2010 Whitney Biennial artists announced

From the NYT; 32 of the 55 artists live in New York and 12 in Los Angeles. I am also struck by the number of artists who live in two places at once.

David Adamo
Born 1979 in Rochester, New York; lives in Berlin, Germany

Richard Aldrich
Born 1975 in Hampton, Virginia; lives in Brooklyn, New York

Michael Asher
Born 1943 in Los Angeles, California; lives in Los Angeles, California

Tauba Auerbach
Born 1981 in San Francisco, California; lives in New York, New York

Nina Berman
Born 1960 in New York, New York; lives in New York, New York

Huma Bhabha
JoshuaBorn 1962 in Karachi, Pakistan; lives in Poughkeepsie, New York

Josh Brand
Born 1980 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; lives in Brooklyn, New York

Bruce High Quality Foundation
Founded 2001 in Brooklyn, New York

James Casebere
Born 1953 in East Lansing, Michigan; lives in Brooklyn, New York

Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher

Dawn Clements
Born 1958 in Woburn, Massachusetts; lives in Brooklyn, New York

George Condo
Born 1957 in Concord, New Hampshire; lives in New York, New York

Sarah Crowner
Born 1974 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; lives in Brooklyn, New York

Verne Dawson
Born 1961 in Meridianville, Alabama; lives in Saluda, North Carolina, and New York, New York

Julia Fish
Born 1950 in Toledo, Oregon; lives in Chicago, Illinois

Roland Flexner
Born 1944 in Nice, France; lives in New York, New York

Suzan Frecon
Born 1941 in Mexico, Pennsylvania; lives in New York, New York

Maureen Gallace
Born 1960 in Stamford, Connecticut; lives in New York, New York

Theaster Gates
Born 1973 in Chicago, Illinois; lives in Chicago, Illinois

Kate Gilmore
Born 1975 in Washington, DC; lives in New York, New York

Hannah Greely
Born 1979 in Los Angeles, California; lives in Los Angeles, California

Jesse Aron Green
Born 1979 in Boston, Massachusetts; lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles, California

Robert Grosvenor
Born 1937 in New York, New York; lives in Long Island, New York

Sharon Hayes
Born 1970 in Baltimore, Maryland; lives in New York, New York

Thomas Houseago
Born 1972, Leeds, England; lives in Los Angeles, California

Alex Hubbard
Born 1975 in Toledo, Oregon; lives in Brooklyn, New York

Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Born 1971 in Chicago, Illinois; lives in Portland, Oregon

Jeffrey Inaba
Born 1962 in Los Angeles, California; lives in New York, New York

Martin Kersels
Born 1960 in Los Angeles, California; lives in Los Angeles, California

Jim Lutes
Born 1955 in Fort Lewis, Washington; lives in Chicago, Illinois

Babette Mangolte
Born 1941 in Montmorot (Jura), France; lives in New York, New York

Curtis Mann
Born 1979 in Dayton, Ohio; lives in Chicago, Illinois

Ari Marcopoulos
Born 1957 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; lives in Sonoma, California

Daniel McDonald
Born 1971 in Los Angeles, California; lives in New York, New York

Josephine Meckseper
Born 1964 in Lilienthal, Germany; lives in New York, New York

Rashaad Newsome
Born 1979 in New Orleans, Louisiana; lives in New York, New York

Kelly Nipper
Born 1971 in Edina, Minnesota; lives in Los Angeles, California

Lorraine O'Grady
Born 1934 in Boston, Massachusetts; lives in New York, New York

R. H. Quaytman
Born 1961 in Boston, Massachusetts; lives in New York, New York

Charles Ray
Born 1953 in Chicago, Illinois; lives in Los Angeles, California

Emily Roysdon
Born 1977 in Easton, Maryland; lives in New York, New York, and Stockholm, Sweden

Aki Sasamoto
Born 1980 in Yokohama, Japan; lives in Brooklyn, New York

Aurel Schmidt
Born 1982 in Kamloops, British Columbia; lives in New York, New York

Scott Short
Born 1964 in Marion, Ohio; lives in Chicago, Illinois

Stephanie Sinclair
Born 1973 in Miami, Florida; lives in New York, New York, and Beirut, Lebanon

Ania Soliman
Born 1970 in Warsaw, Poland; lives in Basel, Switzerland, and New York, New York

Storm Tharp
Born 1970 in Ontario, Oregon; lives in Portland, Oregon

Tam Tran
Born 1986 in Hue, Vietnam; lives in Memphis, Tennessee

Kerry Tribe
Born 1973 in Boston, Massachusetts; lives in Los Angeles, California, and Berlin, Germany

Piotr Uklański
Born 1968 in Warsaw, Poland; lives in New York, New York, and Warsaw, Poland

Lesley Vance
Born 1977 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; lives in Los Angeles, California

Mariane Vitale
Born 1973 in New York, New York; lives in New York, New York

Erika Vogt
Born 1973 in East Newark, New Jersey; lives in Los Angeles, California

Pae White
Born 1963 in Pasadena, California; lives in Los Angeles, California

Robert Williams
Born 1943 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, lives in Chatsworth, California

A door just opened

The biggest thing that has ever happened to my career as an artist will take place this weekend as a gigantic opportunity, a once in a lifetime change, just opened up.

More later if it is good news... or bad news.

Let's get together over at Neptune

Pencil in December 13 at 2 PM at the gorgeous Neptune Gallery in Bethesda.

The event starts with a presentation and tasting with Cacao, fine European Chocolates, immediately followed by "A Conversation with Lenny Campello" in which I will answer any and all questions about anything dealing with art: framing, approaching galleries, collectors, collecting, etc. or even about the art fairs and how to get your gallery to do them, or even some guerrilla tactics on the subject.

Open forum, any and all questions answered if I know the answer.

See ya there!

Future Generation Art Prize

The Future Generation Art Prize established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation is a worldwide contemporary art prize to discover, recognize and provide long-term support to a future generation of artists.

Artists around the world, under 35 years of age, without restriction of gender, nationality, race or artistic medium may enter the competition through online application.

20 shortlisted artists will be selected to show their work in an exhibition at the PinchukArtCentre (Kiev). These artists will be judged by an international Jury who will award one main prize and up to five special prizes.

The first prize will receive $100,000.

Details here.

Washington Glass School Open House

This is where I usually get 75% of my Christmas gifts and this year plan to get 100% and get my Xmas shopping out of the way all at once.

Join the Washington Glass School in its 8th annual Holiday Sale - artwork and craft from over a dozen studio artists and instructors. Artists exhibiting include: Michael Janis, Tim Tate, Erwin Timmers, Syl Mathis, Nancy Donnelly, Sean Hennessey, Rania Hassan, Jennifer Lindstrom, David Pearcy, Anne Plant, Cheryl Derricotte, David Cook, Allegra Marquart, Chris Shea, Lillian Fitzgerald, Jim Manning, Nancy Krondstat, Debra Ruzinsky, Marty King and more!

