Jeffry Cudlin has an excellent review in the current issue of the WCP about the Georges Rouault exhibition at the Phillips Collection.

Cudlin manages to make Rouault sound semi-interesting. I must admit that Rouault has never been a favorite of mine; in fact he's one of those boring painters whose abuse of the subject matter may have been his only redeeming virtue.

Cudlin elegantly writes:

"Brilliant color and implacable, literal ugliness here make a jarring combination, and the result is a painting that manages to be both overworked and underrealized. Yes, the title indicates that this image is meant to be iconic, but the piece sits uncomfortably between worlds, smacking of urgent sensation while clearly meant to indicate no mere physical encounter."

The Maryland Art Place (MAP) in Baltimore announces its 19th Annual Critics’ Residency Program. The deadline for the application materials (available at www.mdartplace.org) must be delivered to MAP by 5pm August 31, 2004.

Selected artists will participate in studio visits with New York art critic, Franklin Sirmans, and the selected writers during one weekend in October 2004. Also, selected writers will accompany Sirmans during these studio visits and participate in writing workshops. Throughout the program, all participants will engage in dialogues with each other and during the concluding exhibition and Forum in April, will expand that discussion with each other and the community.

Franklin Sirmans is MAP’s 19th Annual Critic in Residence. Sirmans was invited to participate as the critic and curator in this unique opportunity for artists and writers. An independent curator, freelance writer, editor and lecturer based in New York City, Sirmans is the former US editor of Flash Art and Editor-in-Chief of Art Asia Pacific magazines. He has published widely, including The New York Times, Art in America, and Artnews, and has curated exhibitions in Europe, Asia and North America. These exhibitions include: One Planet Under a Groove, (co-curator: Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Spelman College Art Gallery, Atlanta; Museum Villa Stuck, Munich); A Moment’s Notice (Houston), Americas Remixed (Milan), Mass Appeal (Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax), Rumors of War, New Wave, Paradise 8 (co-curator, Exit Art) among many others.

For more information, contact Lisa Lewenz (email her here) or call her at 410-962-8565.

The Mexican Cultural Institute, located in one of Washington's most beautiful buildings and boasting a really good exhibition space, will exhibit The Dream of Earth: 21st Century Tendencies in Mexican Sculpture, a collection of sculptures by six renowned Mexican contemporary clay sculptors: Gerardo Azcúnaga, Adriana Margáin, Javier Marín, Miriam Medrez, Maribel Portela and Paloma Torres.

The exhibit will be held from September 14th through November 24th. The Institute is located on 2829 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009.

Los Angeles Center For Digital Art Call for Artists...

Deadline for entries: September 5, 2004

LACDA announces an open call for their un-juried show featuring digital art and photography: "Snap to Grid."

All entries will be printed (8.5"x11" on Epson heavyweight matte paper) and shown in their gallery arranged in a grid. Note to artists: This is an open competition, which means exactly that: ALL entries will be accepted and shown.

Entrants submit one JPEG file of original work. All styles of 2D artwork and photography where digital processes of any kind were integral to the creation of the images are acceptable. Digital video stills and screen shots of web/new media are acceptable.

Prior to and after the exhibition the images and artist information will be available to gallery visitors to view in their artist portfolios. Prints can be made available to buyers on an as needed basis. Artwork for future exhibits will be selected from the portfolios, and will also be available for review by area gallerists, curators and arts journalists.

Show Dates: September 9-October 1, 2004 and the registration fee is $30. Submission Rules: Registration and submission are done through their web site only. File uploads are the only accepted submissions and are maximum of 2MB each and not exceed 1024x768 pixels in dimensions.

For official announcement, click here and for submission follow this link.

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District invites everyone to The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards exhibition featuring the competition’s finalists.

The finalists' works will be displayed at Creative Partners Gallery, 4600 East-West Highway, Bethesda. Fifteen finalists compete for $14,000 in prize money; The Best in Show winner $10,000; 2nd place $2,000; 3rd place $1,000. A "Young Artist" whose birth date is after June 2, 1974 will also be awarded $1000 that the Fraser Gallery sponsors. Gallery Hours: Tue-Sat, 12-6pm. 301-215-6660.

