I'll be damned if Glenn Dixon didn't surprise me today with his reviews in the "Galleries" column at the Post.

We've all been waiting for Dixon to review Fusebox, which for whatever reason, has never been reviewed by Jessica Dawson, even though we all know that Fusebox is one of our city's top galleries and certainly one of the hardest working galleries. And we also know that Dixon is a well-published Fusebox enthusiast. So it's no surprise that Fusebox and Dixon would come together.

And yet, surprisingly enough (to me), in today's review, Dixon throws a well-deserved wet-blanket upon James Huckenpahler's photographs, which may have gone to the same well once too often. Bravo Glenn!

Dixon is a bit more positive about Maggie Michael at G Fine Art:

"Maggie Michael keeps it new for us by keeping it new for herself. A couple of years ago she was an American University graduate with a passable gimmick. Since then her work has developed at a rate that is little short of astonishing. Right now she is one of the best painters in town."

From gimmick to astonishing in a couple of years... at least we are getting a positive review about a painter (and a good one) in our town.

There’s such a dichotomy in this name; such a contradiction of stereotypes: Lucy, soft, feminine and flowing.

Hogg: heavy, masculine and powerful. And once you discover her artwork, you'll realize that seldom has a person been so aptly named.

Hogg is a tiny person, almost elfin-like; a complete reverse of what pops into the mind when it tries to visualize someone named Lucy Hogg. My mind came up with two characters: The first was as a sister or close kin of that big, fat, greasy character (Boss J.D. Hogg) in the Dukes of Hazzard TV series.

Because Hogg is Canadian, the other image was that of a secondary character in Robertson Davies’ fictitious small Canadian village of Deptford. A village that he creates superbly in The Fifth Business (part one of the Deptford Trilogy).

And this dichotomy, this Ying Yang of words and mental imageries, translates well to Hogg’s American solo debut currently on exhibition until October 30 at Georgetown’s Strand on Volta Gallery.

Hogg recently moved to Washington from her native Canada. She has exhibited widely in Canada, Asia and Europe, and in a town [DC] where most critics and curators continue to preach the death of painting as a viable contemporary art form, she brings something new and refreshing, pumping some new energy to the ancient medium.

Let me explain.

Salvador Dali once said that "those that do not want to imitate anything produce nothing." This is the Ying of Hogg’s exhibition.

And George Carlin added that "the future will soon be a thing of the past." This is the Yang of her show.

Titled "Sliding Landscapes," the exhibition consists of nearly twenty paintings segregated into two different canvas shapes: oval shapes on the gallery’s left main wall and rectangular shapes on the right wall. Each set of paintings deliver individual ideas, and although tied together by the subject matter, they nonetheless express superbly two sets of thoughts and impressions that I think Hogg wants us to see.

Hogg’s imagery are copies of Old Master paintings, "sampled" (a new word introduced into art jargon from rap music’s habit of using other people’s music or someone else’s lyrics in your music) from a series of capriccios, or fantasy landscapes by 18th century Venetian painters Canaletto, Francesco Guardi and Marco Ricci.

"Fantasy" in the sense that the landscapes only existed in the artists’ minds until created by them and re-invented two centuries later by Hogg.

I must clarify from the very beginning that these paintings are not "copies" in the same sense that you see people sitting in front of paintings in museums all over the world, meticulously copying an Old Master’s work, stroke by stroke.

Therein lies another dichotomy in this exhibition: Reading a description of Hogg’s subject matter brings that image to mind; seeing them destroys it. This is one show where the most erudite of news release spinmeisters will be challenged to separate the two visions.

So what are they?

Hogg starts with a capriccio painting that she likes. I suspect that she works from a reproduction, even a small one, or from an art history book or catalog, and thus cleverly avoids the pitfall of becoming a true copier rather than a sampler.

She then re-creates the capriccios in their original format (rectangular), but completely replaces the color of the original with a simple tint or combination of tints.

Simple enough... Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

It isn’t simple at all.

What Hogg has cleverly done again is to offer us two visual main courses. Sure, she's recreating the original painting, overly-simplified and yet still complex with the seed of great painting and composition planted by the original Masters. But she has also provided herself with a radical new vehicle to flex some very powerful painting and creative skills of her own.

