Congrats!

To Philly area artist Charles Burwell a new 2008 Pew Fellowships in the Arts recipient!

Mr. Burwell will receive a $60,000 Fellowship - an increase of $10,000 from previous years -and the largest such grants in the country from which individual artists can apply.

This year the awards went to artists working in folk and traditional arts, painting and playwriting, and were selected from a pool of 323 applicants.

"We are proud to continue Pew's long-standing commitment to the community of artists in Philadelphia and delighted to support this year's Pew Fellows in recognition of their exemplary contributions to the artistic vitality of our city and region," noted Marian Godfrey, Managing Director, Culture and Civic Initiatives of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Burwell is represented in Philadelphia by the Bridgette Mayer Gallery.

The full list of award winners is here. Other visual artists in the list include Matthew Cox, Anne Seidman and Mauro Zamorra.

Congrats to all!

New Virginia Gallery

Ayr Hill Gallery will hold its Grand Opening Celebration on Friday, June 27, 2008, 5 PM to 8 PM, at 141 Church Street, NW, in Vienna, Virginia. Featured artists Armand Cabrera and Kathryn Ellis will attend the reception.

Canapés, confections, and conviviality will be served. To be included on the guest list, please send your name and mailing address to info@ayrhillgallery.com or call 703-938-3880; additional guests will be accommodated as space permits. Free and open to the public.

On the air next week

Next week I'll be on the Kojo Nnamdi Show discussing the Greater Washington area visual arts and artists and art stories as I usually do several times a year.

Tune in to WAMU 88.5 FM around noon; as soon as I have a final date (looks like Thursday, 26 June), I'll confirm it.

If you have any questions or art issues, you can call Kojo during the show at (800) 433-8850 or you can email him questions to kojo@wamu.org.

ICA drops admission cost

Beginning July 1, 2008, entry to Philly's Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) will be free to the public for the first time in its history. This unprecedented initiative was made possible by a generous gift from Glenn R. Fuhrman, who is an ICA Overseer and a contemporary art collector.

Museum Residency

Deadline: Postmarked by Monday, July 14, 2008

Applications are being accepted for three artist-in-residence positions at the Newark Museum Arts Workshop for the month of January 2009. The residency offers three artists the opportunity to use the Museum’s professional facilities for creating new work. A stipend will be paid to selected artists. This year because the Newark Museum is celebrating the 100th year of its founding, artists are being asked to submit proposals that relate to this milestone event.

How to Apply: First, there is no application form to fill out, references to seek or fees to pay. Please send 10 JPEG images at 300 dpi on a CD, or a video/film clip of five minutes or less of your current work along with resume, artist statement, residency proposal and SASE. Do please include a hardcopy list of your images and information about them and how or in what manner they should be viewed.

Stipend: Each artist receives a stipend of $1200.00. This includes artist acting as juror to select the next round of Newark Museum Resident Artists for 2010. In addition, in-kind material and technical support is supplied to each artist depending on project needs. Send application material to:

Stephen McKenzie
Manager
The Newark Museum
Arts Workshop for Adults
49 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102-3176

Email address: smckenzie@newarkmuseum.org

Call for 3D artists

Alexandria's Gallery West has a call for 3D artwork. Jurying will be from the artwork itself— no slides or CDs. Jury selection is Monday, July 7, 2008, between 11am – 6pm. The opening reception for selected works will be on Saturday, July 12, 5 – 8pm.

Download the entry form from their website.

Affordable Art Fair: Final Report

Read it here.

Wanna go to a Germantown, MD opening?

Richard Vosseller's "Failure Is An Option" has an opening reception on June 21, 5:30 - 7:30 at the Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Maryland.

Emerging Artists

Having just returned from NYC, one of the side effects of the art fair phenomenon is the fact that through them many regional emerging artists are exposed to savvy art audiences in places like New York. Case in point is Norfolk's Sheila Giolitti, and last weekend was her first exposure to New York's art audiences and she sold about a dozen oil paintings!

Who are your notable emerging artist(s) in your town and area?

Go here, sign in (it's free) and give us a link to their website. Then maybe later we'll do a poll and see who emerges as the top 2-3 emerging artists around the nation to keep an eye on...

Richard Edson

Annie Adjchavanich returns to the DC area to present Richard Edson photographs from the series "Beyond the Valley of the Micro Bops."

Preview the show here.

The opening is Thursday, June 19, 8 - 11pm and the exhibition goes through June 29, 2008.

Jackie's Backroom Gallery
8081 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD

Artomatic to close tomorrow

Washington, DC's Artomatic 2008 comes to a close Sunday, June 15 at 10 pm. If you've already been, go again. There's so much to see and do. I've made the rounds half a few times and each time I discover new art, great music and performances. Make sure you drop a few bucks in the Artomatic donation boxes to help with expenses.

Also, there's a Glass Art Tour of Artomatic, on Sunday, June 15 at 2pm. By popular demand, one more tour on the last day of Artomatic! Please meet in the lobby of Artomatic between 1:45pm-2pm for a guided glass tour of Artomatic. Join Washington Glass School artists Cheryl Derricotte, Sean Hennessey and others as they lead you directly to all the great glass on exhibit this year. You will then ride up together to the 11th floor to begin and walk down to the 4th floor so comfortable shoes are suggested. The tour will depart the lobby at 2pm and concludes by 3:30pm.

Derivative Composition

A while back I was honored to be one of three jurors for VSA's "Derivative Composition" juried exhibition at the Kennedy Center.

The Derivative Composition exhibition at the Kennedy Center will be installed this coming Monday. I’m told that it is one of the most ambitious and interesting exhibitions that VSA has produced to date.

The opening is scheduled for Thursday, June 26, beginning at 5 pm. Several of the artists (which come from all over the country) will be attending. In addition, they will host two exclusive performances:

Mark Wittig, from Oklahoma, will present the performance component of his installation, To Have Straights. The performance will emphasize the potential of the physical act as a learning tool.

The Skin, by artist Emily Eifler, will awaken and walk among guests. The textural, full body costume serves to represent a visual boundary that recalls a different, invisible boundary: disability

Steinhauer on the Affordable Art Fair

Artinfo.com's Jill Steinhauer reports on the Affordable Art Fair here.

The Affordable Art Fair New York is one of the least pretentious places to see high-quality international contemporary art in the city. The annual fair, now in its seventh edition, runs June 12–15 at the Altman Building and adjoining Metropolitan Pavilion, and with general admission priced at only $17, it’s cheaper than a trip to MoMA or the Guggenheim.

An affordable art fair may sound amateurish to some, and the art on view here does range in quality, but the gallerists I spoke with yesterday had almost entirely positive things to say about the event, whose self-proclaimed mission is “to serve every kind of art enthusiast.” “This fair is much better than the Affordable Art Fairs in Australia,” said first-timer Peter Gant of Carlton, Australia–based Peter Gant Fine Art.

Read the whole article here. From the reports that I gathered yesterday, almost all galleries were selling well.

DC News

Tony Gittens, the executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, announced a couple of days ago that he is leaving that post after 11 years. Read the WaPo report here.

Memo to Mayor Fenty: Appoint George Koch to the job.

