WCP's Top 10 Photography Shows of the Year

Louis Jacobson delivers his take on the photography year for 2004 in our area with a very good piece in the current Washington City Paper.

Lou's Top 10:

1. "Lost Images: Berlin Mitte" at Addison/Ripley Fine Art.

2. "Winogrand 1964" at the S. Dillon Ripley Center International Gallery.

3. "Maxwell MacKenzie: Markings" at Addison/Ripley Fine Art.

4. "Jacques Henri Lartigue: Vintage Photographs, 1905–1932" at Sandra Berler Gallery.

5. "Martin Kollar: Slovakia 001" and "Darrow Montgomery: Postcards From Home" at the Kathleen Ewing Gallery.

6. "ABCDF: Portraits of a City" at the Art Museum of the Americas.

7. "Room Service" at Panhwa Art Studio.

8. "Aaron Siskind: New Relationships in Photography" at the Phillips Collection.

9. "Christopher Burkett: Resplendent Light" at the Kathleen Ewing Gallery.

10. "Viggo Mortensen: Miyelo" at Addison/Ripley Fine Art.

Anne Truitt

One of the Washington area's best-known and most respected artists, Anne Truitt, born in Baltimore in 1921 and a resident of the Greater Washington, DC area for many years, has died at age 83.

Her work was and is represented locally by the Ramon Osuna Gallery in Bethesda.

Our best wishes to the Truitt family.

My current exhibition of nude drawings at Fraser Gallery Georgetown is online here.

Comments, criticisms and purchases welcomed.

The Lebanese newspaper Daily Star has an article discussing the work of GMU Professor Chawky Frenn, who is of Lebanese ancestry.

The article discusses the Dartmouth exhibition where Frenn outshocked Damien Hirst.

Read the Daily Star story here.

The Art League

The Art League is our area's largest artists' organization, with over 1,200 members. The Art League also operates a school with over 2500 students per term and a supply store for the purchase of art supplies by students and members.

When I first re-arrived to the Washington area in 1993, the first thing that I did was to join The Art League, and was a member for several years.

Each month The Art League has a juried competition, where members can bring two original works of art to be juried by a guest juror. Selected works are then hung at The Art League's large gallery on the ground floor of the Torpedo Factory.

The current show was selected by Maurine Littleton, the owner and director of the terrific gallery by the same name in Georgetown that is perhaps the finest glass gallery in the world.

I have been asked to be the juror for the January competition and will be doing so during the first week of January.

To get more details on becoming a member of the Art League, call them at 703/683-1780 or view their application form here.

A couple of days ago I was filmed by a TV crew who is doing a 13 part TV series called "Art Adventures." It is focused on collecting art, mostly for beginning collectors.

They also focused on the work of Tim Tate, as the series also identifies new emerging artists.

It was supposed to be a five minute screen time, which in TV-land always means a couple of hours of shooting.

Dr. Claudia Rousseau, the over-qualified art critic for the Washington Post-owned Gazette newspapers writes a singularly eloquent and intelligent review about our Winter Group Show in our Bethesda outpost.

Cough, cough...

At the risk of sounding nepotic (and definitely waaaaaaaaay past objective!), I think she really drilled into what some of the artists that she writes about are trying to deliver. It's hard to write eloquently about a group show (always some good.. always something forgettable).

Before moving to our area, Rousseau was one of Latin America's most influential art critics. It is no surprise that she gets Cuban artist Sandra Ramos right off the bat and writes:

"Cuban artist Sandra Ramos' approach to figuration uses a surrealist vocabulary to convey politically charged content. "In my paper prison" is part of "Isla prisión," a strongly emotive series about Cuba as a prison in both political and artistic senses. Here, the artist's body, wearing the uniform of Castro's "Communist Youth," lies in the shape of the island behind prison bars formed by pencils. Ten unmounted paper sheets in plastic sleeves comprise "The Inability to Trap Images." Each shows a silk-screened hand with a small image printed above it.

Taken together, Ramos' work can be interpreted as a reference to the failure of artistic censorship, or simply to the travails of the artist to capture reality. Either way, the images make an indelible impression because they clearly have profound meaning for the artist, and hopefully, for the viewer."