The overly simplified paintings offer her ample room and opportunities to bring a 21st century perspective to these works. Not just her very modern colors (cleverly incorporated into the titles such as "Fantasy Landscape (pthalo green/chrome oxide green) 2004"). Her scrubby, energetic brushwork is everywhere, especially the open skies of some of the works, and where 18th century masters would have reacted in horror, a modern audience takes their middle age glasses off so that we can better try to absorb the quality of the brushwork and peer at the under layers, often left exposed, that reveal the virtuosity of being able to deliver an exciting painting with a very limited palette.

Even within these rectangular recreations, Hogg has a Ying Yang thing going. A group of the pieces are truly monochromatic, using only ultramarine blue or yellow ochre.

In these, the simple associations of cool and warm colors mapping to respective emotions is what anchors our responses to them. But there are some pieces where she has ventured into two distinct colors (such as violet and burnt sienna orange). In these, the opposite position of these hues on the color wheel, and their well-known association with eye-brain responses in creating tension and movement, position these works as a very successful venture into the exploration of color, never mind the landscape that is the vehicle.

Vision two of the exhibition are the oval paintings. Here we again see the same explorations in color and painting that Hogg offered us in the rectangular pieces. But then she opens a new door for us; perhaps even a new door for contemporary painting.

I would have dared to write that she has opened the lid in the coffin of painting, but that would lend tacit approval to the claim that painting is like a "vampire that refuses to die." So I won’t.

In the oval paintings Hogg introduces us to a combination of two (again with the two) elements: the re-visualization within a limited, psychological palette plus a new methodological visual cropping and angling of compositional elements within the original paintings, placed in a new format (oval) and haphazardly hung at crazy angles on the gallery’s left wall. By the way, at the risk of becoming too pedantic, I didn’t like the tilted, askew, haphazard hanging of these pieces. It was a bit heavy handed and went too far to push the fact that they are indeed "sliding" landscapes.

Suddenly we discover two effects (i.e. she has another duality thing going here for the dimwits in the audience): Combine the psychological effect of color with a reorganization of the actual image's presentation and you have suddenly changed the entire character and effect of the painting!

This is the punch to the solar plexus that every artist hopes to accomplish in any exhibition. It is the moment when you stand in front of a piece of artwork, riveted to a sudden discovery that this, whatever "this" may be, has never been done, at least not this well, before.

Here is what I mean.

In the oval pieces, Hogg repeats the paintings from different perspectives or angles; suddenly her choice of colors is not the main driving force; but the relationship between the choice and the subject and the perspective and angle is the new driving force(s).

For example, in one oval piece she offers a calm, cool agrarian view, somewhat disorienting us by the angle and crop, especially when we try to find her source on the left wall's rectangular paintings. Within this painting, a horseman rides up an incline. He is deftly rendered in cool, quick brushstrokes to deliver a placid Sancho Panza character before he had the misfortune of meeting Don Quixote.

Slightly above and to the right of that painting there's another painting, which although it is exactly the same scene, and because it is offered from a slightly different perspective and in a completely different palette, it takes us a minute or two to realize that it is the same scene.

But what a different scene it is! The sky is now a turbulent hellish nightmare of cadmium red and quinachrodne red exaggerated so that the clouds have almost become flames, and the happy farmers of the companion piece are now haggard, beaten figures toiling in a new Dantasque level of hell, where the Sancho Panza horseman is now tired, beaten and barely staying atop his poor horse.

And this is all happening in our mind. Because all that this gifted painter has done is change the perspective and offer us colors that complete different neural paths that create different reactions in our brain.

And the best thing of all is that she didn’t need a video, or an installation, or dioramas of two-dimensional works, or ten pages of wall text to explain the concept. And in these pieces, the finished works are as interesting and successful as the concept itself; not a trivial accomplishment by the way.

All she needed were superbly honed painting skills, a deep understanding of the relationship between color and emotions, an intelligent perspective on composition, and a grab at art history to offer us (yet again) something new and refreshing from that never ending source of surprises: the dusty coffin of painting.

Bravo Lucy! ... Well Done Hogg!