Silly-Matic

Artomatic's odd developments with respect to "the Collector" are chronicled here by the WaPo's Reliable Source.

Affordable Art Fair New York report

The press preview and collectors's night (on Wednesday night) was packed to the gills and the AAFNYC staff told me that it was the largest turnout they've ever had for an opening.

Loads of press people, including a lot of NYC art bloggers, and a significant number of young people drinking the free booze. In our booth, Sheila Giolitti was selling loads of her paintings on this preview night.

Today was the "real" first day of the fair, and when we got there at noon, there was a line of people waiting to get in. I made some quick sales almost immediately of Cirenaica Moreira photos, and Tim Tate's video reliquiaries (as they did the preview night) continued to attract people like moths to a light. At $8,000, they're at the top price scale for this level of art fairs.

Sheila Giolitti continued to sell well, and the anecdotal reports that I received from the other DC, MD and VA galleries in the fair sounded like they were all doing well.

The press was back today to our booth to discuss Cuban art and the state of art fairs; seems like trying to gather if the fair market at this "battle front" level is also putting on the brakes.

More tomorrow...

Fairing

At the Fair in NYC all week with my new Alida Anderson Art Projects venture... more later.

Videos, Movies, Animation & Art at the Whino

National Harbor's Art Whino & Art Outlet will partner up again for the FLIK Movie Festival & Interactive Exhibit.

For FLIK 2008, Art Outlet has partnered with the Art Whino Gallery to expand upon last year’s success by expanding the call out to all mediums of animation and experimental film. There will be more screenings, a larger venue, a coinciding interactive exhibit, and a licensing of the program to allow for screenings both locally and internationally – thus expanding exposure for the selected filmmakers.

Friday, June 21 from 6 – 8pm is the opening reception from 8pm – 12am. On Saturday the sked is as follows:

9am – 3pm Workshops
3pm – 6pm Interactive Exhibit open to the public
6pm – 8pm Reception
8pm – 12am Screening / Performance

On Sunday: 12pm – 6pm Exhibit open to public

She's So Articulate

At the Arlington Arts Center: Black Women Artists Reclaim the Narrative!

Faith Ringgold, Who's Bad?, acrylic on canvas with pieced fabric border, 79.5" X 92.5", 1988
Work by Maya Freelon Asante, Renee Cox, Stephanie Dinkins, Djakarta, Nekisha Durrett, Torkwase Dyson, Faith Ringgold, Erika Ranee, Nadine Robinson, Renee Stout, Lauren Woods at the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA.

Opening reception: Friday, June 13, 6:00 to 9:00 pm - the exhibition goes through July 19, 2008.

FotoWeekDC

The week of November 15-22, 2008 will mark the launch of FotoWeek DC, the first annual gathering of a diverse and wide-ranging photography community in the nation’s capital, including photographers, museums, universities and all those involved in the profession across the metro D.C. area, including Virginia and Maryland. Unique among American cities, Washington, D.C. is a nexus of artistic, business, political and public sector energy, in which photography plays an integral role. FotoWeek DC seeks to bring together all photographers and imaging professionals from every discipline to join with the public in celebration of the medium.

Details here. They were really keeping that event a "secret"! This is first heard for me and they've already got a whole series of events planned and an ass-kicking website and seems like almost every key art gallery in the Greater DC and DMV region is in the mix.

When Museum Guards Go Bad

A former Carnegie Museum of Art guard charged with vandalizing a $1.2 million painting simply "snapped" due to life's normal pressures, including impending fatherhood, his defense attorney said.

Read the story here.

Fair State

Art Basel, the largest international fair of contemporary art, wound up Sunday after registering some major sales but with a suggestion that the overall market may be slowing in reaction to the world's financial turmoil.

The show management's final report said the results were "outstanding" and that all participants "considered it a very good year," but it gave no overall sales figures.

Headlines were chiefly made by Roman Abramovich, the Russian multibillionaire and owner of Chelsea soccer club, who topped the list of collectors present.

Abramovich appeared to have stayed below his spending spree last month in New York, where he paid US$120 million (€77 million) at Sotheby's record-breaking auction, including US$86 million (€55 million) for the top lot, a Francis Bacon triptych.

In Basel, he bought one of Alberto Giacometti's elongated woman sculptures for a seemingly modest US$14 million (€9 million), according to The Art Newspaper's special Basel edition.

The sale of a Lucian Freud, "Girl in Attic Doorway," for US$12 million (€7.7 million) to an undisclosed buyer was also confirmed.

The organizers said their surveys showed that "all the exhibiting galleries were able to find buyers for their works."

The 300 participating galleries offered works by more than 2,000 artists, priced between a few thousand and millions of dollars.

It was left to the individual galleries to disclose sales, and many did not.

Despite the positive report of the organizers, the weekend edition of The Art Newspaper headlined, "Market keeps moving, but the brakes start to go on."

You can read the whole AP report here.

The reports that I have been getting directly from dealers have (as always) been mixed. Later this week I will be going to the Affordable Art Fair New York, the art fair that I consider to be at the front battle lines of the art fair world, since it limits prices of work to be sold to a max of $10,000 per piece.

I should be able to discuss what the state of "affordable" art is once I get a feeling how this fair is doing.

Florida Gallery Seeks Street Art

The 621 Gallery, a contemporary exhibition space in Tallahassee, FL, seeks entries for an exhibition dealing with contemporary street art scheduled for July 2009. They are interested in themes relating to contemporary street art including graffiti, murals, stenciling, and guerilla art. Send them a CD of images (at 300 dpi) of your work, your contact info (mailing address, phone, email), and a short statement (1 page maximum) on why you make what you make. Send materials to:

Street Art
c/o 621 Gallery
621 Industrial Drive
Tallahassee, FL 32310

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 1, 2008.

The Art Gallery at Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington is accepting submission for exhibitions for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years. The gallery functions as a resource for students, educators, artists and the public-at-large. Submissions are limited to 2-D, 3-D and installation work. This is an open call, but preference will be given to proposals received by July 1, 2008. For more information, go to this website.

Art-In-Architecture Artist Registry

Deadline: July 31, 2009.

The GSA Art in Architecture Program commissions the nation's leading artists to create large-scale works of art for new federal buildings. These artworks enhance the civic meaning of federal architecture and showcase the vibrancy of American visual arts. Together, the art and architecture of federal buildings create a lasting cultural legacy for the people of the United States. For more information, go to this website.

Studio Visit

My studio visit with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons is here. Read it and prepare to be impressed by this dynamo of an artist.

“When I am not here/Estoy Alla” c. 1994 by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

Art-O-Sound

Scion and The Pink Line Project present Art-O-Sound!



Thursday, June 12, from 7 - 9:30 pm at the 6th Floor of Artomatic 2008 (1st and M Street, NE).

Artists: Lauren Bender, Bonner Sale, Ding Ren, Matt Sargent.

Video Installation by David London - Imagine

Music by Invisible Flow

Gopnik on Transformer

The WaPo's Chief Art Critic does something that he rarely does: review a Washington, DC art gallery.

And Gopnik does a really good job in showing us what this show is all about, and in making us all wish that he did this more often.

Read it here.