And she gets our own area's Tim Tate; she writes about him:

Glass artist Tim Tate's new works, "A Slice of Heaven/A Slice of Hell," the first an icy blue, the second red, hang side by side in long, narrow cast bronze frames. An examination of their imagery presents the same provocative vocabulary that has made Tate so successful in recent years. Much of it appears universal, even Dantesque, but is instead very private and autobiographical in nature. For example, what may recall a Catholic votive for many viewers -- a red glass flame topping a blown glass heart bearing a cross, in turn containing yet another red flame -- is titled with a distinctly non-religious ring: "Hunka' Hunka' Burnin' Love." Yet for the artist, the eternal flame on top, inspired by John F. Kennedy's tomb site, is a healing image, intended to convey ideas of love and spirit outliving death and pain.

Tate uses private images of healing all through his works. In "Nine Paths to Heaven or Hell," a circular piece made of nine glass voussoirs (wedge-shaped pieces that form an arch), the topmost element contains a hand surrounded by rays holding a beaded ball (a nucleus perhaps?), also conceived as a healing image.

Tate's technique is impeccable. Yet his allusive and mystifying content is a far cry from the craft approach often associated with glass art.

Read the whole review here.

New Gallery to Open in Potomac

Potomac, a wealthy Maryland suburb of Washington, DC is located within the Soviet Socialist Republic of Montgomery County, and it is one of the nation's most affluent regions, with an average household income of $246.271 and a median housing value of $919.958, and yet... there's not a single fine arts gallery anywhere in Potomac.

Soon to be resolved!

Potomac will have its first active fine arts gallery beginning early next year. The Kathleen Margaret Srour Gallery promises that it will offer an artists' cooperative gallery and will offer a cooperative management, quality work and low commissions.

Yolanda Prinsloo, its director and founder, is currently reviewing artists for membership. Anyone who is interested, please contact Yolanda at this email address or call her at 301.765.6739.

Artist's Studio Space Available

Premium artists' studio available immediately. Huge, open studio space on ground floor. Secure, 24 ft high loft ceiling, mezzanine, loading dock in prominent Brookland artists' building. Blocks from Metro. $2000/month. Smaller unit available also. Call 202/543-3370 for info or email to this email address.

Corcoran responds to Weil's resignation

Christina DePaul, the Dean of the Corcoran College of Art + Design has submitted the following response to the resignation of Rex Weil.

"Rex Weil is well loved by his students and respected by Corcoran faculty for his energy, passion and unique approach to teaching. We are sorry that he has chosen to resign and find it unfortunate that he does not agree with the direction the College is taking to advance the curriculum and integrity of the institution."

My thanks to Ms. DePaul for taking the opportunity and time to respond.

Congratulations to area photographer James W. Bailey, whose Circle Theater Rough Edge photograph will be published in the Winter issue of the Tulane Review back in his home turf in New Orleans.

Talking about New Orleans, another unusual fact that I discovered in my recent reading of Prof. Louis Perez's excellent book On Being Cuban was the fact that Truman Capote (who was born and raised in the Big Easy) got the "Capote" last name from his Cuban stepdad.

Museum Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: April 30, 2005

Call for Submissions: Radford University Art Museum, Virginia. Artists are encouraged to submit slides or a CD with images of recent work, along with a vita and artist's statement. They have several exhibition spaces ranging from 250 to 1750 square feet, and are open to novel approaches to the exhibition process. Qualifications: "Thoughtful and thought-provoking artists."

Send materials to:
Radford University Art Museum Curators' Committee
Box 6965
Radford University
Radford, VA 24142

20th Annual Mayor's Arts Awards

Everyone is invited to the 20th Annual Mayor's Arts Awards on Monday, January 10, 2005 at The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

I've been attending these award ceremonies for the last few years and it is packed with great entertainment: dance, singing, poetry, music, etc.

This free evening of entertainment will feature award presentations and performances by the finest talents in the city. For more information visit the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities website here.

You can view Mayor's Arts Awards Winners since 1981 here.

Emergency Grants for Artists

Change, Inc. provides one-time $1,000 emergency grants to visual artists of any discipline who are facing possible eviction, unpaid bills, fire damage or any other emergency that the Change, Inc. board deems worthy.

Applicants must be professional artists who can demonstrate need. Send a letter of need, proof of inability to pay bills or rent, a resume, any reviews or press releases of past exhibitions, photos or slides of work and two reference letters from others in the field. Grant applications should be sent to:
Change, Inc.
PO Box 54
Captiva, FL 33924
Tel: (212) 473-3742

Prof. Kurt Godwin's Top 10 DC Area Art Shows

Kurt Godwin, is an Adjunct Art professor with Virginia Commonwealth University and a lecturer at Catholic University of America. He sends in his top 10 DC area art shows, saying that they are "perhaps in no particular order."

