Mean, Unfair and Plain Wrong

That's me!

My DC blogsphere colleague Kriston Capps, who just like me every once in a while is very fond of policing other folks' opinions, thinks that I am "mean... unfair... and plain wrong," in my recent rant at Jessica Dawson's inept review of Caitlin Phillips.

And while I respect Capps' right to express his opinions to my response to Dawson's review, I disagree 100% with his insinuation that a critic's interpretation of a body of works, absolves them/us of having a responsibility or need to gather information about an artist's intent; especially if they are preparing to deliver a public question or opinion that suggests that an artist is denigrating herself via that same body of works.

Let's be clear: Critics don't have to ask questions or gather information for every thing, even intent.

But if they're going to make the leap and portray an artist as denigrating herself because of what the images convey to the critic, at the very least they should try to find out what the artist thinks they're conveying or was trying to convey.

It just makes sense to me.

In this case, I think Dawson blew the review, and erred in her (let's assume) interpretation, because she didn't know (or cared to know) the photographer's intent - even if Phillips didn't deliver it very clearly, as could be the case - and although Dawson was keen enough to make a harsh interpretation about the intent, she wasn't curious enough to try to gather the easily available information.

And boo hoo... now I also think that Kriston is just mean, unfair and gets it plain wrong when he interprets that my post is suggesting that critics should go "around asking artists to tell them what to write in their reviews."

Especially since he knows me, and knows well that I would never suggest such an idiotic thing.

That makes two critics who should have asked a question before making such a knuckle-headed leap.

Read Kriston's opinions here.

DC Shorts Film Festival 2007

September 13 – 20, 2007 at Landmark’s E Street Cinema (11th and E Streets)

DC Shorts turns the spotlight on truly independent short films from all over the globe, created by new and established filmmakers in an era when the art of filmmaking is opening to all. They select films from every genre for their competition screenings — with a special focus on films created by metropolitan Washington, DC-based directors and writers. After each screening, filmmakers have the opportunity to speak to the audience as part of a moderated panel.

This year, they will present 89 films and seven live script performances, culled from 14 countries. Once again, their venue will be the Landmark E Street Theatre in DC's Penn Quarter. With new specialty competitions — High Definition Shorts and the Live Script Reading Competition — DC Shorts is growing into one of the most influential film festivals in the country.

For festival and ticket information visit www.dcshorts.com

Interview: John Anderson on Adrian Parsons

Anderson: Several months ago I contacted Adrian Parsons, shortly after he circumcised himself during a performance for the exhibition entitled Supple, at the Warehouse Gallery. He seemed agreeable to answer some questions, either in person or over e-mail. I shot the questions to him and waited for a response. At the beginning of August, he finally got back to me.

Adrian Parsons with his foreskin hanging on the wall
Parsons: Hello, wanted to take some time to separate the act from the hype. So here is the interview way, way post facto.

An earlier piece that I see documented on your blog involved inviting people to pull your mustache out of your face, one hair at a time, until it was gone. What is the basis for this work?

The idea was to take off the genetic predisposition for where my beard and mustache would be, to take the hairs and redistribute them. Once all the hair was off we were to mix it with melted wax and pour that on to the mold, that is, my face. The fact that I could rework a hairline with my hand and not my fathers was a weird, fun one.

Since you began Shrapnel (I am assuming this is the title) by pulling hairs from your face, is the act of auto-circumcision an extension of this previous piece? How do the two relate apart from self-mutilation (or invited mutilation to yourself)?

Both works come across chance and randomization. I was trying to get around my genes in Plucky, to disorder what is predetermined. But Shrapnel takes on the chaos of a suicide bomber, his body is distributed in to the walls of buildings, the skin of people. This kills random people, suddenly the attackers bone, physical matter, are implanted willfully in to another person. I read an account of a journalist who was nearby a suicide bomber and lived. He carries the bone of this guy in his body, his DNA's sitting right there next to his own. It's an incredible "fuck you."

How large was the audience?

30 people or so but it thinned out fast.

I was having video problems and was unable to gauge audience reaction. What was the response to you exposing yourself, removing a pocket knife, and the act of cutting? OR, were you even aware of it?

People were curious, kind of readying themselves, making small talk. Then when I started to rip out some of my beard and place it in to the wall they seemed to get that this was going to be something bloody. After the first cut, there were two responses, leaving the room or whipping out the cell-camera. You hear an ex of mine slip an "ohmygod" out of her mouth.

I would imagine this act required some psyching-up; what prepared you?

A friend said, "how'd you get the balls to cut your dick off?" Since I was going to the hospital right after I couldn't get wasted and I couldn't take vicodin or oxycotin or even smoke. If I'd come in to GW messed up I would've spent the night in the psych ward. Pulling the hair and the skin off my face helped get my adrenalin up, though.

Why a pocket knife? Why not something more medical, or kitchen-oriented?

This was a Swiss army knife that was given to me by my brother-in-law. It's only significance to the piece was that it was sharp. When people ask why I used a "dull, rusty knife" I say it took 5 cuts because it was a really sharp knife, not a dull one.

Looking at the Thinking About Art Interview from last year, you cited Jason Gubbiotti as an influence. And food. I'm going to admit I am having trouble seeing a connection in your (current) work. How is he an influence?

Food makes you go, it's the only thing you get to utterly chemically transform. It's a wonder that you masticate and acid bathe something and get to move, think and have sex because of a bowl of Chex and 1% milk. Every gesture in art is because you've got a calorie to spend.

Gubbiotti's altered canvasses, which aren't as big a deal for him now, are what I was referring too. He's got these gigantic color spaces, very placid, and then they just get completely shorn off by this violent jutting and curving wood. His paint reaches the edge of the canvas the way you might encounter the edge of the earth in some pre-Eratosthenes view of the world.

How's your dick? or have you seen a doctor since the act?

My cock is 100% thanks to Erin Krill, on-call urologist extraordinaire.

Ice Stories

To create her Ice Stories, artist Lisa Sheirer takes photographs of natural landscapes through ice coated windows, and then manipulates them to create abstracted compositions, which then she prints with archival ink onto watercolor paper.

The opening reception for her solo exhibition at Hillyer Art Space in DC is Friday, September 7th, from 6 pm to 8 pm and the exhibition goes through October 25, 2007.

The Fells Point First Friday

Try saying that fast!

This Friday, September 7th is Fells Point’s First Friday Art Walk event in Baltimore.

Don’t miss your last chance to meet the various artists featured in "Moving Beyond Craft: Artists of the Washington Glass School." The exhibition will be on display through Saturday, September 8th at the Patricia Touchet Gallery.

Civilian on Friday

DC's Civilian Art Projects opens its Fall season this coming Friday with the opening of Noelle Tan's solo "from here to the Salton Sea," and and Erick Jackson's "Vlad's Crib." From 7-9PM and the exhibition goes through Oct. 20, 2007.

The Last ArtRomp

ArtRomp XX - the Grand Finale - opens this Friday at the soon-to-close/move Warehouse Gallery in DC. Opening party is 6pm til late. This last show includes work by all the artists who have exhibited in past ArtRomps over the years. Through Sept. 30, 2007.

Smaller and Smaller

As I've noted before, lately I've been drawing in a very small scale - and I showed you this drawing ("A Rabbi, slightly upset because he's just been told that his glasses are very trendy these days").

Below is "Eyes of John Fitzgerald Kennedy," which is is about half an inch high by one inch long.

"Eyes of John Fitzgerald Kennedy"
Charcoal on Paper, c. 2007 (0.5" x 1")
F. Lennox Campello
It was picked up last weekend by a private collector who was visiting my studio.