At the Katzen

There are some terrific shows currently at the Katzen Museum in DC and I will be writing about them soon. Meanwhile, you got to drop by and see the installation "Living Without Them" by Lilianne Milgrom/Saul Sosnowski on the museum's first floor.

Lorton Arts

Last month I juried the Lorton Arts Foundation exhibition at the University of Phoenix, Reston Campus. Below is a quick video of that exhibit.

Another AOM Top 10

Melissa Hackmann with her AOM Top Ten here.

Private Museums

Mr Margulies, who estimates he now owns around 4,500 works, is among the more respected of a growing group of collectors who choose to create independent spaces, rather than donating works to public museums, where it might stay in storage “for the first 15 years”, he said.

Read Lindsay Pollock and Georgina Adam discuss why the rise of the private museum is rewriting the rules of the market - in the Art Newspaper here.

Art Fairs

Art Basel, one of the world's largest and oldest contemporary art fairs, opens to the public today; about 55,000 people will throng to it and its satellite events. Whether you consider the crowd lemmings or pilgrims may depend upon your bias -- and your bank account -- but one thing is certain: Fairs are a power shift in the art world. For good or ill, they are changing where you buy art, how you look at it, and even how artists make it.

Alexandra Peers on art fairs at the WSJ. Read it here.

Early Look Video

Last night's opening of Early Look, an exhibition of undergraduate art students selected by me from various schools in the Mid Atlantic, opened at DC's Long View Gallery and below I have a quick video of the opening and artwork.

Several pieces sold, including what I think is perhaps the show's major work, a huge pastel by GMU's Tanya Wilson, which sold to a major Virginia ubercollector. There is a lot of good work at superb prices at this exhibition, make sure to stop by and buy some art!

Come to the Early Look opening tonight

Drop by the Long View Gallery in DC today from 5-8PM for the opening reception of Early Look, my curated exhibition of some outstanding young artists from undergraduate programs along the Mid Atlantic.



You will see work by Moore College of Art & Design students Krista Rothwell, Erika Risko, Lauren Albert, Catherine Badger and Melanie Bergwall, Corcoran College of Art + Design student Marissa Valko, MICA student Anton Merbaum, American University student Caitlin Servillo, Virginia Commonwealth University student Deborah Shapiro, St. Mary’s College of Maryland student Jenny Davis, George Mason University students Aaron Miller, Ryan McCloy and Tanya Wilson, and West Chester University of Pennsylvania student Meghan Buozis.

The Long View Gallery is at 1302 9th ST NW, Washington, DC 20001 (202.232.4788) just a short walk from the Convention Center. This is an excellent opportunity for beginning collectors.

See ya there!

The Collector Strikes at AOM

Read all about this in MeanLouise.com.

Lockheedian Christo

I have never seen these pictures or knew that we had gone this far to protect industrial and defense operations. During World War II the Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant from Japanese air attack. They covered it with camouflage netting to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air.

Below is Lockheed before the camouflage was created:



And below are some amazing images after it was hidden away:

Grants for Maryland Artists

Deadline: July 31, 2008

The 2009 Maryland State Fellowship guidelines and applications are now available. The funding categories available for 2009 include:

Dance: Choreography
Music Composition (World, Classical and Non Classical)
Playwriting
Poetry
Visual Arts: Crafts
Visual Arts: Photography
Visual Arts: Sculpture

All applications must be submitted online. Applicants can click here to access the MSAC Individual Artists Fellowships Application. The deadline for 2009 applications is July 31, 2008.

Fallon & Rosof Curate


Philly's Northern Liberties neighborhood is rapidly developing (no pun intended) into one of my favorite areas - it reminds me a lot of Brooklyn when I was a kid.

And Northern Liberty's Projects Gallery today opens their collaboration with curators and uber art bloggers Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof in an exhibition simply titled ID.

This exhibition will put the gallery lights on a number of emerging Philadelphia artists united in pushing the boundaries of myth and persona in contemporary art. From what I know of the show so far, we will see video, performance, sculpture, and photography, as the exhibition explores "broad and self-focused concepts ranging from issues of applied identity to the id of the artist."

As Roberta and Libby put it, "the works are metaphorical in ways that come out of the core of who they are and what they see around them." Artists include:

Samantha Hill - Moore College of Art and Design
Andria Bibiloni and Carl Marin - Tyler School of Art
Jay Hardman, Alex Gartelmann, and Phil Jackson - The University of the Arts
Jamie Diamond, Katy Rose Glickman, and Sarah Zimmer - University of Pennsylvania

And Philadelphia-based artist Diedra Krieger from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

ID opens tonight with an artist reception from 5-8 p.m. and continues through July 26. There will be a performance of artist Samantha Hill’s “Black Iconography” at 7 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public.

Funny

Someone emailed me the following:

I came across an artist at Artomatic the other day who listed his painting medium as “gauche” – is that like gouache, only crude and tacky? It was topped only by the guy at Glen Echo who painted in “tempura.”

More Congrats!

Kudos to Silver Spring artist Steve Resnick who was asked by the US State Department to create gifts for President Bush to give out while the Prez was visiting Israel.

Resnick created a six-sided glass "tzedakah" box. The box will be given to the state of Israel and put on permanent display in the Israel Museum.

Congratulations

Kudos to Bert GF Shankman of Olney, MD who had three of his photographs chosen for the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Art, Houston. They were chosen by Anne Wilkes Tucker Chief Curator of Photography of the museum. This top notch museum has over 22,000 photos in its collection of photography which is the largest and easily amongst the finest in the country.

Bert will be having an Open Studio and Sale on June 7 and 8 from 12-5 PM where you may see the award winning photographs plus others,. Admission is free to this show and sale at his home gallery and open to the public. Call: 301-774-0655.

Top 20 Must-See US Museum Exhibitions for Summer 2008

According to MutualArt.com anyway:

· Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy (Dallas Museum of Art)

· Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A.: Selections from the Cheech Marin Collection (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

· Gilbert & George (Milwaukee Art Museum)

· Everything's Here: Jeff Koons and His Experience of Chicago (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago)

· The Baroque World of Fernando Botero (New Orleans Museum of Art)

· Calder Jewelry (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

· Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh)

· Frida Kahlo (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)

· Louise Bourgeois (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City)

· Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe (Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City)

Good story!

The CP's Angela Valdez has a really interesting article on DC area ubercollector and museumeister Mitch Rales. Read it here.

Opportunity for DC Artists

Deadline: Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 5:30 pm

The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) is purchasing artwork that captures archetypes of Washington DC. Subjects include specific neighborhoods, parks and circles, festivals, gathering places, or cultural events. Less obvious motifs include downtown redevelopment, restaurants, shops and businesses, work places, or Metro stations. Artists should consider a broad range of subject matter as long as the works have an unmistakable subject reflecting life in the District. Artists should also consider submitting images of Washington that depict the changing neighborhoods and the parts of the city that are disappearing. The Committee is very interested in depictions of all wards of the city. The collection serves to honor and embrace life in the District.

This opportunity is open to all artists who reside and have their studio in the District of Columbia.

For more information and to download the Call to Artist, please visit www.dcarts.dc.gov or to request an application in HTML format, email Beth Baldwin or call (202) 724-5613.

