I tried not to mention this, since I am so glad the WCP did such a good job in their article about Manon Cleary, but in the same issue of the WCP there's a review (by another writer) that begins like this...
"The most striking thing about the photographs of Frida Kahlo and her muralist husband, Diego Rivera, currently on display at the Mexican Cultural Institute is how much Kahlo looks like her self-portraits."I'm I the only one going...
The article is by John Metcalfe and it is about Manon Cleary, in my opinion, not only the best artist in the Washington area, but perhaps the most powerful realist brush in the nation.
Manon is represented locally by Addison/Ripley Fine Art and in Baltimore by Light Street Gallery and her life and work read like an artist's life should read - including all the suffering and destruction that goes along with being a creative genius.
John Metcalfe has done a terrific job in re-creating the lifestyle and the life led by Cleary, although I wish the article had included some images of Cleary's artwork.
Let this be the first call for a Manon Cleary retrospective at either the Hirshhorn Museum or the Corcoran.
It is long overdue for one of those two Washington museums to give a well-deserved show to Washington's best-known and most talented artist.
Jeff Bloom has a great new online resource for Greater Washington area photographers. It is DC Photo Scene and it is a really great resource for what's going on our area about or for photography.
I've just been told some great news. There is a committee which is planning an Art-O-Matic for 2004! The official Art-O-Matic website has some info about it.
The Art-O-Matic 2004 Steering Committee has a BLOG here.
Art-O-Matic is without a doubt the single greatest art event that happens in Washington, DC. Nothing comes close to it in visual power and impact.
For information about future Art-O-Matic events, artists should sign up here.
The 2004 Steering Committe has some very talented and well-versed-in-the-DC art scene names.
People such as artists Richard Dana, Judy Jashinsky, Rima Schulkind, Andres Tremols and others as well as collector Philip Barlow and art activist George Koch.
I cannot say enough good things about Art-O-Matic. My review of Art-O-Matic 2002 can be read online here and a second review of that same show can be read here.
If you'd like to be a part of Art-O-Matic 2004, as an artist, performer, or volunteer, check out the information on the Art-O-Matic 2004 Get Involved page.
Initially intended to teach people about the human skeletal, cardiovascular and other systems, the exhibit includes 25 bodies that have undergone a process called “plastination” in which body fluids are replaced with clear, pliable plastic. It has become an art show, rather than just a science show and somehow pushed aside the YBAs less horrific attempts to do the same with animals.
According to the article, during exhibit stops in Asia and Europe, about 6,000 people have signed papers donating their bodies to von Hagens' institute for possible plastination.
Pushing figurative art even further. Just when one thinks that representational art cannot be coaxed into producing anything "new." And as we all know, "new" is what seduces art critics into auto-thinking "good."
When does a Biennale become a scam?
Read this.
Thanks to Arts Scuttlebutt, without a doubt one of the best online resources in the world for artists, where you can post questions about just about anything dealing with the visual arts and you'll get experienced responses.
Today is the first Friday of the month and thus the Dupont Circle Galleries will be having their monthly extended hours from 6-8 PM.
See ya there!
Congratulations to (formerly from Miss.) Reston, Virginia photographer James W. Bailey, who just won the Albert J. Turbessi Award this past Sunday for his photograph, “Woman at the Tomb,” at the 47th Chautauqua Exhibition of American Art, which was juried by Donald Kuspit.
Congratulations to Gaithersburg, Maryland artist Chum Ngek, who is one of 12 artists to receive the 2004 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, the country's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
On five consecutive Thursday evenings this summer, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and its Museum Store are hosting extended hours until 8 pm.
Free programs include something for everyone -- artist talks, "Hot Nights Jazz," lectures, tours, family activities and after-hours films. For Hirshhorn Hot Nights updates, visit the Museum's website.
Success as an Artist Seminar offered on August 8, 2004.
Almost as soon as we opened our first gallery in Georgetown in 1996, artists began pouring in seeking representation. This continues to this day, and between visits, emails, packages in the mail, etc. we generally receive around 600-800 inquiries a year.
Because we obviously cannot represent or sell the work of such a huge number of artists, a lot of good, talented artists are turned away, after we have recommended follow on steps on what to do. However, in our first few months, Catriona soon discovered that she was spending most of her of time with emerging artists discussing many of the same things over and over, which generally consisted of giving out career advice about such things as gallery representation, contracts, grants, competitions, resumes, etc.
