Fufú: This is how you do it

That image to the right is not a banana, but a plantain (in Spanish platano).

The plantain is most commonly eaten as a side dish in many Latin American cuisines, where it is simply boiled and then served as a side dish with perhaps a little olive oil and salt to add some flavor, especially if it's a green plantain, which are rather tasteless by themselves. The ripe ones are quite tasty and sweet, and are usually served sliced and fried.

A few years ago you could only find them in Latin American bodegas, but now most major supermarkets carry them.

But let's look at the green plantain. In most Latin American restaurants where it is offered, it is offered as a boiled side dish. In Cuban restaurants (and many Miami art galleries) it is also served as tostones, which essentially involves slicing up the plantain, frying it in olive oil for a while, taking it out and crushing it, and frying it again. Add salt and you're done.

But Fufú is the real king of plantain dishes and it is rarely seen in any restaurants, even Cuban ones. I think that maybe it is because Fufú possibly developed in the eastern part of Cuba (a province once called Oriente), and it may not be as well known or served in Havana, which is the only place that most tourists visit.

With its massive forests and mountains, a large African population from Spain's terrible slavery trade, coupled with its large French immigrant population which migrated to Cuba after the Haitian independence wars, and its concentration of Galician, rather than ethnic Castillians, Catalans, or Andalucian Spaniards, Oriente evolved into a very distinct region in Cuba, quite different from Havana and the other Cuban provinces, and so did its cuisine.

Oriente is where Bacardi rum was invented, and where Hatuey beer was created, and where the mojito and Daiquiri were invented... get my drift?

And in Oriente the humble plantain is eaten as a very delicious side dish called Fufú, with the accent in the last "u" like in Hai-ku.... foo fú!

Start with a couple of green plantains. Wash then and cut out the tips of the plantains but leave the skin on.

Cut the plantains into three equal pieces per plantain and bring to a boil in water and boil for a few minutes until the green skins start to peel away.

While they are boiling, in a frying pan heat a generous dose of olive oil with a seasoning dash of salt and pepper (or Goya Sazon is you really want some exotic spices).

Add chopped fresh garlic and chopped (very small pieces) onions to the hot olive oil and fry the garlic and onions; lots and lots of garlic.

While the onions and garlic fry (don't overcook), the plantains should be ready, so pull them out, throw away the green skins and put the cleaned hot plantains on a large flat plate and mash them as you would do for mashed potatoes, but not to an extreme - they should be lumpy.

Once they are broken up some, add the frying pan mixture of oil, garlic and onions and mash it all into the plantain mixture.

Salt to taste and this culinary work of art is ready to eat!

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: May 15, 2009 5 P.M.

Boston's Fort Point Arts Gallery is seeking proposals for 2009 group shows and performances. Proposals are open to all media and shows will be selected by guest juror, Heidi Kayser, the founding director of both the Axiom Center for New and Experimental Media and the newly formed Art Technology New England Consortium.

Submissions are due at the gallery by 5pm on May 15th.

You can email questions to: gallery@fortpointarts.org.

Robin Rose

In each major city around the world there are a limited number of artists in that city's art scene who can be best described as "firsts among equals," in the sense that their presence and influence goes beyond just being a painter or a sculptor, etc. to being a major part of that city's art tapestry.

Such an artist for the Greater Washington, DC region is Robin Rose, and although I haven't seen the show yet (but I will), I am hearing some good things as well as surprise, from his current show at The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center.

Titled Robin Rose: Cypher, the exhibition opens today, and there will be an artist's reception on April 23 from 6-9PM. The show will remain on view through May 17, 2009. The show at AU is concurrent with Robin Rose: Endeavor at Hemphill Fine Arts, which represents the work of Robin Rose.

The reason that his AU show is raising eyebrows from those who have seen it (someone described it to me as "out of the box!") is that what AU has on display (described as "aggressively altered found object assemblages") is so different and so very far from Rose's well-known and beautiful abstraction, that people are doing a double take.

I am also told that a lot of it is just plain funny!

I have never hidden my opinion that artists should always explore all facets and experiences and visual offerings of their artistry, rather than just deliver cookie-cutter art based on one concept.

I love seeing a single Mondrian, but lose interest when I see a dozen of them all in one room.

The way to see Robin Rose in the next few weeks is to visit his show at AU to discover this new side of this influential artist, and then drop by Hemphill Fine Arts to see what's new with his well-known encaustic on aluminum panel paintings.

Wanna go to a Bethesda opening this Friday?

Award winning artist Kristy Simmons opens her solo art show, Inklings to showcase her latest paintings exploring the intersection of the material world with virtual, or nonmaterial, reality. Thin glazes of underpainting are overlaid with thick brushstrokes, applied to both canvas as well as sheets of plexiglass on top of canvas – to give the audience the "inkling" of their combined and interdependent existence.

Orchard Gallery
7917 Norfolk Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20815

Orchard Gallery located at 7917 Norfolk Avenue. The opening reception is April 10, 6 – 8:30pm, and is part of Bethesda's monthly "Arts Walk."

Wanna go to an opening at UM tomorrow?

The University of Maryland's Stamp Gallery has an opening of the first ever solo show by Ding Ren.

Titled Here/There, the show is curated by Megan Rook-Koepsel and Jennifer Quick. Exhibition Dates: April 8 - May 6, 2009.

Opening reception: Wednesday, April 8, 6-8pm (with performance by Ding's band, Bible Kiss Bible.

You gotta listen to this

Amazing musical videoworks! Let it play at leat a minute... you'll be hooked: Click here.

NGA Partnership Encourages Children Artists

By Prelli Williams

Last March 5, it seemed that the National Gallery of Art moved to J.C. Nalle Elementary School in Southeast Washington as attendees marveled at the student Art exhibition of clay sculptures created by fifth grade students while the fourth graders recited Haiku poems as they stood beneath Drip paintings in the main corridor.

Principal Kim Burke said that a team of fifth grade teachers had submitted a proposal to the NGA, then the school was interviewed, and were finally selected out of eleven other schools that went through the process leading to a partnership between J. C. Nalle Elementary School and the National Gallery of Art.

Sara Mark Lesk, Coordinator of Art Around the Corner said that Nalle students visited the National Gallery of Art multiple times to experience works of art, develop their critical thinking skills through active looking, and explore creativity through art making. All lessons complied with the DCPS curriculum.

Student Brianna Hooks delivered the Welcome Address and the Gallery teachers presented certificates to eighty-six fourth and fifth grade participants. “This is awesome,” said Prelli Williams of Ward 7 Arts Collaborative to teachers Ms. Jones and Ms. Preston as Dr. Buaful, Ms. Staffer, Ms. Surles watched the fifth grade perform “A Day at the NGA” inspired by Art Around the Corner, and directed by Ms. Bailey.

A family activity making Clay Creatures ended with a dessert reception. The Mark and Carol Hyman Fund, The Mead Family Foundation, and the Janice H. Levin Fund made Art Around the Corner possible.

First Rocky, now...