1. Mr. Whistler's Galleries - Avant-Garde in Victorian London, Freer Gallery

2. These Things Happen - video by Brandon Morse, Strand on Volta

3. All the Mighty World - Roger Fenton, photography at the National Gallery

4. Cai Guo Qiang - Hirshhorn Directions and the big boat at the Sackler

5. Surrealism & Modernism - at the Phillips Collection

6. Picasso - Cubist Portraits of Fernande Oliver - National Gallery

7. Diego Rivera - Cubism - National Gallery

8. 2004 Summer Juried Show - Signal 66

9. Articulating the Intangible - Group show - McLean Project for the Arts

10. Post Mortem: And Away We Go... - Group show - Signal 66

Rosetta DeBerardinis Top 10 DC Area Art Shows

If anyone around here sees a lot of art shows, then let me tell you: It is DC area artist Rosetta DeBerardinis!

Not only is she a talented and highly collected DC area artist, but for the last few years she has been leading guided gallery walks around the city, most recently as the leader of the new Bethesda Art Walk Guided Tours.

Rosetta gets to see a lot of gallery shows! And here are her top 10 picks:

1. Chan Chao at Numark.
2. Edward Clark at Parish. (Rosetta says that this show was her favorite).
3. Jason Gubbiotti at FuseBox.
4. Joan Konkel at Zenith.
5. Wayne Trappe at Zenith.
6. Sica at Zenith.
7. Tim Tate at Fraser.
8. Rima Schulkind at Touchstone.
9. David Flavin at the National Gallery.
10. Gyroscope at the Hirshhorn.

Corcoran Resignation

Rex Weil, who is the DC area editor for Art News magazine, as well as a highly respected artist, and part of the faculty at the Corcoran College of Art & Design has resigned and sent around the following note:

Dear Friend & Colleagues:

At the end of last week, I resigned from the Corcoran College of Art & Design. The teaching atmosphere at the Corcoran has become intolerable. I hope this will be heard as a resounding vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the administration of the College.

Rex Weil

I don't know what the issues that caused this "atmosphere" at the Corcoran College of Art & Design are, but I hereby invite the Corcoran to respond if they so desire, and I hope that they do, as this key DC area museum and school seems to keep getting into the news for the wrong reasons, and it deserves better. Furthermore, Weil is a very respected name in our area, and I am sure that his resignation will raise questions, as it already has done with me.

Corconites, the ball is on your court.

JT has an excellent review (over at Thinking About Art) of the Kelly Towles show at David Adamson Gallery.

I'll try to go and see this show soon. I must admit that I am a bit surprised to see David Adamson exhibit a young, new artist like Kelly Towles, as Adamson has historically, at least in my memory, rarely exhibited emerging local artists, and has focused more on exhibiting established artists and the Gyclee reproductions of the many art superstars that his superb digital printmaking reputation brings to his fold.

Congratulations to Washington, DC painter Maggie Michael, who was just awarded a $20,000 grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation.

Earlier this year, Ms. Michael was also awarded $5,000 from the the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Maggie Michael is represented locally by G Fine Art.

An Open Letter to the Washington Post

As I've discussed before, the Post's Style section will soon have a new Assistant Managing Editor leading it. Deborah Heard will be the person in charge of Style starting January 1, 2005.

I believe that this offers all of us in the area's visual arts community an opportunity to see if we can convince Ms. Heard to augment the WaPost's tiny coverage of art galleries and area artists and I have asked all of you to write to her, or at least email her, with copies to her boss, Lenny Downie and the Arts Editor, my good friend John Pancake. Ignore the fact that they are all focused on politics and a card-carrying member of the Fake News Industrial Complex.

In this spirit I have written a letter to Ms. Heard, with copies to Downie and Pancake.

December 19, 2004

Deborah Heard
Washington Post Style
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Ms. Heard,

Congratulations on your promotion to Style section editor. It is our sincere wish and that of the artists whom we represent that you not only enjoy this important position, but it is also our hope that you may consider bringing some needed changes with respect to coverage of our area’s art galleries and visual artists.

It is thus why I am writing to you, in the hope that I can bring to your attention the perception by our area’s visual arts community of artists, fine arts galleries, alternative arts venues and artists organizations, of the poor coverage now afforded by the Washington Post to them/us.