This was not only time consuming with scheduled appointments, but many unscheduled visits caused her to spend several hours a day just meeting with artists and essentially passing out the same information, over and over.
Then her mother came out with a brilliant idea: Why not come up with a structured, formal seminar for emerging artists to pass out this information as well as other important information. Not theory, not review of artwork, but practical advice, usable handouts and a forum to answer questions all at once.
We held our first seminar in 1999 – it was supposed to run for four hours but it ran for seven. So eventually we changed it to a full day, seven hour seminar, and have now presented it to over 1,000 artists and art administrators from nearly every Mid Atlantic state – with attendees coming from as far north as New York and as far south as South Carolina.
It has been spectacularly successful in offering practical business advice to the emerging artist on many areas not covered by any art school curriculum that we know of. The information, advice and details taught at the seminar are not based on theory, but on actual practical experience and hands-on effects. That’s why it has been so successful!
In its seven hour format, the seminar covers a wide range of structured issues including:
1. Materials
Buying materials – strategies for lowering your costs, where and how to get it, etc.
2. Presentation – How to properly present your artwork including Conservation issues, Archival Matting and Framing, Longevity of materials, a discussion on Limited editions, signing and numbering, Prints vs. Reproduction, discussion on Iris Prints (Pros and Cons).
3. Creating a resume - Strategy for building your art resume, including how to write one, what should be in it, presentation, etc.
4. Juried Shows – An Insider's view and strategy to get in the competitions.
5. How to take slides and photographs of your artwork
6. Selling your art – A variety of avenues to actually selling your artwork, including fine arts festivals, corporate acquisitions, galleries, public arts, etc.
7. Creating a Body of Works
8. How to write a news release
9. Publicity – How to get in newspapers, magazines, etc. Plus handouts on email and addresses of newspaper critics, writers, etc.
10. Galleries – Discussion on area galleries including Vanity Galleries, Co-Operatives, Commercial Galleries, Non-profit Art spaces, etc.
11. How to approach a gallery – Realities of the business, Contracts, Gallery/Artist Relationship, Agents.
12. Outdoor Art Festivals – Discussion and advice on how to sell outwork at fine arts festivals, which to do, which to avoid, etc.
13. Resources - Display systems and tents, best juried shows and ones to avoid.
14. Accepting Credit cards – How to set up your art business.
15. Grants – Discussion on how to get grants in DC, Regional and National, including handouts on who and where and when.
16. Alternative Marketing - Cable TV, Local media
17. Internet – How to build your website at no cost, how to establish a wide and diverse Internet presence.
The seminar has been a spectacular success, and the feedback from artists can be read online at here and we continue to receive tremendous positive feedback on the practical success that this seminar has meant for those who have taken it.
The seminar lasts for seven hours and is now offered twice a year. It costs $80 and the next one is scheduled for August 8, from noon to 7 PM at our Bethesda gallery. Interested artists can read more details or print a registration form online at www.thefrasergallery.com/seminars.html or just call Catriona at 301/718-9651.
The seminar is held at the Fraser Gallery of Bethesda, located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E, in Bethesda. The gallery is one block from the Bethesda Metro stop on the Red Line. Ample free parking is also available.
Job Opportunity for Photographer...
The Associated Press seeks a Photo Editor responsible for working with photographers, photo editors,news editors to improve and guide the Washington, DC., photo report. This position will be responsible for planning, organizing and executing coverage of major news and sporting events. Photoshop and computer skills necessary.
Contact:
John E. Hall/ Assistant Bureau Chief/Photo
2021 K st. NW
Washington, DC. 20006
202-776-9511
jhall@ap.org
Organized and curated by our own Olga Viso, the energetic Deputy Director of the Hirshhorn, the show will be on view in New York from July 1 – September 19, 2004 and then it will travel to the Hirshhorn.
Ana Mendieta was a Pedro Pan child and her interest in exploring the female body and its social and political implications through performances, sculptures, and “actions” has a tremendous impact, which although clearly evident, has not truly been recognized - hopefully this exhibition will plant Mendieta very firmly as one of the last century's most influential (and under recognized artists).
This show is a survey of fifteen years of this exiled Cuban artist’s career, and it includes the well-known Silueta Series, made in Iowa and Mexico from 1973 to 1980, as well as Mendieta’s sculptures and installations of the early 1980s.