New Gallery Opens this Friday

Oerth Gallery, located at 420 S. Washington Street in Old Town Alexandria and owned by sisters Lorraine Oerth Kirstein and Linda Oerth Musselman, has its grand opening this coming Friday from 7-9PM with works by Ross Merrill. Merrill is a popular DC area art teacher, and conducts workshops throughout the United States. He also works as a Conservator at The National Gallery. The paintings will be on display from September 7 to October 28, 2007.


The gallery includes a first floor crafts gallery, a second floor fine arts gallery and a pottery studio. The building itself is an important historic property in Old Town, because it is the only freestanding Victorian building of its kind in Old Town.

Artists interested in portfolio reviews should contact Linda Musselman at 703-836-3784.

DC Gallery Moves

Leigh Conner and Jamie Smith have announced the purchase of 1358-1360 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC as the new location for Conner Contemporary Art and *gogo art projects.

The property, a former auto body shop, is a 12,000 sq. ft. complex with two interior levels as well as an enclosed outdoor area for the exhibition of large-scale sculpture, video projections and installations. Conner Contemporary Art and *gogo art projects will occupy the 6500 sq. ft. ground floor space featuring two exhibition areas and a permanent video/sound room. The 4300 sq. ft. second-floor space is currently being developed.


During the renovation work this fall season, they will be open by appointment Monday through Friday 10am-6pm, while concentrating on participating in art fairs (Pulse London: October 11-14, 2007 and Pulse Miami: December 5-9, 2007).

The new gallery is accessible from the New York Avenue and Union Station Metro stations. On-site parking will be available by reservation and complimentary shuttle service will be provided from Union Station during certain hours.

$100M

"Damien Hirst, the U.K.'s wealthiest artist, is selling his diamond skull to an investment group for $100 million, said Frank Dunphy, Hirst's business manager.

The platinum skull, studded with 8,601 diamonds, has been on the market at least since June 3, when it went on show at London's White Cube gallery.

Dunphy, reached by telephone, said the price hadn't been discounted and would be paid in cash, though he wouldn't say over what period, or identify the investment group."

Read the story by Bloomberg's Linda Sandler here. By the way, I think that the title of the "U.K's wealthiest artist" does not belong to Damien Hirst, but to Scottish bad boy painter and worldwide king in the world of posters Jack Vettriano, but I could be wrong.

Scotland is planning to "devolve" from the British union and regain its independence one of these days, but so far, as far as I know, they are still part of the U.K.

In The Flesh

The new art shows and openings coming up over the next two weeks are so numerous that I will try to list 3-4 everyday for the next few days.

In Alexandria's Target Gallery, Tim Doud, who is in the Art faculty at American University has selected a show titled "In the Flesh" that opens Sept 13 from 6-8pm and runs through October 13, 2007. It includes work by DC area photographer Danny Conant, who is without a doubt one of the most innovative photographers in the region, and whose work has been often (in the past) an inspiration for several of my own drawings.

"Tearing the Sky"
Polaroid Transfer by Danny Conant

Ask a silly question...

The WaPo's freelance galleries critic writes in a review of sub-text at Randall Scott Gallery:

At Randall Scott, Caitlin Phillips's work proves particularly enervating. She's an attractive woman, slender and young, and she takes pictures of herself. In one picture she wears a simple dress and cute shoes and holds a tea set while looking blankly at the camera. In another, she stands on a beach, masked and perfectly still, dressed in a flowery shift. In a third, she's nearly naked, in curlers and hose, pouting for the camera.

What possesses a woman artist to denigrate herself like this? Photography, in its many forms, dominates artmaking. But can artists use it wisely?

Here's the question that her editor should have asked the critic: "Since you are asking the readers this question, did you ask the photographer?"

Of course not, Dawson's vitriol is generally reserved for the written word, and as most DC area gallerists know, and in my experience, she rarely asks questions when visiting a show, or even speaks, other than the social "hello," when she first arrives, and the occasional "ahah" when spoken to.

In the past this lack of asking questions (that she clearly has about the work, even rhetorical questions easily answered) has bitten her back, evidenced by some rather monumental errors in her writing, and in this case the answer to her question was easily available in the gallery's website and the obviously un-read news release about the exhibition; Caitlin Phillips writes:

During the summers when I was seven, eight, nine, I remember waking next to my grandmother in her heat soaked room, the bedding scarce, as we had tried to cool ourselves the night before. These humid mornings, which I recall vividly, were often spent admiring the photographs and the painted portraits that lined the faded wallpaper of the bedroom. Elegant, Victorian women gazed back from the walls, their pale skin accented by feathery dresses, my grandmother’s room, a modest representation of her own Victorian ideals. These summers spent at my grandparent’s home, my sisters and I feverishly practiced and displayed the ladylike talents my grandmother instilled and insisted upon us, naively mirroring our companions hung on the wall.

My photographs and videos attempt to discuss my current notions of lineage and posterity through deliberate manipulation of memory and dissection of my personal history. The imagery creates a mise-en-scene derived from personalized romance and girlhood nostalgia. It is a visual investigation of the conflicted self: a state of reflection glimpsing into the progression of feminine identity through years of experience, growth and longing.

Does that sound like a woman denigrating herself?

Abu Ghraib paintings to be donated to Berkeley Pentagon?

The series of paintings done by Colombian artist Fernando Botero based on the Abu Ghraib photographs may become part of the permanent collection of the University of California, Berkeley... or maybe not.

UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau has tentatively agreed to accept the gift, the monetary value of which experts peg at $10 million to $15 million.

“We have a gentleman's agreement,” said Birgeneau, who saw the works when the exhibition opened at Cal's Doe Library in January and was impressed by “their emotional impact and technical brilliance. I've written the artist saying we'll accept them, subject to us being able to work out a reasonable set of conditions.”

Botero, who said he would never sell the jarring Abu Ghraib pictures, turned down an offer from the Kunsthalle Wurth museum near Stuttgart, Germany, to build a wing to house them.

There's a lesson in marketing there somewhere for all artists. And also a lesson on the power of representational visual art to drive home a point - a political point in this case - by using the narrative powers of representational art to underscore an issue.

These images, in a sense, were already part of our visual art scene.

After all, it was the photographs upon which they are based upon that exploded into our collective eyes when they were first released.

By basing his works on them, Botero skilfully recognized that in the 21st century painting is still king, and lifting an image from a photograph to create a painting still "elevates" that image to a higher fine arts realm in the minds of many people.

They're no longer just photos in our computer screens and newspapers; they're now fine art.

And it also brought Botero back into the fine arts limelight and contemporary dialogue and away from fat people paintings.

By the way, my good friend Jack Rasmussen over at the Katzen Arts Center scored a major coup a while back, as he will be bringing the first United States exhibition of the complete series, both paintings and drawings to the Katzen in November.

It sounds like Birgeneau has just written to Botero and nothing has been heard back from the wily Colombian.

Which gives me an idea.

I think that the best place for these paintings is not Left Wing Nut U in California, but right here in Washington, DC.

And not as part of the permanent collection of any of our great DC area museums, most of which already have Boteros in their collection, but as part of the permanent collection of the Pentagon.

As many of the people who have taken the free Pentagon tour know, the building has a really impressive art collection on its walls. As one would expect, it is mostly military subjects and historical paintings.

I think that the Abu Ghraib paintings belong on the Pentagon walls - not to "shame" our Army personnel, but to show the world that we're still the only nation not only willing to show pride in our successes, but also strong enough to recognize our mistakes and learn from them.

Abu Ghraib was the result of an Army which hadn't handled foreign prisoners in many decades and a handful of improperly trained, misassigned miscreants in the wrong place at the wrong time, and certainly nowhere near a representation of the quality soldier that makes up our all volunteer Army.