A corner of Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Parkway lost all of its Alexander Calders this week.

For more than four years, sculptures by the inventor of the mobile adorned the grassy, tree-dotted Calder Garden bordering 22d Street - a two-acre plot once eyed for a Calder museum.

A few years ago, 11 works - 10 stationary ones called stabiles and a hybrid with a movable top - were scattered there.

As of Sunday, seven remained, including the bright-orange Jerusalem Stabile.

Yesterday morning, the last piece was carted away, and the Calder Garden was no more.

Read the Peter Mucha Inky story here.

Do this: lottoHEART

Deadline to register: April 10th, 2009

CAMP Rehoboth in Delaware is an awesome GBLT advocacy group has grown up from a grassroots effort reacting to a health epidemic to a powerhouse fighting for human equality.

For the eighth year, my good friend Sondra Arkin is the co-chair of their annual art event and they’ve made some big changes this year! And both her and I are inviting you to be part of this project.

We are asking Mid-Atlantic artists we admire to create two original, postcard-sized (5" x 7" exactly) works in any medium. All works are donations and will be sold for $100 — the catch is that your identity will not be known by the buyer until after the purchase. Also, the order in which a buyer gets to select their art is random and will be pulled off as part of a lively night of entertainment. One piece goes into the LottoHEART where the buyers select at the event (July 3rd), and the other will go into our Blind Date group (literally wrapped and random) for buyers who might not want to choose or who may not be able to come to the event.

While the exhibition is anonymous, they will heavily publicize the names of the participating artists and provide a web catalog immediately following the event. There is no theme — just stick to the size restriction. To help with this, they will provide you with two 5 x 7” hardboards free of charge if you would like. Please indicate that you would like them on your registration form or in your registration email.

You may mail or fax in the form or register at this website.

The deadline for registration is April 10th — but since the project is limited to 200 artists, I urge you to sign up today. Your work is due by June 15th.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Sondra at (202) 588-1764 or at heart@camprehoboth.com.

Review of my last curatorial task

"Even in the world of visual art — where originality is routinely faked or manufactured when it cannot be had by honest means — the Cuban-American artist, critic and frequent National Public Radio commentator cuts an unusually distinctive figure.

You can hear it in the streetwise mix of Latin and Brooklyn cadences with which the former Navy man — whose career included stints as both an officer and an enlisted man — sizes up and translates high-art themes in his thoughtful videos and radio narratives. You can trace it in the muscular leaps of taste and logic found in his pioneering art blog, where the one-time student of the great African-American artist Jacob Lawrence and devotee of visionary Mexican painter Frida Kahlo shows he's capable of embracing old-school aesthetic values, a populist kind of viewer's stance and the contemporary fondness for quirkiness in the very same sentence.

You can also see it in the 19th Annual Mid-Atlantic Art Exhibition at Norfolk's d'Art Center, where Campello's online prominence and long experience as a juror drew nearly 625 entries from 17 states, then distilled them into a formidable show of 61 pieces."

Art critic Mark St. John Erickson reviews Norfolk's D'Art Center's annual Mid Atlantic Competition and has some very nice things to say about both the exhibition and yours truly. Read it here.

The Declaration of Arbroath

Americans have not been the only people who have fought English armies for independence. England's own neighbor to the North, Scotland (where I lived for three years and visit often and love dearly) has fought English aggression for centuries.

Today marks the 1,690th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, or the Scottish version of their Declaration of Independence, dated the 6th of April of 1320. It is addressed to the Pope:

To the most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.

Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever.

The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.

But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully. Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose Vice-Regent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.

This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbours. The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom.

But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge.

To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, csating our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought.

May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days.

Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid.

Freedom does not come easily.

For this Tuesday

There are some great works of art at some very low starting bids at the Habatat for Healing Auction to raise funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

It all started online April 1st at 12:00 p.m. and runs through April 7th at 5:00 p.m. and you can view the artwork and bid now. Details here.

On Tuesday there is really going to be a great kick-off event. Besides Healthy Chocolate, Complementary Valet, Complementary Markers Mark Whiskey, and Wine by Delfosse Vineyard & Winery, they will have some really awesome silent auction art, other items and raffle prizes by Capital Grille, Sakura Steakhouse & Markers Mark among others, and the first 10 women through the door receive gift bags by Shea Terre Organics. Details here.

You can bid on my donation (see below) here.

Woman Jumping into the Void. Charcoal on Paper. 11x14 inches framed.
F. Lennox Campello, c. 2009.

Artists' Websites: Jenny Mullins

Jenny Mullins received her BFA in Studio Art from The University of Texas at Austin. She has studied at the Arrowmont School of Art, the cultural center for the arts at Santa Chiara, Italy, and later at the Vermont Studio Center.


She just finished her MFA in the Hoffberger School of Painting at MICA in Baltimore. Her meticulous, miniature drawings and large scale paper installations depict dense worlds of mythological beasts. The often comedic characters explore the dynamics of a dysfunctional human society. Gallerists and collectors can contact her here.

Wanna go to an opening in Baltimore tomorrow?

Loyola College in Maryland’s Julio Art Gallery will host its annual student exhibition from Monday, April 6 – Wednesday, April 22. An opening reception will be held on April 6 from 4 – 6 p.m.

We're huge fans of student art, and this exhibit, the year’s most anticipated event for students and faculty in Loyola’s fine arts department, features more than 150 photographs, paintings, collages, ceramics and other works created by undergraduate students.

The gallery is open Monday – Friday from 11 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sundays from 1–4 p.m. It is closed on all university holidays. For more information, phone Gallery Director Kay Hwang at 410-617-2799.

MICA Thesis Exhibitions

I'm a big supporter of student art and the MICA Thesis Shows are some of the best places to discover new talent.

The next set of openings take place on Friday, April 10, 2009! The reception is from 5-7 PM in the Decker Gallery at MICA. Please come and enjoy good food, good company and good art at the Decker Gallery. While there check out Jenny Mullins' work.

Caterpillar installation by Jenny Mullins
Decker and Meyerhoff Galleries will be filled with work of graduating MFA students in the Hoffberger School of Painting, Photo, New Media, Graphic Design and The Rhinehardt School of Sculpture.

In addition, there are Thesis talks on Wednesday April 15th beginning at 1:00 PM in the Decker Gallery. Details here.

5 - 7 pm, Friday, April 10, 2009!
MICA, Decker Gallery .
Show Dates: April 10, - April 21, 2009.

Congrats

To my good friend Sara Pomerance, whose film screens tomorrow at 6PM at Anthology Film Archives in NYC.

Wanna go to a whole bunch of openings in DC tonight?

In fact you can go to a whole bunch of them, as it is First Fridays and the Dupont Circle area galleries are having their openings and extended hours.

While there make sure that you check out the Caos on F Street gallery collective to see David Harp: Photography, Michael Berman: Mixed Media and Matthew Falls: Furniture.

