Newsweek covers

The power of the visual arts, specifically representational visual art, is a powerful known quantity.

For decades now, artists have been marrying shock with representational art to gather attention to their work, and thus it is no surprise that a floundering dead tree media publication like Newsweek, which has perfected the art of the magazine cover over the decades, is now pulling all stops when it comes to a scary blend of photography, nuanced text and composition - all married to shock-producing stories - to pump up sales. I don't know if Tina Brown's strategy will work, but it is a fascinating study nonetheless.

Witness the recent Newsweek covers, all dealing with controversial subjects. In the first one,  an attack piece on Republican Presidential candidate (and if he wins, the first "technically" Hispanic President), the font size of the word WIMP overwhelms the cover - and yet Romney is still presented in what I would describe as a positive image (dude's got some Osmond-sized chompers though...). The remaining text ("What triggers mass murderers" and "I was duped by...") also add a bit of subliminal vinegar to the cover.

Newsweek's portrait of Pres. Obama as "The First Gay President" is a brilliant graphic design coup. It is a modern icon with modernized ties to early Christian iconography. This is an interesting marriage (pun intended), as one could make the case that dogmatic Christians are essentially against gay marriage. Not to pick on Christians, most Muslim and orthodox Jews are also against gay marriage, perhaps reflecting the common root of all three major religions and a sad 6th century mentality when it comes to acceptance of the social realities of the 21st century. Thus, Newsweek has taken the battle to the heart of the iconography of the Christian religion and succeeded brilliantly. The surrounding text couldn't be any more vacuous ("Are you ready to eat jellyfish?") - all the focus is on the Christian icon.

Some have argued that the current issue of Newsweek is Tina Brown's response to all the criticism that Newsweek gathered from the vast right wing conspiracy from the Romney attack piece. What is the response? An equally caustic (and surprising) attack piece on the President. I say surprising because as it is clearly obvious to the most casual observer, Newsweek is easily generally described as a liberal magazine and part of the media arsenal of the even vaster leftwing nuthouse. But let's get back to the visual arts and away from politics before I start getting firebombed in the comments from both the nuts on the right and the nuts on the left.

The image of the President (just like in the Romney WIMP issue) is pleasant-enough (dude's got some big fucking ears!). He is walking away from the camera, which fits the theme of the attack article ("Hit the Road, Barack"). The positioning of the President's head (covering part of the Newsweek banner and leaving "Neek") has even resulted in charges of racism from people who read that as a codeword for the N-word (see what I mean by leftwing nuthouse?).

The text above the President's head shouts [for him] to "END THE SYRIA SLAUGHTER NOW!" clearly tying the image of the President to the USA's failure to intervene in Syria for the same reasons that we did in Libya (never mind that the vast right wing conspiracy howled over that). Even the yellow sticker text box by his watch has a subliminal message dealing with Wall Street... harsh.

Behold the power of the image married to text in three examples of a magazine desperately seeking readers. I betcha that this issue will set new sales records for Newsweek, and I am sure that by now the author of the piece (Niall Ferguson) is hiding securely in his panic room at Harvard University (where he teaches), that well-known bastion of right wing thought.

But before I let go of this visual art exploration of these covers, let me destroy the theory from the "throw the race card no matter what" idiots from the nuthouse by giving the compositional example from perhaps the most unflattering Newsweek portrait ever:

Maybe the "Queen of Rage" is also a "Neeek"? Makes my head hurt...

In other important news: the Mitt Romney Cockroach Beats Barack Obama Bug In Presidential Cockroach Derby! See the video here!

Just down the street from me...

The Amazing Spidergirl

I am almost finished with this piece from the new trompe l'oeil comic book superheroes series; to review:

1. Phase One: A series of duplicate watercolor panels from the comic books
2. Phse Two: Change the dialogue text in the text balloons to reflect something more interesting appropriate to the scene.
3. Phase Three: Insert an electronic component into the dialogue balloons, with a Powerpoint based "back and forth" dialogue between the characters.

Fallout: Leaving Roy Lichtenstein's formulaic and gorgeous 1960s pop art of the same genre in the dust-bin of art history. These, along with other artists working the Superhero theme, will be at a special curated exhibition (curated by me) at the Aqua Art Fair in Miami Beach in December.

Update: Here's the finished piece

"The Amazing Spidergirl." Trompe l'oeil watercolors and charcoal on paper. 4x6 inches. Circa 2012.