And definitely nowhere near the level of torture that takes place in silence on a daily basis in places like Cuba, Iran, Sudan, China, many, many Arabic nations and ahem, Colombia, but Abu Ghraib was definitely a low point and a harsh learning experience for our men and women in uniform as we learn to fight a new kind of war. As a veteran I am proud of our Armed Forces and how they respond to the spectacular demands made of them.

Put them on the Pentagon walls to shout out that we understand and learn from our military mistakes just as well as we are proud of our military successes.

I call on Renée Klish, Army Art Curator, U.S. Army Center of Military History, or whoever is the curator for the Pentagon's art collection to write a letter to Botero and have Botero donate the Abu Ghraib paintings to the Pentagon.

And I also call for Botero to now turn his formidable painting and marketing skills to create a new series of paintings about the daily torture going on in Castro's miserable prisons in Cuba (a nation that has refused to allow Amnesty International to visit since 1988), and then seeing if the Cuban dictatorship is willing to accept those paintings and hang them where their military and their citizens can see them every day.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 3, 2007

The new Workhouse Art Center at Lorton, VA is now reviewing portfolios for the studio rental jury process and Workhouse Artist Association membership. Submittal deadline: postmarked by 9/3/07. Download application at www.lortonarts.org or send a request to:

Lorton Arts Foundation
9601 Ox Road
Lorton, VA 22079

Next Friday

Next Friday generally marks the unofficial "opening" of the new art season along the galleries of the Mid Atlantic area, and there are a ton of openings coming in the next two weeks.

Here's an early look at a good one:

The Women’s Caucus for Art of Greater Washington, DC is presenting "Women’s Reflections - Visual Reflections from Washington, DC artists and 'Katrina Diaries' from New Orleans artists" at the Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum in Bethesda, MD. This is a joint exhibition of paintings, printmaking, collages, photography, and fiber art by women from both the Washington, DC chapter and the New Orleans chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA). In Katrina Diaries these New Orleans artists express their reaction to the devastation and loss caused by the hurricane.

Opening Reception: Sunday, September 9, 1:30 – 3:30pm and the exhibition goes through Sept. 25, 2007.

Sleepless in Media

I've had a brutal 48 hours with over 600 miles driving and four hours of sleep.

More later...

Baltimore Antique Show

By Shauna Lee Lange

Today was opening day at the Baltimore Antique Show which runs through the weekend at the Convention Center which is again hosting a gaggle of galleries and dealers. And noticeably this year there are several dealers fom London. This is my third year attending the show, and on this visit I found the line at the door much shorter, the food service slightly improved, and the air conditioning more manageable.

Other than some stunning very large floor mirrors, a $60,000 fun antique casino-type gaming piece, and remarkably breath-taking silver, the show is sadly predictable. Oh you'll find your antiquarian books, jewelry galore, and your historial pieces (be sure to check out the gun canes and the chandeliers)... but if you've been attending these shows as I have, it all becomes standard fare (except perhaps for the lovely display by New York's China Gallery or the ancient wood block reliefs also from China.)

Standard fare too are the highly marked up prices. I saw a piece earlier this year at the Big DC Flea Market with today's tag more than triple the asking price - so shop around! The range of art is a bit impressive, however I'm talking about the artistry in apparel of the wanna-be-wealthy-posers. Pink Ralph Lauren pants and black leather dress shoes sported by a very tan romance novel hero were outdone only by the tall blonde Barbie with the brown bareback cocktail dress.

Excuse me, I didn't know we were having drinks. Ahem.

Bring comfortable shoes; the concrete floor is brutal. And carry lots of dough; my parking, entrance fee, and lunch alone killed a $50.

Meredith Springer Award Winners Exhibit

Works by the Meredith Springer Award winners. Maria Barbosa, “Trip,” a walk-through installation and Steven Dobbin, “As I See It,” sculpture and mixed media. Opening reception Sept 1 from 3-5pm at the The Delaplaine Center in Frederick, MD.

Gould on galleries and emerging artists

The CP's Jessica Gould delivers another superb piece discussing the role of some galleries in helping to develop the young artist.

Read it here (Scroll down past the H Street stuff).

Bailey on Race, Art, Katrina, and Kirkland's One Word Project

This art blog has always been open for guest commentary and opinions. Below is a guest piece by the Rev. Bailey:

"Church Burning" by The Right Reverend James W. Bailey

"Rough Edge Photography"

The underlying composite images of "Church Burning" were captured in 2002 in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

+++

“Church Burning” – An Artist Statement

The New Orleans back-story of “Church Burning” by James W. Bailey

In 2004, artist and art blogger J.T. Kirkland began a unique online art exploration titled the One Word Project. The idea was simple. Artists were invited to submit representative images of their work, along with a written statement, in response to a word selected for the artist by Kirkland. I was one of the first artists to participate in this wonderfully creative project. The word assigned to me by Kirkland was “Obligation.”

The text portion of my response to the word “Obligation” that I submitted as part of the online project (as well as for the print edition of the project that was published in 2006), along with my image “Church Burning”, explored the meaning of t he obligations that come with the word “freedom” as inspired by the recorded words (voices) of my great-uncle, a white farmer from Mississippi whose grandfather once owned salves, and a friend of my great uncle’s, a black farmer from the same county in Mississippi whose grandfather had once been a slave.

As part of my text response to this project, I incorporated quotes from both men that I recorded in the early 1980s while researching my family’s genealogy and history in the state of Mississippi. My original text response for the One Word Project was also developed into a separate online art blog titled, Southern Obligation, which can be read here.

I wrote a lot of words in 2004 as part of the text portion of my response to the word, "Obligation." Many of my words at the time were inspired by my growing disgust over the pathetic state of contemporary American race relations, a poisoned state of race relations that for years prior Katrina, and especially in places like New Orleans, has fostered among many an increasingly paranoid level of fear, or worse, among others, a state of total denial.

Without context, the image “Church Burning” and the words “Church Burning” both tend to incite controversy, especially in the Deep South where I was born and raised. The original point of my photograph and written words was to creatively employ the use of art in an effort to crack the thin veneer of politically correct reactionary talking head surface dialogue that manipulatively functions to superficially cover up the cancer of racism in America.

It is my belief that Americans today (black, white and brown), are extremely reluctant to voice what their real concerns and fears are about each other. Since the end of legal segregation, blacks and whites in places like Mississippi and New Orleans (places where I was born, raised and have lived and know like the back of my hand) have instead mutually chosen to speak around one another (not directly to or with one another) using culturally coded and veiled language that barely masks a plenitude of deep-seated unresolved hostilities and resentments. “Church Burning” was my artistic attempt at the time to break through this entrenched cultural barrier toward a new level of honest dialogue.

When viewing "Church Burning" today, I am reluctantly motivated to write tens of thousands of pages about what has happened to New Orleans and the hundreds of people, including many of my family members and friends, that I personally know whose lives have been torn asunder by Katrina. I say reluctantly motivated because I know that if I were to finish the ten of thousands of pages that I could easily writer that I wouldn't stop there, but continue on for millions of pages more.

Prior to Katrina, when I first participated in the online version of the One Word Project, I used to spend a lot of my free time thinking about everything under the sun, including such important things at the status of the dysfunctional state of American race relations. Artists are supposed to do that, right, to think about everything and how everything that happens (or doesn’t happen) impacts every other thing, right?

Well, I don’t do that level of thinking anymore. After Katrina, the condition of New Orleans is all that I think about. New Orleans is certainly the only thing that most of us from New Orleans think about these days. Honestly, and the truth be told, New Orleans is the only thing in this world we probably care about. Katrina is a living nightmare for those of us from New Orleans that will not let us sleep.

