photographers" program. Free and open to the public and no registration is necessary. BMA Meyerhoff Auditorium, 7 pm. The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) highlights eight first-year students in MICA’s graphic design master of fine arts (M.F.A.) program in conjunction with the Graphic Design MFA Thesis Exhibition. First-Year Graphic Design MFA Exhibition provides a glimpse into the work of emerging artists and graduate students in the College’s graduate programs. The exhibition takes place in Bunting Center’s Pinkard Gallery at 1401 Mount Royal Avenue, with an opening reception on Friday, April 13, 5–7 p.m. and open studios on Friday, April 13, 7–9 p.m. Works by 11 students form the First-Year MFA III Exhibition from Friday, April 13 – Sunday, April 22, with an opening reception on Friday, April 13, 5–7 p.m. and open studios on Friday, April 13, 7–9 p.m. The students are Mount Royal School of Art students Lauren Boilini, Michael Burmeister, Andrea Chung, and Ben Steele; Rinehart School of Sculpture students Katie Cirasuolo, Jessie Lehson, and Elena Patino; Hoffberger School of Painting students Osvaldo Budet and Dominic Terlizzi; and photography and digital imaging program students Andrew Buckland and Anna DiCicco.

In Bethesda, MD, as this coming Friday is the second Friday of the month, it's time for the monthly Bethesda Art Walk, with 13 galleries and studios that open their doors from 6-9pm on the second Friday of every month. At Gallery Neptune, C'ville artist Warren Craghead has "How to be Everywhere," which is new work by Craghead based on the poetry of Guillaume Apollinaire. Work by David Wallace and sculptures by Mark Behme will also be on exhibition. Also available will be a book of the same title consisting of drawings based on Apollinaire's poetry. The opening reception and book launch will be Friday April 13, 6pm - 9pm. At Fraser Gallery, New York painter (and VCU graduate) David Gordon makes his DC area gallery debut. Opening reception from 6-9PM.

In Arlington, VA, the Arlington Arts Center has the opening receptions for their Spring Solos on Friday, April 13, from 6-9PM. Solos include Keith Sharp (MD), Katherine Kavanaugh (VA), Ephraim Russell (PA), Gail Gorlitzz (DC), Soomin Ham (VA), Dominie Nash (MD) plus an Eye on Arlington exhibition of John M. Adams (VA). Outside on the AAC grounds you can also check out "Disintegration," curated by Twylene Moyer, Managing Editor of Sculpture magazine with works by Margaret Boozer (MD), Michele Kong (PA), and Cory Wagner (MD).

In DC, Conner Contemporary Art has an exhibition of rarely seen paintings by Howard Mehring, who has been called the "sleeping giant" of Washington Color Painting and who was the first of the second generation of Color Field painters to explore the potentials of color through novel experiments with painting techniques including pouring, staining, stippling, and sectional painting. There will be an opening night reception, Friday, April 13th from 6 to 8pm. The reception is concurrent with Marsha Mateyka Gallery around the corner, who will be presenting "Gene Davis: Selected Works from the Estate of the Artist." The next night, Hemphill Fine Arts has an opening reception on Saturday, April 14 from 6:30 - 8:30 PM for three different artists: Leon Berkowitz for "The Cathedral Series," and ex-Fuseboxer now living in France Jason Gubbiotti for "Wrong Way To Paradise," and also Portia Munson's "Pink Project: Contained." The exhibitions go through May 26, 2007. Over at Irvine Contemporary, Martin and Lauren have "Oliver Vernon: Macro/Micro," featuring paintings and on-site sculpture by Vernon. Opening Reception with the Artist on Saturday, April 14, 6-8 PM and the exhibition runs through May 19, 2007.

Also in DC, 52 O Street Artist Studios will be hosting its annual Open Studios on Saturday, April 14 and Sunday, April 15 from 11am-5pm. Sixteen artists, in one building, working in a wide range of media and styles open their studios to the public. This free event provides the visitor the opportunity to purchase artwork and meet the artists in a relaxed, inviting atmosphere. Occupying 28,000 square feet, over four floors, 52 O Street Studios is one of the largest and oldest buildings dedicated to the practice of fine arts in Washington, DC.

Still in DC, the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop has "A Comedy of Errors," a collection of works in all media by Capitol Hill Art League members, opening on Saturday, April 14, 2007, from 5:00-7:00 p.m. and juried by my good friend J.W. Mahoney. "Not What You Think", an a cappella ensemble affiliated with the Gay and Lesbian Chorus of Washington, will present two brief sets of music during the opening. Through May 4, 2007. And the Randall Scott Gallery has the opening of "The Living Room" (a marriage of comtemporary art and modern furniture) with an opening reception on Saturday, April 14th from 6-9pm.

Finally, on Saturday April 14, 2007 a whole bunch of openings and lectures are happening in galleries and art spaces all over DC and the DC suburbs as part of the ColorField.remix celebration of painting. More than 30 Washington area museums, galleries, arts organizations and businesses are participating. The event honors the 1950s and 1960s Color Field visual art movement and the Washington Color School, which put Washington, DC on the art world map. Details and schedules here. More on this project later.

Ethereal Heist in Baltimore

This is an incredibly busy week for art in the region, but I wanted to make sure to highlight Ethereal Heist, which is part of the MFA Exhibition - MICA Graduate Thesis Show at the Maryland Institute College of Art Decker/Meyerhoff/Fox 3 Galleries in Baltimore.

The opening reception is Friday, April 13th, 5pm - 9pm and running through April 22, 2007.

As savvy collectors know, keeping an eye on graduate students' work is key to beginning or continuing an art collection. Details here. Work by Elizabeth Wade, Michael Sandstrom, Kelly Egan, Wonsun Shin, Nathaniel Rogers, Ramsay Barnes, Stuart Jackson, Jodi Lieburn, Jackson Martin, Lesly Deschler Canossi, and Michael Hurst.

Wanna go to a DC opening tomorrow?

The Mexican Cultural Institute, located in one of Washington's most beautiful buildings and boasting a really good exhibition space, as well as really good Mexican munchies for their openings, has an opening reception on Wednesday, April 11, 7pm for artist Beatriz Ezban titled "Unified Field: The Border" (Campo Unificado: La Frontera).

The exhibition is free, but you must R.S.V.P. to (202) 728-1675. In addition to the opening, George Washington University’s Ballet Folklorico and Los Quetzales Mexican Dance Ensemble will perform live music and will show you how to dance zapateado as they do in Veracruz. “Voces Veracruzanas,” which is a group of young musicians from Veracruz, will be performing Son Jarocho and Latin-American folkloric music

The exhibit will be held through April 29, 2007. The Institute is located on 2829 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009.

The arts and Real Estate connection

It is a well known phenomenom of the real estate business, that the fine arts are kind of an antihistiamine or antibiotic for neighborhoods that are infected with crime and empty, vacant buildings.

Because crime ridden or boarded-up neighborhoods usually get very low rents, they become a magnet for artists looking for cheap studios and small, unique restaurants looking for affordable spaces.