Opportunity for Prince George's Artists

Call for Entries   Under The Influence: The 24th Annual Prince George's County Juried Exhibition Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center 10701 Livingston Rd. Fort Washington, MD 20744 Under The Influence is a juried exhibition of works that show all kinds of influences, including, but not limited, historic, aesthetic and cultural. The exhibition is sponsored by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George's County, Arts and Cultural Heritage Division. The exhibition will be on display from November 5 through December 28, 2012. Juror Mr. F. Lennox Campello is an internationally accomplished artist, author, published art critic, teacher and one of the internet's leading art bloggers. His local, national and international knowledge of and experience with the pulse of the art scene is an invaluable contribution to this year's juried exhibition. Exhibition Dates: November 5 - December 28, 2012 Public Reception: Saturday, November 17, 3-5pm Artist Talk and Refreshments: Saturday, November 24, 12noon-2pm  Eligibility & Submission Criteria This call for entries is open to all artists 18 years and older who live, work, attend school or have studios in Prince George's County, MD. Artists may submit a maximum of 3 artworks for consideration. All works must be original (no reproductions). Proposals for installations or performance works should include sample images, video or audio of the type of work being proposed as well as a brief description of the proposed art work.   What to Send A CD/DVD containing images and/or segments of audio/video, each no longer than five minutes in duration. A bio, artist statement with contact info and a list of the works submitted with titles, media, and dimensions in MS Word. If you would like your materials returned, please include a SASE.   Where to Send It Materials can be submitted by mail or delivered in person to the arts office at Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center, 10701 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington, MD 20744 or emailed to: Stuart.Diekmeyer@pgparks.com Submission Deadline: Monday, October 1, 2012 All submissions, in the form of digital images, must be received by 5pm on Monday, October 1. Notification of selected works: Friday, October 12, 2012 All selected artists will be notified via email Delivery of artwork to AHHRC: Friday, October 26, 9am-5pm All artists are responsible for the delivery of their artwork to AHHRC Exhibition closes: Friday, December 28 Artwork pick-up: Wednesday, January 2, 9am-5pm Guidelines for Digital Files Efforts will be made to review all submissions, regardless of format. However, please be aware that incompatible files may cause submissions to be rejected. Applicants are encouraged to format files as described below. Name each file according to the following format: "last name" underscore "document". Example: jones_statement.pdf. Please number each image file corresponding to the work sample list. Example: 01_jones_untitled.jpg Image files should not be larger than 1MB, and should be formatted as jpeg, tiff or png. Video and audio submissions may be submitted as a DVD or on a CD and formatted as Quicktime, Windows Media, .wave or .mpeg. Purchase Awards On the recommendation of the juror, the Arts and Cultural Heritage Division will purchase select works of art for the inclusion in the Parks and Recreation art collection. Delivery & Installation Artists are responsible for transporting work to and from the gallery. Art work must be delivered ready to hang and appropriately presented. For works that require projection, sound or other electronic equipment, those materials must be provided by the artist. Art works that differ significantly from the images submitted for judging, or are not ready for gallery installation, may be rejected. If you need to ship the work, please call us to let us know what arrangements you have made. The exhibition will be installed and dismantled by M-NCPPC staff unless the nature of the work requires special assistance. All work accepted for exhibition will remain for the duration of the exhibition. Sales & Insurance The M-NCPPC will retain a 25% commission on all art works sold during the exhibition. The M-NCPPC will insure all consigned artwork in the custody of Arts/Harmony Hall for 75% of it's sale value, from the time they are received by delivery, until the pick up date only. Additional Information If you have any questions or would like additional information, please contact: Stuart Diekmeyer, Assistant Director, Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center, 10701 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington, MD 20744 or email Stuart.Diekmeyer@pgparks.com. Participation implies agreement with all aforementioned conditions.

New Rockville Outdoor Art Show Opportunity

WHERE: Rockville Town Square in Rockville, MD 

WHAT: Juried Fine Art and Fine Crafts Festival 

WHEN:  May 4 - 5, 2013   

            Saturday: 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.; Sunday: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

           

NOTEWORTHY:

*Organized and managed by the Bethesda Row Arts Festival team

  

*Limited to 175 artists and crafters

  

*Estimated Attendance:  30,000

  

*Jury/Booth Fees:  $25/$325

  

*Ample Parking - Metro access

  

*Artist amenities include hospitality for artists open entire show, ample free parking, overnight police security.

  

Rockville Town Square - is a sensory delight. A popular dining and gathering place, Rockville Town Square covers four city blocks and features more than 30 fine shops, upscale boutiques, unique restaurants. Low-rise retail and modern residential buildings create a very pleasing, human-scale, town-center feel. The architecture is eclectic, ranging from art deco to southwest to postmodern in style.  Attractive brick sidewalks, wooden and wrought-iron benches, trees and shrubbery round out the welcoming atmosphere.