The surrounding artist studios (Red Dirt, Flux Studio, Weiss/Stewart/Sinel, Janis Goodman, Blue Fire Studio) will be participating in the huge event, along with the Gateway Arts District’s Holiday events along Rhode Island Avenue.

Washington Glass School & Studio
Holiday Show /Open Studio / Sale
3700 Otis Street, Mount Rainier, MD 20712
202.744.8222
2 pm til 6 pm , Saturday, December 12, 2009
Free and open to the public

SCOPE reports

From the SCOPE folks:

SCOPE Art Show and ART ASIA closed Sunday, December 6, reporting doubling and tripling of gallery sales. SCOPE, Miami’s longest-running global fair in its eighth year, and second-year standout ART ASIA increased traffic by 20%, bringing in over 30,000 visitors. Both shows attracted prominent institutions, museums, and private collectors from the Americas, Europe and emerging markets from the Middle East to Japan, including Charles Saatchi, Agnes Gund, Marty Margulies, Marc & Livia Straus, The Oppenheimers, MOCA Los Angeles, MoMA New York, Guggenheim Museum New York, and artist Chuck Close.

Positioning museum-quality programming alongside an international roster, SCOPE hosted 75 galleries from 25 countries, including a section devoted to Latin American art. Founder, Alexis Hubshman enlisted curator and critic David Hunt to assemble a curatorial board of “the best up-and-coming, next-generation curators,” and Hunt’s four choices, Hubshman said, “were like kernels that popped while they were with us.”

Gallerists offered positive reports, including:

* First year exhibitor Anonymous Gallery from New York, commissioned three works by David Ellis with one going to collector Charles Saatchi, and sold several other pieces including a Romon Kimin Yang for $60,000.
* Mike Weiss Gallery sold $400,000, with two works by the newly discovered German painter Stefanie Gutheil going to Kansas’ Nerman Museum; and artist Liao Yibai selling three editions of Ring, and one Fake Bag.
* Aureus Contemporary sold 75-80% of the work they brought to SCOPE and 80% of that was new buyers.
* First year exhibitor Galeria Christopher Paschall from Bogota, Colombia sold seven pieces to a German museum.
* Irvine Contemporary and Elizabeth Houston reported a 50% increase in sales over last year.

Sister fair ART ASIA, the only Asian art fair outside its own continent, launched an entirely new curatorial platform with independent curator Leeza Ahmady titled TRULY TRUTHFUL that showcased internationally recognized artists whose works contest categorical presentations of truth and reality in the world. ART ASIA continued its film series with Yi Zhou’s THE EAR, featuring Pharrell Williams with music by Ennio Morricone, and costumes designed by Rick Owens and BBC Ice Cream. They also had a Contemporary Arab Art exhibition of non-political works focused on the humanizing factors of the culture.

Gallerists offered positive reports, including:

* Sundaram Tagore Gallery and Grotto Fine Art tripled in sales from last year (around $250,000 and $100,000 respectively).
* Kips Gallery sold six sets of work, selling more in their first time at ART ASIA than at any other fair they have attended in the past.
* Sculpture was a standout medium with RCM Gallery selling multiple pieces priced around $50,000 each. Grotto Fine Art from Hong Kong sold and had commissions for over $100,000 worth of sculptural works.
* 95% of the galleries reported strong sales including X-Power ($500,000) and Kashya Hildebrand ($200,000.)
* While Asian art might be new to the Americas, it sold to a wide variety of buyers, from local Miami collectors and buyers from NYC and CT, to Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, France, Lebanon, Switzerland, Japan, Korea and New Delhi.

Beatles

Listened the the entire boxed set of the Beatles Remastered - Rediscovered while driving back from Miami to DC. The Fab 4 sound awesome in stereo and the huge bag of boiled peanuts that I munched on were a perfect companion to the music.

Sunday, Sunday

Sunday appeared to be the slowest day for most galleries at the fair, and it rained quite hard again.

We sold an Erwin Timmers glass piece to gallerist George Billis, who is also the organizer of the Red Dot fair, then a Sandra Ramos piece to close an otherwise slow day.

One of the key reasons why galleries need to take the huge financial risk involved in attending these art fairs (our booth was over $16,000 by the time one adds up all the details, and that doesn't include travel costs, hotels, staff, food, etc.) is that in addition to exposing the gallery and artwork to more collectors over a weekend than in an entire year in the gallery itself, the fairs also afford the opportunity to expose the artwork to curators.

As we all know, at least in the Greater DC area, our museum curators seldom take the opportunity to visit our local galleries and artists' studios. They do all go to the Miami and other fairs and thus it affords the galleries some precious exposure to them.

To underscore this point, as a result of this fair I am now negotiating the purchase of three original paintings by one of the artists that I represent by the curator of an University museum!

More on that later, once the deal is closed.

At 6PM the fair ended, and soon afterwards an army of worker bees descend upon the floors and begin packing the artwork for shipment back to home base. This is hard work after 4-5 days of working long hours standing on your feet, but by 8:30PM or so I was done and all the art was loaded in my van.

I then drove it to a storage site in Miami Beach, as I'm leaving all the work in Miami and I am returning in January to participate in the Miami International Art Fair, sponsored by Art in America magazine and the New York Times.

Yes friends, next month we get to do it all over again, this time inside the Miami Beach Convention Center.

More images from the Miami fairs

Tim Tate with Texas uber video collector Ardis Bartle and that's Tate's original video Ophelia playing in the background.

Video moves

Yesterday was a good day as the Tim Tate video "I see Myself as an Author," which is a very cool piece with both a micro camera and and audio component, sold to the art dealer who had it on hold since Thursday.

Also sold two cool photographs by Cuban photographer Cirenaica Moreira, whose Miami family had come by earlier to say hello.

"Vive en Cincinnati y ni siquiera me escribe" - (He Lives in Cincinnati But he Doesn't Even Bother to Write)
Signed, Numbered and Titled. Circa 1999. Edition of 15. Printed on 20x16 inches (51x40.5 cm)
And also moved several of my drawings, including a very large St. Sebastian, the largest drawing that I brought to Miami.

And also moved a small recycled glass sculpture from ubergreen artist Erwin Timmers. That piece has become the first work of original art in a new collector of art.

Yesterday it rained a lot. Heavy, powerful Florida rain that thundered on the tent's roof with amazing intensity, trapping visitors inside and slowing down the flow of people to the area.

Sunday is the last day.

Art fair horror story

On Friday a gallery at the fair makes a substantial double sale of two very large paintings to a local collector. He tells them that he's hosting a party on Saturday night and asks if the gallerists can deliver the painting after the fair closes later that night.

They drive to his home, which is clearly the home of someone of considerable financial health. Once there, the gallery's staff volunteers to install the two pieces, which actually becomes quite difficult as the large paintings, installed side by side have little room for maneuvering.