So picture Old Town Alexandria a few decades ago, with an abandoned old shell of a building where torpedoes were manufactured during WWII, and many empty boarded up buildings up and down King Street. Or perhaps imagine, just a few years ago, the 14th Street area in Washington, DC, pretty much in the same malignant state.

And thus after quite a few truckloads of trash were removed from the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria, and a few brave artists and then art galleries opened up around the 14th Street, these areas began to attract people - both to the arts and to the restaurants.

And this in turn, began the vicious cycle of real estate, because now the national chains begin to become interested in the once dying neighborhoods, and rents begin to rise, and soon the artists and the galleries, and the small unique restaurants, have to start looking for a new place to go to, unable to pay the same rent scales as the chain restaurants and the national stores.

And so they begin migrating to yet another desperate neighborhood, like a revitalizing force of art and food.

This is apparently what is happening now in the area along West Broad Street in downtown Richmond, VA.

A First Fridays gallery walk was institutionalized there in 2001, soon after galleries and artists began to occupy the once vacant (and cheap) buildings in the area.

As Joe Macenka and Olympia Meola report in the Richmond Times Dispatch:

The event started in 2001 with about 17,000 visitors on a schedule that began in the fall and ended in the spring. Last year, attendance swelled to about 50,000. This year, First Fridays has expanded to a 12-month schedule.

It has become a linchpin for a renaissance along the West Broad corridor. What began with a few artists taking over vacant buildings along the stretch has blossomed into a movement with new restaurants, galleries, shops and apartments.

This is great news!

But now a word of warning: As I mentioned earlier, there will be soon a point where the same folks who braved the early days and set up galleries, shops and restaurants in this area, and made it blossom with its own unique character, will face escalating rents, and come to the attention of the trade giants of the food and retail industry. And when the rents go up, the artists and small restaurants will leave.

And unless the Richmond city fathers understand the vicious real estate cycle and make special accommodations for the original brave new gallerists and artists and chefs, etc., with them will leave the people, who after all, came to the area attracted by its own uniqueness, rather than a cookie-cutter downtown area full of Mickydees, Banana Republics and even chain pubs and chain galleries. And when the people stop coming, the chains' profits decrease and before you know it, they're gone, and buildings get boarded up, crime rises, and the whole cycle starts again, as a new generation of artists and chefs begin to move in.

Note: That's our own Rosetta DeBeradinis in the photograph illustrating the article!

Art-O-Matic Countdown

AOM opens this coming weekend in Crystal City at 2121 Crystal City Drive, and the exciment to one of the nation's most energizing artist-driven events is already building up as artists design, paint and create their spaces, and artneocon critics sharpen their journalistic fangs in their galvanized minds, and gallerists open their eyes to try to find the emerging star in this year's version of AOM.

Held regularly since 1999, Artomatic is the region’s one-of-a-kind multimedia art extravaganza, featuring more than 600 regional artists and performers. The free five-week event, to be held April 13–May 20, will feature nearly 90,000 square feet of paintings, sculptures, photography and cutting edge videos, computer and even self-creating artworks. And as AOM veterans know, a ton of parties and fun.

As DC ubercollector Philip Barlow eloquently pointed out in this letter to the WCP, many of today's top DC artists have Art-O-Matic in their resume: Manon Cleary, Dan Steinhilber, the Dumbacher brothers, Renee Stout, Tim Tate, Michael Clark, Richard Dana, Graham Caldwell, Judy Jashinsky, Richard Chartier, and many, many others, including online superstar and multi best-selling author: Frank Warren of Postsecret.

During the last AOM, I asked a variety of curators, gallerists, collectors and other artsy folks to email me their top 10 lists of their favorite ten AOM artists. The lists were then published here, and eventually they generated a variety of separate art shows in several DC, VA and MD commercial galleries and even catapulted some artists into solo shows.

So this year we're going to do it again, and if you sent me a Top 10 List during the last AOM, consider yourself invited and please email me your Top 10 once you visit AOM this year.

Artomatic will open to the public at 3pm, Friday, April 13, 2007.

Wanna be a DC art critic?

DCist is looking for a visual arts writer. Details here.

Katie Tuss Interviews Anne Ellegood

Today is the last day left if you don’t want to miss the Hirshhorn Museum’s current exhibition Refract, Reflect, Project: Light Works from the Collection, which is on display through this Sunday, April 8, 2007. Katie Tuss recently spoke with Hirshhorn Associate Curator Anne Ellegood, who organized the exhibition, about the seductive nature of light and some of the highlights in the current show.

Katie Tuss: The show covers light works from 1959 to the present and numerous art movements are represented. How is the use of light developing differently than painting and sculpture?


Anne Ellegood: Well I think that one thing that happens, and that has been happening for several decades, is that contemporary artists don’t feel like their work needs to be rooted in illusion or representation. Often times they want to remove that intermediate step, so that whatever they are making has a direct relationship to the material. Spencer Finch’s piece Cloud H20 talks about this. He doesn’t want to make a painting of the sky. To him it has already been done, and done very well. He wants to create something more direct. And light does that, even if it is artificial light. You may or may not think of a cloud and it doesn’t really matter, but you are probably going to have some sense of the kind of feeling you have when you look at a cloud.

KT: Yeah, that piece almost moves.

AE: Actually it does physically move with wind currents in the gallery. If there are enough people in the space, it will respond. The installation isn’t rigid.

KT: What are the opportunities for using light moving forward?

AE: With young artists, and what I have noticed with Olafur Eliasson and Ivan Navarro, they want a capacity for intimacy with an object and to establish a type of familiarity with the object, but easily weave in historical, social, and scientific aspects as well. They aren’t interested in completely formal investigation like Dan Flavin. They want to add back in a kind of content, but are still enamored with the directness of the light as a material.

KT: In Navarro’s piece Flashlight: I’m not from here, I’m not from there, is that a random man or the artist in the accompanying video, pushing the wheelbarrow made of fluorescent light tubes?

AE: It is a friend of the artist.

KT: There is a sense of intimacy the man has with the wheelbarrow as he physically pushes it around and this piece is immediately juxtaposed in the first room of the exhibition with Flavin’s “monument” for V. Tatlin.

AE: It is really great that we have the opportunity to put the Flavin with a work like Navarro’s. These are two artists with totally different backgrounds and different agendas, but Navarro’s generation is very aware of Flavin’s generation. Navarro’s piece is built from his knowledge of art history, with a desire to acknowledge his own background, life, preoccupations, and concerns. He has picked up on Flavin and given it his own twist. It is exciting that we have the ability to show the two works side by side. We are trying to do more of this so that histories don’t look like they are operating separately.

KT: It is helpful to know the precedence and then actually be able to see the precedence.

AE: If you pick up neon, you have to grapple with Flavin. It makes you think about how materials shift and your comfort with them as an audience. When Flavin was starting out with fluorescents, it was pretty radical. You didn’t use industrially produced elements in your artwork. We don’t think of this as radical anymore. For Navarro it isn’t radical. It becomes a conversation literally about power in a more ideological sense.