Cultural events are an important dynamic in this affluent community on the Rockville Pike corridor, which has the nation's highest per square foot retail sales.

Marketing through newspapers, magazines, television, radio, web and transit is directed to these individuals with high disposable income and interest in art.    

APPLICATIONS  WILL OPEN AUGUST 27TH 

APPLY VIA: www.zapplication.org

Deadline: January 20, 2013

Notification: February 8, 2013 via e-mail

Accepted Artist fees due: March 1, 2013

Email inquires to: Robin@A-RTS.org

You may also contact by telephone:

Robin Markowitz, Festival Director

301-637-5684

Thoughts on the Trawick Prize

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards is a visual art prize produced by the Bethesda Arts and Entertainment District (through the spectacular generosity of Ms. Carol Trawick)  that honors artists from Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia. The annual juried competition awards $14,000 in prize monies to selected artists and features the work of the finalists in a group exhibition. The 2012 finalists and their bios are at the end of this posting.

The 2012 exhibition will be held September 1-29 at Gallery B, located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E, Bethesda, MD 20814 (the former space of the Fraser Gallery). Winners will be announced September 5.

The finalists were selected by:

Dawn Gavin
Dawn Gavin was born in Bellshill, Scotland, and currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. She has received a Bachelor of Arts (First Class) in Drawing and Painting, a Master of Fine Art and a Master of Science degree in Electronic Imaging from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, Scotland. Her work investigates issues of identity and displacement, employing a range of media from collage and installed drawings to digital video. She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, The John Michael Kohler Art Centre (Sheboygen, MI), Maryland Institute College of Art, Meyerhoff Gallery (Baltimore, MD), The DCA Visual Research Centre (Dundee, Scotland), The Philadelphia Art Alliance and The Washington Project for the Arts (Washington D.C.). She is an Associate Professor in Drawing and Foundations at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Barbara Kelly Gordon
Barbara Kelly Gordon is an Associate Curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian where she focuses on contemporary international art, and especially film, video and new media. She has worked on major exhibitions ranging from a retrospective of Douglas Gordon to Visual Music to The Cinema Effect, which completes a three-city tour of Spain in 2012. During the 2011-2012 season her exhibitions include Directions : Pipilotti Rist; Directions : Grazia Toderi; EMPIRE3 (with Andy Warhol); Directions: Antonio Rovaldi and Black Box shows with Hans Op de Beeck (Belgium), Larent Grasso (France), Nira Pereg (Israel), and Ali Kazma (Turkey). Gordon, who was born and raised in Washington D.C., has lectured widely on contemporary art and recently served on the jury for Emerging Italian Artists at the Strozzi Palace in Florence, Italy.

N. Elizabeth Schlatter
N. Elizabeth Schlatter is Deputy Director and Curator of Exhibitions at the University of Richmond Museums, Virginia, where she has curated more than 20 exhibitions, including recent exhibitions of art by Carl Chiarenza, Andreas Feininger, Hans Friedrich Grohs, Sue Johnson, and Fiona Ross, and the exhibitions “Art=Text=Art: Works by Contemporary Artists,” “LEADED: the Materiality and Metamorphosis of Graphite” and “Form & Story: Narration in Recent Painting.” Prior to working at the University of Richmond, she was an exhibitions project director for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in Washington, D.C. She has a bachelor’s degree in art history from Southwestern University in Texas, and a master’s in art history from George Washington University.

My picks from the finalists to win it all?: David D'Orio or Dean Kessman - both are intelligent conceptual artists who also have the rare talent to actually deliver a concrete and interesting product married to their conceptual ideas. However, usually the winner from any sort of allegedly objective art competition is determined by the biggest and most vociferous voice, and not personally knowing any of the three jurors, I don't know who's got the biggest mouth.

Another however: since five of the eight semifinalists come from the Baltimore area, I suspect that Scotland-born Dawn Gavin had the biggest and most vociferous voice over the two Sassenachs and the odds are (once again) stacked for a Baltimore-based artist to win the Trawick.

Who then? I'm betting Lillian Bayley Hoover, a brilliant and talented painter who now officially replaces Andrew Wodzianski as the "always the maid never the bride" of the major Bethesda Up! generous art prizes.