As an artist, freelance art critic, radio arts commentator, publisher of DC Art News, and co-owner of the two Fraser Galleries, I believe that I have my finger on the heartbeat of our region’s visual art scene, and as I have discussed many times in the past with my good friend John Pancake, it is also my subjective opinion (but backed by empirical facts), that the Post does a very, very poor job in covering our area’s art galleries and visual artists, especially in comparison to your excellent coverage of the local theaters, area performance venues, as well as movies, fashion, books, etc.

For example, although there are almost twice as many art galleries in the Greater Washington region than theatres, for the last several years, the Style and Weekend section have consistently offered five to six times more print space, in the form of reviews, for theatres than galleries. Even plays in Olney get reviewed consistently (and we applaud you for this), while important visual art shows get ignored, simply because the Galleries column is the only regular column in the Post to cover local area gallery shows, augmented occasionally by the On Exhibit column in the Weekend section.

To make matters worse, the Washington Post is the only major newspaper that I know of, that has a Chief Art critic (Blake Gopnik) who does not review local galleries, and only (with a very, very rare exception) reviews museum shows. In fact, it was quite embarrassing earlier this year, when Gopnik was asked on the air (at the Kojo Nmandi show on WAMU) to discuss his favorite Washington area artist and he could not come up with a single name. In comparison, the chief art critics of major newspapers such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, etc. not only review museums, but also the galleries in their cities. It has been a mystery to our art scene why Mr. Gopnik has been allowed to segregate himself to only review our area and other cities’ museums and other cities’ art galleries and other cities’ artists, but not Washington area art galleries and artists. Does this make any sense to you?

Furthermore, your Thursday Style banner still claims that Thursdays is focused on Galleries/Art News, and yet, and consistently, there have been more theatre reviews on Thursdays than actual gallery reviews. Additionally, as you know, several years ago, the Arts Beat column, which used to be published every Thursday, was reduced to twice a month. Not only that, but that column, which used to often augment visual arts coverage, now has become, under the last two or three writers, a jack-of-all-arts column, more often than not writing about theatre, or music.

The evidence that the Washington Post has unexplainable apathy towards our area’s visual arts community is also highlighted by the recent issue with the reduction of the Galleries column to a twice-a-month column rather than weekly.

While we realize that a final decision has not been made in this issue, and that you are awaiting John Pancake’s return from his teaching sabbatical to finalize the issue, it nonetheless shows and adds evidence to the claim that the Post simply does not care about our city’s regional visual art scene (when it comes to our galleries and artists).

Why? Simply imagine that several of your many theatre critics all quit at once, leaving you with only one theater critic, who could only write one theatre review every couple of weeks. Would you reduce your theatre coverage from its very generous, almost daily occurrence, to twice a month?

I doubt it.

Why? Because it is clear that the Washington Post is dedicated to helping to grow our theatre scene, and this is a great effort that has yielded brilliant gains to our area’s cultural tapestry. Your effort includes not only daily coverage of the theatre, but also (I believe) around $300,000 in pro bono advertising for theatres.

This is great! And we all applaud the great theatre coverage. But what about us?

We also applaud your consistent coverage of our area museums, and as we are lucky enough to have some of the great museums in the world in our city, we are also grateful that the Washington Post affords great coverage through Mr. Gopnik in Style and the Sunday Arts, Mr. Richard once in a while in Style, and through Mr. O’Sullivan in Weekend, with Jacqueline Trescott and Teresa Wiltz also adding news articles and stories also dealing with our museums.

This is great! And we all applaud this informative coverage. But what about us?

And the Style coverage of movies (often then reviewed again by a different writer in Weekend), music (often then reviewed again by a different writer in Weekend), and dance is also adequate and informative, if somewhat repetitive, putting into question one excuse given in the past for not augmenting gallery coverage: "lack of newsprint space."

I will close this verbose letter with one last statistic: In the last couple of years the Style section has had over twice as many reviews and articles about fashion shows in Europe, New York and other cities, elegantly illustrated with color photos of gaunt models on the runways of Rome, New York, London and Paris, than reviews of art galleries in the Greater Washington area.

In my prejudiced opinion, I find it hard to believe that your readers would be more interested in un-wearable fashion from the runways of Europe than on our area’s art galleries and artists.

We welcome the change in command at Style and I sincerely and warmly wish you the best of luck in the job. I also hope that you bring an open mind to this subject, and consider augmenting gallery coverage to a level commensurate with Style’s coverage of the other cultural genres.

Warmest regards,

F. Lennox Campello

Cc: Leonard Downie
John Pancake

I hope that some of you write Ms. Heard as well, and I think that with enough notes and emails, she will realize that some changes need to be made under her leadership.