For the last several years I have been attending the Annual Mayor's Arts Awards, which this year will be hosted at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Now in its 19th year, this is one of the best nights of the year for any art enthusiast in our area, and yet I am always shocked to find that amongst the many hundreds of people who attend the awards, I see precious few recognizable faces from what one would equate with our area's "art scene."

It's almost as if there are two, separate (and unequal) art scenes around here. And it's a shame, because this Art awards night is a lot of fun and full of an incredible artistic energy that is rarely seen (or read about) elsewhere.

The awards night show (which is free and open to the public) is always showcased by a spectacular performance show, which usually includes music of all kinds (opera, pop, blues, salsa, etc.) by different groups, dance (from classical to tap, etc.), poetry (traditional to slam) and a variety of other entertainment acts offered in between the awards.

The event is alwasy fun and always well-catered (so the "grubs" are always there), and I guess about 800-1200 people generally attend it.

Awards are presented in the following categories:

Excellence in an Artistic Discipline - To an individual artist or an organization that has demonstrated a substantial history of extraordinary achievement in an artistic discipline.

Outstanding Emerging Artist - To a promising individual artist or group of artists that have demonstrated artistic excellence and achieved distinction in an artistic discipline.

Excellence in Service to the Arts - To an individual or a private, public, or government organization that has demonstrated a substantial history of exemplary leadership, financial support, or other services vital to the development of the arts in the District of Columbia.

Outstanding Contribution to Arts Education - To an individual or organization that has demonstrated outstanding efforts to evoke interest and understanding of the arts.

Innovation in the Arts - To an individual or organization that has demonstrated ingenious use of skills or resources to produce art, art programs, or services.

See past winners here.

On behalf of The Honorable Mayor Anthony A. Williams and the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, I'd like to invite all of you to the 19th Mayor's Arts Awards at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts "The Concert Hall" located at 2700 F Street, NW Washington, DC. The awards will be on Monday, January 5, 2004 (ceremony begins at 6:00 pm). First come, first seated and come early, as the place usually gets packed.

To get there, take Metro to Foggy Bottom and a free shuttle bus is available every 15 minutes between Foggy Bottom Metro and the Kennedy Center.

Joanna Shaw-Eagle, the Washington Times' Chief Art critic has an interesting review of what sounds like an even more interesting show at Fondo del Sol on R Street.

The show, organized by Marc Zuver, who directs Fondo del Sol, seeks to establish a ancestral connection between the Basque people of Spain and France with the Georgian people of the Black Sea and the eventual distilling to art influences in Latin America.

As Shaw-Eagle notes: "Whether visitors can follow Mr. Zuver's complex, and sometimes, puzzling, connecting of ancient Iberian influences on New World art is questionable, but most of the art is definitely first-rate and challenging."

My good friend Marc Zuver runs Fondo del Sol, one of the very first museums of its kind in the United States, with very little funding and help, and with extraordinary hard work and dedication on his part. He is one of the most animated, talkative gallery directors on the planet, and if you go visit him, be ready to spend a dozen hours discussing Iberia and Georgia and genetics and art.

Robert Lalasz, who is the Senior Arts Writer at the Washington City Paper debuts a new column in the current issue of the WCP. It's called "Show and Tell" and according to the column's banner, it will be a monthly column on "Money, Politics, Issues, Controversy. Just another week in the D.C. arts scene."

This is a great addition to the WCP's arts coverage and we'll keep an eye on it to discuss it, as unfortunately the WCP doesn't archive stories online, therefore I can't link to it, so go get a copy and read it.

Lead story in this week's column: Why the convention center public art isn't public. And Lalasz does a great job in bringing forth the incredible fact that Washington's largest "public" art collection is essentially not open to the public.

Also in this week's Washington City Paper, Louis Jacobson writes about Lydia Ann Douglas' exhibition of Cuban photographs at Teaism. Jacobson's shrewd insight into the DC art scene is revealed when he writes that some of the photos echo the work of Washington area photographer Nestor Hernandez, who has been photographing Cuba (while re-discovering his Cuban father's family) since the 1970's.