Lillian Bayley Hoover Lillian Bayley Hoover earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina, Asheville and her Master of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Hoover’s work has been featured in the Baltimore area and beyond, and recently appeared in the 94th edition of New American Paintings and the Summer 2011 issue of the Little Patuxent Review. She is the recipient of a grant from the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, which enabled her to conduct research and make photographs in Istanbul, Turkey. Hoover has received many awards, including “Young Artist” for the Bethesda Painting Awards and two Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council, and she has thrice been a semifinalist for both Baltimore’s Sondheim Prize and Bethesda’s Trawick Prize.
David D’Orio David D’Orio is the executive director of DC GlassWorks, a public access glass blowing facility in Maryland, just outside of Washington D.C. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture and a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Hartford/Hartford Art School in Hartford, CT. His work has been shown at Artomatic in Crystal City, the Marlboro Gallery of Prince George’s Community College and as part of the Arlington Arts Center Fall Solos. In his work, D’Orio explores “the ideology of technology as the source of solutions for social problems (both real, invented and imagined). … This work has the sense of a forgotten or undiscovered manufacturer/inventor whose sole purpose is to create objects that defy classification.”
Skye Gilkerson Skye Gilkerson grew up at the edge of the known world, in the space that Thomas Jefferson thought would take 1,000 years to populate. After her childhood on a farm in South Dakota, she’s slowly migrated along the rust belt, landing in Baltimore, where she has a studio at Current Space. Skye has been an artist-in-residence with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and the Philadelphia Art Hotel. Her work is in the Robert F. Pfannebecker Collection, the Notre Dame of Maryland collection and numerous personal collections in the U.S. and Germany. She received her Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and a Bachelor of Arts in studio art from Bethel University in St. Paul, MN.  Gilkerson was a finalist for the 2011 Trawick Prize.
Dean Kessmann Dean Kessmann lives and works in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in solo exhibitions at the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida and Conner Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C. among numerous other locations across the United States. His work has also been featured in many group shows, including those at Strathmore in North Bethesda and Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He received a Master of Arts from Sothern Illinois University, Carbondale and is currently the chair of the Department of Fine Arts and Art History at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Nate Larson Nate Larson is full-time faculty in the photography department at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. His work with photographic media, artist books and digital video has been widely shown across the U.S. and internationally. He serves on the board of directors of the Society for Photographic Education. His current project GEOLOCATION, in collaboration with Marni Shindelman, tracks GPS coordinates associated Twitter tweets and pairs the text with a photograph of the originating site to mark the virtual information in the real world. Larson has a master of fine Arts from The Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Arts from Purdue University.
Joshua Smith Joshua Wade Smith was raised on the outskirts of a small border town in South Texas. He is a nationally exhibited object-based performer and sculptor and currently a fellow at Hamiltonian Artists in Washington, D.C. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Contemporary Museum-Baltimore and the Arlington Arts Center, among others. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Mt. Royal School at MICA in 2010. In his recent work, Smith explores themes of labor, masculinity and gymnastic investigations of landscape. His installations and performances feature contraptions and repetitious actions that emphasize the transfer of value through absurd or thankless tasks; his work is often about making a show of the “Work” itself through schematics, photo documentation and endurance based on drawings.
Diane Szczepaniak Diane Szczepaniak earned a Master’s degree in art education from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Northern Kentucky University. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions including SCULPTURE NOW 2012 at Pepco Edison Place Gallery in Washington, D.C., InLiquid Benefit Auction in Philadelphia, PA, among others and in many solo exhibitions. She was named a semi-finalist for Baltimore’s Sondheim Prize in 2011 and received an Individual Artist Award in Visual Arts: Sculpture from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2009. About her work, Szczepaniak says: “Colors naturally hold meaning for me and I have painted in response to images from poems that I find mysterious, feelings aroused by music, that familiar experience Wallace Stevens calls ‘passions in rain, or moods in falling snow,’ and even meditations on thoughts.”
Hannah Walsh Hannah Walsh earned her Master of Fine Arts in sculpture and extended media from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Indiana University. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions nationally and abroad, including The Boiler, Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn; Little Berlin in Philadelphia; The Wayfarers in Brooklyn; Nominimo Gallery in Quito, Ecuador and the Reynolds Gallery in Richmond. Walsh explains her interest in cheerleading as a subject: “All-star cheerleading squads are not affiliated with any sports team. They only cheer competitively, in other words, for themselves. These squads embody several of my interests: the simultaneous occurrence of sincerity and extreme artifice, skilled physicality, gender performance and American identity.”