Those of you who have met me know that I sport a Dali-type moustache (most of the time).

And although I met Dali several times when I lived in Spain (once he asked me if I could help him fix his phone); and I curated the Homage to Dali exhibition in 1999; and I am a great, unapologizing fan of the great Catalan, my moustache is not because of Dali - if you want to know, next time you see me, buy me a beer and I'll tell you about the Druze.

Anyway, Alan Riding has a terrific article in the New York Times that discusses Dali's powerful impact as perhaps the 20th century's second most important artist (Picasso being the first) and two ongoing exhibitions on the centenary of his birth: "Dalí and Mass Culture," which tracks his impact on today's visual language, was shown in Barcelona this spring and Madrid this summer and will be at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla., from Oct. 1, 2004 through Jan. 30, 2005. And "Dalí," which focuses on his paintings, is at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice through Jan. 16 and will be presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from Feb. 16 through May 15, 2005.

DCist tips us that WTOP has a contest to re-name the Montreal Expos baseball team once they move here next year.

Enter your suggestion here.

My suggestion? The Washington Ex-Expos.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline October 15, 2004 and April 15, 2005

Exhibition opportunities at Howard County Center for the Arts, a 27,000 sq.ft. facility located in Ellicott City, MD.

They are seeking proposals from artists and curators nationwide for solo and group exhibits for the 2006-2007 gallery season. All original artwork in any media, including installations, will be considered. The Arts Council is also accepting slide submissions for two specific upcoming exhibits: Illuminations, a juried exhibit of artworks with light/illumination as the primary medium, and an untitled exhibit of book arts.

Work previously shown will not be accepted, nor will work previously submitted. No fee to apply. Artists must be at least 18 years old. Submit up to 20 slides with an accompanying slide list, an artist/curator statement, resume and application to exhibit, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope with sufficient postage for the return of materials.

Call 410-313-2787 for an application. Deadlines in the next two reviews are October 15, 2004 and April 15, 2005. A calendar of upcoming HCCA exhibits can be found on their website. Or email Amy Poff at amy@hocoarts.org if you have questions.

Curated by Alexandra Olin, the WPA\C has a group exhibition titled CORE 13, from September 7 - October 29, 2004, and they're hosting a reception this coming Tuesday, October 5, from 5-7pm.

Artists included in the show are: Joseph Barbaccia, Jonathan Bucci, James Calder, Deborah Ellis, Mike Fitts, Adam Fowler, Karen Graziani, Ryan Hackett, Mimi Herbert, Miriam Horrom, Scott Hunter, Flora Kanter, Rogelio Maxwell and Chris Saah.

CORE is located at 1010 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Suite 405 in Washington, DC 20007 (Georgetown).

As part of "Gyroscope" (the Hirshhorn's on-going experimental display of the collection), nine of Washington, DC-born sculptor Martin Puryear's sculptures and works on paper are on view on the third floor, along with the sculpture "Bower" on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

And on September 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the Baird Auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History (across the Mall from the Hirshhorn), the Hirshhorn presents "Meet the Artist: Martin Puryear."

Washington, DC, native Puryear and Hirshhorn Director Ned Rifkin will engage in a dialogue about art and ideas that place the artist's work in context.

DCARTNEWS reader and fellow artist Michelle Banks brings this New York Times story about a four-year-old artist to my attention.

"In all, Marla has sold 24 paintings totaling nearly $40,000, with the prices going up. Her latest paintings are selling for $6,000. Some customers are on a waiting list."

I now share it with you. Read it and weep.

I've been thinking about taking this class:

The Washington Glass School offers a class titled "Beginner Glass Lovers' Weekend."

This class is for those of us who damned near flunked glass in art school or are just starting out or who just want to make some cool stuff out of glass. You learn all the basic stuff over a weekend, and this weekend is the Beginners Glass Lovers' Weekend and the class is being offered.

Not only do students learn several ways to work with glass, but they also will make four glass pieces (bowls, etc.) while learning at the same time. For more info or schedule of other classes, contact the school at 202/744-8222 or via email at WashGlassSchool@aol.com.

Jacqueline Trescott, writing in the Washington Post, reveals that the National Gallery of Art is finally dedicating permanent galleries to photography, giving prominence to the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Paul Strand and Ansel Adams.