The next day the collector contacts them and let's them know how everyone at the party really liked the work, and was complimenting the home owner on his artistic acumen and taste.

Later this afternoon the collector's neighbor (yes, his neighbor), calls the gallery and informs them that the paintings are being returned as the "energy of the paintings is disturbing the home owner."

Later that day, the neighbor (yes again, the neighbor) shows up at the fair and returns the two works.

The perils of the artworld.

Picture this

Images from the Miami fairs...

Tim Tate with American Style magazine publisher Wendy Rosen.

Wendy will be organizing a new art fair next year right across the street from Art Basel Miami Beach.

Drop me an email if you want info on that new fair.

One at a time...

Today the person who had Sandra Ramos' "El Bote" on hold actually called and purchased the piece, but wanted it unframed so that they could reframe it to their own taste. Of course, "El Bote" is the largest framed piece that I brought down to Miami, and because of interruptions it took me almost two hours to unframe it, roll up the etching, store the big frame in the van and hang some new pieces in the area vacated by the piece.

But a sale is a sale and "El Bote" joins several other works by Sandra Ramos in this couple's collection.

Then we sold a Tim Tate video to a Miami collector. It is the sexy and mesmerizing Ophelia video; one of my favorites.

Tate has also been attracting the attention of the dealers themselves. There's a piece on hold by the owner of a local Miami gallery, and then a well-known video collector who already owns a Tate piece brought Tim's work to the attention of a super New York gallery currently showing at Pulse and that connection happened and hopefully something will come out of it.

Then a British gallery from Art Miami came from across the street - tipped off by Tate's Philadelphia gallery - and she wants to take all unsold Tate pieces with her back to London at the end of the fair. We'll need to seal the arrangements between now and Sunday.

Russian-born Alexey Terenin's work has also been attracting a lot of attention from art dealers, and Mayer Fine Art may have found Terenin a couple of American galleries to show his work. Two Terenin oils sold today as well.

I also sold one of my watercolors from the Cuba series and my Philadelphia gallery (Projects Gallery) also sold another watercolor from the Cuba series.

I also visited Art Miami across the street today, and was very impressed with the level of work at that fair, although I did find a few galleries showing work that was in the awful range, bordering on Artomatic as its detractors see it. More on that later...

Camper Contemporary at Art Basel Miami Beach

They've already been threatened with arrest by overzealous Miami cops; they've already been interviewed by the local press and NPR; they've already driven all the way from MICA and they've already hit a lot of the ABMB side fairs, and certainly the MICA students who are part of Calder Brannock's Camper Contemporary are one of the hits of this year's ABMB extravaganza in Miami.

"Camper Contemporary is a mobile gallery created and curated by Calder Brannock. It is a fully functional art gallery set up inside an altered 1967 Yellowstone camper. Camper Contemporary gallery poses a solution for many problems a gallery faces in the modern art market. It allows the gallerist to showcase work in a clean controlled gallery environment without being tethered to rents or a geographic location. The mobile gallery model allows the gallerist to maintain a physical space where work can be displayed with all the benefits and gravitas of a traditional gallery while easily reaching collectors at art fairs and other large art markets."

Brannock's terrific idea and initiative was funded by the MICA office of Research, which funded the Rinehart graduate school of sculpture's trip to Miami with Camper Contemporary.

See the students' work here.

Dreaming

Red Dot was quite hot for a while today.

Reason for that was that the air conditioning system took a few hours to cool the space down, although I heard that across the street Art Miami's AC system actually died in the afternoon!

We managed to put another Tim Tate on hold and are working on a commission deal for Tate as well. Also have a large Sandra Ramos' piece on hold pending measurements of available wall space.

Also sold the below piece by Michael Janis to a well-known Cuban-American collecting couple who live in one of the spectacular homes on Fisher Island here, as well as a home back in DC. I delivered the piece to their home after Red Dot closed, which meant driving to the ferry point and getting a spectacular view of the Miami skyline in a full moon, arriving at Fisher Island and upon arrival getting escorted by security to their home.

Cubans Dreaming of Liberty. Glass, powdered black glass and metal.
Michael Janis

Inside there was a massive treasure of an art collection, including one of the largest and best Jose Bedia's paintings that I have ever seen, in good company with Miro, Picasso, many Latin American artists and a surprising number of DC area artists, betraying the couple's DC roots. I saw work by DC area artists Yuriko Yamaguchi, Rick Wall, Carol Goldberg and several others whose name escapes me now.

And now Michael Janis' beautiful Cubans Dreaming of Liberty joins this spectacular collection overlooking downtown Miami from the bay.

Carlos Finlay

Medical history originally credited Dr. Walter Reed as the doctor whose work solved the scourge of 19th century warm weather, yellow fever, by proving that it was transmitted by mosquitoes.

This work eventually gave birth to the new fields of epidemiology and biomedicine.

But Cubans and even Dr. Reed himself knew that the real research hero here was a Cuban doctor named Carlos Finlay.

Finlay was born 176 years ago today in Puerto Principe, Cuba, the son of a Scottish immigrant father and a French immigrant mother. He studied medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, from which he graduated in 1855. Ten years later Dr. Finlay

"sent a paper to the Academy of Sciences in Havana outlining his theory on weather conditions and the yellow fever disease. He was the first to theorize that a mosquito was the way by which yellow fever was transmitted; a mosquito that bites a victim of the disease could bite a healthy person and spread the disease...

... In 1871 he spoke at medical conferences in Havana and Washington, D.C., but his theory of mosquito transmission of the virus met with silence from the medical and scientific community.

In 1900, during the first U.S. occupation of Cuba, a U.S. medical commission led by Dr. Walter Reed went to Havana to study the disease. At first the U.S. scientists didn't pursue Dr. Finlay's "mosquito" theories, certain that it was "filth" that spread the yellow fever virus.

When all their experiments failed, they began to look over Dr. Finlay's 19 years of research. Eventually they concluded that yellow fever is contagious only in the first 3 days of illness, and this became the first layer of proof for Dr. Finlay's theory.

When Dr. Reed proved that Dr. Finlay had been right all along, mosquito control programs were introduced throughout Cuba, (and in the Panama Canal zone, where worked had stopped due to yellow fever outbreaks and many deaths) and the disease brought under control.

Sadly, however, Dr. Reed's original report failed to even mention Dr. Finlay's theories and/or research, and it wasn't until 1954 (39 years after Dr. Finlay's death) that the International Congress of Medical History granted him the proper credit.

At the end of the day

The VIP night was last night and the beer, wine and absinthe was flowing in large quantities at Red Dot.

Funny how things work out, but I had predicted that this piece below would sell right away, and it did, but not before I got loads of comments about it from the crowd. Most were anti-Guevara types - this is Miami after all - but I did get into an interesting discussion with an elder gentleman who seemed offended that I had taken such stance against the icon known as Che.

