The Friday Openings

No lame excuses tonight... time to go see an art show!

Second Fridays belong to Bethesda, where the Bethesda Art Walk takes place, now with two separate free guided tours.

These are the Bethesda art venues that participate. Most of the artists are present, openings are catered and it is all free - 6-9pm.

Elsewhere, if you want to stay in the District, then Zenith has an opening honoring the 25th anniversary of neon art (congrats Margery!). From 6-8pm.

Across the street, Touchstone also has an opening of Sonya A. Lawyer's photographs from 6-8:30pm.

We will host the Bethesda International Photography Competition, juried and curated by Connie Imboden and featuring the work of 27 photographers from around the nation and the world.

Imboden will do a gallery talk at 7pm and then award the competition's cash and exhibition prizes.

See ya there!

The Thursday Reviews

The Washington Post has nothing.

The Washington City Paper has Louis Jacobson on Max Hirshfeld at Hemphill Fine Arts and Jeffry Cudlin is back with an excellent take of "The Drawings of Ed Ruscha" at the National Gallery of Art.

The Georgetowner has a new critic (Robin Kohlman Fried) who looks at Seth Rosenberg at District Fine Arts, Andrea Way at Marsha Mateyka and Max Hirshfeld at Hemphill.

Thinking About Art has Joe Ovelman at Conner and yesterday Kirkland had Andrea Way at Mateyka.

Art Bloggers Making News

Philly art bloggers Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof making news in their hometown.

Read their BLOG here.

Hypertemporality: A Discussion of Internet Art

On Tuesday, March 15th, 2005, the University of Richmond Museums will host a panel discussion titled "Hypertemporality: A Discussion of Internet Art" to accompany their hypertemporality exhibition.

The panel discussion will be webcast live, then archived for later viewing. The address to watch the webcast is here.

The panelists will be Whitney Museum of American Art curator Christiane Paul and hypertemporality artists Peter Baldes and Alexander Stewart.

Heading North

I'm driving back to DC on Thursday night... more later. Loads of great openings this coming Friday in Bethesda (see DCist).

If you are a photography fan, then you'll enjoy the 27 photographers selected by Connie Imboden, who curated the 2005 Bethesda International Photography Competition. Imboden selected about 40 photographs from over 1,000 submitted for her review.

The opening reception starts at 6PM at Fraser Bethesda, and Imboden will discuss the selected works and award the prizes at 7PM. Join us this coming Friday!

Opening Tomorrow

Wanna go to an opening tomorrow? Over/Under presented by Carolina Sardi and curated by Rody Douzoglou. Opening Reception: Thursday, March 10 at Gallery at Flashpoint, 916 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20001. Nearest metro: Gallery Place/Metro Center. Tel: 202.315.1310.

Correction

Kim Ward will be the Interim WPA/C Director when Annie Adj. leaves at the end of this month.

Advise to fellow gallerists

Kriston, over at grammar.police notes in a recent posting that "tell a gallerist in the know that you're a blogger and more often than not she will visibly recoil. God in His Seat in Heaven forbid that you mention you're there to review a show, at which point the scornful glances are likely to make a greater impression than the art on display."

For a gallerist to react like that to a blogger (or for that matter to anyone else trying to get some publicity for an art show, even a High School newspaper editor), is both ignorant and shows lack of understanding of how the media has been revolutionized in the last handful of years.

As Art and other general BLOGs mature and develop, and make mistakes, and get scoops, and generally spread the word and gain readership, I believe that they/us/we stand at the brink of becoming (actually have become) a powerful new voice, adding diversity and volume, to our art scene.

And some gallerists do get it; last Friday as DCist Arts Editor Cyndi Spain and I made our rounds of the Dupont Circle area galleries, for the most part she was warmly received in all but one gallery, where usually anyone can see their own breath anyway.

In one gallery, the director actually pulled out a stack of color copies of the DCist's Arts Agenda from a couple of Tuesday's ago and gratefully thanked Spain for mentioning the gallery and the artist online. "Where can I send you news releases?" she then asked.

I think DCist is getting around 10,000 visitors a day and growing, and sites like this one and grammar.police, and J.T. Kirkland's Thinking About Art and Tyler Green's MAN and Jesse Cohen's Art DC have a loyal readership of hundreds of daily visitors interested in art.