Open Studio in Baltimore

Our own Rosetta DeBerardinis will host an open studio on Saturday, June 7th; Time: 1-7 pm at:

School 33 Art Center
1427 Light Street
Studio #201
Baltimore, Maryland 21230

Black Art

Months ago it drove me crazy when Washington Post writer Jacqueline Trescott described Jacob Lawrence a great "African American" artist and now it drives me even crazier when her Washington Post's colleague and that paper's chief art critic writes (in reviewing current shows by American artists Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence in the nation's capital) that:

The surprise isn't that Douglas couldn't overcome all the obstacles there were to making the first fully convincing black art. It's that the young Lawrence, in his "Migration of the Negro," did.

"Black Art"????? Is there really such a genre? If there is, then haven't Africans been making "Black Art" for milennia?

And yes, I do know that there are commercial art fairs that are focused to attract collectors of art about African American subjects, just like there are art fairs focused on Latin American artists, European artists, Australian artists, Asian, etc. They all create art, and their race and ethnicities are part of the processes and cultural contributions to the end commodity, but in the end, it is art.

But Gopnik really means "African-American art," doesn't he?

It's just American art; it happens to depict African American subjects and history, and its talented creators were African American, but the end result is no more "black art" than Andy Warhol's art is "white art" and Morris Louis' art is "Jewish Art" and so on.

It's just "American Art."

Makes my head hurt.

10 Great Towns for Working Artists

10. Oil City, Pennsylvania

What makes it special: The birthplace of the oil industry and former headquarters of Standard Oil, Quaker State and Pennzoil, this northwestern Pennsylvania town is reinventing itself into a lively, committed arts community. With affordable Victorian homes and mixed-use properties (many under $50,000), theater, music, a branch campus of Clarion University, easy accessibility to art markets from Cleveland to Buffalo, and dozens of artists who have already claimed this small town as home, Oil City is one of the best deals on the market.

What it offers: 100 percent fixed-rate financing up to $150,000 on live-work space (when using First National Bank). This includes rehab costs, and mortgage insurance is waived. $7,500 toward down payment and closing costs on a residence through Venango County Affordable Housing (income guidelines apply). Plus there are opportunities for facade grants and loans, tax abatements for commercial properties and tax breaks for certain properties in the Historic District. Downtown studio space is available at $0.49 per square foot, with the first three months rent free.

Read this excellent article by Kim Hall to discover the other nine cities here.

“If you don’t move, you get fat”

The “If you don’t move, you get fat” campaign is found found in Hamburg and is creative genius of the German ad agency, Scholz & Friends, for the German Olympic Sport Federation.

The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009

Enter the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009, sponsored by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Call for Entries in all visual arts media: June 2 – July 31, 2008. First prize: $25,000 and an opportunity for a commission to create a portrait of a remarkable living American for the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

The competition and resulting exhibition will celebrate excellence and innovation, with a strong focus on the variety of portrait media used by artists today. The juried competition will result in an exhibition of approximately 60 of the finalists’ works. The National Portrait Gallery welcomes single figure, group, or self-portraits—from classical drawing and painting or hyperrealistic sculpture to large-scale photography to prints and new media. The competition is named for Virginia Outwin Boochever (1920–2005), a former Portrait Gallery volunteer whose generous gift has endowed this program.

To enter online, please visit this website.

Job in the Arts

Deadline: June 19, 2008.

Arlington County (Virginia) Government is looking to hire someone to "provide collection, project management and program support to the Public Art Program responsible for developing and implementing art projects at sites identified as priorities in Arlington County’s Public Art Master Plan."

Duties include: Perform annual site visits develop condition reports, coordinating maintenance and conservation of projects; Manage and update picture library and public art database, prepare PR materials; Oversee the delivery and installation of temporary and permanent public art projects and the removal of de-accessioned artworks or completed exhibitions; Coordinate meetings, selection panels, presentations, and dedication ceremonies; Represent Arlington at national and state conferences and create and give presentations for public meetings and internal lectures.

Requires related BA and one year experience in an arts, public arts or design related discipline. Prefer MA and previous public art administration experience. This is a flexible, 32 hr/week, benefit eligible position. Pays $19.36 - $32.01 hourly.

How to apply: An Arlington Internet application is required by the closing date of 6/19/08. You may also use your browser to go to www.arlingtonva.us/pers, click on COUNTY JOBS and scroll down to click on the job title from the alphabetical list. Email questions to pers@arlingtonva.us

Secrets

What you see below is Frank Warren holding the original container that he bought to hold the postcards that have now become over a quarter million secrets that his amazing worldwide PostSecret Art Project has generated.

The Funk Aesthetic

The Funk Aesthetic: Chocolate Coated, Freaky & Habit Forming, opens on June 4th – 29th at the H&F Fine Arts Gallery in Mount Rainier, MD, just outside the District lines.

Curated by Tonya Jordan with commentary by author Thomas T. Stanley, the exhibition presents "new art grounded in the aesthetic of Funk music of the mid-sixties to early eighties and features international and locally based artists visually interpreting the music form through various media."

There will be work by Aniekan, Pedro Bell, S. Ross Browne, Deadra Bryant, Miles Bumbray, K. Wesley E. Clark, Jamel Craig, Ronald 'Stozo' Edwards, Dejon N. Gee, Gary Johnson, Alexis Peskine, Akia 'Space Lady' Quander-Jordan, William Rhodes, Jerome Spinner, Katurah Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, and Tedra Wilson.

An opening reception will be held Saturday, June 7th, 5-8pm followed by a musical performance by Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind (featuring Bobby Hill, Thomas T. Stanley, and Chris Downing) and an after party with a special guest DJ at Artmosphere Café, 3311 Rhode Island Avenue, Mount Rainier, MD.

Public programs include a panel discussion the Funk movement and aesthetic on June 21st 4-6 PM and an artist talk/closing reception June 28th.

For more information visit www.hffinearts.com and/or www.musicovermind.org.

Jack Tom - Art Scammer

Remember this art scam email? Read it first...

And so he answered: This is his answer:

From: jack tom (tjacktom@hotmail.com)
Sent: Tue 5/27/08 5:59 PM
To: F. Lennox Campello (lennycampello@hotmail.com)

Hello,

Thank for your fast response and i want you to know that i came across your store information via Google and here is what i will like to order for,

Lilith Birthing Demons
qty:1

"Expeditionary Service Test"
Acrylics on Paper, c. 1999
3 x .825 inches
qty:1

I will like you to get back to me with the total cost and the shipping cost.and here is address for you to the shipping cost via ups or fed ex.and please kindly get back to me if this items is in stock because i do not want any delay on this.

9 Marian Street
Killaria 2071
AUSTRALIA
Phone: 61 2 9498 6830

Do this on time so that i can be able to give you my credit card information and complete my order for me
Best Regards
jack tom.

By the way... this is what's really at that address... and note that the phone number is a digit off... anyway, this is what I sent him back:

From: F. Lennox Campello (lennycampello@hotmail.com)
Sent: Mon 6/02/08 9:52 PM
To: jack tom (tjacktom@hotmail.com)

G'day mate!