Nestor Hernandez's massive documentation of his Cuban family and Cuba not only predates the flood of photographers who have invaded Cuba drawn by its exotic forbidden lure, but certainly deserves to be reviewed and considered for a good museum showing, especially now that Cuban art is so hot around the world and interest in all things Cuban has risen due to the clamp-down on travel to the island prison.

Let me be the first one to suggest that Philip Brookman or Paul Roth at the Corcoran should consider scheduling Nestor for a show.

Eric Fischl will be in DC next March at the Hirshhorn and will discuss his work and the current direction of figurative art. Mark your calendars now: Thursday, March 11, at 7 p.m at the Hirshhorn Museum's Ring Auditorium.

Here is a pen and ink sketch that I did in 1985 at a disco in NYC - my best friend Frank (from High School) was a NYC cop and he moonlighted doing security at this disco that was always full of artsy people, actors, actresses and wanna-be's... super hard to get into, but I got in with Frank.

These two really pushed figurative art didn't they!

Great opportunity for visual artists:

The Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, MD has a call for artists to select their 2005 Exhibition season. The deadline is January 9, 2004. Open to all artists living and working in Maryland, Washington, DC and Virginia.

There is no entry fee. A juried panel will select artists and create nine exhibits to be placed into the 2005 calendar. If more than 125 entries are received, the City reserves the right to implement a two-tiered panel review to ensure an appropriate review of all applications. Jan 30 – All artists notified of selection. The City of Rockville will receive a 20% commission on all sales. For more info call 240-314-8682.

For Artists:

The Artists' Health Insurance Resource Center is designed to meet the critical need for health insurance information in the arts community. Well worth a visit.

Art on Location is a unique new arts program that showcases contemporary fine art from talented local artists in upscale and popular consumer venues throughout the Greater Washington D.C. metropolitan region. Info at 202/986.0549 or events@artonlocation.com.

And for photographers...

Deadline Jan. 12, 2004. "Regional Juried Photography Exhibition". Open to all residents of MD, DC, DE, PA, VA, & WV. All photographic work accepted, including digital and alternative processes. $25 for 4 slides, $5 for each additional slide.

Washington Gallery of Photography. Show February 13 - March 7, 2004. Acceptance notification by January 15, 2004. All photographs judged from slides. Cash prizes and exhibition opportunities for first, second and third place winners. For entry form, see www.wsp-photo.com, or send SASE to Washington Gallery of Photography, 4850 Rugby Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814. Tel: 301/654.1998. E-mail: wspinfo@aol.com


See all of youse tomorrow in Georgetown for the Third Friday Canal Square Gallery Openings.

The Bethesda Arts and Entertainment District is accepting applications for the 2004 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival, an outdoor Fine Art and Fine Craft festival that will take place in the Woodmont Triangle area of Bethesda, Maryland. The festival will take place, rain or shine, on Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16, 2004.

150 booth spaces are available, $275 for a 10' x 10' booth, $25 application fee. All original fine art and fine crafts are eligible, no mass produced or commercially manufactured products are allowed. $2,500 in prize money.

Deadline for applications is March 1, 2004. To download an application form, visit www.bethesda.org or send a SASE to Bethesda Urban Partnership, Bethesda Fine Arts Festival, 7700 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, MD 20814. For more information contact festival Director, Catriona Fraser, at (301) 718-9651.

Tomorrow is the monthly Third Thursday extended hours at the 7th Street area downtown galleries.

And the next day, on Friday, will be opening night for the four Canal Square Galleries in Georgetown. It's also the opening of my show, which once again this year marries my interest in history with art. I am doing drawings focused on the unique imagery of the Pictish people of pre-Celtic Scotland. I have been writing a book on the history and art of this Dark Age nation and hope to finally get it finished in a year or so. See some of the drawings here and learn more about the Picts here.

The Ellipse Arts Center in Arlington is looking for a gallery manager. Salary: $40,254.24 - $65,062.40. This is an administrative position in the Arlington County, Virginia Cultural Affairs Division managing this visual arts exhibition center. This position is responsible for developing yearly exhibition and educational outreach programs for Arlington County.

Minimum Requirements: Bachelors degree in Fine Arts, Art History or Arts Admin from an accredited institution, plus 2 yrs of experience in arts admin which include visual arts exhibition programming & implementation. See complete ad at here, or call (703) 228-3500 for HR Dept. Deadline is December 31, 2003.