I hope some women photographers also find their way to the permanent galleries.

Sarah Greenough, is the curator and director of the department of photographs at NGA, and three shows a year are planned for the new galleries. The coming shows are by Roger Fenton, Andre Kertesz and Irving Penn.

Photography is certainly very hot, and at least 50% of our sales are photographs from the fifteen photographers that we represent.

And next November 13, beginner collectors have a great opportunity to start or add to a collection through the Annual "Auction in the Park" being held by PHOTOWORKS At Glen Echo Park.

All tickets include one entry in an art raffle, entitling every guest to a work of art from the raffle collection. In addition, a silent auction will feature photographs by well-known contemporary photographers, on-location shooting with respected commercial photographers, funky photo equipment, and trips and workshops with photography-related themes.

For more info, contact Alexandra Walsh at 301/523-3318 or Emily Whiting at 301/213-7763.

The George Carlin quote for September:

"I'm desperately trying to figure out why Kamikaze pilots wore helmets."

OK... ready for some info about some openings to go and see over the next few days?

On Wednesday, Sept. 29, from 5-8 PM, Zenith Gallery's space at 901 E Street, NW, showcases The Reflection Series, a recent collection of stunning photo-realistic oil paintings by Washington DC artist Joey Manlapaz. I am familiar with Manlapaz's works and she has refined her skill to a level where I consider her amongst the best photo-realistic painters that I've seen in the last few years and certainly around here.

This coming Friday is the first Friday of the month. So boys and girls: what does that mean?

Answer: The Galleries of Dupont Circle are having their opening receptions or extended hours. It all happens from 6-8 PM this coming Friday. I'll be there! Come and say hello if you see me.

On Sunday, October 3, from 3-5 PM, four very good area artists are having an open studio (for the grubs in the audience: they will have Champagne and Hors d'Oeuvres).

They are Rosalind Burns, Susan Hostetler, Michele Montalbano and Jeneen Piccuirro. Their studio is at 411 New York Avenue, NE and you should RSVP to 202/546-9584.

Later that day, Lucy Hogg has an artist's talk at Strand on Volta on Sunday, Oct. 3rd from 7-9 PM. I've seen this show and it is well worth a visit. I am now finishing a review of the show and will be pimping it to the various newspapers and magazines that sometimes publish my reviews. Once it is picked up and published I will also have it here.

The WCP's Bidisha Banerjee profiles artist Candace Keegan, whose current show at Wohlfarth Galleries runs until October 10, 2004.

I got the feeling (in reading between the lines) that Banerjee was a little uncomfortable with the visual content of the work, and it translated into the profile.

This show is on my list to try and see and discuss this coming week. It has been extended to October 10.

Keegan is currently an MFA candidate at Catholic University.

Remember the whole debate about pandas as public art?

New York had apples, Los Angeles had angels, Norfolk has mermaids, Baltimore has fish - or it is crabs? and a bunch of cities around the world have had cows. And now San Francisco has hearts!

Regardless of how you feel about the pandas being "art," I think that our pandas will soon go on auction and proceeds will help fund grants to DC artists. More info here.

Today's Sunday Arts in the Washington Post gives me yet another opportunity to vent two of my primary pet peeves against the world's second largest newspaper.

The first is why their Chief Art Critic is identified as "Washington Post Staff Writer" instead of "Washington Post Chief Art Critic." I know, I know... it's a Virgo thing, but I think Gopnik deserves to be separated in title from the guy who writes the obituaries, or stories for the Kid's Post. I betcha it has something to do with some silly union rule about all writers being equal.

The second peeve is why The Washington Post's Chief Art Critic seldom if ever writes about Washington, DC galleries. Today he does a magnificent job of writing about New York galleries.

Hey! The New York Times already does a great job of doing that, and I am glad that Blake is affording us to chance to get a view of what's going on around New York galleries.

But.

How about a quarterly article like this one about Washington, DC galleries?

Dupont Circle, Georgetown and downtown DC are a lot closer than Chelsea, and I seriously doubt that the New York Times will send their Chief Art Critic to DC to do a round-up of DC galleries.