Jackie boy! Jackierooonie! The Jackie Tommeister!

Thanks for your order!

But before I ship it to you... I am very particular as to who owns my work. Can you please tell me if you have a family, as I do not like selling my work to single men, unless they are older or divorced?

So are you married? How old are you?

Also, did you attend school? Where? I'm very fussy about my work only hanging in educated homes.

I will have my studio assistant pack it for shipping to Australia as soon as you respond and send me payment details. A credit card or an international check is OK.

The Lenster...

PS - Also, is it true that toilets swirl backwards in Australia?

Artists' Talk: DC

Artists Novie Trump and Elizabeth Burger will discuss influences that led to their works currently on exhibit in "Immersed In The Natural World" at the Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts.

The discussion will occur Friday, June 6, from 5:30 - 8:00pm at 1632 U Street N.W., Washington, DC 20009. All are welcome to attend. This exhibit is up through June 27, 2008.

PMA Director dies

Anne d'Harnoncourt, 64, the formidable, high-spirited personification of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and an indefatigable advocate for the arts as central to the city's identity, died late Sunday night.

Read the news report here.

AOM and AU

A big thank you to all of you who came by yesterday to my question-answering session at Artomatic... even after two hours, when the band kicked me offstage, people were asking questions!

Afterwards I went to the multiple openings at American University's gorgeous Katzen Arts Center, easily one of the most beautiful art spaces in the Mid Atlantic. There are some really interesting shows at the Katzen, none more bipolarly attractive than Joe Shannon and Noche Crist sharing the third floor of the Katzen.

Review coming on the Shannon-Crist coming together... let's just say that after seeing how those two most unlikely of art partners coupled together, I am now a believer that anything can happen... even a Obama-Clinton ticket!

Talk to me

Today, starting at 4PM at the Cabaret Stage in Artomatic, I will be having a discussion with artists about anything that you want to talk about: how to get affordable framing, how to get a review, how to price your art, how to expand your resume, the who's and what's of DC and Philly art galleries, website design, press, museums, copyright, contracts, artists' success stories and how they did it... anything and everything that you want to ask or talk about. Just ask questions... no fluff.

Time permitting, afterwards I will also be available to personally criticize and give you feedback on your work (bring thick skin). This is all free and open to anyone,not just AOM artists.

A lot of panels spend a lot of time talking and then at the end people have tons of questions, so this time we will start with questions and move on.

Remember, my stuff will take place at the Artomatic Cabaret Stage, 1st Floor instead of the Education Room. AOM is doing this in order to accommodate more people, so come early; it starts at 4PM.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 1, 2008

Virginia's Arlington Arts Center seeks contemporary fine artists working in all media for solo exhibitions in their 2009 season. Ten to fifteen artists will be chosen to show in our seven separate galleries — or on our grounds, in the case of outdoor sculpture.

Jurors include: Anne Ellegood, Curator for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Philip Barlow, the tall and notable Washington, D.C., art collector.

Deadline for applications is July 1st; notifications will go out no later than September 30th, 2008. For more information and a prospectus, visit their website at www.arlingtonartscenter.org. Or send a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to:

Arlington Arts Center
3550 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22201

Modern Love

Opening on June 27 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Modern Love celebrates "the stellar group of contemporary works of art donated to NMWA by prominent Washington-based collectors Heather and Tony Podesta."

The exhibition features more than 50 works by internationally-renowned artists such as Cathy de Monchaux, Candida Höfer, Elizabeth Turk, and Jane and Louise Wilson as well as others.

Early Look Peek

Here's another early peek at another student whose work I've selected for the "Early Look" student exhibition at the Long View Gallery in DC next month.

Her name is Catherine Badger and she's a graduating senior at Moore College of Art & Design in Philly.

Psychedelic Sausage Factory, mixed media on Yupo by Catherine Badger
The show opens at Long View Gallery DC on June 7 with an opening reception from 5-8PM. Come and meet the undergrads and recent BFA grads and me...

A question for AOMers

See this and then respond.

Congrats!

To DC area artist and art critic John Blee, whose paintings open in a solo show in Paris, France's Jane Roberts Fine Arts on June 11, 2008. The show runs through 11 July 2008.

Gallery owner arrested

An East Hampton art gallery owner was led away in handcuffs Saturday after she refused to stop serving drinks at an opening bash for a celebrity photo exhibit.

Read the story here.

Opportunity for Artists and Curators

The Arts Center of the Capital Region has a call for curatorial proposals and artists’s slides. Often there are specific thematic exhibitions called for in addition to an open call. The open call is used to support a slide registry for future curators, possible residency projects and one-person exhibitions for regional artists in the President’s Gallery. Artwork is called for in any and all media including installation and video. Selections are made by a committee.

Details here.

Artomatic 2008

The real reason that most art critics hate Artomatic is that they get visual overload very quickly. After all, how does a writer cover an arts extravaganza of the size of Artomatic once the eyes and mind become numb after the 200th artist, or the 400th or the 600th?

Artomatic has returned to the Greater Washington, DC region. It opened in May and runs through mid June.

By freeling accepting anywhere from 600 - 1,000 painters, sculptors, printmakers, actors, musicians and bartenders and then finding an empty building and filling it with artwork, stages, theatres, parties, lectures and controversy, the AOM model has managed to incite the dislike of most art critics and the love and passion of thousands of artists and art lovers.

They also create the Greater Washington DC’s uber arts event of the year – it happens irregularly every couple of years or so. About 40,000 people will visit the event.

As an art critic, I once started a review of a past AOM by complaining how much my feet hurt after my 5th or 6th visit to the show, in what at the time was a futile attempt to gather as much visual information as possible in order to write a fair review of the artwork and artists.

No one can do that.

Over the years that I have visited past Artomatics (and I have seen them all) I have discovered that it is impossible to see everything and to be fair about anyone; the sheer size and evolving nature of the show itself makes sure of the impossibility of this task. In fact, I think that I may have missed a whole floor so far.

We know that art critics tend to savage Artomatic; they demand a curatorial hand; they want order; they want “bad” art out and only “high art” in; and year after year, they all miss the point!

AOM is not just about the artwork, it is about the artistic energy that it radiates, it is about community, it is about a free for all, it is about controversy, it is above all, about art of all ranges and tastes and quality.

The current AOM is at a gorgeous location at the Capitol Plaza I building at 1200 First Street, NE in DC. There are seven, maybe eight, floors of artwork all the way up to the 11th floor, in many mini galleries with spectacular views of the city. The main impression at this year's AOM: space.

Plenty of space yields a really decent opportunity to display your work well, and one interesting maturity factor in this AOM is how well many artists are displaying their work. On the other side, all the space also yields a significant number of really bad "installations" with all sorts of furniture and stuff.

Each AOM has produced amazing artistic discoveries for art lovers, art collectors and dealers. People like Tim Tate, Frank Warren, Kathryn Cornelius, the Dumbacher Brothers, etc., all showed at AOM; some still do.

And so part of the fun is “discovering” who will be the 2008 AOM emerging art star. In that spirit I will ignore all the well-known names who are exhibiting this year at AOM and try to find artists whose work is new or little known to me. In this review I will create a sort of short list based on two trips; on my third trip I will finalize my initial picks for emerging art stardom.