Southworth and Sislen open today

Home and Abroad: Two New Views, a photography exhibit featuring new works by the very talented Barbara Southworth - titled “Homelands," the show revisits many of her favorite streams and marine sites, from Virginia to Maine, but rather than her usual panoramic format, she approaches these scenes with a subtly altered perspective and Alan Sislen's “Tuscany in Shades of Gray." After numerous trips to this beautiful area, instead of his usual color interpretation, Sislen explores the infrared spectrum (one of myu favorite genres of B&W photography) to capture the graphic beauty of this land.

Opening today from 3-5 PM at Multiple Exposures Gallery, in gallery 312 of the Torpedo Factory Art Center, in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia. Through May 7, 2007.

First Fridays at Philly and DC

Projects Gallery in Philly presents Tom Judd’s solo exhibition "The New World." This exhibition features Judd’s new work, including a 6 x 15 foot painting entitled “The New World." The exhibition opens with a First Friday artist reception April 6th from 5-9 p.m. and a Second Thursday reception April 12th, 5-9 p.m., and continues through April 29th.

In DC, as usual, the Dupont Circle Galleries will also have their first Friday openings and extended hours.

Airborne again today and returning home. More later...

Tortillism

Painter Joe Bravo is raising eyebrows with his current exhibit at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Los Angeles because Bravo paints on tortillas.

His tortilla paintings sell for as much as $1,800.

No truth to the rumor that a new series of pico de gallo installations are forthcoming.

MacO'Sullivan?

What's it with Washington Post art critics wanting to wear kilts? First Blake Gopnik wants to be a MacGopnik and now I get the below image showing WaPo art critic Michael O'Sullivan.


Seen here, Michael O'Sullivan (on the left getting ready to photograph the gent wearing the utilikilt) contemplates the possibilty of adding a utilikilt to his DC wardrobe.

It's a rare thing

For DC area TV stations to pay any attention to the visual arts, and thus we applaud the fact that tomorrow morning (Thursday April 5) Fox 5 Morning News will be broadcasting the morning news from the Washington Glass School.

From 6 am to 9 am, reporter Tony Perkins will be doing live segments where Tony tries his hand at new skills. Tony is scheduled to make cast glass awards, lampwork, draw with glass powder, and try other glass related workings with the gang at the Washington Glass School.

Grant for Artists

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation invites painters, sculptors, mixed media, installation artists, and artists who work on paper to apply for grants ranging from $1,000 to $30,000. The sole purpose of the foundation is to provide financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. For more information, contact:

Pollock-Krasner Foundation
863 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10021

Fax (212) 288-2836; email: grants@pkf.org

Modernism at the Corcoran

As soon as I get back East I will have a review of the show, meanwhile, enjoy the video.

Courtesy of 205 Lavinia Street, Videos for Artists/Galleries/Events.

Wanna go to an Arlington, VA opening on Thursday?

The Ellipse Art Center’s "Hand Pulled," is a Juried Mid Atlantic Print Show that was selected by Joan Boudreau, the Curator of the Graphic Arts Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

The opening reception is Thursday, April 5, from 6 - 9 pm, and there’s a Juror's Talk on April 19, 7 - 9 pm. The exhibition runs through Saturday, May 26, 2007.

Wanna go to a Delaware opening this coming Thursday night?

"Tapestries of a Higher Plane," by Mid Atlantic Art News contributor William Anderson opens this coming Thursday, April 5, 2007 at 205 Lavinia Street Gallery in Milton, Delaware, with an opening reception from at 5-8 pm.

On exhibition are images brought to Delaware from Maine by William Anderson. The interesting aspect of these images are their tuetonic size, as many are over 8 feet square, and are not framed, but hanging like tapestries.



The artist is an accomplished image-maker since the early seventies, who has been printing on a large Giclée printer since 2000. For more info call the gallery at 302-684-3379.

Imagine all the people

Who would have crowded the Hirshhorn Museum's Sculpture Garden on the National Mall had they known ahead of time that today, between 2:30 and 2:45pm, Yoko Ono dedicated a "Wish Tree for Washington D.C." in the Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden as part of "Yoko Ono: Imagine Peace.”

According to the press release (sent out a few days ago):

This ongoing series, which she began in the 1990s, encourages the public to become participants in the art making process by inviting visitors to write wishes on paper and tie them to the tree. The dedication will begin with Ono tying the first wish onto the Hirshhorn’s tree. Ono will exhibit 10 trees around Washington, D.C., for the 2007 Cherry Blossom Festival.

The dedication was open to the press, but not to the public (unless I imagine, a tourist or two happened to be there and someone shouted “Hey there’s that lady who broke up the Beatles”).

As most Beatlephiles will testify, Ono was quite a revolutionary and imaginative artist prior to meeting and eventually becoming wife to John Lennon, and then having a best-selling Beatle ballad written about her wedding.

As it unfairly happens to most celebrities, I suspect that now Ono struggles to be recognized as an artist first, rather than a celebrity who also happens to be an artist. In her case she was a respected artist first and foremost, and her peripheral Beatle fame, in her case, was probably an artistic curse to her.

This DC project by Ono is part of “Street Scenes: Project for DC,” a public art program curated by Nora Halpern and Welmoed Laanstra. The trees will be installed at the steps of the Jefferson Memorial at the Tidal Basin as part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, at THEARC in Anacostia, and at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall.

In addition, Ms. Ono will visit the site at the Japanese Lantern Lawn, just west of the Kutz Bridge at Independence Avenue & 17th Street. SW, on the other side of the Tidal Basin, where the first now famous DC cherry blossoms were planted in 1912. The artist will ask participants to "whisper a wish to the bark of the trees."

Someone needs to confirm an urban legend for me about the 1912 cherry trees. When I was a student at the University of Washington in Seattle, I was told that the cherry trees on the campus (there are hundreds and hundreds of them) were also a gift of Japan, and that sometime in the early 20th century, not long after they were planted in Washington, the DC cherry trees all died of some tree disease and then a new set of cherry trees were transplanted from the UW campus and replanted in DC to replace the original trees. Does anyone know if this is true?

Ms. Ono will also present text pieces, including disseminating “Imagine Peace” posters, and ribbons that read, “this line is a part of a very large circle.” These textual artworks will be free to the public and will be distributed at three locations: the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, THEARC and Provisions Library.

Can someone grab one for me?

An “Imagine Peace” billboard will be installed on the Verizon Center (at the intersection of 7th Street and G Street, NW) and will be on display through April 30, 2007, and a poster page was placed in the March 29 edition of The Washington Post Express.

“This project,” say Street Scenes co-curators Nora Halpern and Welmoed Laanstra, “is part of our effort to turn the streets of Washington, DC, into a living art gallery. For more info call 301-651-8275."

