Call for Artists: Bethesda Painting Awards

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the eleventh annual Bethesda Painting Awards, a juried competition honoring four selected painters with $14,000 in prize monies. Deadline for slide submission is Friday, February 20, 2015. Up to eight finalists will be invited to display their work in June 2015 at a Gallery B in downtown Bethesda.

The competition will be juried by Arnold Kemp, Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University; John Morrell, Chair of the Department of Art and Art History and Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at Georgetown University; and Nora Sturges, Professor of Art and head of Painting and Drawing at Towson University.

The first place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A “young” artist whose birth date is after February 20, 1985 may also be awarded $1,000.

Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. All original 2-D painting including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, encaustic and mixed media will be accepted. The maximum dimension should not exceed 60 inches in width or 84 inches in height. No reproductions. Artwork must have been completed within the last two years and must be available for the duration of the exhibition.

Each artist must submit five images, application and a non-refundable entry fee of $25.

For more information, or to apply online, please visit www.bethesda.org or call 301/215-6660. You may also send a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Bethesda Painting Awards, c/o Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District 7700 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, MD 20814.

The Bethesda Painting Awards was established by local business owner Carol Trawick in 2005. Ms. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 25 years in downtown Bethesda. She is the former Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, Past Chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. and founder of The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards. Ms. Trawick is the owner of an information technology company in Bethesda, Trawick & Associates.

Catriona Fraser, award-winning photographer, curator and juror is the non-voting Chair of the Bethesda Painting Awards. Ms. Fraser has directed the Fraser Gallery in downtown Bethesda since 2002. Ms. Fraser is also the Chair of The Trawick Prize and Director of the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival.

The tenth annual Bethesda Painting Awards was held in June 2015. Kyle Hackett of Baltimore, MD was awarded “Best in Show” with $10,000; Philip Hinge of Richmond, VA was named second place and was given $2,000; Ryan Carr Johnson of Gaithersburg, MD was awarded third place and received $1,000; and Ali Miller of Baltimore, MD was named Young Artist and was given $1,000.

Stéphane Aquin named chief curator of the Hirshhorn

Stéphane Aquin, curator of contemporary art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art since 1998, has been named chief curator of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, effective early 2015. He will lead a department of five staff curators and one curator-at-large that is responsible for planning exhibitions and installations and overseeing a collection of nearly 12,000 objects.

“Stéphane has the vision and experience to lead the Hirshhorn’s curatorial department at a time when we are expanding our profile nationally and internationally,” said Melissa Chiu, director of the Hirshhorn. “He has worked closely with a diverse roster of artists and conceived and executed important monographic and thematic exhibitions. And he has been instrumental in building a significant contemporary collection. We are fortunate to be able to welcome him to the Hirshhorn.”

During his tenure at the MMFA, Aquin has curated major exhibitions, including “Peter Doig: No Foreign Lands” (2014), “Beyond Pop Art: Tom Wesselmann” (2012), “Warhol Live: Music and Dance in Andy Warhol’s Work” (2008), “Riopelle: Canadian Artist” (2006), “Global Village: The Sixties” (2003) and “Pipilotti Rist” (2000). He also organized “Yo y mi circunstancia: Mobility in Contemporary Mexican Art” (1999) and contributed to “Hitchcock and Art: Fatal Coincidences” (2000). A prominent scholar of contemporary art, he has written catalog essays about Peter Doig, Jean Paul Riopelle, Dorothea Rockburne, Carolee Schneemann and others.

Aquin established and headed the MMFA’s project series, organizing more than 40 exhibitions by artists from Canada and abroad. As the curator responsible for art from 1945 to the present, he expanded the museum’s collection by more than 1,000 works, with additions by artists such as David Altmejd, Richard Artschwager, Eduardo Basualdo, Jim Dine, Jesper Just, Mark Lewis, Los Carpinteros, Pipilotti Rist, Kiki Smith, Michael Snow and Tom Wesselmann. He has also overseen the development of the MMFA’s sculpture garden, which has key works by Aaron Curry, Antony Gormley, Mimmo Paladino and Jaume Plensa, among others.

Before his tenure at the MMFA, Aquin worked as an independent art critic from 1992 to 1998, serving notably as chief art critic for the Montreal weekly Voir. Before that he held various curatorial positions in museums across Canada. He has been a part-time faculty member in the Masters of Fine Arts Studio Arts program at Concordia University in Montreal since 1996 and for the past 10 years has acted as advisor to the acquisition committee of the art collection of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, one of Canada’s largest pension fund managers. He has served on numerous juries and panels across Canada and abroad, acting as president of the Sobey Art Award Jury in 2008.

Born in Montreal and raised in the United States and Switzerland, Aquin earned a master’s degree in art history from the Université de Montréal in 1987 and has pursued doctoral studies in sociology at the same university.

Aquin succeeds Kerry Brougher, who served as the Hirshhorn’s chief curator from 2000 until May 31.