On the 4th floor I quite liked the work of Amanda Engels, who is showing a series of portraits that work well in capturing a sense of time and presence about the subject. I also liked Genna Gurvich’s painterly and almost surreal work, especially her innovative and intelligent take on the often visited Campbell’s soup can. My key artist on that floor is Cristina Montejo, whose quirky and sexy drawings stand to draw attention from collectors. Keep an eye on Montejo, and buy some of this artwork now.


On the 5th floor I liked the severe abstract paintings of Matthew Langley and on the 6th floor Holly Burns’ pen and ink drawings on napkins are a treasure trove for beginning art collectors. They are fresh and young but also superbly done and I bet that we’ll hear about this artist again and again; she seems perfect for Curator's Office in DC.

I also like Michelle Chin’s over simplified bug cut-outs and Nancy Donnelly’s glass dresses. The latter are elegant, simple pieces that should attract a gallerist or two to them.

Shannon McCarty’s inventive set of burned iron marks reveal the surprising achievement of minimalism when employed smartly. Also minimalist are the hi tech (looking) works by Paul So. Also visit Keith Thomas on that floor.

The 7th floor is a treasure trove of good artists amongst the masses. Nana Bagdavadze is somewhat channeling Amy Lin to the third dimension as she takes the small circle to an illusion of three-D. Teague Clare’s small but very cool pieces are also quite good as are Juan del Alamo photographic test strips. Both these artists also know how important presentation is and have done well in maximizing their space while giving it a clean look. Also visit Damien Gill’s elegant digital works.

I know Rania Hassan’s works, but in this AOM she re-invents herself in a very elegant installation that goes from 2D to 3D right before our eyes. It is sophisticated and elegant, and a clear indication of the level of maturity that AOM has achieved over the years.

Dale Hunt’s monster art is also fresh and reflects a clear AOM trend for young, hip, simple art that is deceptively complex beneath the first visual impression. There is a lot of this "young art" in AOM this year, as well as a lot of tattoo art. Also visit Brad Taylor and see what an artist can do with those tabs in beer and soda cans.

The 8th floor brings us Michael Auger’s day glow mini paintings – like Dale Hunt, this artist fits into that young, smart art that is both attractive, simple and yet appealing to the visual senses; at $35 for an original, they’re also a helluva good deal.

The DC area is a Mecca for world class glass and its leader in bringing glass to a higher place and away from the craft world. David D’Orio’s works join that new emerging movement and are very good. I also liked the fresh skill in Todd Gardner’s portraits. This floor also brings you Matt Sesow and Alison Sigethy.

The 9th opens with the very cool mini photos by Erin Antognoli, really good work by Jeanette Herrera and Barbara Johnson-Grener.

Also Kim Reyes’ ceramic wall figures caught my eyes as a good find for sculpture lovers. On this floor you’ll also find Andrew Wodzianski and Kirk Waldroff (OK, OK… so I know them).

The 10th floor has the key find for AOM. And it is not a single artist but a highly sophisticated multi-artist exhibition titled “Coincide.” This is the AOM find of the year.

If you are a harsh critic of AOM’s free for all art approach, and don’t want to look at the work of 800 artists, just drive up to AOM, go to the 10th floor and look at the work of the 17 artists in “Coincide.”

Using Star Trek technology, we can teleport this entire massive contemporary ceramic art installation to any gallery or museum in the world and no one would blink an eye. It is a triumph of severe presentation and talented artists, and it is also a giant leap forward in the maturation process of AOM itself.

These are skilled, innovative, ordained ceramic artists, whose work is as far from “amateur” – the usual adjective applied wholesale to AOM – as Warp 9 is far from 55 MPH.

Big names like Laurel Lukaszewski, who shows locally at Project 4 Gallery (one of the best, fresh new galleries in DC) and nationally at other various venues are complemented by (new to me) artists like Leila Holtsman (whose piece I hereby select as the best single work of art in AOM and should be immediately picked up by Habatat Gallery), Novie Trump, Ani Kasten, Kate Hardy (gorgeously displayed) and others in this spectacular group.

Leila Holtsman at AOM
Also on that floor I quite liked the brilliantly yellow installation work by Bryan Rojsuontikul, who joins the tradition of artists working with common materials (in this case yellow and silver Duck tape) to deliver breathtaking minimalist works of art. Also check out Alexandra Zealand.

On the 11th floor visit Krissy Downing and Gregory Ferrand and marvel at Veronica Szalus floor sculpture of painted ball objects. Also on this floor be prepared to be quite taken by Tracy Lee’s familial installation of family memorabilia (and I just broke my rule again, since I know Lee’s work well, but this installation doesn’t fit with her previous set of photographs). Since I broke that rule, also on this floor, super sexy abstract work by Pat Goslee and representational by Candace Keegan.

If you want a quick video walkthrough AOM, check out the video below. The music has been married to this video on purpose from the perspective of AOM dealing with art critics. The art that pops up when Lennon first sings "they're going to crucify me" is bordering on being one of the art world's oddest coincidences, since I didn't time the music to video to pre-arrange for that art to pop up at that time... it is worth viewing the video just for that!



AOM is free and open to the public and runs through June 15. All the info that you need is online at www.artomatic.org.

Early Look

Mark your calendars for this opening:

Artomatic reviewed

Read my first review here. Video is below.

Collectin 101: Inspiration and Passion

AOM Panels

The Pink Line Project has been presenting a series of panel discussions to educate the emerging and experienced art collector at Art-O-Matic. Click on the image below for details.



On Saturday, May 31 at 2 pm Phillipa will be moderating Collectin 101: Inspiration and Passion with collectors Minna Nathanson, Veronica Jackson, Mel & Juanita Hardy and Brian Aitken & Andrea Evers.

After that's over and starting at 4PM at the Cabaret Stage in AOM, I will be having a discussion with artists about anything that you want to talk about: how to get affordable framing, how to get a review, how to price your art, how to expand your resume, the who's and what's of DC and Philly art galleries, website design, press, museums, copyright, contracts, artists' success stories and how they did it... anything and everything that you want to ask or talk about.

Afterwards I will also be available to personally criticize and give you feedback on your work (bring thick skin). This is all free and open to anyone,not just AOM artists.

A lot of panels spend a lot of time talking and then at the end people have tons of questions, so this time we will start with questions and move on.

Remember, my stuff will take place at the Artomatic Cabaret Stage, 1st Floor instead of the Education Room. AOM is doing this in order to accommodate more people, so come early; it starts at 4PM.

DeBerardinis on Malone

Once Lost, But Now Found at Zenith Gallery!

By Rosetta DeBerardinis

Once in awhile, Margery Goldberg from Zenith Gallery, a major gallerist in Washington, D.C., a dynamic woman who has far exceeded the historical curve for art galleries nationwide by celebrating its thirtieth year; exhibits work that blows your socks off. Several years ago, while working as the DC art tour guide, I recall Ms. Goldberg disclosing her criteria for selecting artists. “The work has to give me an orgasm,” I recall her declaring. Figuratively of course!