Darth Vader Grotesque in the National Cathedral

I kid you not.

Grammar.police has a really funny posting discovering that there's a grotesque of Darth Vader in the National Cathedral!

I didn't know this!

It was sculpted by our own Jay Hall Carpenter (who is a damned good sculptor by the way), carved by Takoma Park's Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral.

Makes my head hurt.

I have to eat some crow in reference to some of the issues raised in my earlier posting defending Art-O-Matic; I've since corrected those particular issues. My recollections as to the sequence of events and causes involving Glenn Dixon's on-air comments on the Kojo Nmandi show and the reasons for his subsequent review of the show in the WCP were incorrect, and Dixon pointed this out to me.

I have apologized to Dixon, corrected the posting, and below now publish Dixon's email to me in order to clarify the issue:

Dear Mr. Campello:

I'm writing regarding your posting yesterday about Art-O-Matic. Although you didn't identify me by name, it is no secret that I was the Washington City Paper critic who spoke about the 2002 exhibition on the Kojo Nnamdi Show in November of that year.

You are guilty of misrepresenting my comments and distorting the facts.

That I had not yet attended that year's Art-O-Matic was not something I hid from listeners. In fact, I prefaced my comments with a disclaimer:

"I've gotta say, I have not seen the current Art-O-Matic yet, but I've been to the first one, and it nearly killed me. There is a serious quality issue. It's not a very kind show to viewers. You have to wade through a lot of dross to get a few gems. The first year there were maybe two or three artists out of all of them that I really cared about."

I hadn't intended to weigh in on Art-O-Matic, but found myself in a situation where to keep mum would have been to offer tacit approval to the rather boosterish comments of my fellow guests, Joe Barber and Peter Fay.

By the time my 2002 wrap-up appeared in City Paper in late December, I had seen Art-O-Matic--not at the urging of my editor or because of some supposed scandal, but because I wanted to know if my misgivings were justified. What I wrote was this:

"After dragging myself through Art-O-Matic the first year, I vowed I'd never repeat the experience. But I went again, largely because I felt a little guilty about warning Kojo Nnamdi Show listeners off it sight unseen (although I was upfront about not having visited the exhibition at that point). I needn't have been so scrupulous. If anything, Art-O-Matic, as a visual-art event, had gotten even worse, more sprawling and more amateurish."

Again, note that I was completely forthcoming about the fact that I hadn't seen the show at the time of the broadcast.

The fact that streams and tapes of the Kojo Nnamdi Show and full texts of my writing for City Paper can easily be accessed or ordered online suggests that you made no attempt to check your mistaken recollections against the facts.

This little flap is indeed the result of an ethical lapse, but it is yours alone. You owe your readers a retraction and me an apology.

Sincerely,

Glenn Dixon

Want to go to an opening tonight?

Curated by Faith Flanagan and Allison Cohen, and opening tonight at Dot Projects & Artwork (501 Ninth Street - NE, Washington, DC Phone: 202-546-0334) Saturday, September 25, 6:00pm to 9:00pm is a preview of the exhibition Hot Damn - Fresh Art featuring work by:

Noah Angell, Virginia Arrisueno, Ken Ashton, Lisa Bertnick, Christine Carr, Franck Cordes, Kathryn Cornelius (performance at 7:30 p.m.), Mary Early, Djakarta, Kevin Kepple, Peter Loge, Jayme McLellan, Dylan Scholinski, Trish Tillman, Kelly Towles, Leigh Van Duzer, and Joan Van Sledright.

---

And next Saturday, the Museum of Modern ARF in Arlington has an opening reception on October 2 from 6-9 PM for "Breaking the Silence II: Questioning Power Now More Than Ever."

The show, which runs until November 14, includes work by Martyn Turner, Claudia Olivos, Helen Zughaib, Scott Brooks, Steve Lewis, Kathleen Stevenson, Negar Assari Samimi, Richard Notkin, Jim Magner, Ruth Trevarrow, Mark Planisek, Tara Campbell, Joroko, Roger Cutler, Ruth Kling, Chris Britt, Chad Allan, John Aaron, Eliza Brewster, Daniel Penaloza, and Young Artists from Palestine and Israel.