Zhu Qi Slams Uli Sigg

Two months ago, Uli Sigg, the Swiss art collector and Switzerland’s former Ambassador to China, donated 1463 pieces of his Chinese contemporary art collection to Hong Kong’s M+ museum. The bequest, which included works by 350 artists such as Ai Weiwei and Zhang Xiaogan, initially received widespread praise. Then on June 25, the Art Critic column of the Oriental Morning Post, a Shanghai-based Chinese newspaper, slammed the affair.  “The donated works aren’t worth their HK$1.3 billion ($163 million) valuation.” the columnist Zhu Qi declared. “They are mostly junk.”

(Via) Check the whole story here.

Two things:

1. Zhu Qi needs to read some old reviews by Blake Gopnik and Jessica Dawson in order to learn the proper snarky etiquette required to label art as "junk."
2. The Oriental Morning Post clearly hasn't received the memo from the PC police and are not aware that Oriental is not a cool term to use anymore.

Volunteers for (e)merge art fair

(e)merge art fair is looking for energetic, efficient volunteers to assist with various aspects of the  fair. No experience is necessary, but knowledge of the art field or experience with art events is preferred. This is a valuable experience for anyone involved with or  interested in contemporary art. 

(e)merge will take place at the Capitol Skyline Hotel October 4-7, 2012. 

Volunteers will be invited to an orientation at the hotel prior to the event. Whether you want to assist for a day, or for the duration of the art fair, dedicated volunteers are essential to the success of the fair and deeply appreciated. 

If interested or have any questions please contact Irene Clouthier at irene@emergeartfair.com

Eyes on the Borders

Pencil this in and if you want to know the history, oddity and meaning of the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino", then come to the lecture as well...

Wanna go to an opening tonight?

August 18 - September 15, 2012

Opening Reception : August 18, 7-9 pm 

Please join Hamiltonian on Saturday, August 18, 2012, from 7-9pm for the opening of their annual group exhibition new. (now). in which they will debut the work of their six new, distinguished Hamiltonian Fellows for 2012.  They will introduce:

• Milana Braslavsky (MFA, University of Pennsylvania)
• Annette Isham (MFA, American University)
• Amy Boone-McCreesh (MFA, Towson University)
• Billy Friebele (MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art)
• Timothy Thompson (MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art)
• Jerry Truong (MFA, University of California, San Diego)   

The 2012 Hamiltonian Fellows were selected from a pool of over 160 promising artists who applied this year.  The External Review Panel, comprised of six acclaimed art professionals, evaluated every applicant based on criteria including artistic merit, relevance to today's art world, and the candidate's potential to thrive within the fellowship program.  Hamiltonian Gallery is located at 1353 U Street NW, Washington, DC, 20009. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 12 pm - 6 pm.   The panelists were:

• Doreen Bolger - Executive Director, Baltimore Museum of Art
• Zoe Charlton - Visual Artist, Co-Director of MFA Program, American University
• Katherine Mann - Visual Artist, Hamiltonian Fellow Alumna
• Frank Hallam Day - Photographer, Addison/Ripley Fine Art  
• James Rieck - Visual Artist, Professor, Corcoran College of Art + Design
• Mollie White - Show Director, Scope Art Fair    
  