Also "A Cast of Characters" - A survey of kiln cast and lamp worked glass as seen by the instructors and studio artists of the Washington Glass School. Reception tonight, Friday, April 3, from 6 to 8 pm at Foundry Gallery (1314 18th Street, N.W., 1st Floor, between Massachusetts and N Streets, just off Dupont Circle).

Dawson on Space Unlimited

"Space, Unlimited" shows us just how terrifying it is to be an artist right now.

In nearly all the show's pieces -- and there is one self-assured exception -- we sense a waking terror at the long shadow of art history. With so many Titians and Mondrians behind us, how to carve the road forward? Beat them or join them?

Read Jessica's review here and then go to the lecture by my good friend and co-curator Laura Roulet on Sunday, April 5 starting at 3PM at the Art Museum of the Americas, located at 201 18th Street, NW in DC.

I'm not really terrified by the way...

Spring Break in NYC

By Robin Tierney

Here’s a cure for cabin fever: a recession-priced escape to Manhattan.

Look for a discount fare on the Amtrak Acela (tip: board the no-cellphone “Quiet Car”). Rate-surf for the New Yorker Hotel, an architectural classic one block from Penn Station. It completed a massive renovation in time for the economic bust, so you can get a bargain and colossal views. Next, buy a $74 CityPass that gets you VIP admission at a bunch of iconic venues, and a $7.50 FunPass for 24 hours of unlimited subway riding on days you don’t feel like walking, although walking’s easy from this central location.

Now, some quick takes from my long weekend of art-spotting.

Big venues are scrambling more than ever to lure more visitors. The Metropolitan Museum of Art hit the bell with its new “It’s Time We Met” ad campaign built on photos submitted by museum-goers. Winners got a couple hundred bucks and an annual pass. So if you dream of having work shown at the Met, instead of slaving over a hot canvas just click some whimsical scenes with your cellphone.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when security sentry Guy Anglade told me that visitors have asked which way to the “We Met at the Met” exhibition. Anglade shook his head: “Forget Carravaggio, where are the Flickr photos?”

"Six-year-old emulating Edward Hopper! His own choice, said his mother."
By Robin Tierney
The supersized images are plastered on billboards, buses and fencing in front of the museum. Evidently in the social media age, there’s an unquenchable thirst for acts of cuteness executed against fine art. Imagine your life’s work functioning as a background for goof-shots.

One special exhibition revisited the debate that won’t die: “is photography art?” “Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard” arrested scores of onlookers during my visit with its documents of Americana arcana culled from the photographer’s collection of 9,000 postcards. For most of the cards, the photographers remain unknown, but several of Walker’s own postcard creations are on view. Through his 1936 experiments, he taught himself to crop for maximum clarity and intensity. Walker then worked decades to free this humble genre from the pigeon-hole of nostalgia and get respect as an art form.


Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975) View of Easton, Pennsylvania (variant), 1935 Postcard format gelatin silver print 8.6 x 13.7 cm (3 3/8 x 5 3/8 in.)
Whatever you call them, their allure overpowers: viewers studied b&w and hand-colored portraits of beach towns, main streets, train depots, river ports, windswept cliffs, hometown jubilees, fan-dancers, sanitarium patients. The alchemy of documentary and lyricism includes original Coney Island amusements (“Atlantis, the Sunken City”), San Francisco’s Valencia Hotel vaulted out into the street by an earthquake, even an electric chair at Sing Sing prison.

The postcard exhibition closes May 25; check out curator Jeff Rosenheim’s terrific catalog.

Across the hall, I caught the final day of “Reality Check: Truth and Illusion in Contemporary Photography.” Interesting selections included faux-to-journalist David Levinthal’s staged battle using toy soldiers, flour and plastic bags shot using a very narrow depth of field. Mark Wyse documents a squirrel ignored in the road after falling to his death in his “Marks of Indifference” series.

Downstairs, “Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors” offered an opportunity to observe the graphic shorthand of dots, dashes, loops, spirals and zigzags the modernist used to record images and to compose paintings.

Make time to meander in Central Park.

Just south of the park you can overdose on eccentricities all day at MoMA (AKA the Museum of Modern Art). Sleep-deprived, I lacked the patience to mine for meaning in the temporary exhibitions that left me plagued by an earworm of “You Gotta Have a Gimmick” (from “Gypsy”). Such as Klara Liden’s projects, partly due to the medium designation of “interventions.” And a performance artist’s self-imposed year-long confinement to a cell. “Four Decades of Contemporary Art” felt like a Target commercial on drugs.

The ennui evaporated once I remembered to fetch my MoMA audio tour.

It’s worth scaling the steps for the survey spotlighting Martin Kippenberger, who has lambasted the vagaries of modern culture in nearly every medium. Consider “Psycho buildings” and the sprawling recession-ready installation presenting job interview as sporting event, complete with bleachers and cheerleaders.

MoMA admission gets you a free all-day ticket to use when you wish at P.S.1, the contemporary/indie art haven two subway stops east in Queens.


"Cheerful New York Graffiti in Building near P.S. 1"
By Robin Tierney
Speaking of gimmicks, even art-grumps might crack a smile at the swimming pool that mixes false bottom with false illusions. Darker spectacles play out on dual-sided screens showing Kenneth Anger’s surrealistic brain dumps. His lyrical 40s-style b&w “Faux D’Artifice” held me spellbound while others crowded before flickering frames of Coney Island biker escapades in “Scorpio Rising.”

Jonathan Horowitz commanded a bunch of spaces with jarring works in a range of media. Player piano playing songs from the Who’s “Tommy” paired with disturbing clips from “The Miracle Worker” and other movies. Commentary amusing and sinister about politics and celebrity, the universal appeal of violence and scandal, and imperialism as foreign policy and entertainment from the Roman Empire onward. It’s interesting. Really.

Watching Yael Bartana’s videos of vehicles eerily coming to a stop on a dark highway made me contemplate the narcotic effect of film, especially after I nodded off for an uncertain duration until a lady guard told me it was closing time.

Here comes a mini blockbuster

From the PMA:

Celebrating the extraordinary life and work of Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), this installation consists of two paintings and seven drawings by the local artist. Among these works are a sequence of studies leading to the creation of Wyeth’s tempera painting Groundhog Day that demonstrate the transformation and distillation of observation that characterizes his finest work. Wyeth and his wife, Betsy, donated these drawings to the Museum in July 2006 during the final weeks of the retrospective exhibition Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic.

Born in Chadds Ford, Pa., 30 miles southwest of Philadelphia, Wyeth was educated at home and apprenticed to his celebrated father, the painter and illustrator Newell Convers (N.C.) Wyeth. He made his solo debut at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in 1936, at the age of 18, and was launched on the national scene the following year with a sold-out exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery in New York. Building on that early success, Wyeth proved to be a painter of profound imagination, skill, and staying power across seven turbulent decades. Both admired and criticized for the tenacity of his realist approach and the unabashed emotion in his paintings, he produced some of the most famous and haunting images of the 20th century.