“ASEre ¿SI o NO?
6x16 in. framed to 14x22. Charcoal and Conte on Paper. 2009.
F. Lennox Campello

I asked him if he had ever read Guevara's own diaries, writing and speeches.

No.

I win. At the end, as he walked away he handed me his card. He was a visitor from Cuba. No wonder.

At the end of the day you get nothing from nothing.

At the end of the day we also sold a major Tim Tate to an Alabama collector and several Heather Bryant lithos.


A Question Of Evolution. Blown and Cast Glass. electronics and video. Tim Tate. 2009.

Torpedo Factory Holiday Open House Tomorrow

Giant head finished



On Monday I showed you Philly artist Frank Hyder working on his giant inflatable sculpture for the Giants in the City art project at Bayfront Park in Miami this week. As you can see, Hyder finished his work, and the piece looks great.

Giants in the City

That city is Miami and tomorrow the Giants in the City project, curated by my good friend Alejamdro Mendoza, returns to the ABMB festivities with the mobile sculpture project at Bayfront Park in Miami.

Inflatable art sculptures by Gustavo Acosta, Angel Ricardo Rios, Miguel Fleitas, Maite Josune, Tony Kapel, Anaken Koenig, Frank Hyder, Karen Starosta Gilinski, Maki Hachizume, Noor Blazekovic, Tomas Esson, Federico Uribe, Jose Bedia and the curator, Alejandro Mendoza.

By the way, these inflatable sculptures are looking for a venue to be shown in Washington, DC. Everything travels in suitcases and it is super easy to set up, in case some DC gallery or museum is interested in hosting these gigantic works.

Report from the war art front

And nu, so today was hanging day at the Red Dot Art Fair in Miami, and by the time that I got there at 1PM or so, most studious gallerists had already done a lot of hanging so I got a sweet Doris Day parking spot right by the door.

Red Dot is right across the street from Art Miami and nearby to Scope,. Art Miami is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. All three fairs in such a new area of Miami's Wynwood Arts District that the Garmin GPS couldn't find it and I had to find the fair the old school way, which reminded me how scary it is to rely on GPS and then one forgets how to navigate the old fashioned way.

Inside it was a sauna, as the air conditioning won't be turned on until all doors are closed sometime tomorrow.

Anyway, by seven PM or so most of the hanging, wiring, light adjusting, etc. was done, and I walked around the fair to get an early look at what was being displayed. It was a quick look, and certainly more will come later.

The first glance found some really excellent artwork in some galleries and some really questionable work in a small number of booths.

Of early note, I saw some very good Mendives, Fabelos and a great Kcho at Miami's Oñate Fine Art. These were really world class pieces by some of the biggest names in contemporary Cuban art and so far stay in my head as some of the top work at Red Dot.

Tomorrow is press preview at 5PM and VIP party from 6-9PM.

Big Head

Remember that I told you about the "Giants in the City" art project which opens later this week an will be at Bayfront Park in Miami from 2-7 December?

Below is my good friend and well-known Philadelphia artist Frank Hyder working on his giant head inflatable sculpture.

Room with a view

Done with the 1100 or so miles of driving in two days. Done with the mandatory visiting of relatives. The fair installation and VIP preview is tomorrow. Meanwhile, just to make you jealous, here's the view outside my hotel room door, about ten feet from the beach.

Ernesto Lecuona

There is more to Cuban music than salsa, mambo, rumba, son, guaracha, danzon, cha cha, bolero, habanera, zapatilla, zapateo, punto guajiro, criolla, contradanza, and the other many Cuban music genres that have worked their way into daily Western culture.

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Ernesto Lecuona, a Cuban composer and pianist of worldwide fame who composed over six hundred classical pieces, mostly in what he described as "the Cuban vein."

And yet it is an interesting paradox that perhaps his most famous work is Malagueña (The Girl from Malaga) from the Suite Andalucia.

I say paradox because this classical piece has been now interpreted as being the music that bares the soul of Spain in the piano, rather than Cuba, but betrays the island's cultural chains to the colonial mother.

But Lecuona wrote hundreds of other classical piano pieces that incorporated Cuba's unique musical legacy. Perhaps Siboney (a tribute to Cuba's lost Native American tribes) is his best.

Below is Thomas Tirino, Pianist, recorded live November 14, 2003 at the University of Miami, Gusman Concert Hall performing Malagueña. Below that is the great Placido Domingo performing Lecuona's most Cuban work Siboney. If you'd rather listen to just the piano (as it was intended) then the great Ruben Gonzalez plays it last.

Queen Isabella II pulls one on the Pope

“New research reveals that Queen Isabella II of Spain (1830-1904) knowingly gave Pope Pius IX a fake painting of a 16th-century original in her collection. It has also emerged that ten years after her “generous” gift, the Spanish queen gave the original work by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo to King Luis of Portugal.

Read about it here.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: January 11, 2010.

The Public Trust of Jacksonville, Florida seeks artists. All participants will electronically submit a detailed pencil drawing of one of the three Le Moyne/de Bry original works, together with 4 other examples of your past paintings so the judges can select the ten best artists to be commissioned.

Artists must also submit an entrance form which may be downloaded from their menu under "Art Contest Entrance Form." No entry fee.

If you are selected as one of the ten commissioned artists, you will complete a painting (sized 24" by 30") by June 11, 2010. At that time you will be paid your $2,500 commission and shortly afterward be featured with your fellow top ten artists in showings of all the new art work at two premier art galleries in Jacksonville.

For complete guidelines, please visit this website. Questions? Contact Andrew Miller at adm@publictrustlaw.org or call (904) 247-1972 ext. 418.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope that you all have the luck to spend today with your families and that we all think a thought for all those who can't.

Below is how pumpkin pies are made, source unknown, but clever!

Cuban art: Still caliente!

Cuban art continues to rise and gain importance in the international market. Last week, during the New York Latin American Art sales, on November 17 and 18, two major Cuban masters from the vanguardia period reached new world auction records.

My friends from Cernuda Arte in Miami tell me that a work titled Guajiro con Gallo (Cuban Peasant with Rooster), a signature oil on canvas, 24 ¼ x 20 inches, by Mariano Rodríguez, was offered at Sotheby’s November 18 sale. It reached a final hammer price of $482,500, exceeding the artist’s previous record of $354,500 attained eleven years ago.

Another success was, Carnaval (Carnival), an oil on canvas work, 20 x 16 inches by the revered Father of Cuban Modernism, Víctor Manuel García, offered at Christie’s November 17 sale. The painting logged enthusiastic bids before setting a new auction record of $182,500. The former record for a Víctor Manuel painting was $141,900 six years ago.

Heading to Miami

On Friday I'm driving down to Miami for the Art Basel frenzy of art fairs with a van load full of artwork. I will be at Red Dot Art Fair in the Wynwood Arts District and the location of the fair is 3011 NE First Avenue at NW 31st Street, Miami, FL 33137, really close to the massive Art Miami and the elusive Scope.