Adah Rose Pop Up Gallery at Kate's

Opportunity for PG County Artists

Call for Entries   Under The Influence:  The 24th Annual Prince George's County Juried Exhibition Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center 10701 Livingston Rd. Fort Washington, MD 20744 Under The Influence is a juried exhibition of works that show all kinds of influences, including, but not limited, historic, aesthetic and cultural. The exhibition is sponsored by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George's County, Arts and Cultural Heritage Division. The exhibition will be on display from November 5 through December 28, 2012. Juror Mr. F. Lennox Campello is an internationally accomplished artist, author, published art critic, teacher and one of the internet's leading art bloggers. His local, national and international knowledge of and experience with the pulse of the art scene is an invaluable contribution to this year's juried exhibition. Exhibition Dates: November 5 - December 28, 2012 Public Reception: Saturday, November 17, 3-5pm Artist Talk and Refreshments: Saturday, November 24, 12noon-2pm  Eligibility & Submission Criteria This call for entries is open to all artists 18 years and older who live, work, attend school or have studios in Prince George's County, MD. Artists may submit a maximum of 3 artworks for consideration. All works must be original (no reproductions). Proposals for installations or performance works should include sample images, video or audio of the type of work being proposed as well as a brief description of the proposed art work.   What to Send A CD/DVD containing images and/or segments of audio/video, each no longer than five minutes in duration. A bio, artist statement with contact info and a list of the works submitted with titles, media, and dimensions in MS Word. If you would like your materials returned, please include a SASE.   Where to Send It Materials can be submitted by mail or delivered in person to the arts office at Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center, 10701 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington, MD 20744 or emailed to: Stuart.Diekmeyer@pgparks.com Submission Deadline: Monday, October 1, 2012 All submissions, in the form of digital images, must be received by 5pm on Monday, October 1. Notification of selected works: Friday, October 12, 2012 All selected artists will be notified via email Delivery of artwork to AHHRC: Friday, October 26, 9am-5pm All artists are responsible for the delivery of their artwork to AHHRC Exhibition closes: Friday, December 28 Artwork pick-up: Wednesday, January 2, 9am-5pm Guidelines for Digital Files Efforts will be made to review all submissions, regardless of format. However, please be aware that incompatible files may cause submissions to be rejected. Applicants are encouraged to format files as described below. Name each file according to the following format: "last name" underscore "document". Example: jones_statement.pdf. Please number each image file corresponding to the work sample list. Example: 01_jones_untitled.jpg Image files should not be larger than 1MB, and should be formatted as jpeg, tiff or png. Video and audio submissions may be submitted as a DVD or on a CD and formatted as Quicktime, Windows Media, .wave or .mpeg. Purchase Awards On the recommendation of the juror, the Arts and Cultural Heritage Division will purchase select works of art for the inclusion in the Parks and Recreation art collection. Delivery & Installation Artists are responsible for transporting work to and from the gallery. Art work must be delivered ready to hang and appropriately presented. For works that require projection, sound or other electronic equipment, those materials must be provided by the artist. Art works that differ significantly from the images submitted for judging, or are not ready for gallery installation, may be rejected. If you need to ship the work, please call us to let us know what arrangements you have made. The exhibition will be installed and dismantled by M-NCPPC staff unless the nature of the work requires special assistance. All work accepted for exhibition will remain for the duration of the exhibition. Sales & Insurance The M-NCPPC will retain a 25% commission on all art works sold during the exhibition. The M-NCPPC will insure all consigned artwork in the custody of Arts/Harmony Hall for 75% of it's sale value, from the time they are received by delivery, until the pick up date only. Additional Information If you have any questions or would like additional information, please contact: Stuart Diekmeyer, Assistant Director, Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center, 10701 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington, MD 20744 or email Stuart.Diekmeyer@pgparks.com. Participation implies agreement with all aforementioned conditions.

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund

Deadline: September 15, 12. 

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund invites visual artists (excluding filmmakers, video artists, and performance artists) to apply for grants to enable recipients to develop their talent and concentrate on their art. Artists must be 40 years or older, and must live within 150 miles of Washington, DC. Three grants totaling $60,000 were awarded in 2011. Applications must be postmarked no later than September 15, 2011.  Application forms are available for download from  www.baderfund.org.  Send email inquiries to grants@baderfund.org or call 202-288-4608. Please note that the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund no longer accepts slides. All images must be submitted in digital form. For details, see the application form, which may be downloaded from the Fund's website.

Conner Contemporary has a new name

Opportunity for Photographers

Submissions accepted: June 15–September 15, 2012.  

The Center for Documentary Studies / Honickman First Book Prize in Photography is a biennial prize offering $3,000 in grant money, a solo exhibit at the Center for Documentary Studies, and most importantly, the publication of a book of photography, published by Duke University Press in association with CDS Books. 

To learn more, go to firstbookprizephoto.com or send an SASE to:

CDS/THF First Book Prize in Photography
Center for Documentary Studies
1317 West Pettigrew Street
Durham, NC 27705.  

Website: http://firstbookprizephoto.com

Saturday: Procedures for Ground Loss Safety

Washington Project for the Arts and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design present Procedures for Ground Loss Safety, a performance by Sarah Levitt, taking place on Saturday, August 15, from 12pm to 5pm.

Procedures for Ground Loss Safety asks the question: What happens if the ground has an expiration date, if the solid foundation on top of which we've built our homes, roads, and bridges suddenly gives way? Taking inspiration from cheery Cold War safety films from the 1950's, Sarah Levitt will demonstrate Procedures for Ground Loss Safety, instructing the audience through movement and sound on the appropriate steps to prepare for sudden ground loss. Exploring the idea's literal and metaphorical potential, the artist will investigate the relationship between the body and the ground, utilizing the Performance Bridge's invisible floor and proximity to the White House to further amplify the body's new relationship to eroding foundations.