Congratulations to the fifteen finalists: Marci Branagan, Baltimore, MD; Graham Caldwell, Washington, D.C.; Annet Couwenberg, Baltimore, MD; Susan Eder & Craig Dennis, Falls Church, VA; Suzanna Fields, Richmond, VA; Bernhard Hildebrandt, Baltimore, MD; Brandon Morse, Takoma Park, MD; David Page, Baltimore, MD; Randi Reiss-McCormack, Lutherville, MD; Marie Ringwald, Washington, D.C.; Jo Smail, Baltimore, MD; Jeff Spaulding, Bethesda, MD; Daniel Sullivan, Baltimore, MD; J. L. Stewart Watson, Baltimore, MD and John Watson, Washington, D.C.

Looking for studio space?

Affordable artists' studios at A. Salon, 6925 Willow St. NW, DC. Prices from 190 sq.ft. at $200 month to 970 sq.ft.at $1022 per month, utilities included. Shown Wednesdays 6-8pm. Call 202-882-0740. Website here and then click on A. Salon

This area arts activist and collector puts her money where her mouth is.

We need a lot more people like her to add to the Prize.

DCist reveals that grounds for a new area museum was broken last week.

It is the Negro Leagues Hall of Fame Museum.

While Jackie Robinson was the first African American player to play in the U.S. Major Leagues, and a true hero and trailblazer, I submit that this player was the first man of African ancestry to play in the US Major Leagues. He has been all but ignored by historians and his significant sacrifices and accomplishments remain in the dustbins of baseball history.

His debut, with the Washington Senators, was in 1935.

J.T. Kirkland reviews Conner Contemporary's Academy 2004.

A few days ago I visited the Art League gallery on the first floor of the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria.

The Art League is our area's largest arts organization (and one of the largest in the world), with several thousand artist members. This year they are celebrating their 50th anniversary; Congratulations! To join the Art League, click here.

But I went to catch their annual International Landscape Show, which this year was juried by Prof. Richard Crozier, from the McIntire Dept. of Art at the University of Virginia. Crozier selected 179 works for exhibition from a set of 709 pieces submitted by artists for his review. Crozier is also the author of the book Inventing the Landscape: From Plein Air Study to Studio Painting.

The genre of landscape art, which belongs mostly within the painting genre of the visual arts, has all but disappeared from contemporary art, where I submit the word "contemporary" has been kidnapped by those who dwell in the rarified upper crust of the arts world. In fact, I cannot recall the last time that I saw a contemporary landscape painting show in any of our area museums, although they are still quite common in independent commercial fine arts galleries here and there.

Landscape photography, for some reason, has escaped the total aversion shown by curators and critics to other forms of landscape art, and in fact, many of today's famous Teutonic surnamed photographers, with their gigantic, and mostly boring photographs adorning empty museums, could be categorized as landscape photographers.

But if your personal tastes draw you towards landscape art in general (and of a more intimate size), including painting, then there's no better show around this area than the Art League's annual landscape show.

Crozier awarded the Jay & Helen Risser Award to Drema Apperson for a piece titled "Spring Creeps Up the Mountain: May, Germany Vallery, West Virginia," while the Potomac Valley Watercolorists award went to Sidney Platt for a piece titled "Shadow Play," and the Washington Society of Landscape Painters award went to Audrey Hopkins for a piece titled "October Light."

According the Crozier, the award to "Spring Creeps Up the Mountain: May, Germany Vallery, West Virginia" was chosen because "of the artist's attention to specifics without a lot of detail. It represents a real experience."

For the other two award winning paintings, Crozier said that "Shadow Play" and "October Light" both "possess a really strong sense of light and work as abstract pieces. To accomplish both is difficult to pull off."

Maybe it is my personal dislike to the Teutonic-sized photographs that we are being force fed in general by many of our museum photography curators, but one of my favorite pieces in this show was a lovely small photograph by Peggy Fleming titled "Delphini, Syros Island, Greece." I like the intimacy of being drawn in to a piece, and being required to look at it closely, rather than the twenty foot stare required by the contemporary posterization and gigantization of photography. Like Dali said: "If you can't paint well, then paint big."

Another lovely landscape was an oil by Sara Poly titled "One Moment in Time." I've been observing Poly gain mastery over the media for several years now, and she has clearly conquered the many technical nuances of oil painting and has now begun to flex her creative muscles and offers us pieces that not only employ forbidden technical virtuosity but also a keen creative mind and interesting compositional perspectives to offer more than a "recreation" of a pretty landscape.

Other pieces that I enjoyed were Trisha Adams' oil titled "Potomac Sunset," which shows many of the attributes I used for Poly's entry, Angela Muller's photo titled "Kansas Wheatfield" and Nancy Wallace's oil "Stable Destination."