The Beatles - The Ballad Of John And Yoko

Standing in the dock at Southampton,
Trying to get to Holland or France.
The man in the mac said, "You've got to turn back."
You know they didn't even give us a chance.

Christ you know it ain't easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They're going to crucify me.

Finally made the plane into Paris,
Honey mooning down by the Seine.
Peter Brown called to say,
"You can make it O.K.,
You can get married in Gibraltar, near Spain."

Christ you know it ain't easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They're going to crucify me.

Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton,
Talking in our beds for a week.
The newspapers said, "Say what you doing in bed?"
I said, "We're only trying to get us some peace."

Christ you know it ain't easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They're going to crucify me.

Saving up your money for a rainy day,
Giving all your clothes to charity.
Last night the wife said,
"Oh boy, when you're dead
You don't take nothing with you
But your soul - think!"
Made a lightning trip to Vienna,
eating chocolate cake in a bag.
The newspapers said, "She's gone to his head,
They look just like two gurus in drag."

Christ you know it ain't easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They're going to crucify me.

Caught an early plane back to London.
Fifty acorns tied in a sack.
The men from the press said, "We wish you success,
It's good to have the both of you back."

Christ you know it ain't easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They're going to crucify me.
The way things are going
They're going to crucify me.

Update: Capps with a super funny report on Mrs. Lennon's performance(s). Read it here.

Modernism at the Corcoran

Provided that I can work out the software bugs from Google and Blogger, later today I should have a video walkthrough of the Modernism exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art led by the Corcoran's director Paul Greenhalgh.

This will be the first of many videos that Mid Atlantic Art News will be doing in collaboration with our newest contributor: William Anderson of BB's Video Press and 205 Lavinia Gallery.

Look for future videos on gallery and museum openings, discussions with curators, artists' interviews, etc.

Tuss on Women’s Work at Nevin Kelly Gallery

By Katie Tuss

Six distinctly talented women younger than 30 have come to the forefront via Nevin Kelly’s current group painting exhibition Women’s Work. Nevin Kelly Deputy Director and the show’s curator Julia Morelli teamed up with five local female artists to create a show of varied sensibilities and styles, yet linked by a woman’s unique touch.

The five young artists include Abbe McGray, Laurel Hausler, Mary Chiaramonte, Molly Brose, and Jenny Davis — who is the youngest in the group at 18. Together they are eloquent, and yet a bit bashful, but all insistent that although they are women, gender does not have to be the central focus of their work.

The artists explained that gender enhances and enriches but certainly does not inhibit them in the larger art arena. “I was thinking about the show in terms of being women’s art, not necessarily feminist art or girly art, but possessing a sense of femininity in the work,” said Morelli.

Some of the artists had never met one another, and the work was created separately.

Brose’s work waxes nostalgic about family, friendships, and significant others in two groups of five paintings with titles all beginning with the directive ‘keep.’

In Keep in Mind, Brose’s two grandmothers are represented precisely in graphite against Brose’s abstracted watercolor ground. A rendering of a classic set of aluminum measuring spoons bridges the empty space between the two portraits. Brose is “trying to measure where I got what from these two people,” she said.

McGray and Davis both contributed portraits to the group effort. McGray explained that she paints people that “may be disadvantaged or looked over.” She wants to bring these people forward and give viewers the opportunity to look at them. Her subjects are inquisitive and somewhat beseeching, yet never asking for pity.

Conversely, Davis paints meticulous watercolors of her friends. The subjects are young women themselves, and are thoughtfully depicted down to the delicate links of a silver necklace or a wind blown strand of hair. Davis’s colors are seductive and her controlled hand impressive.

Mary Chiaramonte’s paintings are intensely personal, Thanks A Lot being a response to a negative response to one of her paintings. Chiaramonte mixes subtle collage elements and a slightly distracting signature with refreshing layers of graphite sketches under a thin paint application.

Laurel Hausler’s five paintings were all made with the show’s title in mind. Hausler’s liberal experiments with beeswax further the mysterious light in which her narratives unfold. Even while uprooting radishes or cavorting with an oversized rabbit, women seem to float through Hausler’s ethereal world with elongated lines, curved figures, and haunting eyes. Hausler concedes that “maybe there is something about storytelling that is inherent in some female art.”

Women’s Work is on view through this Sunday, April 8.

Go listen to Zoe

The super talented Philly photogstar Zoe Strauss’ latest project is the 10-year long I-95 Project, an annual installation underneath I-95 in South Philadelphia. Strauss received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2005, and her work was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial in New York.

From April 13 through May 4, 2007, her work will be featured in Gallery 1401 at the University of the Arts, in an exhibition entitled “If You Break the Skin,” co-sponsored by the Equality Forum. But, and more importantly, today, April 2, at 1pm at the CBS Auditorium of the University of the Arts, Zoe will be giving a lecture on her photography as part of the Paradigm Lecture series.

Oh yea; the lecture is free and open to the public.

Airborne again today and heading to Denver. More later...

A couple more Eakins could be heading out of Philly

"We're not a museum. We're not in the business of art education. That's what Thomas Jefferson University president Robert L. Barchi said in November in explaining the university's decision to sell Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic."

In spite of the fact that the sale of The Gross Clinic sort of blew up in their faces, according to the Philly Inquirer, "Barchi says that the school intends to deaccession two other pieces in the multimillion-dollar collection: Its remaining Eakins works, Portrait of Benjamin H. Rand and Portrait of William S. Forbes."

In fact Barchi stated that "We do not intend to sell any of our artworks other than the Eakins paintings, even if approached."

You can view a slide show of some of the art at Jefferson in this this website and you can read the excellent Inquirer report by Peter Dobrin, the Inquirer Culture Writer here.

Frida Kahlo Coming to Philly

Sometime in mid February 2008 (and running through May) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "the first American exhibition solely dedicated to Kahlo’s work in over a decade... will explore the relationship between her art and her life by examining hauntingly seductive and often brutal self-portraits in addition to works that amplify her sense of her own identity."

The show is coming to Philly from the Walker Art Center, where it was curated by Michael Taylor; from Philly it will travel to SFMOMA. I am a little disappointed that this show is not traveling to any DC area museum (it would have been a perfect blockbuster for the Corcoran or for the NMWA).

Lenny Campello is one happy camper. Read here how I became an addict of her work when I was 19. Below is "Seven Fridas," a huge drawing that I did in 1980-1 while at the University of Washington School of Art (click on the image for a larger version of the drawing).

It depicts Kahlo in seven incarnations as Nordic, Moslem, African, Punk (hey! it was 1980), Native American, Vulcan and Beatle. It is currently in the collection of Seeds for Peace.

"Las Siete Fridas (The Seven Fridas)"
Pen and Ink Wash, F. Lennox Campello, circa 1980-1981
Most recently, in 2005 I curated a worldwide call to artists for an "Homage to Frida Kahlo" exhibition hosted by Art.com with the sponsorship of the Cultural Institute of Mexico and the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City.

Thus my interest and happiness!