Chris Malone, a mixed media artist in the current two-person exhibit “Drama Queens” with Shelly Laffel, obviously did just that. My response was not as personal as Ms. Goldberg’s; however, it compelled me to view the work twice.

Malone, a self-taught D.C. artist with exceptional talent creates large-scale soft sculptures influenced by the different tribes of Africa and New Guinea. Work that is too sophisticated to be classified as "dolls." He uses soft materials, e.g. fabric, kapok rope, canvas to define his shapes from a genre made popular in the 60’s by artists such as the Claus Oldenburg (Sweden) and Robert Morris (American).

Malone, reared in the Midwest, was once a zookeeper at the National Zoo, caring for the giant pandas Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling. He now sits and sews together pieces of fabric from Pakistan, Africa and other nations.

Colorful feathers, beads, yarns, mirrors adorn the textile surface and the extremities of the clay figures, with twinkling prosthetic eyes; twist, turn, sway, shout and even some pray with hands outstretched to the heavens.

For years, I have been in search of my ethnic past and looking to different tribes of Africa and New Guinea has brought a peace in me. - Chris Malone, from Zenith press release

This exhibit marks Chris Malone’s introduction at Zenith Gallery. And, I doubt now that he’s been discovered by Margery Goldberg, that he will ever be lost again.

Drama Queens through June 1st
Zenith Gallery
413 Seventh Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 2004
Information: 202-783-2963
www.Zenithgallery.com
art@zenithgallery.com

Memorial Day

Have a grand Memorial Day!

Rik Freeman at GRACE

If you a collector or lover of good, solid narrative painting with a focus on African American or blues themes, then you gotta go see Rik Freeman's current show at the Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, Virginia. Meanwhile, below is a quick video walkthrough of the show:

Richard Misrach at the NGA

Richard Misrach, one of today’s most prolific photographers, will be giving an artist talk at the National Gallery of Art on the work featured in his exhibition opening on May 25. Accompanying the traveling exhibition is the one-of-a-kind Aperture monograph, Richard Misrach: On the Beach.

Misrach will discuss the spirit of his images and sign copies of his book.

Talk & Book Signing: Sunday, June 8; 2:00 p.m.

Exhibition on view: Sunday, May 25 — Monday, September 01, 2008.

AOM

I will be discussing my Artomatic finds later on - I visited twice and still managed (I think) to miss a whole floor - but meanwhile I have a little Artomatic history here. I would love if you would add in the comments section there your own anecdotes and stories about past Artomatics.

Also next Saturday, May 31, starting at 4PM at the Cabaret Stage in AOM, I will be having a discussion with artists about anything that you want to talk about: how to get affordable framing, how to get a review, how to price your art, how to expand your resume, the who's and what's of DC and Philly art galleries, website design, press, museums, copyright, contracts, artists' success stories and how they did it... anything and everything that you want to ask or talk about.

Afterwards I will also be available to personally criticize and give you feedback on your work (bring thick skin). This is all free and open to anyone,not just AOM artists.

A lot of panels spend a lot of time talking and then at the end people have tons of questions, so this time we will start with questions and move on.

Remember, this will take place at the Artomatic Cabaret Stage, 1st Floor instead of the Education Room. AOM is doing this in order to accommodate more people, so come early; it starts at 4PM.

See ya there!

Affordable Art Fair



Organized by the same outfit that presents the Pulse Art Fairs, in my opinion the Affordable Art Fairs are one of the prime international art fairs to explore... if you are a new or beginning collector, or a collector on a limited budget.

From my past experience loads of experienced collectors also attend and buy, since the artwork ranges from $100 to $10,000 for original artwork from around 80 galleries from around the world are invited to exhibit. Click on the image below for details or visit this website. The fair will be in NYC on June 12-15, 2008.

If you want a free pass to the fair, send me an email and I will send you one.



See ya there!

ARTtistics

A while back I teased you with some big news to come... OK so it is big news for me.

I'm going national!

Not "Daily Campello Art News" - we're staying here and we're gonna be here for a long time, but I have joined a three person team of visual art bloggers over at ARTtistics to begin something new and interesting in the visual arts blogsphere.

Together with Annette Monier from Philly's Fallon & Rosof artblog and Connecticut's Bill Gusky, we've been fotunate enough to have been invited by Mind's Eye to begin a new blog that will allow us to be funded to travel around to see exhibitions and artists around the nation, review them, interview them, discuss them, etc.

I will be posting there often, so make sure that part of your daily ritual, after you check in here, is to visit Arttistics every day.

Goin' Nat!

Another art scam revealed

Email received this morning (no editing, displayed as received):

From: jack tom (tjacktom@hotmail.com)

Hello
How are you doing? my name is Jack tom i live and based in australia i am interested in ordering some of your artwork and ship them to me here in australia my method of payment is via my credit card details kindly let me know if you can assist me with the order ,kindly get back to me with your website address or photos of some of your works you have instock so that we can proceed with this transaction I will await your prompt response as soon as you receive this mail,i will be be very glad if you treat this email with good concern
Thanks with Regards
Jack tom.

My response:

Dear Jack,

Thank you for your interest. I am honored by your interest in my work.

I must advise you that I am very choosy as to whom I allow to own my work, and will need to know a little about you and your family and also where you intend to display and hang my art. I also need to know how you intend to frame it.

My prices range from $1,000 to $100,000 - what price range are you interested in?

Before I decide to allow you to own one of my pieces, and you can only buy one per family, I'd like to know a little more about you and what you do in Australia.

Have a G'day!

The Lenster

Let's see if he bites.

Penis Guy

Amanda Hess of the Washington City Paper has an interesting article about an even more interesting controversy at the current Artomatic.

Seems like Eduardo Rodriguez, a DC area artist who has been known as Artomatic’s "Penis Guy," had a rules issue in nearly rule-less AOM. Hess writes:

Why did Penis Guy take down his penis pictures? The controversy originated in the spot adjacent to Rodriguez’s now-abandoned space (at NW B1 on the 9th floor) where Moore Photography, a mother-daughter team, exhibit their work. Photos of flowers, butterflies, and fireworks are carefully matted and labeled with titles like “Reflections,” “Delectable,” and “Simply Elegant.” Rodriguez’s Cocksure Series was a bit different: neck-down nudes, mostly male, with message-inscribed torsos — easy to swallow reads one. Another: i am not hung.

The visual irony of a 15-year-old’s flora mounted alongside Rodriguez’s phallic extravaganza wasn’t part of Artomatic’s vision and juxtaposition sets up a vintage Artomatic drama. This one plays out in the following sequence:

• On Wednesday, May 7, the last day of Artomatic’s two-week installation period, Rodriguez enters the Artomatic building at 1200 First St. NE and begins hanging his Cocksure Series.

• The next day, Rodriguez reenters the building, officially closed to artists, to apply some finishing touches.

• In the meantime, another artist notices Rodriguez’s last-minute installation and notifies Moore Photography of the content. The Moore family, unimpressed by Penis Guy’s pedigree, complains to Artomatic without having seen Rodriguez’s work.

• Artomatic officials confront Rodriguez at his space. On the night before Artomatic’s opening, two hours before the building’s close, Rodriguez is asked to remount his penis pictures in another spot, away from a minor.