J.T. Kirkland, the curator of the One Word Project exhibition, offered all of the participating artists in this current version of the project an opportunity to submit a rebuttal to their original submission.

My updated post-Katrina rebuttal to the word “Obligation” follows:

A Rebuttal to the Word “Obligation” by James W. Bailey

B.K. Time...

If it is true that the condition of art can change the meaning of the world, then it is more than true that the condition of the world can change the meaning of art.

The image “Church Burning” was created in B.K. time. For those of you who are not native New Orleanians, B.K. time means Before Katrina. In B.K. time, “Church Burning” was an attempt to explore the mythology of a black church in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans that supposedly was firebombed by racists in the 1920s.

I became fascinated by this story after hearing about it from several different white people from New Orleans who never actually lived in the Lower Ninth Ward, but who were positive that the story they told was true. Their story was that the church had been burned by members of the Ku Klux Klan and that the church congregation rallied together and immediately rebuilt it following the arson attack.

However, no one that told me this story was exactly sure of the location of the church. At the time I researched the Times-Picayune newspaper archives at the New Orleans Public Library and could find no news reports that confirmed the story.

I then spent the better part of a week driving and walking through the Lower Ninth Ward in an effort to locate the site of this church. I talked with more than 100 African-Americans, all of whom were life-long residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, and asked all with whom I spoke what they knew about the story of this church.

No one I spoke with knew anything about a black church in the Lower Ninth Ward that had been fire bombed by the KKK in the 1920s.

An elderly African-American gentleman that I met did, however, tell me a story about a black church that he knew about that had burned in the 1940s that was rebuilt. His story was that the church burned as a result of an electrical fire caused by faulty wiring and that the fire had nothing to do with arson or the Klan. The church that he directed me to that is located in the Lower Ninth Ward is the same church featured in the underlying composite images of “Church Burning”.

A.K. Time...

We New Orleanians are now living in A.K. time, After Katrina, and the complex mythologies of my beloved New Orleans are unraveling.

In B.K. time all of us (white, black or brown) thought we were American citizens.

In A.K. time all of us (especially black and brown) discovered that we are nothing more than “refugees” within our own country.

In B.K. time we naively thought that Americans appreciated our city for being one of the greatest cultural assets of our country.

In A.K. time we watched in stunned horror as America cynically allowed the cultural heart of its greatest city to drown and be destroyed.

The one thing that has held the faith of New Orleanians bound together against a challenging history of experiencing nearly 200 years of one disaster (natural or man-made) after another is the deep cultural investment we have made in connecting our lives and souls to the spiritual. No matter how horrible our situation, many in New Orleans have for generations sought solace and comfort in their neighborhood churches.

It is now two years after Katrina and more than 1,500 storm-damaged churches in New Orleans have yet to fully recover.

But let there be no myth-making about the truth of what ripped the spiritual life of New Orleans apart: The federal government of the United States of American authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a levee system that would withstand a direct hit of a Category 3 storm. The levees that collapsed during Katrina and destroyed 85% of New Orleans failed under Category 1 storm conditions as measured at the levee failure point of the 17th Street Canal in the city.

New Orleans was destroyed as a result of the greatest civil engineering failure in American history, a failure that was paid for by the United States taxpayers. More than 1,000 New Orleanians died because of the failure of the government of the United States of America to adequately protect American lives.

The word assigned to me for the One Word Project was “Obligation”.

In B.K. time I responded.

In A.K. time, I and my fellow New Orleanians continue to demand that the government that destroyed the heart and soul of our beautiful city rebuild it.

The United States government has an Obligation with no restrictive, delimiting or defining quote marks to do so. If America has the money to destroy Iraq in an effort to build a supposedly better and more democratic country, then America has more than enough money to fix New Orleans, America’s greatest city, and to fix it now.

***

REMEMBER

08.29.05

WE ARE NOT O.K.

***

WHO:

The Arts Club of Washington is pleased to present The One Word Project, a group exhibition that is the capstone of a three-year exploration of the triangular dialogue between artist, work, and viewer. This exhibition will feature more than 30 artists, including Reston-based artist/photographer, James W. Bailey, a native of New Orleans whose award-winning signature style of slash-and-burn black and white film photography, better known as “Rough Edge Photography”, has garnered much critical acclaim during the past few years.

WHAT:

The One Word Project exhibition is curated by Reston-based artist and art blogger, J.T. Kirland. This project originated in 2004 as an online venue featuring artists, their work and their written statements, that was first published on Kirkland’s art blog, Thinking About Art . In 2006, the One Word Project was published as a print book that featured many of the online artist participants.

WHEN:

The One Word Project exhibition runs from August 28 to September 29. An opening reception will be held on Friday, September 7 from 6:30-9:00pm. The exhibition is free and open to the public. Normal gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, from 10:00am - 5:00pm, and Saturday from 10:00am - 2:00pm.

WHERE:

The Arts Club of Washington is located at 2017 I Street, NW Washington, DC 20006. Visit their web site at for directions and more information.

About the One Word Project Exhibition:

Begun in 2004 as an online forum for stimulating artists to speak freely about their work, The One Word Project is a deliberate enactment of the 'conversation' between artist and viewer. Interested in seeking new ways to capture pure creative response, curator J.T. Kirkland distilled the traditional artist interview to its most basic element: a single word. After digesting the work of a self-selecting group of artists, Kirkland prompted each with a word of his choosing, to which each artist was asked to respond in approximately100–500 words. The resulting statements—which vary in length, approach, and relevance to the original word—offer a written correlative that informs and enhances the viewer's appreciation of the artist's work.

For Kirkland, the process of making art is as valuable and interesting as the work itself. The One Word Project reveals a fascination with the translation from artist mind to realized art object. The single word prompt minimizes the polluting influence of the viewer's agenda; spurred by an intentionally open-ended stimulus, the resulting self-articulation offers unfiltered insights into process.

In 2006, the work and words of The One Word Project artists were collected in a full-color art book of the same title. The current exhibition represents the natural conclusion of this three-year arc. Each piece is accompanied by Kirkland's word and the artists' response, offering a rare glimpse into the mind of the artist by both visual and verbal avenues. Viewers are encouraged to add their own impressions to the 'conversation'.

The exhibition features work by:

James W. Bailey (VA)
Rachael Baldanza (NY)
Joseph Barbaccia (VA)
Gregg Chadwick (CA)
J. Coleman (DC)
Anna Conti (CA)
Warren Craghead III (VA)
Rosetta DeBerardinis (MD)
Greg Ferrand (DC)
D. Keith Furon (CA)
Matt Hollis (DC)
Candace Keegan (MD)
Angela Kleis (DC)
Tara Krause (CA)
Andrew Krieger (DC)
Prescott Moore Lassman (DC)
James Leonard (NY)
Nathan Manuel (DC)
Jennifer McMackon (Ontario, Canada)
Jennifer Miller (DC)
A.B. Miner (DC)
Charles Neenan (VA)
Peter Reginato (NY)
Jose Ruiz (NY)
Wayne Schoenfeld (CA)
Kathleen Shafer (DC)
Alexandra Silverthorne (DC)
Marsha Stein (MD)
Trish Tillman (NY)
Kelly Towles (DC)
Bryan Whitson (DC)
Jamie Wimberly (DC).

The Power of the Web

A while back I showed you the below drawing ("Woman on the Moon About to be Swept Off Her Feet by a Flying Bald Man"). The drawing itself was sold at my last Washington, DC solo.