PMA to open new galleries

In early September 2007, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will open the new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, which will house expanded galleries and state of the art study centers in an art deco building acquired by the Museum and then renovated and expanded by Gluckman Maynor Architects.

Next Week: Tomás Rivas opens in DC

The very talented and award winning Chilean artist Tomás Rivas' first DC area solo exhibition, "Left to my Own Devices," opens next week (April 5) at Douz and Mille and there's also a round-table discussion on April 25 from 6:30-8:30 PM. Details here.

The opening reception is Thursday, April 5, 2007 6:30pm - 8:30pm and it is at the space formerly occupied by Numark Gallery in DC. A full color catalogue will be published at the conclusion of the exhibition, featuring essays by David Gariff Ph.D., Lecturer, National Gallery of Art; Robin Rhodes Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame; and my good friend Laura Roulet, Independent Curator, with an introduction by the hard-working Rody Douzoglou, who is the "Douz" in Douz and Mille.

New art blog

I think.

DC area "performance artist F.W. Thomas" has a blog (new to me) at fwthomas.blogspot.com detailing coming multimedia performances and other random thoughts.

I am told that at the next performance (Monday, April 9, 2007 at DC's Warehouse Theatre and Galleries) they will be circulating a petition banning any further use of the Queen/Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure" as the soundtrack to any commercial, television show, movie or public radio segment. This alone is worth the visit!

Vist the blog often!

Opportunity for recent Art grads

Introductions is Irvine Contemporary’s annual summer show of works by recent art college graduates in the Washington, mid-Atlantic, and East Coast region.

For Introductions3 this year, Irvine has posted a web page with application instructions and information to assist artists with submissions for the show. The gallery tries to see as many thesis shows and do as many studio visits as possible, but they clearly can’t see everyone and they want to open the process to as many artists as possible.

Visit this website for information on submitting work for the show. This year the selection committee will include Washington area collectors as well as the Irvine Contemporary crew.

Airportism

I'm usually not a big fan of airport art, which I've dubbed "airportism" in the past, and which is usually generalized by tame, usually abstracted public art that tries really hard to avoid the figure at all costs.

The theme of flying is usually a common one -- and that's understandable, and artists can only go so far with it.

And yet... at the Philadelphia International Airport, between terminals C and D, on the main concourse there's an installation by Nancy Blum, titled Butterfly Wall (will be there through June 2007) that is a welcome and interesting departure from the usual blah flying geese or paper airplanes sculptures that one sees all over American airports.

"Butterfly Wall" is a work made up of 80 butterflies cast out of China clay with incised and raised patterns on the wings. The color is painted on the back and it is then reflecting onto the wall space. The pattern of the wings have been adapted from Islamic architecture, adding an interesting and unexpected visual element. Each butterfly is approx. 12 to 14 inches in height.

If you're around the Philly airport and have some extra time on your hands, swing by and take a look at this refreshing change for airportism. Nancy Blum is represented in the area by Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia.

Wanna go to the Gala to Benefit Africare in DC this Friday?

Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of International Visions at The Washington Club
(15 Dupont Circle) in DC. RSVP to 202-234-5112.

Friday, March 30th from 6:30 to 11:30 pm.

- Live music by Brother Ah & the World Music Ensemble as well as the Brazilian Samba Trio Band

- A silent auction featuring the African artwork and craft, artwork by renowned American artists, sports & entertainment collectibles, and much, much more.

- Mistress of Ceremonies: Dr. JC Hayward

- Special honors for artist Sam Gilliam and the Howard University Department of Art.

- An authentic African feast

It's nothing new

If you think that the common art critic malaise of denigrating realism as a viable genre of contemporary painting is something new then...(via the NY Sun):

"It's a New York story of courage and defeat followed by 50-year commitment to classical figurative painting. Next week, at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., a New York group of painters who bucked the tide of fashion will celebrate a painterly triumph.

In May 1961, some brash young figurative painters threw down the gauntlet to the modern art establishment. In an exhibition at the National Arts Club called "A Realist View," a group including Aaron Shikler, Daniel Schwartz, Harvey Dinnerstein, Burt Silverman, and David Levine declared their opposition to the trend toward abstraction in modern art. The abandonment of tradition in favor of personal style and individual expression had led to the impoverishment of the artist's imagination, Mr. Silverman declared in a "Statement by the Artists." "In our paintings we have not succumbed to the frantic search for something ‘new,'" he continued. "We are not concerned with being ‘of our times'…. Our concern is with the world around us."

Their protest against the apotheosis of Abstract Expressionism did not go unheeded; they were critically trounced. "[I]t's the quietest, oldest show you ever saw," the New York Herald Tribune's critic, Emily Genauer, wrote. "Nowhere are there fire, urgency, even innocence, the conviction that there are new things and new ideas in the world …. What showed in the paintings — apart from craft — was chiefly doctrinaire attitude."

Five gets you ten that this coming DC show will still get trashed in the printed media press and a few blogs, as there are very few brave souls out there willing to stray too far from the comfort of the art critic wolf pack.

If the WaPo's Blake Gopnik reviews the show, expect the usual eloquent but tired slogans about painting being dead, and realism continuing to try to exist even though nothing new has surfaced since the Renaissance, blah, blah, blah. He will also say something specifically aimed at the jugular of the NPG itself.

If my good friend Jeffry Cudlin reviews it for the WCP, I suspect that he will manage to find an Achilles heel somewhere in the show, explained away in Jeffry's usual and elegant theory-driven review pen.

The exhibition will be at the NPG March 30 to October 8, 2007.

Visual Art Website Opened for U.S. Service Families

As a veteran, I am psyched by the announcement that the National Arts Program Foundation, Malvern, PA, announced today that in support of the men and women of the armed services, it will post for free, pictures of original drawings, watercolors, oil and acrylic paintings, sculpture, photography and crafts of all active and retired military service members and DoD employees and their families.

Details here.

Benefit Art Drawing in Baltimore this Saturday next month

On Saturday, April 21, 2007, the Lotta Art Benefit, takes place in Baltimore to benefit School 33.

A continuous cocktail buffet begins at 5:30 p.m (Catering by The Brass Elephant). The art drawing begins promptly at 7:30 p.m. Event tickets include a work of art and the buffet.

The event begins at 7:30PM and features art by more than 145 local artists who have generously donated their work to benefit School 33 Art Center. Each event ticket holder is guaranteed a work of art in this lottery-style drawing.

Call 410.396.4641 for more info.

Senju Murals to go to Philly

Hiroshi Senju, one of Japan’s most revered and internationally acclaimed contemporary artists, showed 27 murals (syohekiga) at Japan’s Yamatane Museum of Art through March 4. The works, however, are ultimately bound for the United States. On May 1 of this year, the murals will be installed on the fusuma (sliding doors) and tokonoma (writing hall) alcove at Shofuso (“Pine Breeze Villa”), the Japanese house and garden in Fairmount Park [Philadelphia].