The exhibition is on display until September 6, 2004.

Art jobs

The Textile Museum in DC invites applications for the position of Director. Primary responsibilities reflect the Museum's strategic priorities: programming that promotes public appreciation of the textile arts; expansion of local, national, and international audiences; and fundraising to address current and future needs.

Qualifications: knowledgeable and enthusiastic about arts, textiles and cultural history; ability to envision and articulate exciting, innovative programming; 6-8 years senior-level administrative experience, including strategic planning and fundraising, in museum or comparable organization; outstanding communications skills to interact effectively with diverse internal and external constituencies. Advanced degree preferred.

Full position announcement available at this website.

Apply to:
Director Search Committee
The Textile Museum
2320 S Street, NW
Washington, DC 20008 or searchcommittee@textilemuseum.org

Several other good job openings here.

Rob Goodspeed, at DCist is looking for DC photobloggers and or any unusual or newsworthy DC-centric photo.

By the way, DCist is already a must read for all of interested in what's going on around our capital area.

Their first photoblogger is Justin Florentine, who has a very cool photoBLOG site.

Art dealer caught selling fake Dalis.

So what else is new?

Opportunities for artists

The George and Helen Segal Foundation.

Deadline: October 1, 2004

The George and Helen Segal Foundation is accepting applications for grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 for painters only. Applications may be found on the Foundation's website or you may contact the Segal Foundation, 136 Davidson's Mill Rd., N Brunswick, NJ 08902.

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"Women On War": The National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum

Deadline: September 30, 2004

The National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum is seeking submissions for "Women On War," an exhibit of artwork that reflects the experiences of the women who have participated in America's wars and how those experiences have changed their lives.

Women from all branches of the military and support organizations, such as the Red Cross and USO, who served in a theater of war are invited. "Women On War" will open on Veterans' Day November 11, 2004 at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum, Chicago IL.

Artwork may be in any medium, including painting, photography, fiber art, video, performance art, poetry, stories or any method to express yourself and tell your story. Please submit images of your work on CD, photo, videotape, or slides to:
Women On War Curator
NVVAM
1801 S. Indiana Ave.
Chicago, IL 60616

Include description, medium, size, and date work was created. On slides please put your name and a red dot on the lower left-hand corner. Please include a copy of your DD214 or other documentation that substantiates your service, along with a short biography and a photo of yourself (preferably taken in country if available).

The art committee will also review images posted on websites upon receipt of required documentation. All entries must be at the museum by September 30, 2004 and artwork selected from images must arrive by October 20, 2004. Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you want your submissions returned. For additional information, please contact: Jerry Kykiisz NVVAM General Manager by email: jk@nvvam.org or phone: (312) 326-0270, or Mike Helbing NVVAM Curator by email: mh@nvvam.org

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Sinclair Community College (SCC) in Ohio is seeking proposals for the 2006 exhibition season.

Deadline: November 1, 2004.

SCC has two separate, professionally designed galleries, including one dedicated to photography-based work. Exhibits are scheduled on a 4-6 week rotation. Send 10 slides, a slide list with sizes and media, resume, artist statement, and S.A.S.E. to the address below. SCC provides return shipping or an honorarium to defray return travel expenses. For further information, write to:

Cindy Tiedemann
Gallery Coordinator
Sinclair Community College
444 W. 3rd St.
Dayton, Ohio 45402-1460

Email: cindy.tiedemann@sinclair.edu

DCAC Gallery's Call For Artists!

Please send 8-10 slides or a CD of images, along with a resume, artist statement, and a stamped return envelope (for slide return) to:

Karey Kessler
Gallery Manager
District of Columbia Arts Center
2438 18th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009

A Visual Arts Committee made up of selected curators, the gallery manager, and the director of DCAC will work together to review the slides.

Teaching Opportunity for Artists

The Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (AHCMC) is working with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) to bring after school art programs to selected MCPS elementary schools located in Silver Spring, Wheaton and Gaithersburg.

The AHCMC is seeking proposals from artists or arts organizations interested in teaching as part of this program. Individual artists must live in Montgomery County or be associated with a Montgomery County based art organization. Artists of all kinds are being sought, including actors, visual artists, dancers, musicians, and writers. Artists must be over the age of 21 to be eligible. Background checks including fingerprinting will be required.