"Woman on the Moon About to be Swept Off Her Feet by a Flying Bald Man"

Greendoor Films saw it and now they will be using it in their current documentary about Superman titled "Last Son." Get a peek of the movie trailer here or click below...

Opportunity for Latino and/or Hispanic and Latin American Artists

Teresa Diaz is a curator searching for DC Area Latino/Latin American Artists as she currently has several curatorial endeavors in the DC Area and is trying to expand to other cities.

Interested artists should send her an email to terediaz@yahoo.com with your website, or four samples of web resolution images of your work.

In the near future you may take a look at my website (currently under construction) at www.latinovisualsource.com

Art Job

Deadline Sept. 17, 2007

Carnegie Mellon University is currently looking for a gallery director for the Regina Gouger Miller Gallery at the College of Fine Arts of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University is comprised of the five Schools of Architecture, Art, Design, Drama and Music; the Studio for Creative Inquiry; and the Regina Gouger Miller Gallery. They are presently searching for a Gallery Director to be responsible for the stewardship, management and curatorial programming of the 9,000-square-foot Regina Gouger Miller Gallery in the Purnell Center for the Arts.

Salary: Negotiable

Application Deadline: September 17, 2007

Submit applications online via this website Position #3324

Heard online

"The new [Washington Post Style & Arts] section will indeed have coverage of local artists and local galleries. Check out the Studio feature. We're going to run one like that every week and we hope to get lots of submissions from local professional artists. Contact style@washingtonpost.com or art critic Blake Gopnik or arts editor John Pancake or arts editorial aide Rachel Beckman."

Deborah Heard
Washington Post
Asst. Managing Editor for Style

The bold accent is mine. Read the whole online exchange here. This means that Blake Gopnik's boss, under the new focus of the revamped Washington Post Arts & Style section, has directed him to begin "coverage of local artists and local galleries."

Be careful of what you wish for - but hey! coverage of the Greater DC area art galleries by the DC area's main newspaper's art critic is what Gopnik's bosses should have expected from Blake from day one.

I guess that Blake now will be hitting Mapquest to figure out where the Greater DC area's art galleries are located.

Wynn is Winning

A couple of weeks ago I pointed you towards the work of DC area painter and new blogger Wynn Creasy.

The CP's Joe Eaton has a really good article in the current issue of the CP discussing Wynn's take the bull by the horns attitude towards her artwork. She makes some good points and also makes one erroneous generalization about art galleries and dealers' commissions - but it's a common misconception by emerging artists - but hey! this lady is charging forward!

Read it here.

Job in the Arts

The WPA/C is looking for a new Membership Director; this is a full time staff position. The Membership Director is primarily responsible for maintaining the Membership and Patron and ArtFile Online databases, processing membership renewals, editing and distributing the weekly WPA\C newsletter and bi-annual Artist Directory, and maintaining the organization’s website. In addition to these regular duties, the Membership Director will assist other staff members on an as-needed basis to help complete projects and mount exhibitions.

Please send a cover letter, resume, and several writing samples to:

Human Resources
Corcoran Gallery of Art
500 17th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006-4804

Everything but Art

The Washington Post's new "Style & Arts" section debuted yesterday.

Here it is, and ahem... I couldn't find any art reviews in it.

Where's the art?

Deborah E. Heard, assistant managing editor for Style, will be online today, Monday, Aug. 27 at 2 p.m. ET to field your questions and comments about the new Style & Arts section.

Submit your questions here.

This is a good opportunity for anyone so inclined to contact Ms. Heard and express the dismay that we all feel about the Washington Post's spectacular apathy towards the DC area visual arts scene outside of our great DC area museums. Please be courteous.

Fact: When Ms. Heard predecessor, Eugene Robinson took over as editor of Style, he inherited a section that had a weekly column dedicated to art galleries (the "Galleries" column) and a second weekly column (the Arts Beat column) which was focused mostly on the visual arts and on arts news. Under Mr. Robinson, the Arts Beat column was reduced to twice a month, and refocused on all the arts (most of which already get decent coverage in Style.

Fact: Eugene Robinson also began the process to let Blake Gopnik get away with only reviewing (with one or two very rare exceptions) museums, thus having the nation's only art critic too good to review his city's artists and art galleries.

Fact: On July 6, 2006, Steve Reiss (the Style section's Asst. Editor) stated online: "As for Blake Gopnik, he is a prolific writer and I find it hard to argue that we should be giving up reviews of major museum shows so he can write more about galleries that have a much smaller audience."

Fact: When Robinson left, under Deborah Heard, the coverage got even worse, with "Galleries" being reduced to twice a month. That adds up to around 25 columns a year to review the thousand or so gallery shows that the DC area gallery art scene has to offer.

Fact: On March 15, 2005, Deborah Heard was online and someone asked her:

Washington, D.C.: When are gallery reviews going to start running every week again? Are you currently seeking a new freelance galleries critic?

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.

Memo to Ms. Heard: It has been two years. When are you going to reassess the new section's gallery coverage so that it is at least on a par with the new section's coverage of theatre, music, dance, opera, etc.?

While I was gone...

Capps & Andrews steal hottie online vote!

She's incandescent; when bearded he's a Cuban-lookalike... so that helps!

The usually weird details here, and here and here and a ton of comments here.

A beardless Capps and Catherine yak about it here.

I see a future in the Louisiana or Chicago Democratic Machines for these two.

Lorton Arts Center

The WaPo's Annie Gowen has a big two-page spread with 7 images about the new Lorton Arts Center in Virginia right off I-95.

Read it here.

"The arts center will likely be one of the most high-profile amenities in Laurel Hill, where organizers envision not just studio spaces for artists but also two restaurants, a theater, an event center, music programming in a nearby barn, a museum and lofts where artists can live and work."

Fundraising Auction

On November 3, 2007, Equality Maryland, together with students from the University of Maryland Pride Alliance, will be hosting "Equality Beats," a benefit to support Equality Maryland's efforts to secure full marriage equality for same-sex couples in the State of Maryland. The benefit will bring together cultural activities with activism, complete with music, a silent auction of donated artwork, a raffle, and activism campaigns targeting state legislators from the home districts of the people attending. The event will feature a number of high-profile local LGBT and allied musical and comedy acts, DJ's, and low-cost food and drink.

I am donating a piece of my own work and any other artists wishing to donate artwork as prizes for their raffle or silent auction, or if you have any questions about Equality Maryland or this event, please contact Patrick Wojahn at 240-988-7763 or plwojahn@gmail.com or send to:

Equality Beats Silent Auction
Equality Maryland
1319 Apple Ave.
Silver Spring, MD 20910

New arts blog

Studio Frido, based partially in Manchester, MD that has developed a unique process for generating art from small natural and man-made objects. They use "a patent-pending process to transform microscopic computed tomography (CT) scans of natural and man-made objects into works of art. Studio Frido is dedicated to furthering cancer research, children’s education, and general appreciation for the inner beauty of all things."

They also have a blog here and have created a unique print series for the cancer benefit auction at the Scott Carter's Heroes Golf Classic in Tulsa, Oklahoma on August 27, 2007.

Gold

By Shauna Lee Lange

A little over two years ago, Irene Winter, Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard University, gave a talk on the ancient Assyrian site Nimrud and the Queen's ornate crown at the National Gallery. Winter spoke in exacting detail about the aesthetics of radiance, Summarian burial practices, the politics of acquisition, and practices stemming out of antiquities legislation all in connection with her life's work in art and archaeology.

I am not certain why, but what stuck with me was the gold and its immutable nature. I remember viewing slides of gold used over ivory, gold clustered stars, gold appearing as textiles, gold earrings and armlets worn by men, gold bracelets inlaid with turquoise and lapis, gold rosettes, Christian ornamentation and halos, and yes - gold Buddahs.