If you'd like some free passes to Red Dot, drop me an email to lenny @ lennycampello.com and I'll leave them at "will call" at the fair. I'll be in booth B105, so if you are in Miami, please drop by.

I'll be writing from the fairs as much as I can and as time allows. I have free passes to all the art fairs, so I hope to do some writing about some of them.

What the Bader Fund said...

This is what the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund said to my application:

Long Live Freddy Mercury

Man... I wish this guy was still alive and making music. He died on this day in 1991.

Giants in the City

I'm heading down to Miami later this month for the Art Basel Miami Beach frenzy of art fairs and art events, and one of the things that I'm looking forward to seeing is the Giants in the City project, curated by my good friend Alejamdro Mendoza, which returns to the ABMB festivities with the mobile sculpture project at Bayfront Park in Miami from 2-7 December.

Inflatable art sculptures by Gustavo Acosta, Angel Ricardo Rios, Miguel Fleitas, Maite Josune, Tony Kapel, Anaken Koenig, Frank Hyder, Karen Starosta Gilinski, Maki Hachizume, Noor Blazekovic, Tomas Esson, Federico Uribe, Jose Bedia and the curator, Alejandro Mendoza.

By the way, these inflatable sculptures are looking for a venue to be shown in Washington, DC. Everything travels in suitcases and it is super easy to set up, in case some DC gallery or museum is interested in hosting these gigantic works.

Migrations at the Embassy of Chile

This is the last week to see the "Migrations", a mini retrospective of the works of my good friend Joan Belmar, with works from 1995-2009. The exhibition is open from 8:30am to 6:30pm Monday-Friday and is closing on Nov 27th 2009 at 6:00pm.

The Chilean Embassy is located at 1732 Massachussets Ave., N.W., Washington D.C. 20036. Phone: (202) 785-1746.

Laurel Lukaszewski at Project 4

I first fell in love with the movies of Akira Kurosawa when I was a kid. Both my father and I really liked the action-packed masterpieces of Japan's best-known director and little did we know that his minimalist samurai sagas would be the artistic precursors of the martial arts films of today.

I fell in love with Laurel Lukaszewski’s work when I first discovered it in one of the past Artomatic free-for-all mega art shows in Washington, DC. Back then, I picked her work as the key find of that particular Artomatic, and then I sat back in self-righteous pleasure as I saw Lukaszewski continue to grow as an artist and artistic force around the DC region. Back then I had no idea that Kurosawa and Lukaszewski would one day share a moment in my mind's eye and live together forever in this review.

In the past I have also pointed to Lukaszewski as one of the District's artistic powerhouses that are dragging clay and other "crafty" substrates away from the craft world and into the rarified upper artmosphere of the blue chip fine arts world. I call them the Steiglitzes of the other side of the art tracks, dragging their media away from the craft and unto the fine arts arena.

For a couple of years after that Artomatic, in the DC region we all marveled at Lukaszewski’s spectacularly complex interwoven forms, which managed to take the visual sense of the Byzantine into a minimalist context – that’s an almost illogical bridge which would ruin most Vulcan minds.

But the sheer sharpness of this artist’s prowess did exactly that: she delivered these complex, tubular (not in the Californian sense) forms that interlocked in gorgeous wall hanging mazes that pulled us with a new found magnetic attraction to the media of clay.

“There is magic in them works,” someone wearing a Caterpillar ball cap and chewing on a chunk of grass might say, and that magic served Lukaszewski well as it pulled us very close to her work to examine how impossibly complex and how cleverly minimalist they were at the same time.

And now for the exhibition at Project 4.

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

And that is what artists, real fire-in-the-gut artists, are supposed to do. And the fire that burns in Laurel Lukaszewski’s belly really came to a high roar in this exhibition at Project 4 gallery on U Street, NW in DC. And to say that I was left reeling from seeing what a huge new artistic footprint this artist has made in one show would be the understatement of the year.

There are only four pieces in the show: Sakura (a sculptural cherry blossom installation); Pause (a hanging ribbon installation); Ghost (sculptural leaves); and Floridan (an outdoor floor piece).

I’m going to take a chance and write about only one of them, because that one piece describes the new impression that the artist has left on me.

Sakura (detail) by Laurel Lukaszewski
In Sakura, the two-level gallery is used to showcase hundreds of small cherry blossom sculptures, each one individually pinned to the wall, to float and rise up from the main level, like a wave of starlings, from floor to floor. On the edges of the walls where the blossoms grow from, the floor is covered in delicate lost petals. Sakura is Japanese for cherry blossom.


Sakura (detail) by Laurel Lukaszewski
Each individual cherry blossom is a gorgeous example of a master sculptor at work - hundreds of them, floating up in a swirl of shadow-casting flowers is something else more akin to an Akira Kurosawa film come to life in a minimalist dream (for all you Kurosawa fans, I am referring to Sanjuro, specifically the part of the film where the camellia flowers in bloom are cut from the tree and dropped by the hundreds in the river to float down stream, as the signal for attack).

In this piece the artist bridges a paradox: minimalism is less – and she accomplishes that in the art form. And yet, her minimalism requires, no… demands - an entire “home” as its home.

What do I mean by that?

This gorgeous and enormous piece is a re-arrangeable work of art that can be set and re-set and re…ahhh… reset in many shapes, each one of which will yield new results, but the “less” part of minimalism in this case needs and covets more and more of the wall that it requires to anchor itself to.

I submit that Sakura is such a spectacular work of art that when a collector purchases it, and I hope that a savvy one will soon, the only way that it should be showcased would be as the only work of art in that room, home, condo, house or setting. Anything else hanging on those walls around Sakura would diminish the artistic power punch to the solar plexus that Sakura delivers.

It is the triumph of minimalism over space. And it is the triumph of a courageous artist not afraid to flex her own artistic muscles.

The exhibition goes through December 18, 2009. Go see this show and see the trailer for Sanjuro below:

Dramatic Dining

Now in its fifth year, the Food Glorious Food art show and associated 2010 calendar will be unveiled by the Zenith Community Arts Foundation (ZCAF) at Woolly Mammoth Theatre on Thursday, December 3, 6-10pm, with a Calendar Launch Celebration and Silent Auction to benefit the Capital Area Food Bank, celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2010.

Emcee for the evening will be WUSA 9 News Anchor Andrea Roane.

Cooked up by ZCAF in 2005, Food Glorious Food’s menu of food, art and charity is a recipe for success that has raised more than $100,000 for the food bank in four years, while pleasing the palates of art patrons and foodies through a unique collaboration between artists and restaurants. Area businesses add spice to the mix by sponsoring the calendar and donating items for the auction.

The overall project raises money through calendar sales, a percentage of proceeds from a related month-long food art exhibition and the Calendar Launch Celebration.