Artists will teach twice a week for one hour immediately after school. There will be both a fall and a spring session, and artists are encouraged to apply for either or both of these sessions. The fall session will begin the week of October 11 and continue through the week of December 6, 2004 for a total of eight weeks. The spring session will run for ten weeks, beginning the week of February 28 and continuing through the week of May 9. Individual classes will be no larger than fifteen students. Classes will be held separately for children in 1st through 2nd grades and 3rd through 5th grades.

Participating artists are required to attend training sessions to be held from 10 am to 4 PM, October 2 (change of date), and from 7 to 9 PM on October 19. Artists will be paid additionally for this training at a rate of $20 per hour. The training will focus on connecting the academic curriculum with the after school arts program. Learning objectives to be addressed may include the following skills: recognizing cause and effect, making predictions, understanding numbers and computation, problem solving, conflict resolution and building self-esteem. Previous teaching experience, which may include school residencies or after school programs, is required.

STIPEND: Artists will receive a stipend for teaching. The stipend is intended to cover the cost of the artist/teacher salary, any assistance the artist may wish to hire, and all supplies and materials needed to conduct the class.

Stipend for the eight-week fall 2004 class: $1,200.

Stipend for the ten-week spring 2005 class: $1,500.

APPLICATIONS INFO: Call or email Nancy Sausser, Arts in Education Director/AHCMC at 301-565-3805, aie@creativemoco.com or Peggy Feeney, Project Specialist, 21st Century/MCPS at 301-230-0660, Margaret_Feeney@mcps.md.org.

A couple of days ago I dropped by Adams Morgan to catch the "Wall Mountables Show" at the District of Columbia Arts Center.

Once a year, DCAC has an open call to artists. The gallery gets divided into 1460 squares, each measuring two square feet and then any artist (on a first-come-first-served basis) can buy wall space in the gallery in any of the 1460 2 feet x 2 feet exhibit squares. Each space is only $10 for DCAC non-members and $5 for DCAC members and each artist can purchase up to five spaces.

Sort of like a mini Art-O-Matic, but nobody slams it for being "open" and "democratic." And that's good, because DCAC is one of the great cultural jewels in our city.

And thus, I reveal my cards early: I like DCAC and all that it stands for, making objective criticism very difficult, but then again I don't think any critic is truly objective. Agendas may be hidden, disguised, or even sub-consciously unknown, but they are all there.

But I meander.

To quote Glenn Dixon... "Like any summertime grab bag...

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Like any open show, where anything and everything is hung, these shows are truly a democratic grab bag. There is some really good work (as seen from the perspective of an artist (which most critics are not, although there some), and a gallery-owner (which most critics are not) and critic (which most critics are... uh...)) and some abysmal work - seen from two of the three perspectives that can't be fooled (one is easily fooled).

The worst entry in this show is a puzzling entry by an artist who also has a couple of other decent pieces hanging. It's by Kristina Bilonick (in collaboration with Rob Gardner) and it is titled "At A Glance." It's an used sheet from those "At A Glance" desk calendars, but filled in with scribbles and things. For one post-modernist second, in some rarified New York super cool gallery, by some blue chip artist (or Damien Hirst) this would have been a subject of oohs and aahs. In this exhibition and context it comes across as a waste of space.

Don't get me wrong Kristina and Rob - there are quite a few really bad pieces of art in the show - Arlene Mester's childlike drawings on lined paper come to mind (unless she's actually a teenage girl doodling in High School, in which case they're not really awful bad, just .... bad. And Dav Idanthro Nysmith's (winner of the coolest name in the show) entry of an empty frame that just shows the backing board cardboard as the "art," came in a close second.

To me these works seemed weak because they came across as lazy; the sort of work that college art students turn in at the last minute when they realize that the quarterly art project is due and they haven't actually done anything (been there - done that).

There are some really big names in this show, people like Manon Cleary, Graham Caldwell and Dan Steinhilber.

Cleary, who lives around the corner, shows one of her trademark floral paintings, surreally beautiful in an art world where that word is often diminished. But let's not forget that this is the same powerful painter who painted her own rape. I like her piece in this show (titled "Exotic Bloom # 2") because it shows the tremendous delicacy of skill that Cleary abundantly possesses and that is so rare these days. There are at least four or five other painters in this show that attempt to paint similar subject matter and fail miserably.

I also liked Steinhilber's piece, which is a large red dot made up of smaller stick-on red dots. I liked it because of the clever use of the red dot to convey a visual idea and a concept. The red dot is used by gallerists to denote a sold work of art.

J.T. Kirkland has several interesting pieces in the show, and I must admit, that after seeing Kirkland expose his work at his most excellent BLOG, that I was somewhat expecting to see work like this.