Procedures for Ground Loss Safety is part of Take It to the Bridge, a nine-week series of installations and performances taking place through September 15 in the new Performance Bridge located inside the Corcoran's glass entryway on 17^th Street. The Performance Bridge was first constructed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art as the stage for Holly Bass's performance Moneymaker, a seven-hour endurance work that took place on February 11, 2012, during the final weekend of the Corcoran's landmark fall exhibition 30 Americans. For Take it to the Bridge, eleven artists living and working in the DC-Baltimore region will present nine installations and performances, investigating the Bridge's physical characteristics and pushing the boundaries of this non-traditional space to explore a variety of social, political, and aesthetic issues. Installations will open on Wednesday and remain on view through the following Sunday for all museum hours. Performances will take place on Saturdays, from 10 am to 5 pm unless otherwise noted. The first seven weeks of the series coincide with the Corcoran's Free Summer Saturdays promotion, which run from May 26 - September 1, 2012. 

See the full Take it to the Bridge schedule below and more information online here and at wpadc.org

Tomorrow: Chat with Lionell...

Join us on Tuesday, August 14th to chat with D.C. Commission on the Arts
and Humanities' Executive Director, Lionell Thomas. 

Do you have a question about upcoming programs?
Log on and ask.  

Do you have a question about a funding application?
Log on and ask.

Have questions about deadlines, calls to artists,
or just want to be heard?
Log on and be heard.

LIVE DIRECTOR CHAT

www.dcarts.dc.gov

Tuesday, August 14th, 2012

2PM - 3PM

George Bellows at the NAG

June 10–October 8, 2012 at the National Gallery of Art

When George Bellows died at the age of forty-two in 1925, he was hailed as one of the greatest artists America had yet produced. In 2012, the National Gallery of Art will present the first comprehensive exhibition of Bellows' career in more than three decades. George Bellows will include some 130 paintings, drawings, and lithographs. Bellows is arguably the most important figure in the generation of artists who negotiated the transition from the Victorian to the modern era in American culture. This exhibition will provide the most complete account of his achievements to date and will introduce Bellows to new generations. The accompanying catalogue will document and define Bellows' unique place in the history of American art and in the annals of modernism.

The exhibition will begin with Bellows' renowned paintings of tenement children, boxers, and the urban landscape of New York. These iconic images of the modern city were made during an extraordinary period of creativity for the artist, from shortly after his arrival from Columbus, Ohio, in 1904, up to the Armory Show in 1913, and remain his best-known works. They include Forty-Two Kids, 1907 (Corcoran Gallery of Art), New York, 1911 (National Gallery of Art), Stag at Sharkey's, 1909 (Cleveland Museum of Art), and Snow Dumpers, 1911 (Columbus Museum of Art).

Complementing the earlier signature masterpieces will be groupings that bring to light other crucial, yet less familiar aspects of Bellows' prodigious achievement, including his Maine seascapes, sporting scenes (polo and tennis), World War I subjects, family portraits, and Woodstock, NY, subjects. Drawings and lithographs will illuminate Bellows' working methods and the relationships between his various media. The show will end with paintings from 1924, the year before his sudden death from peritonitis. These last works, including Dempsey and Firpo (Whitney Museum of American Art) and The White Horse (Worcester Art Museum), will prompt visitors to contemplate the artist Bellows might have become had he lived into the 1960s like his great contemporary, Edward Hopper.

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Congrats! ... And an NBC gaffe?

Congrats to the US Women's B-ball team on their fifth consecutive Olympic gold!

Gaffe to NBC talking head Mary Carillo, who when referring to US basketball superstar Diana Taurasi, brings us the fact that "she's Italian, even though her parents are from Argentina..."

Come again?

Now, if you've ever been to Argentina, then you know that this huge nation is very diverse, almost as much as the US, when it comes to its European ancestry, and also that Argentines of Italian ancestry make up the largest historical block of immigrants to Argentina, so a slight majority of Argentines are of Italian ancestry, which reflects powerfully on the Italianate accent of their Spanish language. Case in point: if we look at the last names of the 15 players in the strong Argentine Olympic team we see that out of the 12 players, five have Italian surnames, five have Spanish and two have German... that's pretty much the Argentine demographic make-up plus a lot of Welsh in the city of Trelew, Argentina (founded in 1886 by Welsh settlers) and a lot of Scots in Patagonia.

And to trip over the fact that the daughter of Argentines, now in the US, is now Italian (again) instead of... what? See how difficult and silly this Latino label is?

Those of you who know me well, and those of you who know me through my writing, know that one of my pet peeves is the usage of "labels" to box people and art, or art and people, into easily distinguishable categories.

One such label is the American invention of the Hispanic (now apparently not a PC term because technically it includes two European nationalities) or Latino label to pass for ethnicity and often and always wrongly for race.