When you think about it, gold has a certain aura, a living vitality, a shimmering light. It's power, heat, shine, and luster. It's the golden calf, the representation of the sun, the great dome in Jerusalem. Gold is radiance, luminosity, emanating, strong, and durable. It's a strong cultural response. It's a visual and neurobiological reaction that grabs the eye and stimulates pleasure. Gold manifests outwardly, reflecting inner nature.

A high-end experience, gold is - and that's why I love it. It's vitality, auspiciousness, allure, and beauty. It's seductive, compelling, lovely, splendorous, and glorious. This malleable mineral, while today being expensive, also denoted money and wealth in its own accord all those years ago. It can be considered somewhat controversial. A thinking man has to ask what's the morality of luxurious acquisition and excess in a world of demise and suffering?

But to the artist, gold is greed and need. Who among us is satiated with only one hit of Klimt's gold foil, leaf, and paint? No. No. No. We need gold's lift again and again. Give us hearts of gold. Let us hold ourselves to the gold standard. Award us all the gold medal for courage in creating. Let us all live on the gold coast or by the golden rule (if we so choose). Please protect us all from the gold diggers and let us each come across our very own golden opportunity. The luxury of a luminous lift.

Airborne Today


Heading back home... this post from St. Louis Airport, where the gate display says that my flight is departing on time (at 6:50PM). As it is now 6:49PM, I asked the nice AA gate attendant if the flight is going to be late. She says "we're waiting on the pilot to let us know if we're going to be late."

At 7:00PM the multimillion dollar airport display system still has the flight departing at 6:50PM. Someone notices and it goes black.

At 7:12PM the announcement is made that the flight will depart at 9:30PM. The reason: "We're waiting for the captain."

Usual translation: the crew for this flight was re-scheduled on the go to another flight whose crew didn't show up on time, but has a higher priority to depart on time because of arrival time restrictions, and as there are no back-ups in today's austere flying environment, which somehow manages to lose money in spite of filling every seat on the flight, the airlines now has to gather a "new" crew from those on break, or re-assign another crew as the arrival time domino effect begins to take place.

Overdue Recognition

A Master Works Challenge and Artist Reception will be held Saturday, August 25, 2007, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m at the Overdue Recognition Art Gallery, 6816 RaceTrack Road, Bowie, Maryland.

The event culminates an opportunity for both new and established artists to show their works and compete for a private reception. The challenge ran from June 23 - July 28, 2007 and each artist produced works within the time constraints.

Participants include: Pamela Hilliard; Karen Y. Buster; Larry "Poncho" Brown; James Redd; Deborah A. Shedrick; James Murphy; Yolanda Redd; and Larry O. Brown.

Overdue Recognition owners, Jackie and Derrick Thompson, along with Authentic Art Consulting curator Sharon Burton, will jury the show and decide which of the talented artists will receive a gallery showcasing at Overdue Recognition Art Gallery this late fall.

Ms. Thompson stated, "I'm very excited about the show. It has always been a goal of ours to give new artists a venue to show their work, and we're hoping to make this an annual event."

For more information, contact Overdue Recognition Gallery at 1-866-726-8642, or (301) 805-8812 or e-mail: jackie.thompson@overduerecognition.com

Multiplicity

Three artists from New Jersey, Don Simon, Luke Weichmann, and Charles Katzenbach, will be exhibiting their art work at StrataSphere, an exhibition space in Philadelphia.

The exhibition is entitled Multiplicity, which refers to the idea of repetition and duplication. The show, curated by Carol Taylor-Kearney, will be at StrataSphere from August 25th through September 29th. An opening reception for the show is from 2pm until 5pm on Saturday, August 25th.

Job in the Arts

The Honfleur Gallery, a project of the ARCH Development Corporation, is
seeking a very self motivated individual who is capable of working in a team
based environment reporting to the Gallery Director, Creative Director and at
times the CEO. Applicant must bring a sense of enthusiasm to the 2008 season
and be able to speak clearly and knowledgably to clients & potential funders.

Fundraising and Development responsibilities are as follows:
• Creation of Corporate Giving Plans & Exhibition Sponsorships
• Gallery Membership Maintenance and Development
• Outreach including government, community and individuals
• List Creation and Maintenance
• At times, Exhibition Support and Press Announcements
• Representation Follow Up and Assistance
• General Research & Development pertaining to both funding and artist support
• Occasional support with grant proposals and meetings

Individual must be able to identify and prioritize the needs of the gallery. Honfleur is seeking increases in the following areas; Individual buyers,
Corporate buyers/sponsors and Grant assistance.

Salary commensurate with experience.

Requirements:
Bachelors Degree
At least 3 years Development Experience
Some type of artistic background ie visual, music, film etc…
Microsoft Suite

Deadline for applications is September 7th 2007. Please submit a current
resume/CV with references and a one page writing sample to: arts@archdc.org.

Hollywooding

After the usual nightmare that is guaranteed to occur when one flies from Philadelphia Airport, arrived in San Diego, which had the also usual perfect day, and drove to Hollywood to see my daughter and some friends.

Windy streets overlooking Universal City and the whole valley below afforded a spectacular sunset view from every room in the house, and also discovered that a few doors down was William Shatner's home.

It got me to think how Captain Kirk is a living example not only to actors but artists of all sorts.

If anyone could have been typecast by early success it was Shatner. The cult status of Star Trek gave Shatner and Nimoy and others worldwide fame and also could have trapped Shatner into a typecast (like it did for Adam West for example) role.

Shatner grabbed the typecast noose and instead of succumbing to the temptation to give up, he used it to rope us all in and kept re-inventing himself and coming back generation after generation, be it via TJ Hooker or Boston Legal or even that forgettable recording of that Elton John song that shall remain nameless.

This is a lesson for visual artists as well. Witness the typecasting of Piet Mondrian's work once he discovered the success formula for his best-known body of works.

Picasso once said "God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the ant. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things."

That's what Shatner did and there's a lesson in there for young visual artists.

Bravo Captain!

Airborne Today


Heading out to La Jolla, California for a week of work, fun and some beach running. More later...

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: January 8, 2008

Sarasota, FL - "Embracing Our Differences" invites artists, photographers, professionals, amateurs, teachers and students to participate in its 5th annual visual art exhibit celebrating diversity. National and international submissions are encouraged. 39 artists will be selected for the exhibit.

"The Embracing Our Differences exhibit will be displayed throughout the month of April 2008 at Island Park along Sarasota's beautiful bayfront. The exhibit will also be displayed throughout the month of May 2008 in North Port, Florida. Since 2004, the exhibit has been viewed by more than 400,000 visitors. The exhibit will contain 39 billboard-sized (16 feet wide by 12 1/2 feet high) images of the selected artworks. Final selections will be chosen based on artistic excellence in reflection of the theme "Embracing Our Differences". The art-work will also be evaluated on how effectively it will read outdoors when enlarged to billboard size - 16 feet wide by 12 1/2 feet high. Artists are encouraged to use bold saturated colors and strong lines. Final selections will be made by a 3-judge panel of professional artists, curators and art professionals. A total of $2,500.00 in awards will be presented.

For more information please visit the "website or email: info@embracingourdifferences.org

Opportunity for Artists of Cuban Heritage

Deadline: January 14, 2008

The Cintas Foundation invites applications in the visual arts including painting, sculpture, installation art, design, video art, photography and filmmaking. The fellowship is awarded annually in the amount of $15,000 and is generously funded by the Emilio Sanchez Foundation.