Instead I found several interesting exploratory works that really show Kirkland's interest in researching surface and color - a path taken (in fact a requirement I submit) by most young artists. The works on display, especially the untitled piece (people - please title your work! Learn to title from Barnett Newman) that has a blue color as the dominant color, with reddish edges and marked by a series of drilled holes; I quite liked because it was both visually appealing, technically well done and it showed an artist exploring his interest in texture.

I also liked Franklin Wassmer acrid trompe l'oeil paintings, which go past just faux paintings by introducing acrid pop art colors as background, which instead of being distracting from the false sense of reality (or as Blake Gopnik calls it "illusionism") add a sense of a painter who is armed with well-honed painting skills and is now having fun with color.

I was somewhat attracted to Erin Hunter's "Moon Over a Keen City," until I realized that Hunter is either regurgigating or channeling Erik Sandberg, but lacks Sandberg's brilliant painting skills.

Andrea Haffner's "Twin Set 4" cleverly uses two small images of body parts to re-assemble them in a visual re-organizing that makes the final piece quite interesting in a very intimate way. It's perhaps the most elegant use of the space in the show and the best photograph.

I'm running out of steam...

Other notables are Graham Caldwell's glass sculpture from (I think) his "Entanglement" series, and Dan Randall's oil depicting his continuous obsession with airplanes and Linn Myers' entry - another one of her squiggly lines series.

In a very clear sense, what this show delivers is an excellent opportunity for area artists and collectors to both support a great asset to our city's visual arts tapestry and also for artists to exhibit their work.

The worst place for artwork (even the ones I didn't like) is in the artist's studio or home, and thus not being shown to the public. I encourage all of you out there to become DCAC members and show at next year's version of this show.

While I was at DCAC, several people came in and viewed the exhibition. It was, as it always is, a terrific lesson about the trite but true saying "art is in the eyes of the beholder," as I always discover -- as I listen to people discuss the art-- that we humans have an incredible range of what we like or don't like, and some of the artwork that I didn't like and discussed earlier, was clearly the favorite of some of the visitors.

This grab bag had loads of different presents for all of us.

Pilfered from AJ:

One of the most famous paintings in the world has been stolen in broad daylight at gun point in Norway.

A second story here.

The Latin American Cultural Space has an excellent program called "One and a Half Program for Emerging Artists," that often organizes shows at the Consulate of El Salvador.

Its next show at the Consulate will be new work by Trinindad Coopman, whose show is titled "Past and Present" and opens on August 27 with a reception from 6-8 PM. The exhibition closes on September 12. The Consulate is located at 1724 20th STreet, NW near the Dupont Circle Metro station.

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GWU graduate Nina Chung Dwyer, who as a student exhibited in both Conner Contemporary's and our past area student shows, has a solo at the Artist's Gallery in Frederick, Maryland from 3-26 September with an opening reception on September 4, from 5-8 PM. By the way, on the first Saturday of the month, Frederick holds a gallery walk during which the town welcomes gallery viewers with visual art, music and food.

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Zenith Gallery has a new show opening September 10 to October 17 of new work by Sica, whose work Zenith has represented for over two decades. Opening receptions to meet the artist are September 17, from 6 - 9pm (this event to include music by Patrick Collins and dance by Linden Holt) and September 18 from 1 - 4pm.

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Perhaps the best fine art glass focused gallery in the world, the Maurine Littleton Gallery in Georgetown will present new mixed media sculptures by Ginny Ruffner. This exhibition will feature diverse examples of Ms. Ruffner's art. The show has been timed to coincide with The Flowering Tornado: Art by Ginny Ruffner, a traveling exhibition of the artist's work, organized by the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, opening at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia September 30, 2004 through January 16, 2005. Ruffner's exhibition dates are October 5 - 20, 2004, with an opening reception to meet the artist on October 3 from 5-7 PM.

John Rockwell writes today in the New York Times Arts section:

"A lot of art, especially of the past, has set out to be beautiful; a lot of art, especially of the present, has set out to be ugly... And yet there has been a kind of semi-guilty underground cult of beauty that has persisted through our ugly times.

...Art moves in cycles, reacting against what came just before. Maybe some of us have grown weary of being hectored by films, by flashy images and loud music and conventional stories, however well told, that dictate what we should be feeling. At least some of us, at least occasionally, downright crave an antidote in the form of pure beauty."

I think that the Arts Editor of the NYT may be a closet mossback!

Thanks AJ!