Look for Hollywood to "discover" the spectacular life led by Mendieta and her even more spectacular death. Mendieta fell from a window of her 34th-floor Greenwich Village apartment where she lived with her husband, the sculptor Carl Andre. He was charged with but eventually acquitted of her murder.
Leslie Cahmi wrote a really good article about Mendieta in the Sunday New York Times. Read it here - at BookofJoe.
Joe Barbaccia points out an interesting story in today's Post.
Creative minds do create in many different avenues and forms.
Thanks to AJ...
The Democratization of Cultural Criticism by George Cotkin is a must read.
"If literary criticism is marked by vicious prose and petty bickering, then art criticism exists without firm judgments... The state of cultural criticism today, in the view of many, is debilitated, perhaps even moribund... our present generation of cultural critics, arriving after the assault of postmodernism and the increasingly widespread commercialization of culture, has been cast adrift, without any firm basis for judgments... Critics today, it is also claimed, are too cozy behind the ivied walls of academe, content to employ a prose style that is decipherable only to a handful of the cognoscenti."And does this sound familiar in reference to a couple of our local art scribes?
Aaaah! The power of the Internet...
A few days ago I commented on a striking photo on the front page of the NY Times by someone named Jae Hyun Seok.
DCARTNEWS reader Sarah Schumacher was nice enough to drop me a note with the information that Seok is South Korean. He was held in a Chinese prison for 14 months while reporting on North Korean refugees.
This is an interesting story about him, and his stuff is online here.
Thanks Sarah!
It's official now.
Arts-related businesses make up 4.3 percent of all the companies in the United States, and employ almost 3 million people, according to this study commissioned by Americans for the Arts that I received a few days ago.
The study is the most detailed account yet of their economic impact on our daily life. The New York metropolitan area (including Northern NJ, CT and PA) ranks No. 1 nationally in arts-related businesses, with nearly 55,000. Our area, as expected, ranks fourth, after LA and San Francisco Bay Area, but ahead of Chicago.
So what we in the trenches have been hollering about for years has been now empirically quantified. We have one of the top art scenes in the nation here and yet we are (at least in the visual arts) woefully ignored by the mainstream press.
In fact, according to this article in the Washington Post written as a result of the study, our area art related non-profits employs more people than the legal profession - now that's a shocker!
The DC area nonprofit arts industry provides $1.24 billion in direct expenditures and supports nearly 26,000 full-time jobs and is responsible for nearly $896 million in personal income for area residents.
What makes this study even more important, is the simple fact that our area is perhaps the smallest (in terms of population) of any of the top 20 areas. So that means to me that we then have the highest concentration, per capita, of these cultural assets.
When will the Washington Post and the Washington Times (not to mention any of our local TV stations) get this point? Here's the list:
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Opportunity for artists...
The City of Greenbelt sponsors an annual, juried art and craft fair in early December. Media typically include paintings and prints, photography, ceramics, glass, jewelry, clothing, quilts, furniture, and holiday crafts. All work must be hand-made by the exhibitor and of professional quality.
Their next show will take place on Saturday, Dec. 4 and Sunday, Dec. 5, 2004. Contact John Norden at 301-397-2208 or jnorden@ci.greenbelt.md.us to request an application. Apply at your earliest convenience for best chances of inclusion. Artists are selected on a rolling basis from January through October based on artistic merit, originality and other factors. To be considered for an exhibition, please forward the following materials to Nicole DeWald, Arts Coordinator, using the contact information provided above:
1) Letter of introduction commenting on your work and your concept(s) for a visually and conceptually unified exhibition
2) Images of your work (no limit). Please send slides, photographs, or digital images in jpeg format
3) Artist’s resume
4) Proposal for related workshop for youth, teens, or adults (optional but desirable)
5) Self-addressed, stamped, padded envelope for return of your images, if desired. Images will not be returned otherwise.
Affordable Housing for Artists...
The Mount Rainier Artist Lofts will open in January 2005!
The Mount Rainier Artist Lofts will provide 44-units of affordable housing for artists and their families adding to the growing revitalization efforts of the Route One Corridor in the Prince George's County Gateway Arts District.
For details, contact:
Angela Blocker
Program Officer, Property Development
Gateway CDC
P.O. Box 306
Mount Rainier, MD 20712
301-864-3860 x 3
301-779-6747 fax
Email: angela@gateway-cdc.org