Eligibility is limited to artists of Cuban citizenship or direct descent (having a Cuban parent or grandparent) living outside of Cuba. The fellowship is not awarded to artists currently pursuing academic studies. The fellowship is not awarded for academic writing, study, or research or to performing artists. The Cintas fellow is free to pursue their artistic activities as they wish according to their application, in the United States or in other countries approved by the Cintas Foundation.

Since 1963, Cintas Fellowships have honored over 300 artists of Cuban ancestry including including Carlos Alfonzo, Teresita Fernández, Anthony Goicolea, photographers Andres Serrano and María Martínez-Cañas, sculptor Maria Elena González, filmmaker Mari Rodríquez-Ichaso, among others.

The application deadline for the Cintas Foundation Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts is January 14, 2008. For more information and application forms, please visit the website www.cintasfoundation.org or contact: Ingrid LaFleur Rogers, Cintas Fellows Collection Manager, at ingrid.rogers@fiu.edu.

Arts Job

With the recent departure of Pamela G. Holt, Maryland Citizens for the Arts’ (MCA) Executive Director, the MCA Board has initiated a formal search process for a new Executive Director.

The job opening announcement and position description is posted online here.

Shifts and Moves

I've been hearing for the last few weeks of a major move by one of DC's key galleries which will also bring along another gallery to its new location. More later - after the closing for the building is done!

I also hear about another major DC arts presence which will also be moving in the near future. More later on that as well.

And Provisions has to move soon as well...

The Mural Stays

A Philadelphia city appeals board on Tuesday unanimously rejected a Historical Commission order to remove a mural painted on the wall of a building in the Rittenhouse-Fitler Residential Historic District. Peirce College, whose campus is across the street, had complained to the Historical Commission.

Score one for art, one less for burocracy.

Read the story by Joseph A. Slobodzian in the Inquirer here.

Media, Pennsylvania

Check out this very cool video of the little town that I settled in after my move from DC. It's part of a contest sponsored by IKEA and if you feel like it, vote for Media. So far it's number one in the whole nation! Winner gets a Main Street "makeover."

See the video here.

Trawick Finalists Announced

The artists selected as Trawick Prize finalists are:

Mary Coble, Washington, D.C.

Mary Early, Washington, D.C.

Suzanna Fields, Richmond, VA

Inga Frick, Washington, D.C.

Jeanine Harkleroad, Chesapeake, VA

Linda Hesh, Alexandria, VA

Baby Martinez, Washington, D.C.

Kathleen Shafer, Washington, D.C.

Jo Smail, Baltimore, MD

Bruce Wilhelm, Richmond, VA

Nicholas F. Wisniewski, Baltimore, MD

The jurors for this year's Trawick are Anne Ellegood, Associate Curator at the Hirschhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden; Amy G. Moorefield, Assistant Director and Curator of Collections for Virginia Commonwealth University’s Anderson Gallery and Rex Stevens, Chair of the General Fine Arts Department at Maryland Institute College of Art. Catriona Fraser, owner of the Fraser Gallery in downtown Bethesda, is the non-voting Chair of The Trawick Prize.

The Trawick Prize is clearly the DC area region's premier fine arts prize and once again kudos to Ms. Trawick! Lots of surprises on who was dropped from the semi-finalists' list. A public opening will be held at Creative Partners Gallery on Friday, September 14, 2007 from 6-9pm in conjunction with the Bethesda Art Walk. Creative Partners Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12-6pm.

I've got my money on Mary Coble!

Talcott on Modernism

The WaPo's Jacqueline Trescott has a really good article on the results of the Corcoran's much heralded Modernism exhibition.

This follows on the WaPo's former Chief Art Critic (and now mostly a resident of soggy Scotland) Paul Richard, writing a while back about the disappointing numbers of visitors attending the Corcoran's mega exhibit "Modernism."

But eventually the show drew "93,000 visitors over 116 days, an average of 801 a day. The projected attendance was 100,000," so I guess that it did OK, especially when viewed in the perspective that this was the Corcoran's most expensive exhibition ever ($2 million), and its third most visited ever -- "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years" was open for six months in 2002 and had 153,000 visitors. In 2004, "Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms: Paintings That Inspired a Nation" attracted 110,000 visitors in five months.

Last March I was elated to discover that a major Frida Kahlo exhibition was coming to Philly from the Walker Art Center, where it was curated by Michael Taylor; from Philly it will travel to SFMOMA.

I was a little disappointed that this show is not traveling to any DC area museum; it would have been a perfect blockbuster for the Corcoran, but I suspect that those decisions were made prior to Paul Greenhalgh arriving to take the helm of the Corcoran.

Another positive development revealed by Greenhalgh was that they "got 1,800 new members, and that was a dramatic success." He also told Talcott that "he hopes to do a survey of the postmodernist movement in late 2010."

Postmodernism survey? Yawn...

Of course, a while back I had some ideas for some megashows that the Corcoran or other museums should consider. Here they are again + a new one:

Mega Art Show Ideas

Frida Kahlo - In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), will present a major exhibition of the artist’s paintings spanning her career. Curated by art historian and Kahlo biographer Hayden Herrera and Walker Associate Curator Elizabeth Carpenter, Frida Kahlo will open at the Walker October 27, 2007 – January 20, 2008, before traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and SFMOMA. Why Kahlo is not coming to any DC museum is a mystery to me, and I can already hear the k'ching of cash registers in those museums selling posters, books, etc.

The Art of Comic Books - Hollywood gets it, so when will the artworld get it? Comic book characters generate big bucks for la la land, and I suspect that a massive survey of original artwork by both the vintage artists of the early to mid 20th century, as well as the cult icons like Frank Frazetta, Berni Wrightson and others, coupled with the young new hard guys and gals is sure to (a) expose the brilliant genre of art that is comic book art, and (b) get huge lines to see the original boards for Superman, or Batman, or Spidey, or Frazetta's spectacular series of Conan, The Barbarian illustrations.

PostSecret - Why someone hasn't done this on a massive scale is beyond me. Imagine a museum lined up with 100,000 postcards of Frank Warren's secrets. If they stood in lines around the block when the WPA/C did it in hard-to-get-to and hard-to-park Georgetown, imagine what it would do in a highly visible museum setting and to that scale.

The Ivy League and Seven Sisters Nude Photographs - It was an apparently long-established and bizarre custom at most Ivy League and Seven Sisters schools for incoming freshmen to pose nude for a series of photographs. In some cases, pins were attached with adhesive to their backbones at regular intervals from the neck down. These "posture photos" were in some of these schools a routine feature of freshman orientation week, and designed to "discover" those students with an erratic postural curve, and those were then required to attend remedial "posture classes." I kid thee not. Both George Bush presidents, Bob Woodward and many other now famous folks were required to do it at Yale. At Vassar, Meryl Streep did it, and at Wellesley, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Diane Sawyer also did it. Can you imagine the lines of people waiting to peek at a naked Dubya?

Ansel Adams Revealed - There are some fill-in-the-blank American art icons whose name alone guarantees a mega show because their art has become part of the American identity. In addition to Adams, other such artists include Georgia O'Keefe, Norman Rockwell, Andrew Wyeth, Andy Warhol and maybe Hopper. Because the Library of Congress owns thousands of Ansel Adams negatives created while Adams worked for the Dept. of the Interior, I suspect that a hard-working curator could dig and put together an exhibition of seldom seen Adamses.

Sports Art - People are always yapping about political art (yawn), which is simply another genre or subject that artists look at once in a while. And if we simply consider focusing an art exhibition on a particular subject matter, just to get a general survey as to what artists are doing on that particular subject, then a potential idea would be a survey of sports-related art. What has happened in this genre since the great George Bellows paintings? Some photos have become an iconic part of Americana, such as the great Ali - Liston photos. What else is out there?