Read the A&A story here. Senju also is donating all copyrights from sales of reproductions of the murals to support the preservation of the Pine Breeze Villa.

A ton of comments

The WaPo's James V. Grimaldi, who has been reporting on the whole Smithsonian's Lawrence Small developments, had a live chat earlier today and there are a lot of good questions and some amplifying answers on this issue.

Read the archives here.

Congrats!

To the superbly talented DC area artist Adam Fowler, who will be having his first NYC solo at Margaret Thatcher Projects opening next Friday, March 29, 2007 with a reception from 6-8PM. The exhibition runs through May 5, 2007.

Fowler has been doing superbly since the WPA/C's "Seven" exhibition, where his work was included prominently. His drawings were featured in Selections Fall 2005 at the Drawing Center and this past year, Fowler's work was included in The New Collage show at Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline for submissions May 14, 2007.

Vox Populi, a nonprofit artist collective located in Philadelphia, is currently accepting submissions for VOXXOXO. The exhibition will run from July 6 through July 28, 2007 and is being juried by Sheryl Conkelton, Director of Tyler School of Arts' Exhibitions and Public Programs, and Kirby Gookin, art historian, critic, curator and public artist.

Artists of all media are invited to submit 3 to 5 examples of completed works. All submitted works must be available for exhibition. Complete applications must include:

1. 3 or 5 images
a. Slides must be labeled with name, title and orientation dot positioned at bottom right hand corner.
b. CD-R: Images saved at 72 dpi resolution on CD-R, sized at 8"x10." Please label each image lastnamefirstname_1.jpg and so forth. CD-R submissions must be accompanied by a printout of images on one 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper.
c. Video: You may submit 2 minute clips of each submitted piece or we will view the first 2 minutes of each submission. The work must be submitted on DVD (NTSC).

2. Completed VOXXOXO submission form (found on their website at www.voxpopuligallery.org).

3. Current resume and artist statement.

4. SASE

5. $20 entry fee for 3 submissions; $30 entry fee for 5 submissions. Please make checks payable to Vox Populi. Do not send cash.

For more information, please visit their website at www.voxpopuligallery.org or call 215-238-1236.

Grants for Artists

Deadline: June 1, 2007

The Harpo Foundation is accepting proposals for grants funding. The Harpo Foundation supports artists that are unrecognized by the field. This applies to all artists whether emerging or further along in their careers. Proposals to the foundation can take the form of installations, public interventions, personal projects, residencies, and under certain conditions, exhibitions. Proposals should include a project description, examples of the artist's work (in digital format) and a resume. A detailed budget breakdown is not necessary, however grant will usually not exceed $10,000. For more information, please contact the Harpo Foundation at 305.442.8242 or email harpofl@earthling.net.

Job in the Arts

Executive Director: Cecil County Arts Council, Inc. - Maryland

CCAC is Cecil county's umbrella cultural organization and awards grants to school and nonprofits presenting arts programs. It has a two-person full-time staff, including E.D.; $92K budget from state grant funding, dues, corporate support and fundraising.

Qualifications: Commitment to community outreach; ability to maintain, nurture and inspire membership; knowledge of art-related issues; managerial, grant writing and fundraising experience; outstanding communication, presentation, public relations skills; experience in working with a board of directors.

Qualified applicants can expect a salary starting at $38,000-$41,000. Benefits: health and dental coverage, retirement, paid vacation, holiday, sick, personal time. Send resume, cover letter , references to:

Personnel Committee
CCAC
135 E. Main St.
Elkton, MD 21921

Or email copy of resume to maggie.creshkoff@gmail.com.

Congrats!

To DC area ubercollector Fred Ognibene, whose home was just featured in "At Home" magazine, in an article featuring loads of artwork and discussion on the (mostly) DC area artists that Fred collects.

Smithsonian's Lawrence Small Resigns

Just received from Roger Sant, Chair, Executive Committee, Smithsonian Board of Regents

At 12:30 this afternoon, Regent Patti Stonsifer and I will participate in a news conference to announce that we have accepted the resignation of Secretary Lawrence Small, effective immediately. At the same time, we will announce that Cristian Samper, currently director of the National Museum of Natural History, has been named by the Regents to serve as Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, also effective immediately. We also have asked Sheila Burke to continue as Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer. We appreciate her strong leadership, particularly during these past months.

Although the past few weeks have been difficult for us all, we believe that the important work of the Institution will continue and we hope you share our optimism for the future.

A search committee for a new Secretary will begin immediately under the chairmanship of Alan Spoon, a member of our executive committee.

We thank you for your hard work and dedication.

Below is the text of the news release distributed today and available shortly on PRISM and newsdesk.si.edu. Also, the news conference will be available through Windows Media Player at mms://live01.si.edu/sicastle.

Roger Sant

Chair, Executive Committee
Smithsonian Board of Regents

Update: The press release is here.

Update: WaPo picks up the story (revised once since the intial 1PM posting, which cited a Congressional leak instead of the press conference) here. According to some of the comments, this too appears to be Pres. Bush's fault.

Carrie Ann Baade at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art

Carrie Ann Baade: "Virtues and Vices - Surreal Portraits of the Commendable and Contemptible" opens on March 30, 2007 at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in Wilmington, but the opening reception is Friday April 13th, from 5 to 9pm (includes a musical performance by the Absinthe Drinkers at 8pm) and then there's an artist's lecture on April 4th, from 12 to 1pm at the DCCA.

It's no secret that I love narrative work that also uses historical references, and thus I am really looking forward to seeing this talented artist's work, which is new to me. More later.

Gopnik in a kilt

The WaPo's erudite Oxford-trained, chief art critic pens an interesting review (which has already caused some comment flaming) on the current exhibition "Italian Women Artists From Renaissance to Baroque," at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

But my issue with the review are not the possible historical inaccuracies in the article, but this statement:

"Who and what you are matters to what your actions mean to others. My wife wears a skirt, and no one notices; if I did, I'd have to claim McGopnik blood to get away with it."

McGopnik!!!!

McGopnik!!!

"Whas like us? Gie few an thur aw deed"

First of all, Scots wear kilts - not skirts... and "Mc" is generally the Anglicised version of the Irish Celtic form for "son-of," while "Mac", not "Mc", is the is true Scottish Gaelic form, and thus what Gopnik should have written to make his point.

So he meant "MacGopnik."

I know it's pedantic, but ...

Phoebe Washburn at ICA

A new Ramp Project by Phoebe Washburn goes on view this spring at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania. The 12th in a series of temporary works commissioned for the ramp, Washburn’s project can be seen April 20-August 5, 2007.

"Using massive amounts of collected scrap wood, Phoebe Washburn transforms ICA’s ramp by constructing an environmental installation that is both accumulative and regenerative. Working on site off of the existing architecture, she turns the windowed ramp into a makeshift terrarium/aquarium. Viewers wander amidst a variety of water plants and underwater scenes housed in fish tanks nestled in a darkened wooden tunnel. These miniature living landscapes are sustained by pumps and other necessary accoutrements in this green environment."