And so, any smart gallerist worth his or her salt should not have to be advised or cajoled into treating a blogger with any less courtesy and interest than any other potential source of publicity, opinion and most important: a digital fooprint.

New Interim WPA/C Director

Congrats to Kim Ward, who has been selected to replace Annie Adj as Interim Executive Director of the WPA/C.

Ward is currently listed as Membership and Finance Director for the WPA/C.

DCist looking for arts contributors

DCist is looking for contributors to augment its coverage of the visual arts. Email Mike Grass if you are interested.

The more voices we get discussing our area's art scene, the better for all of us.

Meanwhile, check out the Tuesday Arts Agenda here.

We hear that there may be a job opening at the WPA/C soon.

Update: I have a second, independent confirmation and I am told that Annie Adj, Executive Director of the WPA/C will be departing at the end of the month for a new job in the Left Coast.

We wish her the best of luck!

Kirkland Looks at Springfield

Thinking About Art has a review of Molly Springfield's debut at JET Artworks.

I'm working on a multi-review of several Dupont Circle galleries at once; it will be published soon. Meanwhile read JT's thoughts on Springfield here.

On the Road Again

I'm driving down to the Tidewater area today and will be there for the rest of the week for a couple of panels and lectures.

Keep coming back; there will be hotel-based late night posting!

And since I'll be passing through Richmond, a cyberspace wave to ANABA's Martin Bromirski, who lately has been trading posts and comments in a BLOGoversy created by his post on painter Alison Fox and her one-woman show at the East Village’s ATM gallery that sold out before opening night, and Martin's opinion that it sold out because of her husband's (gallerist Zach Feuer) hidden influence.

Zach Feuer has courageously come to the defense of his wife, and so far 38 comments (and a second posting) have been traded back and forth as this has developed into a BLOGoversy. Read it here and here.

New Gallery in the District

DC Art News welcomes a new gallery in the District: Shigeko Bork MU Project, which is dedicated to contemporary Asian art.

And the new gallery has a reception for Hiroshi Kobayashi next Tuesday, March 8 from 6-8PM. The new gallery is at 1521 Wisconsin Avenue, NW #2 in Georgetown and can be reached at 202/277-2731. Hours are Tues-Sat from 11-5PM.

Welcome! Get a website soon!

The New Factory Artists

Once a year, the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria puts out a call for artists who wish to be considered for a studio space in Alexandria's most famous and popular artists warren.

This year 72 applicants entered the annual jury process, and of those, seven were accepted. The jurors for the 2D work were Jeffrey Allison (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts), Walter Kravitz (George Mason University Prof. of Art) and Lee Newman, a superb printmaker and a member of the Fine Arts Faculty at the Holton Arms School.

The 3D jurors were Bruce Hoffman (Director, Snyderman Gallery in Philadelphia), Lenore Miller, (Director of the GWU Galleries), and Winifred Owens-Hart, a Prof. of Art from Howard University.

Joining the wait list for a studio space at the Torpedo Factory in 2005 are Xiao Sheng Bi (Ceramics), Christine Cardellino (Painting), Judith Coady (Printmaking), Rebecca Cross (Ceramics), Janae Michelle (Fiber), Kathy Udell (Photography) and Donald Viehman (Enameling). A representative sample of their work is currently on exhibit at the Target Gallery, on the ground floor of the Torpedo Factory.

Of these seven new Factorists, two immediately stand out: Rebecca Cross, who is already one of the best known multi-talented (not just ceramics) artists in Washington, with a long string of succesful exhibitions at Addison-Ripley Gallery and the Ralls Collection most recently, and her work is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery; and a newcomer (at least to me), Christine Cardellino.

Rebecca Cross' work needs little introduction; she's a painter who has mastered her skills and conquered a second genre by being one of the region's premier ceramicists for the last 25 years. The three pieces on exhibit are samples of Cross' platters and shaped ceramic objects.

A couldn't find a website for Christine Cardellino (tsk, tsk...), but the work that I saw on display immediately tells me that Cardellino may be the keystone to the "future" of the Torpedo Factory "artist." In her paintings I saw elements of what I would commonly associate with a "more modern" flavor to the king of the fine arts genres.