What does that mean in art? And what does it mean to "Latino" artists? Does it mean anything?

If you want to hear my opinion on the subject then start by penciling in October 11, 2012, where starting at 5PM I will be presenting a lecture titled "On Identity in the Arts: What Does It Mean to be Latino?" at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, MD.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: August 31, 2012

 

The Howard County Center for the Arts is seeking proposals from artists for Art Maryland 2012, a biennial multi-media juried exhibit. The juror for Art Maryland 2012 is my good bud Philippa Hughes, Founder and Chief Contrarian of The Pink Line Project. A minimum of $1,000 will be awarded by the juror. The exhibit will be on view from October 26 – December 14, 2012 with a reception and remarks by Ms. Hughes on October 26 from 6-8pm.

Entry is open to all artists 18 years or older, residing in Maryland or within a 100-mile radius of Ellicott City, MD. Artists may submit digital images of up to three works completed in the last two years and not exhibited previously in the HCCA galleries. All work must fit through a standard doorway measuring 54” x 80” and fit appropriately in the HCCA galleries. The Center’s two galleries total over 2000 square feet, with 9 ½ foot high walls, professional track lighting and hardwood floors. There is a $25 Art Maryland entry fee. The fee is waived for current Howard County Arts Council members.

Art Maryland 2012 is the eighteenth multi-media statewide juried exhibit sponsored by the Howard County Arts Council. The exhibit began in 1984 as Maryland’s Best, an annual show running through 1989 and open to all Maryland artists. In 1990, when the show became a biennial, its name was changed to Art Maryland. Since the Baltimore Museum of Art ended its Maryland biennial exhibits in the early 1990s, Art Maryland has been a premier juried showcase for artists in the region. In 2000, Art Maryland expanded to include Delaware and Southeastern Pennsylvania in addition to Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

For more information or to download a prospectus, visit www.hocoarts.org/exhibits.php

 

Pam Perna
Community and Web Relations Assistant
Howard County Arts Council
8510 High Ridge Road
Ellicott City, MD 21043
p: 410.313.ARTS
f: 410.313.2790

Mayor's Arts Awards

On Identity

Those of you who know me well, and those of you who know me through my writing, know that one of my pet peeves is the usage of "labels" to box people and art, or art and people, into easily distinguishable categories.

One such label is the American invention of the Hispanic (now apparently not a PC term because technically it includes two European nationalities) or Latino label to pass for ethnicity and often and always wrongly for race.

What does that mean in art? And what does it mean to "Latino" artists? Does it mean anything?

If you want to hear my opinion on the subject then start by penciling in October 11, 2012, where starting at 5PM I will be presenting a lecture titled "On Identity in the Arts: What Does It Mean to be Latino?" at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, MD.

More details later...

New comic book watercolor trompe l'oeil

This image shows the new piece, including the watercolor testing and mixing on the same paper, trying to match the comic book colors of the original. In this piece I changed the dialogue box to reflect a contemporary reality that the Dark Knight would probably have to face in Gotham... I also changed the color of the exclamation point to match the letters of BA-ROOM's colors, as in the actual comic it had erroneously been printed in the reddish color of the smoke clouds.

"Ba-Room! Batman and the Suicide Bomber" 2x5 inches. Watercolor on Paper, c.2012

A new series starts with this...

This December I'm curating an exhibition focused on Superheros and Super villains in room 116 at the Aqua Art Fair in Miami Beach.

As such, in addition to my "Naked Superheros" series, which has been well-documented in this blog and which past pieces hang in many US and European and Latin American collections, I've decided to start sort of a mixed media trompe l'oeil set of works that isolate interesting panels from existing comic books and refocuses the dialogue to make them slightly more interesting (at least to me). 

Below are the steps for the pieces... in the first phase, the panel has been done in charcoal; in the second phase, watercolors have been added to bring it closer to a comic book look -- it's important to me that they retain a "artsy" look and are not just a mirror replica of the original comic -- as a "true" trompe l'oeil would.

This is phase one of "The Caped Crusaders Discover International Terrorism," in this phase it is charcoal on paper, 3x2 inches. 

This is the whole piece of paper, showing the watercolor mixing marks on the top of the piece, searching for the right mix to achieve a close call to the comic book's original colors

And here's the finished piece, "The Caped Crusaders Discover International Terrorism," watercolor and charcoal on paper, 3x2 inches.

Future pieces in this series will have altered text in the dialogue bubbles and also embedded electronic mini LCD screens that run continuous dialogue between the characters.