“All I want to do is paint,” said Wyeth, “and I paint the things I know best.” The everyday “things” found in and around his homes in Pennsylvania and Maine resonated with feeling for Wyeth, offering him pathways into memory and fantasy. His paintings of “things” were rarely straightforward, realistic descriptions: usually, the subjects have been simplified in the process of study, manipulated, and layered with personal associations, metaphors, and symbols that express larger themes of loss, death, and the passage of time.

Curator: Michael Taylor, The Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art
Location: Gallery 119, first floor

Out of Order at MAP: Drive-by review

Yesterday I got to MAP's Out of Order fundraiser auction art drop off a little earlier than last year, but by the mid afternoon there were already 270 pieces of art hung on MAP's wall.

So it seems that they're well on their way to top last year's numbers of over 600 works of art auctioned off for MAP's benefit, with 50% of the silent auction proceeds going to the artist.

When I got there and was filling out my forms, I had to do a double take on the artist who came after me. He was Michael O'Sullivan's (WaPo art critic) doppleganger, little glasses and all.

On closer examination he was a little older, but whoever this gent was, he really looks like O'Sullivan.

I stopped staring and went back to filling out my paperwork.

"Do you think this piece is too pornographic to hang in this show?" I heard the doppleganger ask the young MAP attendant. I turned and looked.

He had a painting well wrapped; he unwrapped it and showed it to the young girl. She looked a little confused and told him that it was OK. He asked if she was sure.

She then referred him to Julie Ann Cavnor (I think), the young MAP Executive Director, who was sitting behind the gallery's desk.

I couldn't resist, so as he walked to the desk, I stood up and strategically placed myself by the side of the desk, pretending I was studying the piece hung behind it, so that I could steal a look at the potentially offending work of art.

The doppleganger came to Cavnor and asked the same question. She looked at it, and over her shoulder, so did I.

I didn't see her face, but heard her telling the guy that it was OK. She did this in a very nice way.

Former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Potter Stewart once wrote that that "hard-core pornography" was hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it."

I think that Stewart and I, plus all the MAP personnel and I suspect every person on this planet would agree that there was no pornography in the work that the doppleganger was so anxious about.

Puzzling in fact.

The piece appeared to be an oil painting, sort of a naive style mixture of abstract and representational elements, thick paint application and sort of a New Ageish kind of look to the (ahem) finished product.

No naked bodies that I could discern with my quick stolen glance, no erect penises, no penetration of any orifices, no sucking of any kind, no genitalia that was recognizable as such.

No pornography; at least not on planet Earth.

Bypassing this distraction, I hung my work and moved on to look at the work that had preceded it.

Here's what I liked and what should be acquired during the auction:

There's an untitled lovely seascape watercolor by Patrick Klugh (#220) that will go fast. There's also a gorgeous tempting graphite work by photographer Elena Volkova (#59 and titled "Waterlines) almost next to it. This piece is a very minimalist rendition, clearly influenced by Volkova's equally minimalist photography. It is one of the best pieces in the show.

On the opposite end of the drawing spectrum, there's a very strong charcoal drawing by Matt Bergsbauer titled "Distortion #4 (it's work number 94) that reminded me a lot of Uruguayan artist Javier Gil's work. I also liked McKenzie Lefstein's woodcut titled "Trash City." That piece is number 65.

Two interesting nudes, a little too high for me to determine their media (could be drawing or digital), but with a lot of Vargas and Currin in them were next to each other (numbered 171 and 169 respectively) and seemed to come from the same artist's hand, but identified them as Brenda Brookind and David Wilson.

Number 44, "Hold Both Handles," a cool collage by M. Jordan Tierney was also quite good and should get a decent set of bids, as will Melissa Sue Mauro's appropriation of Hello Kitty in her "Distant Childhood Memories" (#72).

Candace Linthicum's pastel of a nude woman, #27 showed powerful skills with that very difficult medium, adn I also liked Diane Burnett's wire sculpture titled "The Eternal Struggle."

Right around the area where the Burnett sculpture is located, the O'Sullivan doppleganger was now engaged in conversation with a tall gent, and had his painting (wrapped again) under his arm.

"Do you think it's too pornographic?" I heard him ask the gent as I passed by.

The last piece that I will mention in this early look is David Herman's oddly titled "Untitled, Ocean." A powerful oil painting of a seascape that will get many bids, but David, is it untitled or is the title "Ocean"?

As I headed out the door, the doppleganger had returned to the receiving desk, and was once again quizzing once of the volunteers about the pornographicity of his work.

Molly, the fair attendant taking care of him, was being very nice, and I restrained my desire to jump in and ahhhh... ask him which part of "no" was fuzzy to him.

The Auction & Gala starts at 8pm, Friday, April 3, 2009. Go buy some artwork!

Things are not always as they seem

This elusive concept haunts the periphery of three distinct artists’ works, and for the month of April, Projects Gallery (which also sells my work) has three simultaneous solo shows of disparate artists who are united under the umbrella concept of Perception : Reality.

Canadian Ross Bonfanti creates his popular "concreatures" (if you've ever been to an art fair anywhere, any art fair... you've seen them) by rescuing cute, stuffed animals from thrift stores and ripping the stuffing out of ‘em.

The empty vessels are then filled with concrete. Once cured, the fur skin is peeled away, leaving a disarming "concreature" in place. Textured with the underside of the fabric, with fur embedded in the exposed seams, these sculptures retain their plush appearance and original features, including button eyes and noses.

The resulting sculpture is a constant juxtaposition between the expected and the actual.

Philadelphian Lauren Lyons is widely regarded for her photography of bands in highly stylized shoots.

She has photographed artist portraits and cheeky scenarios for illustrious clients such as Interscope Records, PETA, HBO, and Philadelphia Magazine. Celebrated for her accentuation of the artifice of her subjects, Lyons’ work exemplifies a contraction; she captures the visual evidence of the veneer.

Her carefully constructed images provide elusive glimpses at the truth, enough to ‘whet the palette’, ultimately creating a composed stylized truth.

Fellow Cuban Alex Queral’s carved phonebooks usually receive the “how’d-he-do-that?” attention wherever they are exhibited. His lushly detailed carvings are created from the soft material of phonebooks. Using classical carving techniques on an unexpected material, Queral brings forth the individual from the faceless masses. Queral crafts recognizable visages, vaguely familiar but elusively foreign, as well as evoking his own cast of characters from the bound sheets of paper.

Projects Gallery presents these three divergent artists from different regions of the continent. Each will be given their own exhibition space to focus on the individual artist, but the thematic thread connects them all. Popular in their own right, Perception : Reality invites the viewer to discover what lays beyond the first impression of these three artists’ works.

Perception : Reality will be on display April 6 - 25, 2009. There will also be an artist reception on First Friday, April 6th from 6 - 9 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public. Projects Gallery is located at 629 N. 2nd St. in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties section.

Wanna go to an opening in Frederick, MD this weekend?

The Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center has an openning reception, on Saturday, April 4, 2008, 3-5 pm for married artists William “Skip” Lawrence and Diane Santarella, who have simultaneous shows in April, at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center Center in Frederick, Maryland.