This year’s theme, Dramatic Dining, was inspired by ZCAF’s new partnership with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, who also in its 30th year, shares the same commitment to community values and the arts as ZCAF.

The new alliance, prompted by Food Glorious Food’s move from its former home on Seventh Street NW at Zenith Gallery, will bring a new audience of theatre goers to the show and event, and raise more money for the food bank to help feed the hungry.

Artists: Bert Beirne, Leslie Exton, Cassandra Gillens, Brenda Gordon, Philip Hazard, Robert C. Jackson, Life Pieces To Masterpieces, Chris Malone, Joey Manlapaz, Donna McCullough, Bill Mead, Davis Morton, Stephen Hansen, Michela Mansuino, Ron Schwerin, Bradley Stevens and James Tormey.

Restaurants: Recipes in this year’s Dramatic Dining Calendar have been donated by Acadiana, Bastille, BestCookie.com, Black Salt, Bourbon Steak, Central Michel Richard, Chef Geoff’s, Equinox, The Oceanaire Seafood Room, Oyamel, Teaism, Through the Kitchen Door and Zaytinya.

Calendar Launch Celebration: Highlights of the festive evening will include an exhibition of art in all media, created for the calendar; a silent auction with irresistible items; tastings of the chefs’ recipes featured in the calendar; a cooking demonstration of Central Michel Richard’s recipe and a complimentary calendar for each guest. Tickets, $75, can be purchased by calling the Zenith Community Arts Foundation at 202-783-8005 or emailing zenithcommunityarts@zcaf.org

Artworks on Display: December 3 – January 3, 2010. More details at Zenith Community Arts Foundation (ZCAF).

Little Junester in a drawing

Anderson Campello as a Merman Fingerling
Charcoal on Paper. 3 inches by 2 inches

The Creative List

Washington Life Magazine has a piece titled The Creative List: Visual Arts in its current issue.

They rave about John Smith, Director of the Archives of American Art, and DC area artists Maggie Michael and husband Dan Steinhilber, Manon Cleary, Chawky Frenn, Mark Jenkins, Laurel Lukaszewski, Lida Moser, Jefferson Pinder, Tim Tate and Postsecret's Frank Warren.

Check it out online here.

There's also a The Creative List: Written Word here.

Neptune Artist Market Place Starts Tonight


Over in Bethesda, hard working gallerist Elyse Harrison is having a whole bunch of events starting tonight at 7PM. Click on the image above for a whole schedule of events.

You can also pencil December 13 at 2 PM, which starts with a presentation and tasting with Cacao, fine European Chocolates immediately followed by "A Conversation with Lenny Campello" in which I will answer any and all questions about anything dealing with art: framing, approaching galleries, collectors, collecting, etc.

Wanna go to an opening today?

"Quiet Little Stories: The Art of Graham Francoise" opens today at Art Whino with an opening reception starting at 6:00pm.

Miniatures

THINKSMALL5 is the fifth Biennial International Miniature Invitational Exhibition at art6 and artspace galleries located in Richmond, Virginia. I was honored to have been invited to exhibit.

If you, like me, love to give art as Christmas presents (or any and all present-giving activities), this show is a terrific opportunity to grab some small works at really affordable prices.

Check all the artwork online here and then buy some.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: February 15th, 2010

Wanna be in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Art Library?

We’ll send you a lined Moleskine journal. Fill it up with a narrative of some sort and send it back to us. It will be shown at the exhibition and then permanently reside at the Brooklyn Art Library for the public to see.

Details here.

Things that piss me off...

When you spend an hour framing something under glass, and no matter how much you clean and blow, there's always some debris under the glass trapped between the glass and matted artwork.

One worse than that: you've finally checked it a million times and it's all good, and so you go ahead and finish the framing, turn it over, and discover a hair that has magically materialized under the glass.

One worse than that: So you take it all apart and get rid of the hair, and re-do it all and check it and it looks great. And so you seal the back of the frame, put all the hardware on and bubble wrap it for transportation to the Miami art fairs.

Then you remember that you've forgotten to photograph the new artwork for your records and in order to have a digital image for the Certificate of Authenticity and the gallery's website.

Makes my head hurt...

Come again?

I was just looking at a contract sent to me by an artist. The contract was in response to a "portfolio review" for a group show in a New York City gallery.

The "curator" for the group show was very complimentary of this artist's work and selected a few pieces for the show. So far so good.

The contract details the following (somewhat edited to avoid court costs):

* Press Release will be written for the NYC group exhibition project and distributed via e-mail to World Art Media mailing lists consisting of select museums, galleries, curators, dealers, collectors, writers, art publications, artists, and art fair organizations around the globe. This release will be posted on www.---------- and other websites such as ......... to announce the event.

* ------------ Newsletter Listing announcing the ------ Gallery group exhibition mailed to subscribers in the U.S. and Europe.

* ------------ Daily Newsletter Listing announcing the group exhibition mailed to subscribers in the Far East.

* 500 invitation cards designed, printed and distributed for the show.

* Reception hosted by ------- Gallery.

* Artist’s Reception hosted by -------- Gallery.

* Review / Article: Selected writer will view the exhibition and write an essay on the participating artists’ works and the exhibition. This article will be published both online at ---------- and in print in --------- Magazine.

* Complimentary copies of the magazines with the feature article mailed to artist’s address.

Schedule & Payment Options

Total of $1,900 includes all features listed above. A deposit is due upon acceptance and signing. The payment can be made in full latest by --------.

The hefty $1,900 fee to exhibit immediately makes this gallery (and this show), a "vanity gallery" and certainly a "vanity exhibition" as the artists that will eventually end up in this show will be there based on their ability to fork $1,900 each to cover the costs of what are essentially the normal costs associated with running an independently owned commercial fine arts gallery.

That makes this a vanity show. This by itself is not illegal and there are dozens and dozens of vanity galleries in NYC operating mostly on the dime of the exhibiting artists.

But what caught my eye was the fact that the contract claims that a "Selected writer will view the exhibition and write an essay on the participating artists’ works and the exhibition. This article will be published both online at ---------- and in print in --------- Magazine."

The magazine in question is what (until now) I thought was a reputable NYC-based art magazine. I am puzzled as to how the organizers of this show, months ahead of the exhibition itself, already know that a writer from ------------ Magazine will write an essay about the group show and publish it both in the magazine and the magazine's website.

Words count. The contract never says "review." Instead they use the words "essay" first and then "article." So it appears that the author of this "article" or "essay" is in fact being paid by the organizers of the show to author the piece.

Paying someone to write an essay for an exhibition catalogue, or an essay for an artist's book, etc. is an ordinary event and happens all the time and I myself have been paid to do this dozens of time.

Paying someone to write an "essay" or "article" for a magazine devoted to write about art and artists and art reviews is (in my opinion) something else and I feel dishonest. The fact that the piece would appear in print in this magazine immediately relays to the readers that the author is writing about the show because of its merits (or because it is a bad show) but in all cases from a critical or examinatory viewpoint.