Every season ICA commissions an artist to create a new site-specific temporary installation for the ramp that links the first and second floor galleries. A transitional space, the ramp is 52-foot long and is visible from the street through architecturally-scaled picture windows on the building’s facade. This project is organized by Elyse Gonzales, Assistant Curator.

Call for 2007 MFA Graduates in the Mid-Atlantic Region

Deadline: April 14, 2007

"New Art Examined III" is a call for 2007 MFA graduates by the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, Virginia. All Masters of Fine Arts candidates who will receive their degree in the 2007 calendar year from institutions in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia are invited to submit work. Artworks in all media will be considered.

You can download the prospectus here or call the Center at (703) 248-6800.

Rousseau Reviews

Dr. Claudia Rousseau, writing in The Gazette, wraps up three Greater DC area exhibition (all in suburban Maryland) into one neat column as she reviews Tim Tate at Fraser Gallery, "Token" at Pyramid Atlantic, and the National Society of Arts and Letters Career Awards Competition at Heineman-Myers Gallery.

Read the reviews here.

Job in the Arts

Arlington County in Virginia is looking for a Public Arts Curator. Salary Range: $45,905.60 - $75,899.20 annually.

All applicants must submit an online application (unless the job announcement states otherwise) for each position for which they wish to apply. The application must be submitted prior to 11:59 pm on the posted closing date.

To apply online go to www.arlingtonva.us/pers, click on CURRENT JOB OPENINGS, scroll down the alphabetical list of job titles and click on the one in which you have an interest. The link to the employment application (APPLY) is found on each job announcement. Once completed, your application information remains in the system for you to review, edit and submit for future Arlington job openings.

Wanna go to a Baltimore opening this afternoon?

"Of Doors & Keys" at the Norman and Sarah Brown Art Gallery, (Weinberg Park Heights JCC at 5700 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD) has an opening reception this afternoon, Sunday, March 25, at 3:00 pm. The exhibition is curated by Claudine Davison, the gallery director.

SAAM Commissioner James F. Dicke II on SAAM

One of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's commissioners, James F. Dicke II (who as I recall is from Ohio?), is not only a respected artist (his work is actually in SAAM's collection and represented locally by The Ralls Collection in Georgetown), and an ubercollector, but also puts his money where his mouth is, and is very much an involved and hands-on commissioner.

Dicke has responded to the Smithsonian report parts that relate to the SAAM with this comment on Eyelevel:

The 30 Commissioners of the Smithsonian American Art Museum applaud Director Betsy Broun’s inspired leadership and the terrific work of the museum’s talented and dedicated staff over the past seven years. Under trying circumstances of a multi-year “dark house,” frequent budget cuts, and several staff moves, this team shepherded a $278 million dazzling renovation project. They conceived and created two wholly innovative public conservation and collections study centers that are models for museums everywhere. The collections are handsomely installed in elegant galleries, “telling the story of America” with nuance and insight, in a way that has delighted visitors from around the world. Terrific collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery makes the two museums complementary in wonderful new ways.

During the same period, the contemporary program was enhanced with two new curators, an artist’s prize, endowments, and many exciting acquisitions. The same great SAAM leadership and staff undertook the largest touring exhibition program ever by an art museum – more than 1,000 artworks in 14 shows to 105 museums. The museum’s fabulous staff created award-winning programs in distance learning, K-12 education, new media technologies, and publications. The research resources for American art at SAAM include the biggest American art pre-doctoral fellowship program anywhere, the leading academic journal in the field, and more than 1 million research records in searchable online databases. SAAM’s branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, continues to present a full exciting program of exhibitions and collections.

It was SAAM staff that conducted the nationwide research defining how the museums might benefit from covering the open-air courtyard. A SAAM Commissioner provided the funds for the international architectural competition that selected Lord Norman Foster for the project. Director Betsy Broun was on the 5-member selection panel and subsequent Oversight Committee.

It’s quite a lot to manage and a stellar record of success that would distinguish a museum three times its size. SAAM and Betsy are outstanding within the Smithsonian complex and indeed in any context. Our entire Board of Commissioners is proud to be part of this great accomplishment and to have so generously supported it. Our regret is that the External Reviewers conducted their study while the museum was a construction site and apparently lacked information about any of these accomplishments. We wish they had invited comments from those who know the museum well.

James F. Dicke II, SAAM Commissioner

I applaud a commissioner willing to gets his "hands dirty" as Dicke has, and regardless of how one feels about what's right or wrong about SAAM, he does deliver some valid points that now have introduced some questions into my mind about the depth of information and facts gathered (or not) by the external commission charged with the Smithsonian report, other than the obvious points about security, morale, leaks, etc.

Dicke's comments seem to imply (and Mr. Dicke correct me if I am wrong), that the investigators did not talk to the SAAM commissioners.

If this is correct, then I am curious to find out (while I work my way through the 51 pages of the report): did they talk to any of the commissioners of any of the museums?

Did they talk to the "non-contributing board" of the National Museum of African Art?

I'd love to hear more from more of the commissioners from the various Smithsonian Institution's museums on this subject.

Bailey on the Smithsonian Institution and Lawrence M. Small

I'm always open to hearing what other voices say about visual arts issues in our area, and below is an opinion piece by The Right Reverend James W. Bailey, which once again testifies to my worn-out warning: never piss off Bailey.

An Open Letter To The American Taxpayers Calling For The Immediate Firing Of Lawrence M. Small, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution

by The Right Reverend James W. Bailey

Like many across the country, I am beyond being merely outraged over the reported wasteful spending by Lawrence M. Small, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the reports of his stratospheric salary and ridiculous reimbursements for so-called “living expenses.”

For this Small should be fired.

For pressuring the former Smithsonian inspector general to drop her audit of Small's financial shenanigans, he should be fired, investigated and indicted.

It is incredible to me that the taxpayers of this nation have been paying a king ’s ransom salary to Small - apparently to embellish his home and office with seriously overpriced ego-building furniture - while the very man in charge of the Smithsonian Institution has allowed some of its key infrastructure to seriously deteriorate to the point of being a national embarrassment.

Perhaps the greatest outrage is what Small has allowed to happen at the National Museum of African Art, as detailed in the a 51 page report that examines the near none existent management practices of Small:

“There has been a longstanding lack of visionary leadership at the museum. The director’s protracted illness, the absence of either a deputy director or chief curator, and curatorial departments that are either understaffed or underperforming, contribute to the present discouraging situation. Staff and trustee morale is dangerously low.”

It’s bad enough for the serious appreciation of African Art when the chief art critic for the Washington Post, Blake Gopnik - when recently writing about African Art, Gopnik demonstrated an unbelievable condescending arrogance that attempted to mask his profound lack of understanding and appreciation of the importance of African Art – pens a critique that almost bordered on being xenophobic.

Now, on top of that serious art critical injury, we understand some additional reasons why the National Museum of African Art, while under the missing leadership of Small, has been allowed to slide down the high art cultural ladder to such a low level of appreciation and importance.