Large canvases with rich layers of color will fill the Delaplaine’s F&M Gallery in “Homecoming”, recent paintings by William “Skip” Lawrence. "States of Mind" , by Diane Santarella, is showing in the Delaplaine’s Gardiner Gallery. Santarella’s paintings explore the graphic, visual experience of meditation, migraines, dreamscapes, and the organization of mental minutiae.

Sandberg at Conner

In Washington, DC, Conner Contemporary celebrates their first decade with concurrent solo exhibitions of new work by three gallery artists: Erik Thor Sandberg, Dean Kessmann and Isaac Maiselman.

I consider Erik Thor Sandberg to be one of the best painters that I have ever met.

His natural skills and his work ethic combine to deliver an artist who is somewhat of a throwback to the great age of painting, but also an artist whose consummate skill is also married to a very contemporary dialogue.

Conner describes Sandberg as an artist who "calls forth the regenerative powers of nature in Cyclical Nature, his third solo exhibition with the Gallery. Viewing the artist's latest series of large oil paintings on canvas elicits as much pleasure as he evidently took in painting them. Freeing figures from interior settings of his previous compositions, Sandberg opened magnificent landscape vistas as sites for the enactment of life, death and regeneration. In his inventive allegories, people and animals negotiate a tenuous balance between knowledge and irrationality. Sandberg reconciled the unsettling eventualities of his protagonists' actions by grounding them in vital elements which assert nature's boundless forces of reclamation and rebirth."

Dean Kessmann furthers his exploration of unusual ways of seeing familiar architectural spaces in Architectural Intersections, his third solo exhibition with the Gallery. In his first solo exhibition with Conner, artist Isaac Maiselman critiques political exploitation of religion in the video installation Entre el Dios, El Diablo.

The openings are on Saturday, April 4 from 6-8PM. If you are a lover of great painting, do not miss this show.

AIPAD report

One dealer, when asked what she’d sold, replied: “Off the record? Nothing. On the record? Nothing.”

Kris Wilton reports in artinfo.com.

Do this tomorrow

Tomorrow, Maryland Art Place (MAP) will be accepting artwork for their annual Out of Order silent auction.

Last year, 425 artists participated in Out of Order and several hundred guests attended, making it one of Baltimore’s most important and memorable art events! Check out my drive-by review of that exhibit here. My Best in Show pick last year was Hadieh Shafie, who won one of the major Baker awards a few days ago! Does the kid have an eye or what?

Proceeds from artwork sales will be split 50/50 between MAP and the artists and will directly support MAP’s exhibitions and programs throughout the year. For submission guidelines, please view the artist prospectus here.

I plan to donate work once again.

Out of Order
Auction & Gala: 8pm, Friday, April 3, 2009

Hanging Dates & Times: 24 non-stop hours beginning 9am, Wednesday, April 1, 2009.

Artists' Websites: Janis Goodman



Janis Goodman is not only an accomplished artist, but also one of the key figures in the Greater Washington, DC art scene. Goodman is a Professor of Fine Art at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and one of the Arts Reviewer for the PBS/WETA, Channel 26, Around Town program. Visit her website here.

Robin Rose at Hemphill

One of Washington's most influential artists, Robin Rose, opens at Hemphill Fine Arts in DC with a show titled Endeavor. The opening reception is Saturday April 4, 2009 from 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm. The show runs through May 30, 2009.

Wanna do some body painting this Friday in DC?

Here's a party you won't want to miss! The closing of the annual 2009 Erotic Art Show at MOCA DC Gallery will begin at 6 pm on April 3 with very special contests for models and body painting enthusiasts and prizes totaling over $1,000 in value.

Models from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, and as far away as Delaware and New Jersey will be on hand wearing the erotic costume of their choice. A panel of judges will select the top three costumes judged on both originality and erotic flare. First, second and third place winners in the model/costume competition will each be awarded an "in-studio," two-hour portfolio-building photoshoots with one of three of the best known DC-area fashion, glamour, and fine art photographers.

Each of the winners will also be awarded a one-hour make-up session with one of three top-notch professional make-up artists! MOCA DC is fortunate to have Jerry Harke of JR Harke Photography, Inc. (Annandale, VA), Mike Cary of Mike Cary Photography (Fredericksburg, VA), and John Korb from John Korb Photography (Fairfax, VA) donate two-hour photoshoots to the winners. And, the three top notch make-up artists are donating their services to the winners.

Winners of the body painting contests will be awarded a cash prize of $50 for the best body painting artist and $50 for the best human canvas.

MOCA DC is located at 1054 31st St. NW in Canal Square in Georgetown, Washington DC, right next to a few other galleries in the Canal Square complex. For details, email Dave Quammen at mocadc01@comcast.net or call 202.342.6230.

Barbaccia and others at Delaplaine

Joseph Barbaccia's "Resonance" opens Saturday, April 4th at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center's Side Gallery in Frederick, Maryland. The show goes through May 17, 2009.

Included are 12 mixed media sculptures created by Joseph Barbaccia, supported by a portrait of the artist holding one of his works by painter Margaret Dowell. Barbaccia and Dowell set an artistic mirror up to the creative personality by reflecting and revealing the artist through their own work, as well as through another artist’s eyes.

At the Center's Kline Gallery, don't miss Linda Plaisted's "The Arborist: Roots, Resilience and Rebirth" (through April 26). Plaisted "layers her original photographs of the trees of Frederick County with textures from her paintings and collected ephemera. The result is a painterly series of work that share a lucid quality illustrating the natural cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth."

And at the Gardiner Gallery you must also see "States of Mind" by Diane Santarella (through April 26). This series of paintings explores "the graphic, visual experience of meditation, migraines, dreamscapes, and the organization of mental minutiae. Santerella works in mixed media on paper and canvas with a distinct mark that recalls Zen calligraphy and graffiti. The resulting paintings are quiet, complex and subtly challenging."

The Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center
40 South Carroll Street
Frederick, Maryland 21701

Reclaimed at Target

Reclaimed, an exhibition at Alexandria's Target Gallery focuses on everyday common objects that are reclaimed, recycled, reinterpreted and transformed into art.

From Marcel Duchamp’s “ready-mades” to Robert Rauschenberg’s “combines”, artists have been for years recycling and reclaiming everyday common objects and transforming them into something new and unique. This exhibition was open to all artists nationally and internationally to submit work that has been reclaimed and transformed into their own personal artistic statement. The jurors for this exhibition are gallery owners and collectors, a husband and wife team, my good friends Steven and Linda Krensky.

The exhibition opens on April 1 and goes through April 26, 2009. The opening reception is April 9, 6-8pm and there will be a gallery talk at 7pm.

Another art scam artist...