I mean that in the super positive sense of a painter, clearly at ease with her genre, superbly trained, with a good eye for the sensuality of the paint and its direct associative qualities with the brushwork plus a clever eye for marrying representation and abstraction to deliver fresh new offerings to the dialogue of painting.

Geez... was that art babble or what? My kingdom for an image!

Suffice it to say that I hope Ms. Cardellino gets a studio space at the Factory within the next hundred years; with all due respect to many of the present Factorists whose work I superbly admire, they could still use some new blood.

New Art BLOG

Matt Hollis has a BLOG!

Visit Enough for All often.

For Matt: You better start posting more!

The Shape of (Some) Things to Come

The Art League Gallery is currently (until Monday) having their annual Student/Faculty show, which is a perfect opportunity to look at the work of art students of all levels, ages and backgrounds in one of the area's largest galleries, and certainly one of the more popular art schools.

I decided to focus on the work of the students, at the expense of not discussing the work of superbly talented teachers such as Danni Dawson, Jacqueline Saunders, Scott Hutchison (represented by us) and many others.

Instead, I turned my eye for quite a while to the students, hung salon-style on all three of the The Art League Galleries on the ground floor of the Torpedo Factory.

The first piece that stood out was a small, superbly painted self portrait by Marjorie Forgues (taught by Danni Dawson). I don't know Forgues' formal background, but in this small elegant piece she shows brushwork and technical skills that will revive feelings of envy from painters of all levels of expertise and experience. It is a delicate and yet vigorous application (and understanding) of paint, and light, which makes Ms. Forgues small self portrait jump out from a sea of 2D work.

Two drawings caught my attention next: An untitled pencil drawing of a difficult subject (a seated, clothed bearded man) by Leslie Chekin (taught by Priscilla Treacy) and an elegant female nude charcoal by Linda Wharton titled "Horizontal," from a class taught by Robert Liberace. They both show remarkable understanding of that most diverse of subjects: the human figure.

A small, delicate painting titled "Pear Pairs" by Cathy Messina (taught by Joe Kabriel), a watercolor titled "Evening Colors" by Meg MacKenzie (taught by one of my favorite area watercolorists: Susan Herron) and an amazing chalk drawing by Laura Kipple titled "Claire," (taught by Liberace again), completed my selections as the best from a very good crop of student artwork.

Prices are incredibly low for the most part, starting at $60 for a framed original watercolor!

Monday is the last day of this show... hurry!

Wanna Go to an Opening Tonight?

Gallery West is having an opening reception tonight from 6-9PM. On exhibit is Elsa Gebreyesus' "Meditations," a solo show of mixed-media paintings by Gebreyesus, whose work combines modern materials and techniques with universal themes and ancient African symbols.

Gallery West is located at 205 South Union Street, in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Tel:703-549-7359.

See ya there!

Bethesda Magazine

The new glossy Bethesda Magazine has a multi-page spread on the gallery scene now developing in Bethesda. Written by Virginia Myers Kelly, it is armed with interesting observations such as "Bethesda is home to more than a dozen galleries - but fewer art buyers than you might expect."

There's a large panoramic photo of one of our openings which captures some of the Art-O-Matic artists that we had a couple of months ago, including a great shot of one of Chris Edmunds' sculptures and background images of Mark Jenkins "Pubic Hair Tapestries," John Bata's landscape of New York City and a Michal Hunter painting.

On page 103 of the same issue there's a terrific profile (by Dr. Claudia Rousseau) of legendary photographer Lida Moser, now in her late 80s and retired in Rockville, and whose first ever DC area solo show will be our next Georgetown show, opening on March 18.

Gallery visits

Yesterday I dropped by the Art League Gallery in Alexandria to look at their Student Show, and then to the Target Gallery to see their crop of new Torpedo Factory artists, and finally Factory Photoworks (now re-named Multiple Exposures) to see their current membership show.

Later that night, Cyndi Spain, Arts Editor for DCist, and I visited most of the Dupont Circle Galleries, which were having their extended First Friday hours; several terrific surprises there!

More on both later today.