Other interesting ideas (not guaranteed to be mega exhibits):

Ebay Artists - At any given time there are around 150,000 lots classified as art on Ebay and around 12,000 by self-representing artists. Ebay is generally where bottom-feeders dwell (for the most part) in the world of art. But we also know that it's not that unusual anymore for museum curators to occasionally troll through Ebay looking for specific stuff. Can a decent exhibition be curated from the massive numbers of artwork being exposed through Ebay? Just an exhibition of copy cats may be fun.

Blank Canvas - Imagine that a local museum sets up 100 4 ft. x 4 ft. blank canvasses on easels and sets up an online and snail mail lottery where artists from all over the world submit their details and at a certain point 100 of them are picked at random via a lottery style (or a curated process I guess) and selected to come to the museum for a specific period of time and create a painting live and in situ.

Googlart - A variation of the above, but a more contemporary approach, where the museum sets up 25 big LCD screens in a cool minimalist way, and each screen in hooked up online and connected to a wireless keyboard somewhere else in the museum, where visitors can type in some sort of search parameter and using some new dorky CGI script of whatever, in conjunction with Google Image Search, be constantly presenting images on the screen, say 10 seconds each? Because this is the USA, some sort of safety net to try to avoid porn would be needed, so perhaps a hidden human in the loop to prevent porn from going to the screens may be a good idea. Get Google to sponsor the exhibition, pay for the screens and for the minimal software development and you're set!

The New Idea

"Castro's Cuba: A Survey of Contemporary Cuban Artists." Guaranteed to cause tons of protests and perhaps even some vandalism when it travels to Miami! The "can't touch" mystery of this jailed island and its brutal dictator has always had a magnetic romanticism to Americans, and the title alone will ensure that the interest and curiosity of both visitors to the DC area and local Washingtonians is raised. When I co-curated "From Here and From There: Artists from the Cuban Diaspora," I knew that there was interest in the subject, which ended up being our most successful exhibition ever, both in terms of sales and spectacular press coverage. Couple the survey with filling one of the galleries with historical photographs of the Cuban revolution borrowed from the Library of Congress, and this not only puts the survey in some sort of context, but also gives the public lots of photos of the superphotogenic Che Guevara and other young bearded guerrilla gods.

Success guaranteed and also guaranteed to get a few museums interested in the show as well.

Elvisversary

Today is the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, and below is a drawing that I did while I was in art school 30 years ago, upon hearing that the King had died. It is titled "Marilyn Monroe and Frida Kahlo waiting in icon heaven for Elvis Presley."

"Marilyn Monroe and Frida Kahlo waiting in icon heaven for Elvis Presley"
24 x 20 inches c. 1977, ink wash on paper

Capturing the New Berlin

Official, private, and intimate – Berlin is seen and captured in the Goethe-Institut’s exhibition Portrait: Berlin – Contemporary Photography and Video Art. From August 22 - September 27, 2007.

Stefanie Bürkle – Daniela Comani – Oliver Godow– Armin Häberle – Frank Hülsbömer – Jens Liebchen – Wiebke Loeper – Gerhard Kassner – Christian Rothmann – Mariana Vassileva – Brigitte Waldach.

Curated by Matthias Harder, Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin. Opening reception on Wednesday, August 22, 6 – 8 pm with photographer Christian Rothmann.

RSVP to 202-289-1200 ext. 165

Roadin'

I was out on the road all day on Wednesday... more later.

Wanna go to a closing reception in Baltimore?

The very talented Baltimore-based photographer Sofia Silva is closing her exhibition "Suburban Spaces, SOFIA SILVA," this coming Thursday August 16th, from 5 to 7pm. At RTKL Associates Inc. 901 S. Bond Street, Baltimore, MD 21231. RSVP to sofia@sofiasilvafoto.com.

Art Job

Curator of Exhibitions: Arts Council of Princeton

Deadline: August 31, 2007

The Arts Council of Princeton, a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization celebrating its 40th anniversary, is seeking a Curator of Exhibitions to oversee the contemporary exhibition program in its new Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, scheduled to open this fall in downtown Princeton. The new arts center, designed by internationally renowned architect Michael Graves, is anticipated to be the most prominent and important contemporary art space in the greater Princeton region. This is a part-time position that will work with the Executive Director and an Exhibition Advisory Committee to develop plans for an exhibition program focused on the works of established to emerging living artists. Interested candidates should send resume, letter of inquiry, three references and salary requirements to jksapoch@comcast.net by August 31, 2007. For more information about the Arts Council of Princeton visit.

DC Gallery Job

NW DC successful cooperative gallery seeks sales oriented, organized and energetic individual with experience in the visual arts to manage all aspects of gallery operations and sales.

Ideal candidate will have good communication skills to work successfully with customers, the Gallery's Board of Directors, and member artists; be highly organized to maintain show schedules and gallery records; be comfortable with basic office computer skills including Internet, customer database management and standard office software. Must be available for gallery hours: W-Th 1-7, Fri 1-8, Sat.1-6., and attend some member meetings and receptions.

The Director is responsible for promoting and conducting sales during gallery hours and at gallery receptions. The Director also works with all member artists to produce successful shows. Director engages in patron contact, customer list development, website oversight, media release drafting and submission, and advertising copy development. Motivation to work for sales commissions a must. Salary plus commission. Contact: Raymonde van Santen Ph: 301-365-6826; rvansanten2@verizon.net or Carol Rubin: Ph: 301-986-4549.

Art for new Nats ballpark

Michael Neibauer, in The Examiner reveals that "Mayor Adrian Fenty has moved to shift $770,000 from the city's equipment leasing fund and into the budget of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which will use it to purchase artwork, including sculptures, for the 41,000-seat stadium."

Read the article here.

I betcha that Joe Barbaccia and Adam Bradley and Mark Jenkins could come up with a couple of new cool baseballism sculptures.

Smaller and Smaller

Lately I've been drawing in a very small scale - for example, the below drawing, which is titled "A Rabbi, slightly upset because he's just been told that his glasses are very trendy these days," is about two inches high by 1.5 inches wide.

Death of an artist

The Gazette newspapers' Karen Schafer has a really touching article on the death at 46 of Maryland photographer Michael Evan Thomas.

Read it here.

New arts blog

New to me anyway. Not only is Virginia/DC area painter Wynn Creasey doing a painting a day in her blog, but also adding interesting commentary and thoughts.

Visit her blog here.

PostSecret Video

Like everything that Frank Warren does, his first PostSecret Video is both classy and superbly done!

Wanna own a Campello?

The Hopkinton Senior Center in Hopkinton, Massachusetts has inherited (from a very well-known collector) two of my drawings from the early 1990s. They are both original charcoal and conte drawings.

One is a portrait of Picasso and the other of my daughter Elise. If you are interested make them an offer on both or either one by calling Judi Allessio at (508) 497-9730 or email her at jallessio@hopkinton.org. Images below.

City Papers

In Baltimore, Deborah McLeod reviews Adrienne Figus, Elizabeth Graeber, and Lexy Singer at the Sheppard Art Gallery.

In Philly, Robin Rice reviews Philadelphia Stories: The Building of a Great American City at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, and Mary Wilson picks YouthArtWorks at Asian Arts Initiative.

In DC, Kriston Capps picks Useless at Project 4 and Maura Judkis picks Earth on Stone on Earth Is Naturally So at Flashpoint.

Today in Bethesda

Today, Friday, August 10th, is the second Friday of the month and thus it's the Bethesda Art Walk with 13 participating art venues and with free guided tours.

From 6-9PM - go see some artwork!