Creative Capital accepts proposals for grants in visual arts and film/video. Creative Capital has implemented a new application process: to apply for a grant, artists must first submit an Inquiry Form, which will be available February 16, 2004 here. The deadline for completed Inquiry Forms is March 15, 2004; those invited to apply will be notified in June 2004.

Salvador Dali once said: "If you can't paint well, then paint big," and now in YBA Land, The Guardian has a very good story about the impact of size on our (their?) perception of art.

I call it "acreage art."

Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes has a very interesting observation about the National Gallery of Art, space on the Mall and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Conner Contemporary and its hard working owner, Leigh Conner, celebrate five years of being around - this is a huge milestone, as any Chamber of Commerce stats will tell you, 90% of all art galleries in the USA will close after one year.

And Conner Contemporary is without a doubt one of the key galleries in our city's cultural tapestry. This is a gallery with a hard-working owner, a vision and some of the best artists in the our area and the nation, plus a terrific commitment to young artists, as evidenced by their annual student show.

Their fiveYear retro is a revolving survey celebrating the gallery's first five years, and features photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, digital media and starts December 5 and runs until January 31, 2004. The exhibition is revolving, and features new work every two weeks and will include the following artists: Chul-Hyun Ahn, Olivia Barr, Mark Bennett, Maria Friberg, Corin Hewitt, Damien Hirst, Kenny Hunter, Muriel Hasbun, Robert Indiana, Avish Khebrehzadeh, John Kirchner, David Levinthal, Robert Longo, Bradley McCallum & Jacqueline Tarry, Tracey Moffatt, Sabeen Raja, Erik Sandberg, Leo Villareal, Andy Warhol, Mary Woodall and others.

Congrats Leigh!

Opening December 2 at Elizabeth Roberts Gallery:

Eleven Artists: Works on Paper. The participating artists are Sara Clark, Kate Cunningham, Donald Depuydt, Ellen Hill, Tadzio Koelb, Melek Mazici, Nancy Magnus, Susan Singer, Kathryn Stedham, Bob Worthy, Yumiko Yoshida. The opening will be part of the 1st Friday's Dupont Circle gallery openings on December 5 at the Elizabeth Roberts Gallery, located at 2108 R St NW in the Dupont Circle gallery area.

For video artists and filmmakers:

The Guerrilla Film Festival is now accepting submissions for its 3rd edition. There is no application fee and there is no deadline. Screenings are bi-monthly, so if you don't make it in time for GFF3, you will be considered for GFF4.

The application form can be found here. Once downloaded and filled in, please email this application to John Hanshaw and mail a DVD or VHS screener to:

GUERRILLA FILM FEST
Attn: John Hanshaw
1421 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Suite 20
Washington, DC 20005

A really good walk-through of Art Basel Miami Beach by Walter Robinson at Artnet.com.

In today's Sunday Arts, Blake Gopnik discusses John Currin and his success in the art world.

Apart from the silly and erroneous headline, this is actually a very readable article, and as posted by me earlier, I somewhat agree with Gopnik's puzzlement as to Currin's success in the art world.

However, I think that Blake gets most of his supporting arguments wrong, when he discusses why Currin has been so successful. This is a perfect case where this eloquent art critic lets his personal beliefs and tunnel-visioned agenda get in the way of being remotely close to objectivity. And that's somewhat OK, as critics don't have to be objective - but they should be clear about their beliefs rather than appear to speak from an objective pulpit.

Let's start by recalling that Gopnik has clearly shown that he doesn't like painting and above all he doesn't like realism. According to Gopnik's "Long Live Realism - Realism is Dead" lecture at the Corcoran, realism has been done, so why would "serious" artists still waste their time attempting to continue to do it?

Thus, it is understandable that Gopnik would be particularly repulsed by Currin's work - in fact I dislike it too. But he is wrong in attempting to use its success as an example of why contemporary realism is "dead" in his view.

Gopnik writes that "Within the art world, where Currin's career and reputation have been forged, he can get praise as an original not because he's doing anything new or special but simply because some vanguard curators and collectors don't get out enough."