Not because the organizers paid him/her to write about the show.

Makes me wonder if (a) is this a common practice at ---------- magazine? or (b) if not, do the editors know that this writer is doing this?

Only way out of this mess: That the "article" or "essay" is a paid advertising page, and "boxed" in by a line all around it that says "paid advertising" as some newspapers and magazines do when someone takes out an ad and the ad looks like it's an article.

Makes my head hurt... any comments?

Update: The artist in question just discovered that the "curator" actually works for the magazine!

Makes my head hurt...

... an Arts Council project that typifies the standards we’ve come to expect from publicly funded art. Jarvis Cocker, the country’s foremost socialist pop musician, was sent to the Arctic for “inspiration” and to raise planetary consciousness, along with another two dozen artistic luminaries:

The ambition of the expedition was to inspire the creative team to respond to climate change... It was an amazing journey; 10 days of artistic inspiration, debate, discussion and exploration.

The ecological insights gleaned by Mr Cocker?

Men have produced a lot of great art over the centuries, or whatever... but... an iceberg kind of, basically, pisses on it.

Apparently this was a $250,000 publicly funded art project. Read all about it here.

Opportunity for Artists - Last Day to Apply!

Deadline: Nov. 20th, 2009

If you read this blog then you know that I've been always very impressed with the BlackRock Center for the Arts gallery's 1500 square feet of exquisite gallery space. With its high white walls and beautiful windows strategically placed, this gorgeous gallery allows in just the right amount of natural light. BlackRock Center for the Arts is located at 12901 Town Commons Drive Germantown, MD in upper Montgomery County, about 20 minutes from the Capital Beltway (495).

They currently have a call to artists and the call is open to all artists residing in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC over the age of 18.

Original artwork only. All work must be ready for sale and to be presented in a professional manner to the public at the time of delivery.

This call will cover exhibits in the gallery from September 2010 through August 2011. An exhibit may include one applicant or a combination of applicants, based on the judgment of jurors (i.e., 1 or 2 wall artists may be combined with a pedestal artist). A jury will select the artists and create eight exhibits to be included in the exhibit year. The jury panel is comprised of my good friend and gallerist Elyse Harrison, Jodi Walsh, and yours truly.

Jurying: First Week of December
Notification: Early January
Exhibit Year: Sept. 2010 – Aug. 2011

How to apply: All correspondence will be done by e-mail, so contact Kimberly Onley, the Gallery Coordinator at konley@blackrockcenter.org and ask her to email you a prospectus.

Don't wait to the last minute! Get the prospectus now!

Wanna go to an opening today?

Georgetown ARTS 2009 has an Opening Reception on Thursday, November 19, 6-9pm, and my good friend and Govinda Gallery owner Chris Murray will talk about the Georgetown art scene at 7pm.

The Show continues on Friday, November 20, noon-8pm, Saturday November 21, 11am-6pm at 1209 31st Street NW in G'town at the former Smith and Hawken space.

As noted above, the opening reception this evening will feature Govinda Gallery owner Chris Murray talking about the history and evolution of the Georgetown art scene - drawn from his 34 years as a central presence in the ever-changing Georgetown art world.

And the show will feature more than 25 Georgetown artists and will include painting, photography, and sculpture. CAG's Georgetown ARTS 2009 will also be highlighted in the new Georgetown Gallery Gaze that takes place on Friday evenings.

Artists in the show include:
Michele Banks ~ Dede Caughman ~ Betsy Cooley ~Arthur Day ~ Barbara Downs ~ Anne Emmet ~ Heidi Hess ~ Michele Jacobson ~ Bo Jia ~ Sidney Lawrence ~ Wendy Plotkin-Mates ~ Christopher Matthews ~ Starke Meyer ~ Elba Molina ~ Rosie Moore ~ Johanna Mueller ~ Emma O'Rourke ~Isabella Page ~ Larry Parlier ~ Hayley Pivato ~ Joan Shorey ~ Elizabeth Smythe ~ Polly Townsend ~ Dariush Vaziri and Homayoun Yeroushalmi.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: February 5, 2010

What is disability? -- An International Call for Postcards

VSA arts invites your participation in a collaborative art project. They’re taking a creative approach to investigate the different ways people interpret the same word: disability. The call is open to everyone around the world — people of different cultures, ethnicities, geographic locations, and abilities. You do not have to consider yourself an “artist” to participate.

Please contact Liza Key, Artist Services Coordinator, at efkey@vsarts.org to receive a shipment of printed calls for the project (available while supplies last). Additional copies of the postcard and alternative formats are uploaded to this website.

The deadline for receipt of postcards is February 5, 2010. VSA arts will curate an exhibition, both online and in Washington, D.C., to represent the submissions as part of the 2010 International VSA arts Festival held June 6-12, 2010.

Everybody is a curator

Shaquille O’Neal, the 7’1” all-star center with the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers, has discovered that art is no slam dunk.

Moonlighting for the first time as a curator, O’Neal is overseeing “Size DOES Matter,’’ an exhibition on the theme of scale in contemporary art coming in February to New York’s nonprofit Flag Art Foundation.

Read about it here.

Tape Sotheby's: Go to jail

An artist's attempt to turn the exterior of Sotheby's into a piece of art by stringing masking tape across it Tuesday morning gained something other than artistic recognition--20 hours in jail...

Read all about it here.

WOW Mr. Gopnik!

"That makes her show one of the best I've ever seen in a commercial gallery in Washington."

Read the Washington Post's chief art critic do something he rarely does, review a local DC gallery as he raves about the photographs of Terri Weifenbach at Civilian.

Read it here.

More please Mr. Gopnik.

Studio Visiting...

At the end of the day I had some time to sneak a quick visit to Red Dirt Studio, Flux Studios and the Washington Glass School.

At Red Dirt my real reason was to hope to meet little Kyle, the newest addition to the studio, but the cute two-month old was asleep in the middle of a noisy, creative artmosphere. He did look very handsome in his blue hat and mom Margaret Boozer should be justifiably proud of the little feller.

At the Washington Glass School I sneaked a preview of Tim Tate's newest videos, as well as Michael Janis' latest work (Janis was the star of the recent SOFA Chicago, where Maurine Littleton Gallery sold nine of his pieces). I also saw the newest Erwin Timmers' works as he pursues his "green art" line of work.

At Flux Studios, I chatted with the very talented Novie Trump, whose recent solo at MPA so impressed me. There were huge clay bones being created for what sounds like an amazing installation in support of a performance. More on that later.

I also saw the really cool new work, a very minimalist work that boasts loads of elegance, by Elena Patiño, the newest member of Flux, and also discovered the newest work of Mia Kagan, which was also quite impressive and then went gaga over the amazing Laurel Lukaszewski, whose current solo show at Project 4 is a significant and intelligent new conceptual work for this very talented artist and a show that I will review soon..