It is outrageous that in the nation’s capital, a place that is 62% African-American, that the richest country in the world has allowed such an important museum to falter. If for no other reason, Lawrence M. Small should be immediately fired for what he has allowed to happen to the National Museum of African Art.

Unfortunately, all of the museums and galleries under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution are subject to being painted by the same brush of scandal that has come to light over the self-serving actions of its leader. Just like one rotten apple cop on a police force taints all the good cops as well, so it has come to this for many within the organization of the Smithsonian Institution.

That’s a shame.

Actually, it’s worse than a shame. It’s a national tragedy. The so-called nation’s attic is supposed to represent something more than being a mere slush fund to realize one man’s conceited, arrogant and shallow vision of Home Improvement.

Since the American taxpayers are the ones who have been paying for Lawrence W. Small to dither away our cultural patrimony, the American taxpayers should be the ones to have the right to immediately fire Small for his outrageous actions and inactions.

James W. Bailey

O'Sullivan Scores

Many time before I've stated here that in my opinion, the WaPo's Michael O'Sullivan is the best art critic working the Greater DC area scene.

Not only does O'Sullivan have his fingers on the pulse of the art scene itself, but he also seems to be one of the few DC area art critics who gets around to a lot of different galleries and spaces and does not fall prey to the well-known critic flaw of returning to a favorite few spaces over and over.

But it is his knowledge of the inner ticking of the DC area art scene and artists that allows him to write such an insightful piece as the one in today's WaPo. Read that piece here.

Trashball

Last year I noted that DC area artist Chris Goodwin had started a blog called Trashball! that documents some of the stuff that he finds (much of it in his part-time job driving a dump truck) and transforms into an art project.

Today Rachel Beckman in the WaPo has a nice profile on Goodwin and his art project, including a nice video online. Read and see it here.

Kudos to Beckman and visit Trashball! often!

Wanna go to a DC gallery opening tomorrow night?

Randall Scott Gallery has a special exhibition of unique furniture by Josh Urso through March 31st, 2007 and the artist reception is tomorrow night, March 23rd from 6pm-9pm.

Congrats!

To DC area art wunderkind Jenny Davis, who just won the National Society of Arts and Letters Washington Chapter Career Awards Competition last Saturday at Heineman-Myers Gallery! She's excited to be going to the National Competition in Tempe, Arizona in May.

Smithsonian woes

Yesterday The Art Newspaper broke the story on the 51-page external confidential report (now made public and online here), commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution's Undersecretary of Art, Ned Rifkin, on the state of the Smithsonian Institution's eight museums.

The confidential document, a copy of which has been seen by The Art Newspaper, is the result of an 18-month external review of the art museums and two related art programmes run by the Smithsonian Institution which are collectively known as Smithsonian Arts.

Ned Rifkin, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for art, appointed a committee to carry out the review in August 2005.

This includes Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Michael Shapiro, director of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; John Walsh, director emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; James Wood, director and president emeritus of the Art Institute of Chicago and, since February, president and chief executive of the Getty Trust, Michael Conforti, director of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown; Vishakha Desai, president and chief executive of the Asia Society in New York, and Susana Leval, director emerita of El Museo del Barrio in New York.

They met in small groups with Smithsonian museum executives and convened five times to draft the report which was submitted to the Smithsonian’s board of regents in January.

The 51-page document and its appendices provides an analysis of each Smithsonian art museum, listing strengths and weaknesses and offering recommendations.

Per the Art Newspaper, among the report's recommendations:

- "Questions the long-term viability of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York because of 'the modest size of audience, ­limited programs and scope of [the] collection.'"

- "Calls for the 'administrative consolidation' of the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum."

- "Warns that leaks in the storage areas of the Freer and Sackler galleries threaten the collection. Leaks are also identified as a problem at the Hirshhorn Museum."

- "Concludes that the National Museum of African Art suffers from a 'lack of visionary leadership' as well as a non-contributing board and a lacklustre curatorial team."

Read the whole Art Newspaper article here, and read the SI report here, and the WaPo's Paul Farhi's take on the subject here, and then a SI response via the SAAM's blog, Eyelevel, here.

It's Boise, Idaho's turn to be embarrassed

In 2002 the District of Columbia went on a crackdown to try to stop the District's art galleries from serving wine (any alcohol) at art openings. Threatening letters from Maurice Evans, the chief investigator for the District's Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, were sent to nearly all of DC's galleries.

As I recall, the letters also stated that galleries must stop serving wine at openings, or obtain a [very expensive and hard-to-get] liquor license, or apply for a temporary license for each opening (at around $100 a day), that would then allow licensed caterers (who would also need to be hired by the gallery for each opening) to pour the wine for the over-21 crowd.

Upon receipt of this letter I called the WaPo and talked to its arts editor, John Pancake, reporting this fact, and a few days later the Style section published this article by Natalie Hopkinson on the subject.

The WaPo's story was picked up by the AP or UPI and then itself picked up worldwide by newspapers as far away as Australia, and the BBC even did a small story on it. It embarrassed Washington, DC on a planetary scale, characterizing the nation's capital as a repressed small town where the time honored tradition of cheap white wine and cheese at gallery openings was in danger of being nixed by an over zealous alcohol enforcement official.

Because of this embarrassment, the City's alcohol board held a quick hearing and several of us gallerists testified to the board about the art of the art opening. It all eventually went away, but not before the nation's capital was embarrassed around the world.

Now it is Boise, Idaho's turn to get its share of planetary shame and I hope to get that ball rolling. Since at least August of 2006, according to Margaret Littman in Art & Antiques:

Though the law has been on the books since the 1930s, Boise City Police, at the direction of the Idaho Beverage Control, are cracking down on the free glasses of wine some galleries offer during monthly First Thursday art openings.

For the Idaho Beverage Control zealot(s) who wasted time orchestrating this: You are an embarrassment to this nation and your zeal had led you down the wrong path in alcohol enforcement and you have made your state and this nation the laughing stock of a planet that seldom agrees on many things, but as history taught us before, seems to think that serving a glass of wine at a gallery opening doesn't deserve a police raid.

Shame on you Idaho.

Update: Read the Boise Weekly article on this subject here.

Wanna go to a DC art opening tonight?

Several of DC leading edge dorktechnical scientartists will be opening an exhibition of their latest work (an interactive media project) at the Warehouse Gallery on 7th Street. Work by Philip Kohn, Thomas Edwards, Brian Judy, and Claudia Vess. The opening is Thursday, March 22 from 6-8PM.

Wanna go to nude body painting party in DC this Sunday?

On Friday Sunday, March 25, 2007, MOCA DC in Canal Square in Georgetown is hosting another nude body painting gala as part of their Erotica 2007 show.

You can come and have your body painted or just come, see the Erotic art show and watch as artists paint other people. Call them for details and times at 202.342.6230 or 202.361.3810.

The event is free and open to the public. Erotica 2007 runs through March 31, 2007.