Body of her email (just as received) below:

Hello.
My name is faith i saw your profile today at (afonline.artistsspace.org) and i love it also became intrested in you,i will also like to know you more,and i want you to send an email directely to my email address so i can give you my picture for you to know whom i am.Here is my email address (faithmbia53@yahoo.co.uk) i believe we can move from here.my love distance or colour does not matter but love matters alot in life.i waiting to recive your lovely reply soon, Yours Love.
Miss faith

New head of PG County Arts Council

(Via Arts & Real Estate) I had heard that my good friend Lionell Thomas had a new job as the head of the Prince George's County Arts Council, but couldn't get the DC Arts Commission (where Lionell worked for many years) to confirm it, and couldn't find anything on the web until now.

Thomas will not only bring a wealth of expertise (much needed by the way) to that Arts Council, but something that money can't buy: energy and true enthusiasm to the arts and to the new job.

2008

I just handed all my 2008 tax paperwork to my CPA and it doesn't look pretty.

Surprisingly though, sales of my own artwork reached an all time high for me. I had not realized this until this week.

In 2008 I had one solo show (of my paintings) and participated in about half a dozen art fairs and about half a dozen group shows.

I seem to do really well in art fairs, where my work has always and consistently sold well in art fairs (although 2009 started with a bummer art fair).

Bottom line: in 2008 I managed to sell nearly 80 drawings! Nearly a third of these were sold in one New York fair.

Most of these were recent drawings, but I also sold a few older pieces to a collector and even several art school works.

2009 started roughly, but I've got some more art fairs already lined up, have work hanging currently in two shows, but I still need to work on a few gallery shows.

Portraitism

With challenging economic times persisting, people are spending more time at home and are looking for affordable luxuries. Portraiture, especially portraits of children is "The New Status Symbol", according to Boston Home Magazine

Absolutearts.com report here and Boston Home Mag's portraits here.

Blue period

Representatives of the arts industries told the House Education and Labor Committee hearing Thursday that the repercussions of the recession go well beyond musicians having to put down their guitars and get "real" jobs. The nonprofit art and cultural industry alone supports 5.7 million jobs and generates $166 billion in economic activity every year, they said.

Read the AP report by Jim Abrams here.

And your art for free

Forbes estimates the personal wealth of Theodore N. Lerner at $2.5 billion, but why spend your own money on art when the taxpayers will commission it for you? The DC Government dead-panned that the baseball art belongs to DC and is only on loan to the Lerners, an assertion worthy of a Larry Neal Award for fiction. The sculpture is site-specific, so saying the art is on loan is like saying you don’t own the fillings in your teeth, you only rent them.

Read Licht on "DC Buys Bronze Bobbleheads for Billionaires" here.

Openness for everyone else but us....

A federal judge in Manhattan has spoken out about a claimant's decision to keep mum about the details of a recent restitution case involving the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Last month, the two museums agreed to a settlement under which they would continue to own two Picasso paintings in their collections and would pay the heirs of the works' original owner, Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, to settle the dispute.

The heirs demanded that the terms remain confidential, a decision the judge, Jed S. Rakoff, questioned when the settlement was announced, citing the museums' public roles and the gravity of the case.

Read the artinfo.com report here.

Baker Artist Award Winners

Congrats to all the Baker Award winners, which were announced yesterday evening in Baltimore.

Carl Grubbs, who is the jazz band director at St. Paul's School in Brooklandville, Hadieh Shafie, a multimedia artist who works as director of career services at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and John Ruppert, a sculptor and chairman of the department of art at the University of Maryland, College Park, were the three winners of the Mary Sawyers Baker awards. The winners were selected through a private juried process and will each receive $25,000.

Another seven artists were named winners of $1,000 "Baltimore's Choice" awards, which were selected by public online voting.

You can see all the award winners here.

When countries go bad...

Yale University has gone to court in a preemptive attempt to protect its claim to an 1888 Van Gogh painting in its collection, Business Week reports.

“The Night Café,” which entered the university collection in 1961 through a bequest from alumnus Stephen Carlton Clark, once belonged to the great Russian collector Ivan Morozov. Russia nationalized his holdings during the revolution and later sold the work.

According to Yale’s suit, Pierre Konowaloff, a Paris-based man purporting to be Morozov’s grandson, last year asserted through a lawyer that he owned the painting and sent a draft complaint of a federal suit. Konowaloff argues that the Soviet nationalization of property was illegal and that the painting is the rightful property of his great-grandfather and his estate.

Read the Artinfo.com report here.

Earlier when I discussed that fact that all the nationalized stolen Cuban artwork which has subsequently been sold by the Cuban dictatorship (mostly to French museums) would one day be subject to claims by the rightful owners, I completely forgot about Russia's earlier nationalizing theft of privately owned artwork which was then subsequently sold by the evil empire.

And in this wide open arena where governments left and right are suing institutions for the return of their national patrimonies, the writing is on the wall.

That's the way you do it...

Sotheby’s has cut CEO William F. Ruprecht’s salary for 2009 and eliminated his cash bonus for 2008 after a sharp fall in the house's profits...

Details here.

Mitch Cope's Amazing Project

Foreclosed house? No problem! Let an artist deal with it.

Read what Mitch Close is doing here.

Mellema on Imboden

Kevin Mellema reviews Connie Imboden at Heineman-Myers Contemporary. Read the review here.

International Arts Journalism Institute in the Visual Arts

From AU:

What: International Arts Journalism Institute in the Visual Arts sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. State Department
When: Friday, June 12th through Friday, June 26th
Where: American University, Washington, D.C.
Deadline: April 10th, 2009

American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center is pleased to announce the first National Endowment for the Art’s International Arts Journalism Institute in the Visual Arts. This program will provide mid-career art critics and writers the opportunity to participate in a two-week intensive institute at American University in Washington, DC. The institute, which runs from Friday, June 12th through Friday, June 26th, will consist of writing workshops, lectures, and travel to major East Coast art venues.

Up to twenty-four writers will be selected, twelve from the United States and twelve from the Middle East, Northern Africa, Asia, and other countries to participate in the institute. The selection will be based on the individual’s experience in critiquing or reporting on the visual arts through a recognized media outlet. Applicants should provide a brief cover letter explaining their experience in the arts, a resume, and a published writing sample.

Participants will enjoy a two-week expense-paid trip to Washington, DC, including airfare, lodging, meals, writing workshops and regional travel to museums and galleries. Applications must be received no later than April 10th, 2009.

Please email or mail applications to Attn: Arts Journalism Institute: visualartsinstitute@american.edu

American University Museum
4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20016-8031

Contact:

Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator
American University Museum
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20016-8031
202-885-2489
visualartsinstitute@american.edu

Is that a great opportunity for art writers or what?

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: April 11, 2009

The 2009 Rawls Museum Arts Juried Exhibition, open to artists in DC, VA, MD, NC and on view June 4 – July 11, 2009. Juried by John Pollard, who is the founder of Richmond’s ADA Gallery where he has been exhibiting emerging and mid-career artists since 2003.

For an entry form send a SASE to:

Rawls Museum Arts
22376 Linden Street
Courtland, VA 23837

Or download the entry from here.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: March 27, 2009 (postmark).