Wanna go to an opening tomorrow?

Wanna go to an opening this Sunday?


Friday, November 20 – Sunday, January 10
Where: DCAC, 2438 18th St. NW Washington, DC 20009
Opening Reception: Friday, November 20, 7:00 pm-9:00 pm
Artists Talks/Closing Reception: Sunday, January 10, 5:00 pm-7:00 pm

Jurors: Renee Stout, Blake Kimbrough, and Marvin Bowser
Curator: Amber Robles-Gordon
Co-Curator: Daniel T. Brooking
Judges: Teresia Bush and Eugene R. Vango

Featuring work by John Earl Cooper, Arcmanoro Niles, Cedric Baker, Jacqueline Lee, Valentina Andaya, Akili Ron Anderson, Viola Leak, Bruce McNeil, Gloria C. Kirk, Stanley Squirewell, Claudia Gibson-Hunter, Michael Platt, Sonya Clark, Ann Marie Williams, Alec Simpson, Daniel T. Brooking, Amber Robles-Gordon, Prelli Williams, Kristen Hayes, Serinity Knight, Anne Bouie, James Brown, Jr., T. H. Gomillion, Adjoa J. Burrowes, Deidra Bell, Willard Taylor, Carlton Wilkinson, Constance Porter Uzelac, and Juilett Madison.

Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium Networking Social

Thursday, November 19, 2009
6:00pm - 9:00pm
Blackfinn Restaurant & Saloon
4901 Fairmont Ave, Bethesda, MD

Join other emerging arts leaders for a networking event at Blackfinn of Bethesda.

For a suggested $10 donation to the Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium, you will be able to schmooze and socialize with other area young professionals who share a passion for the arts. All while enjoying great free appetizers and specials. To RSVP join the event on Facebook.

Blackfinn is located near the Bethesda Metro stop along the red line. Walk north on Old Georgetown Road, take a right onto Fairmount and join the party! Street and garage parking are available in the area as well.

The Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium, now in its third year, is an annual meeting for young professionals who work in the arts, held at American University. It is an opportunity to discuss the issues, unique or universal, that affect arts organizations, with students, peers, and experienced professionals. For more information click here.

New DC gallery

Artists/Owners Natasha Mokina and Victor Pakhomkin envision their recently opened gallery, Winter Palace Studio, as "a sanctuary for realist art that combines classical craftsmanship and contemporary concepts." The gallery will exhibit paintings by Mokina and Pakhomkin and group shows by local and international artists who share the gallery's philosophy. It will also hold realistic painting and drawing classes, workshops and seminars.

The two artists have worked in the Washington, DC area for nearly twenty years creating highly realistic oil paintings, murals, portraits by commission and teaching academic painting and drawing in their studio in Bethesda. Natasha Mokina is also on the faculty of the Corcoran College of Art and Design.

“It still feels like a dream to see ourselves and our paintings in this beautiful historic courtyard, says Natasha Mokina. This is the prettiest place in Georgetown. I just cannot get over the sense of this fantastic mix of times and places: the C&O Canal reminiscent of canals in St. Petersburg (our birth place), old brick buildings of Georgetown evoking “The Little Street“ by Vermeer… ”

Winter Studio Contemporary Realism gallery is located at “Galleries 1054” in Canal Square at 1054 31st Street NW. The gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday 12:00 to 6:00 pm.

The opening reception for a new exhibition ”Black Kitchen Magic, Etc” featuring the paintings by Natasha Mokina and Victor Pakhomkin is Friday, November 20, 2009 from 6 pm to 8 pm.

Staged History

It's the iconic photo that captures the essence of the Spanish Civil War: a soldier falling to his death, arms splayed out behind him, gun still in hand, after being shot on a grassy hill.

But new evidence now claims to prove once and for all that the camera does lie - and Robert Capa's famous Falling Soldier was faked.

Read the fascinating detective story in the Daily Mail here and then read George Will's take on the whole issue in the WaPo here; Will writes:

Capa was a man of the left, and "Falling Soldier" helped to alarm the world about fascism rampant. But noble purposes do not validate misrepresentations. Richard Whelan, Capa's biographer, calls it "trivializing" to insist on knowing whether this photo actually shows a soldier mortally wounded. Whelan says that "the picture's greatness actually lies in its symbolic implications, not in its literal accuracy."

Rubbish. The picture's greatness evaporates if its veracity is fictitious. To argue otherwise is to endorse high-minded duplicity -- and to trivialize Capa, who saw a surfeit of 20th-century war and neither flinched from its horrors nor retreated into an "I am a camera" detachment. As a warning about well-meaning falsifications of history, "Falling Soldier" matters because Capa probably fabricated reality to serve what he called "concerned photography."

I'm still debating what side to take on the whole issue... it does seem to deflate the whole image a bit... any thoughts on the subject? Leave me some comments.

And speaking of comments, like almost everything in the nation these days, this photographic issue has become a barbarous debate between the vast right wing conspiracy and the equally vast kooky left wing nuttery. Read the WaPo's comments to Will's point of view here and have fun with the kooks from the extreme right and the nuts from the extreme left.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: Nov. 20th, 2009

If you read this blog then you know that I've been always very impressed with the BlackRock Center for the Arts gallery's 1500 square feet of exquisite gallery space. With its high white walls and beautiful windows strategically placed, this gorgeous gallery allows in just the right amount of natural light. BlackRock Center for the Arts is located at 12901 Town Commons Drive Germantown, MD in upper Montgomery County, about 20 minutes from the Capital Beltway (495).

They currently have a call to artists and the call is open to all artists residing in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC over the age of 18.

Original artwork only. All work must be ready for sale and to be presented in a professional manner to the public at the time of delivery.

This call will cover exhibits in the gallery from September 2010 through August 2011. An exhibit may include one applicant or a combination of applicants, based on the judgment of jurors (i.e., 1 or 2 wall artists may be combined with a pedestal artist). A jury will select the artists and create eight exhibits to be included in the exhibit year. The jury panel is comprised of my good friend and gallerist Elyse Harrison, Jodi Walsh, and yours truly.

Jurying: First Week of December
Notification: Early January
Exhibit Year: Sept. 2010 – Aug. 2011

How to apply: All correspondence will be done by e-mail, so contact Kimberly Onley, the Gallery Coordinator at konley@blackrockcenter.org and ask her to email you a prospectus.

Don't wait to the last minute! Get the prospectus now!

Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Lynch

“ASEre ¿SI o NO?
6x16 in. framed to 14x22. Charcoal and Conte on Paper. 2009.
F. Lennox Campello
Asere is a Cuban street slang word that means something akin to dude, or friend, or buddy, or "bro"... you get the drift. In this drawing, the wall graffiti asks "Asere, Yes or No?" while the question itself answers by the capitalization... and Che laughs.