The Museum of Modern ARF is located at 1116 N. Hudson St. Arlington, VA 22201 and can be reached at 703/528-4800.

Ionarts has a terrific recap of the Peter Schjeldahl (art critic for The New Yorker) lecture at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium as part of this year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art.

Downey writes:

"One of Schjeldahl's major points on the topic he chose ("What Art Is For Now") was that the snob appeal of art is one of the "underestimated engines of culture," that for now he has "no desire to swell the size of the tent" of those who love art. In his view, there is no reason to bring art to the masses. Those who want it will find it, and "if somebody doesn't want art, bully for them." However, as Schjeldahl also noted, the audience for art worldwide may be larger now than it ever has been, and the art market is a booming business. This may help explain the gulf that can be observed between major art critics and the art-going public, in the case of the J. Seward Johnson sculptures at the Corcoran, for example (see [his]post from September 14, 2003)."

Defending Art-O-Matic

I've been mulling Christ Schott's Sept 3, 2004 "Show and Tell" column in the WCP titled The Artsy Thing That Swallowed DC on the subject of Art-O-Matic.

Two letters in the current issue (one by Judy Jashinsky and one by Philip Barlow) express their disagreement with Schott's view of Art-O-Matic.

Let me start by saying that I am not very objective when it comes to Art-O-Matic. I think that it is the best thing that happens to the Washington visual art scene every couple of years; whatever is in second place is a distant second.

I am also rather sick and tired of the way (because of its size, energy and open attitude towards hanging any and all artwork as long as the artist is willing to help run the show) that it gets bashed by some in the lamestream media, the alternative media and even the BLOGosphere.

Such as when a WCP writer cruelly bashed the 2002 Art-O-Matic on the Kojo Nmandi Show. He admitted that he had not actually been to that year's exhibition (and thus pre-formed an opinion about that year's Art-O-Matic based on his dislike of the previous one). In his defense, he then felt guilty and actually visited the show, which he then brutalized again on paper.

And much like the current CBS Rathergate, some of the past Art-O-Matic bashing didn't really pass the journalistic ethics test.

Such as when a Washington Post art critic wrote a dismissive small pre-opening review, again without actually ever setting foot in the place.

So, I think that it is not just the bad art that they dislike; I believe that they also resent the democraticization of the art process, the joyfulness and uniqueness of the event, the huge public success that it enjoys and the fact that it takes place in our own backyard.

And they miss the key ingredient that the event adds to our cultural tapestry: an incredible amount of artistic energy and a vast amount of attention to the visual arts. Anytime that you get over 1,000 artists to organize something of this magnitude, the footprint and its impact will be vast.

And, as far as I know, there's nothing like it anywhere else in the nation, possibly the world. And here's where the key to Art-O-Matic bashing lies: If the event took place in London, or New York, or Madrid, or LA or San Francisco or even Chicago, it would be lauded as a good thing for contemporary art and artists. I can see the headlines now: "Los Angeles' Art-O-Matic is The Place to Discover the Next Generation of LA's Artists."

So what if it is growing? The 2002 version brought out 40,000 visitors; can we envision a future Art-O-Matic where it is an international open show, where artists from all over the world can participate and a quarter of a million visitors from all over the planet converge on DC to see the exhibition? I can.

So what if it is non juried? That way it allows people like me to go and see work by artists and artist-wannabes that otherwise I would never see because they are way off the radar of our curators and galleries. Granted, a lot of the work in past Art-O-Matics I have found amateurish, bland and forgettable. This puts Art-O-Matic in the same company as many recent shows in the Hirshhorn, the Corcoran and the last few Venice Biennales and Whitney Biennials.

And unlike those exhibitions, and as Barlow eloquently points out in his letter, many of today's top DC artists have Art-O-Matic in their resume: Manon Cleary, Dan Steinhilber, Adam Bradley, Scott Hutchison, the Dumbacher brothers, Renee Stout, Tim Tate, Michael Clark, Allison Miner, Jordan Tierney, Richard Dana, Graham Cladwell,Judy Jashinsky, Richard Chartier, and many, many others.

I am looking forward to Art-O-Matic 2004, and 2006, and 2008...