The Fine Arts League of Cary is seeking entries for its 15th Annual Juried Art Exhibition to be held from May 8th to June 27th, 2009 in Cary/Raleigh, NC. Show awards and purchase awards will total over $5,000. Entries can only be mailed via CD. The postmark deadline for the mail-in registration is March 27, 2009. I will be the juror for this show.

Full details and a printable prospectus are available
on the web here or call Kathryn Cook at 919-345-0681.

Billy Bass in the WaPo today

The Washington Post's Reliable Source picks up the story of the new McDonald's commercial and former DC area artist Thomas Edwards.

Read the WaPo story here.

Here's an idea for public art

Musician and composer Frank Zappa (1940-1993) was born in Baltimore, and spent boyhood years in a Park Heights Avenue row house and at nearby Edgewood Arsenal. His family moved to California in 1952, but Charm City plans to honor its native son with a statute from Lithuania, which will be placed somewhere in Fell’s Point.

Licht on "Zappa Returns to Baltimore, Via Vilnius." Read it here.

Mayor's Arts Awards

I'm all hitzed that I couldn't go to the Mayor's Arts Awards last night, but I got a report from someone who did go:

The opening performance was OTT!

Titled "The Drum Unites Us," a West African Dance Company started it going - then the percussion sounds were joined by the steel drum band, the African dancers moved aside as Korean Dance Company danced to the continuing beat, who then stepped aside as Irish Steppers took center stage, who then moved aside for the Balinese Universe dance studio, who moved aside for the Turkish Silk Road Dance Company, who stepped aside for the BeatYa Feet dances, then the City at Peace dancers (both onstage and in the audience aisles) and then the breakdancers and rappers also took stage. A constant building of more and more - all to the drum beat.

Nice jazz performances; The rest was all good - the reception was the Watergate, where one of the Commissioners decried "the lack of pull for the visual artists in DC."

Sounds like a great time and maybe it will motivate all you unmotivated nebish folks to attend next year!

DCist superwoman Heather Goss has a great report and pics here. She also has the damn best review line of the year so far (describing the multi-ethnic dancing: "It was It's A Small World on the best kind of crack, providing an energetic start to the evening."

New Drawings

I've always been fascinated by the New Testament story of The Christ in Gethsemane, and His passion amongst the olives, and His doubt and fear.

That theme has been explored by me through many drawings over the years. Below are three very minimalist intepretations from 2009. There are all very small... about 3 inches wide by six or seven inches tall.

The Christ in Gethsemane, charcoal on paper. Circa 2009
By F. Lennox Campello


The Christ in Gethsemane II, charcoal on paper. Circa 2009
By F. Lennox Campello


The Christ in Gethsemane III, charcoal on paper. Circa 2009
By F. Lennox Campello

At the next art fair cycles in New York, I plan to have a wall full of these tiny drawings... most of them are under a few inches in size (framed). I think that it would be interesting to see 30-40 tiny drawings all crammed in one wall.

I also need to find a gallery interested in showing this small (and more affordable) work, rather than my usual, larger sized, "normal" work.

Wanna go to a DC opening this Friday?

Christian Platt, Paintings, has an Opening Reception Friday, March 27, 6-8:30 pm at Susan Calloway Fine Arts

"Young and new to the art world, Christian Platt focuses on large-scale oil landscapes, often inspired by his time as a wrangler in the Montana and Wyoming wilderness and the countryside surrounding his Virginia home, as well as large-scale still lifes."

Images here.

VFMA acquires new Cecilia Beaux

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts board of trustees have approved the acquisition of an 1888 oil on canvas portrait by American artist Cecilia Beaux, who was hailed at the turn of the 20th century as the “best woman painter in history.”

She is certainly one of my favorite painters, period.

The painting by Beaux (1855-1942) is a portrait of her fellow Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni Alexander Harrison and measures 26 by 19-3/4 inches. An important transitional work, the portrait dates from Beaux’s formative period of study in Concarneau, an artist’s colony in Brittany, where she first began to lighten her palette and to paint outdoors.

According to Dr. Sylvia Yount, VMFA’s Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art and an expert on Beaux’s work, the Philadelphia native was an internationally acclaimed figure painter and portraitist “who also happened to be the most successful woman artist working in turn-of-the-century America.”

Curators and dealers

As used as we all are to hear the whine from the negative perspective of the art dealer and museum curator symbiotic relationship, it is very refreshing to hear an excellent opinion married to a couple of good examples, but discussing when curators rely on art dealers and then give them zip credit.

Read Regina Hackett here.

Mel Chin lecture at Arlington Arts Center

On Tuesday, March 24 at 7pm the place to be in the Greater DC area is the Arlington Arts Center, which is "honored to welcome internationally-recognized artist Mel Chin to the Arlington Arts Center on Tuesday, March 24. Mr. Chin, whose work is socially and ecologically conscious, will be presenting a free lecture about his current public art project, Operation Paydirt."

The lecture will begin at 7pm.

To ensure adequate seating, please let them know if you will attend by calling 703.248.6800 or emailing information@arlingtonartscenter.org.

Is it me?, or has the Arlington Arts Center made giant strides forward since Claire Huschle took over as Executive Director and Jeffry Cudlin as Curator? You bet they have.

Wanna have a boatload of fun in DC tonight?

Join Mayor Fenty as award recipients are selected from among the finalists and announced live from the stage at the Mayor’s Arts Awards Ceremony tonight Monday, March 23, 2009 at 6:00 PM at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the Concert Hall.

Admission is free and having been to many of them, it is a boatload of fun, with great live music and entertainment and loads of good food and drinks.

This is a huge event, and every year that I've been to them, I always look around and say to myself, as I see hundreds and hundreds of people in the audience having fun: "where are the usual suspects from the DC visual art world?"

Go for me this year and have fun!

Rousseau on Fiber

My good friend Dr. Claudia Rousseau reviews "BookEnds: The Book as Art" at Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring and "A Tribute to Fiber Art" in the Art Gallery at the BlackRock Center in Germantown. Read her Gazette review here.

AIPAD

The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) hosts the world's largest exposition of vintage and contemporary photography and is celebrating 29 years as the world's premiere exposition devoted to fine art photography. It all takes place in NYC March 26 – 29, 2009 at the Park Avenue Armory.

During the month of March artline® is featuring these dealers and selections from their inventories on the artline homepage. Preview hundreds of photographs - all clicking from this link... click on any highlighted name and scroll left to right.

Nudashank Grand Opening in Baltimore

Nudashank is the new independent, artist-run gallery space in Baltimore, Maryland.

Their first exhibition, Wise Guise, is a colossal group show featuring 23 young and emerging artists. Representing a diverse selection of work, ranging from the figurative to the abstract, Wise Guise presents a cross-section of visual themes from contemporary counter-culture. The works in the show include paintings, works on paper, screenprints and zines.

Exhibiting artists are: 6 Baltimore-based artists: Xavier Schipani, Mark Brown, D’Metrius Rice, Walter Carpenter, Noel Freibert, and Molly Colleen O’Connell. Three European artists: Arnaud Loumeau, Thomas Bernard and Miruki Tusko.