I disagree that this is the main reason, but I certainly do agree that "vanguard curators" (whoever they are, as no star eclipses faster than a "vanguard" curator once his or her show has closed) don't get out enough. As far as collectors, I do not believe that Mr. Gopnik (or most museum art critics) knows anything about art collectors, so these are just extra words.

However, what Gopnik does not mention, is that some very influential art critics - much higher in the art world food chain than he is - have also praised Currin and his art, and helped tremendously to build this artist's standing in the rarified upper crust of the art world.

Influential critics like the New York Times' Michael "Dia" Kimmelman likes Currin a lot. In fact Kimmelman has writen that "Mr. Currin is among other things a latter-day Jeff Koons, trafficking in lowdown humor, heartless kitsch and ironic smut, while offering up dollops of finesse, beauty and brains. The combination is disorienting and, at its best, thrilling."

And because of his job, even Blake would have to admit that Kimmelman probably "gets out" a lot, especially around first rate New York galleries, rather than the "third-rate commercial galleries across the country" mentioned in Gopnik's piece.

Let me re-affirm something again. I don't like Currin's work either - but his work is not to be generalized to cover all of contemporary realism, which is generalized as "shopping mall realists...boardwalk caricaturists... or Sunday-painter surrealists."

So it's not just vanguard curators stuck in their offices, art collectors who don't get out much, but also first class, influential art critics, who have clothed Currin as a modern art emperor. You can also fill in any well-known contemporary artist name (Hirsh, Barney, Brown, Chapman, Dean, etc.) instead of Currin.

Let's go back over that key paragraph again:

"Within the art world, where Currin's career and reputation have been forged, he can get praise as an original not because he's doing anything new or special but simply because some vanguard curators and collectors don't get out enough. It's as though the elites of contemporary art are so engrossed in their own world that they're not aware of what's already going on in the American mainstream -- at shopping malls, on boardwalks and in Sunday painting classes."

Wouldn't that logic apply to all artists whose career and reputation have been forged within the "art world"?

I'm not sure if Gopnik gets around to visit any of the "third rate galleries" that he mentions in the review - after all, he just reviews museum shows and I don't think that he has the "pulse" of what's going on in art galleries around the nation. But spend a few hours in 3rd, 2nd and 1st rate commercial galleries in Los Angeles, or New York, or San Francisco, or London or Madrid, or Washington and you will see a thousand artists still delivering Rothko-like, Pollock-like, Impressionism-like, Pop, and fill-in-the-blank "like" to any style, genre and idea - not just realism.

In fact, visit any of the garbage "galleries" in the malls, selling reproduction after reproduction, gyclee, Iris, etc. framed in expensive baroque frames, and you're apt to find anything from Peter Max to Chuck Close to Warhol to Lichtenstein. The appetite for cheap, garbage reproduction poster art is not restricted to the genre of realism, or Currin-like images.

In this paragraph Gopnik tips his hand and his disdain for contemporary realism:

"Currin fills a perennial void: The American art world, and especially the art market in New York, is forever hoping for an oil-paint messiah -- for someone who will at last restore credibility to old-fashioned realist technique. Ask dealers or curators and they'll tell you that nothing appeals to collectors and the public like figurative oil painting."

I thought that Gerhard Richter was that messiah? Oh wait! he's German, and the dubious undying appeal of realism to make artists into superstars is an American obsession.... wrong!

And even in trendy YBA land, the BBC says that "No modern artist, not even the likes of Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin, divides opinion like Jack Vettriano." Jack Vettriano is, of course, a painter - sort of the John Currin of Great Britain - but much harsher and romantic and sexual - and although this Scottish painter has sold out every single exhibition that he's ever had, apparently all of them within an hour (including one in NYC), and has a waiting list for his next painting of several hundred names, and famous people and celebrities all crave his work, and the British critics hate his work - he enjoys spectacular success in Great Britain and is one of those artists whose reproductions are sold by the millions in the same mall "galleries" that push out the endless Warhols, Maxes and such.

So it's not just a provincial American "thing" to reserve some of our want for a bit of realism in our art - even if most critics despise it - but if the "public" likes it... then it can't be good art.