Read the whole article here.

Even a free for all extravaganza like AOM has a few rules and sounds like Rodriguez may have had his share of ignoring some of them, but I also think that artists should be able to work out things like this between themselves... and by artists I include the hardworking volunteers who run AOM, Rodriguez and the Mom & Daughter team.

So... someone in this mini drama is an asshole. A lot of the commenting masses in the CP think that Rodriguez is the asshole as do a lot of comments at the ArtDC forum... maybe they're right, maybe 80% right... maybe 50%.

The power of representational visual art to offend is immense; it is one of its key ingredients and an easy way to your 15 minutes of fame for a lot of artists. Over the years AOM has had what a lot of people may consider offensive art. I'm familiar with Rodriguez's imagery from past AOMs and it doesn't offend me at all.

But I have seen a lot of visual art imagery of erect and flaccid penises in my lifetime.

But I can also see a mother's desire in delaying her daughter's discovery of penis imagery and thus not desiring to be next to the "Penis Guy." And then again, she should also have known that AOM features all kinds of imagery - in my first visit I saw a lot of penises, a lot of vaginas, and a lot of tits. So her minor daughter is probably going to be exposed to them anyway.

But I can see that mom doesn't want to be "next" to a constant visual barrage of a male's reproductive organ in various states of excitement.

This should have been an easy thing to solve; the two neighboring artists should have worked this out and one of them should have moved. This year's AOM is in an amazing, huge, spacious environment and there are hundreds of great spots open.

If Mom & Daughter didn't want to be next to Rodriguez, then if Rodriguez is the "non confrontational" guy that he says he is, then for penis' sakes, take the fucking high road and move your penis photos to another spot. Rodriguez already screwed up by not following the set-up time rules to start with, so clearly set-up was not an issue for him.

If Mom & Daughter didn't want to be next to Rodriguez, then for daughter's sake take the fucking high road and move your nice photos to another spot.

Problem solved.

An event of the size of AOM always has mini dramas and controversy... some of us recall Kathryn Cornelius' closing her installation at an AOM a few years ago because of water issues and someone destroying JW Mahoney's swastikas on the wall.

Go see AOM and buy some art.

Tonite

I will be judging the Lorton Arts Foundation exhibition at the University of Phoenix, Reston, VA (11730 Plaza American Drive, Suite 200, Reston, Virginia 20190).

The opening for the show is tonight, Friday, May 23rd from 7 - 9pm. Come and say hi...

Congrats!

To my good buddy Jeffry Cudlin who once again has been nominated as a finalist for an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for Arts Criticism.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 1, 2008

VisArts - the Metropolitan Center for Visual Arts in Rockville, MD has a call for glass artists to exhibit in an upcoming show: “Glass: Evolving” Sept. 14-Nov. 16, 2008.

Open to Mid-Atlantic artists, this content-driven glass exhibit will investigate new ideas, narratives, concepts and directions in regional contemporary glass. Entry fee.

For more information, contact: Harriet Lesser, Director of Exhibitions and Programming, 301-315-8200 or gallery@visartscenter.org
Call for entries deadline: July 1, 2008.

The jurors include Lindsey Scott and Jay Scott of Habatat Gallery, VA and the directors of Washington Glass School.

Narcissuspello

Thinking of changing my "official" Internet photo from this (taken in 2004 or so):



To this, taken a few weeks ago:



Crooked nose courtesy of a bar fight at the Texas bar in Naples, Italy a long time ago... any comments???

Read This

DCist reports on the draconian measures of the District's closing of an art show. Read it here and the follow up here.

AOM Visit One

On the way to my AOM panel I did a whirlwind tour through the 700 artists at Artomatic and my very first impressions is that this is the best AOM ever.

I know that this comes from an AOM supporter without objectivity on the subject, but it also comes from someone who has examined and visited every single AOM in details, explored every gallery and every artist since it all started a decade ago.

The work that the ceramicists have self-curated and installed is worthy of being in a museum show, both in quality and presentation.

I will be back with a more detailed visit, my top picks from the show, my "new discoveries" and a review and videos.

Below is a photo from last night's panel, which was very well attended and could have gone for hours! There is soooooo much thirst out there for information!

Memo to Philippa: Let's do this again soon with a 2-3 hour window for questions and discussions - I'm game!


Above: Philippa Hughes introduces the panel: Dr. Fred Ognibene, (me missing and taking photo), Martin Irvine, JW Mahoney and Sharon Burton.

Update: Ann Marchand has a great report and pics here.

Congrats

To DC area artist Dana Ellyn whose solo show in Wilmington, NC is doing really well!

Dana's show at the ERA Gallery is titled "Up For Discussion" and prior to the show, she received two write-ups in two local papers and today a review of the show was published.

Check out all the interviews, articles and review here. The show is up through June 28, 2008.

Silly Rabbit, Myths are for Kids. 22"x28" Acrlylic on Canvas by Dana Ellyn

Millennium Arts Salon: Scholars Speak

Against the backdrop of the Jacob Lawrence Migration Series (he's one of my former professors and now on view at The Phillips Collection through October 26), three leading scholars on African American art speak:

- Dr. Beth Turner, University Professor at the UVA and curator of two major national traveling exhibitions on Jacob Lawrence, Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence (2001-03) and The Migration Series (1993-1995) for The Philips Collection, former senior Phillips curator and vice-provost for the arts at the University of Virginia.

- Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Art History, at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Chair of the Board of The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.

- Dr. David Driskell, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland, College Park where the David C. Driskell Center of African American and African Diaspora Visual Arts and Culture was founded in his honor, artist, collector, and cited as one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of African American Art.

One scholar asks, the others respond. All reflect on artists of the 20th century and look ahead to artists in the new millennia.

Millennium Arts Salon and The Phillips Collection are jointly sponsoring this event, to be held in the Sant Auditorium at The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st Street, NW, Thursday, May 29th starting at 6:30pm. The cost is free with museum admission.

Early Look Peek

Here's another early peek at another student whose work I've selected for the "Early Look" student exhibition at the Long View Gallery in DC next month.

Her name is Deborah Shapiro and she's a student at Virginia Commonwealth University in Virginia. See more of her work here.


The show opens at Long View Gallery DC on June 7 from 5-8PM.

AOM Panel on "how to price art"

On Thursday May 22, 2008 at 7:30PM at AOM. The panel includes Arthur Mason, lawyer and art collector with his wife Jane Mason, Lee Eagle, Eagle Associates, Collector and Specialist in the DC secondary art market, Zenith Gallery owner, Margery Goldberg, Gallery Directors Amy Cavanaugh and Briony Evans from Honfluer Gallery, and artists Joyce McCarten and Matt Sesow.

They will each offer their own unique perspective on the subject of pricing art. Free and Open to the Public. For more information contact Adah Rose Bitterbaum, Studio Gallery, 202-232-8734. Sponsored by the Washington Project for the Arts.

Tonight is the "Information Overload: Finding Reliable and Useful Information About Art Collecting" panel at 7PM.

It will be moderated by DC ubercollector Dr. Fred Ognibene and will include JW Mahoney, Sharon Burton, Martin Irvine and yours truly.

See ya there!