And 14 artists from throughout the US: Jason Redwood, Bonner Sale, Jon Clary, Reuben Breslar, Drew Beckmeyer, Edie Fake, Jordan Bernier, Caitlin Cunningham, Emily Nachison, Edward Max Fendley, Matt Lock, Chris Warthen, Andrew St. Lawrence and Kevin Hayden.

The opening is March 27th, with a reception from 7 pm – 9pm and an after-party in the adjacent Whole Gallery. Wise Guise will be on view through April 25th. The 1000 square foot gallery is located at 405 West Franklin Street, on the third floor of the H&H building in downtown Baltimore, which already houses the Whole Gallery, Gallery Four, and Floristree.

Call to Artists: In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo

Deadline: June 6, 2009

Frida Kahlo remains one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, but her spectacular life experiences, her writing and her views on life and art have also influenced many artists throughout the years.

From July 1 - August 29, 2009 The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm Center in Washington, DC will be hosting Finding Beauty In A Broken World: In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo.

This exhibition hopes to showcase the work in all mediums of artists influenced not only by Kahlo’s art, but also by her biography, her thoughts, and her writing or any other aspect in the life and presence of this remarkable artist who can be interpreted through artwork.

This will be the third Kahlo show that I have juried in the last decade and we are seeking works of art that evoke the prolific range of expression, style and media like that which Frida Kahlo used as an outlet for her life’s experiences.

Get a copy of the prospectus by calling (202) 483-8600 or email gallery@smithfarm.com or download it here.

Opportunity for Artists

As many of you know, my good friend Jesse Cohen and artdc.org has started a new gallery in Hyattsville, MD. The space is about 500 square feet, and has movable walls.

They are going to do their first 12x12 show in May to coincide with the Hyattsville Arts Festival.

Artists can buy a spot for $12, and they hang your art. The way that it works is that a limited number of artists can now pre-register first come first serve; register now or at the day of the hanging, but first come, first served.

Either way, you can register now, or they'll see you at the door for the remaining spaces. It's their goal to hang at least 120 works of art.

The limitations: each work has to be 12"x12" and weight under 10 pounds, and they have a wire on the back suitable to be hung on a hook. Make your work professionally presentable.

To pre-register, check it out here.

All details are listed at the link above. Dates, location, and more. For now, they are going to limit pre-registration to 50 slots and I am told that registrations are coming in already.

Race in America at Widener University

Modern science tells us that the DNA of any two humans is 99.97 percent identical. And starting today the Division of Student Affairs at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania explores race in American society through a very interesting interactive exhibit.

The exhibit features informational tools to learn more about biological race and human variation, online activities, documentaries that confront race perceptions and racism, and the very cool Human Race Machine.

The Human Race Machine is an interactive tool that permits users to explore their own racial identity through images of themselves as other races. As one user expressed, "It's weird to see myself as Asian or Black. How would I think of myself differently and how would others see me?"

I'd like to think of the machine as a sort of machinated Linda Hesh.

The exhibit will be open for exploration and inquiry during the hours of 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday-Friday, March 23-27 and housed in the Lower Level Lounge of University Center.

Art Auction

There are some great works of art at some very low starting bids at the Habatat for Healing Auction to raise funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

It all starts April 1st at 12:00 p.m. and runs through April 7th at 5:00 p.m. but you can view the artwork and start bidding now. Details here.

You can bid on my donation (see below) here.

Woman Jumping into the Void. Charcoal on Paper. 11x14 inches framed.
F. Lennox Campello, c. 2009.

Congrats!

To my good friend Mark Jenkins, DC's own Tapedude, whose solo show opens in New York's Stricola Contemporary today with a solo show titled The Golden Ass.

From the press release:

Documentary photographs of characters, such as The Golden Ass, are extracted from their usual street environment, then montaged with found and altered landscapes. Jenkins sources his background environments from Google, which are then layered to create landscape ‘mashups’. In re-contextualizing his characters and their environments, Jenkins creates 2 dimensional versions of the absurdist visions dramatized in his street work. By sampling and remixing his own work in this way, Jenkins moves from street illusionist to story teller. At the same time, he extends the themes first seen in his 2006 Embed Series, merging his packing tape world and other hybridized figures into a physical-mythological composite.

The Golden Ass, a figure from Lucius Apuleius’ ancient Roman novel of the same name, is one of Jenkins’ reoccurring characters. The book relates the adventures of Lucius, a virile young man whose obsession with magic gets him transformed into an ass. Originally Jenkins’ Golden Ass statue appeared on a street in Barcelona, populated by tourists and living Statues, or people who pretend to be statues in hopes of earning a few euros. The irony of having a real statue competing for tips with false statues becomes completely absurd as pedestrians gather to ogle the Ass (The Golden Ass, Embed Series video, 2009).

This character now appears in Jenkins’ collages, silently watching as giant women perform felatio on a rainbow (Under the Rainblow, 2009). In the ancient novel and in Jenkins’ work, the Ass, like the Artist, stands as witness and commentator to humanities strange machinations.

Jenkins has shown on the streets and in the galleries of Tokyo, London, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles and his native city, Washington DC. His works have been featured in the book Hidden Track: How Visual Culture Is Going Places, Juxtapoz Magazine, and many other publications.

Congrats!

To the Maryland Art Place (MAP), which was recently recognized by the Baltimore City Paper as “Baltimore’s Best Art Gallery” of 2008.

Art of Glass II

Ten years ago, the major arts institutions of the Greater Hampton Roads area in Virginia joined together to put together of the most successful examples of region-wide art partnership events: The Art of Glass.

Across Norfolk and the Greater Tidewater area, through the Art of Glass, they proved that art has the power to be a transcendent force.

In April 2009, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia and the Virginia Arts Festival, as well as many of the Norfolk-area art galleries, will once again collaborate to create a landmark event for Hampton Roads: Art of Glass 2.

Anchored by The Art of Glass II, the Chrysler Museum of Art will have Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern Renaissance in Italian Glass. Held at the Chrysler Museum of Art. This is the first exhibition to thoroughly examine the career and art of Lino Tagliapietra. The exhibition presents 155 works from Tagliapietra’s 40-year career, including pivotal works from the artist’s own collection and collections around the world as well as designs made for industry and objects that have never before been exhibited.

The Chrysler Museum will also have Contemporary Glass Among the Classics, which features glass installations from four contemporary artists: Katherine Gray, Stephen Knapp, Karen LaMonte, and Beth Lipman. Focusing on each artist’s approach to the versatile material of glass, this exhibition will present new works inspired by the Chrysler’s collection. Gray, LaMonte, and Lipman’s works will be featured throughout various galleries alongside objects from the Museum’s collection.

The Contenporary Art Center of Virginia has a wide host of events and exhibitions lined up with Hank Murta Adams, Dante Marioni, and others; see them all here.

Several key DC area artists will be involved in the festivities as Mayer Fine Arts hosts Dialogues in Glass with the usual powerhouse names from the DC area. Click on below image for more details.