I suggest that the Post should change this article's headlines from "Plan to Become An American Art Star? Oh, Be a Realist" to "Plan to Become An Art Star? Oh, Be a Realist."

And then the headline would still make absolutely no sense at all - can anyone send me a list of their top ten contemporary art "stars" that includes a majority of realists? What a load of nonsense!

My final thought on this issue. Both Gopnik and I dislike Currin's work. But Gopnik dislikes it because he dislikes (a) the subject matter, (b) painting and (c) realism. I dislike it because I think that it is the pushing of the ultimate kitsch button by art curators - the perennial search not for a painting messiah, but for a high kitsch messiah to succeed the tired and jaded Jeff Koons.

One thing doesn't make sense to me though. At Gopnik's "Long Live Realism - Realism is Dead" lecture at the Corcoran, when asked if he had to buy a painting today, what would he buy, he answered: "A reproduction of an old master."

When pushed further, Gopnik flashed some slides by Lisa Yuskavage and explained and defended her work using a lot of the same words that critics use to explain and defend Currin's work. Does this make any sense? Am I the only one who thinks that both these painters are singing the same tune?

An excellent contemporary photography show in the area is the Faculty
Exhibition at Photoworks at Glen Echo, 7300 MacArthur Boulevard, Glen Echo
Maryland. The show will be up until February 1 and the hours are Sunday
from 1:00 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Monday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Call 301 229 4313
for additional hours.

As we get ready to start our ninth year in Georgetown and our third year in Bethesda, we reach a major milestone with our 100th exhibition opening tonite Friday, December 12 in our Bethesda gallery as part of the Bethesda Art Walk.

When we opened our first gallery in Georgetown, a well-known local art critic visited us within the first week and we discussed our goals, experience and focus with him. “I give you six months,” he said as he left.

He said this because we had started a gallery financed by Visa and MasterCard, without a collector’s mailing list stolen from another gallery, without recognized, well-known artists (in fact without any artists other than us), without “silent partners,” and with a focus on contemporary realism, and thus a decision to largely ignore trendy “art” designed to cause temporary interest through shock or gimmick, but lacking the legs to stand the test of time. We also decided to exhibit art that we liked – that was and is the litmus test for Fraser Gallery artists – rather than exhibit second-rate art by well-known artists, vanity shows subsidized by Washington embassies, signed reproductions by major artists, or any artwork that we would not hang in our own home. We also made it an unbreakable rule to run the gallery with the highest of professional ethics designed to protect not only our artists but also our collectors.

Our success since then is due to staying the course of our focus and because of the brilliant talent of our represented artists.

Thus, our 100th show is a “thank you show” to the many artists that we now represent and to the success that they have given our galleries through their talent, trust and friendship. In the past 99 shows, between our solo, group shows and annual competitions, we have exhibited the work of nearly 1000 artists, many of whom had never exhibited before in the Washington area, and many, many young area artists who received their first gallery exposure though our annual student shows and other invitational shows.

The many artists in our 100th show reflect an incredible change from our artist-less beginnings in Georgetown. Our artists are now represented in the permanent collections of nearly 100 museums worldwide, from MoMA in New York to MALBA in Buenos Aires, have had nearly 1000 secondary art market auction lot records, have had nearly 30 books published about their artwork, and are in private and public collections all over the world.

Thank you.

Tomorrow, December 12, 2003 is the last day to get the exhibition raffle tickets for the District of Columbia Art Center 8th Annual Exhibition Raffle. An annual opportunity to win a six-week show in the DCAC gallery. Tickets are only $50 each for DCAC members and $100 for non-members. Note that a year's membership to DCAC costs as little as $30 making it possible to become a new member and enter the raffle for only $80. DCAC also encourages artists to join together with other artists and share the price of a ticket.

Tickets may be purchased at DCAC during gallery and theater hours tomorrow from 2-10 PM. For more information, please call (202)- 462-7833.

This is one of the most innovative ways to support one of our area's key non-profit art spaces. In the past artists have, as a small group, bought tickets and thus if you get 2-3 people together, the cost is even less. Past raffle winners include such artists as Jane Engle, Thomas Dryon, Manon Cleary, Lisa Brotman, Gay Glading, Margarida Kendall and Jo Rango.