Anniversary
Last month was the 9th anniversary of the opening of our Georgetown gallery (opened in 1996). Back in those days the WaPo actually wrote an article about a new gallery opening, and had two separate columns each Thursday focusing on the area galleries. The WaPo actually even published a separate article a year later on the first anniversary of the gallery's opening! Mmmm... the good ole days...
One of the two Thursday columns was the "Galleries" column, then written by Ferdinand Protzman, and the other was Arts Beat, by Eric Brace and then Michael O'Sullivan. In those years, especially after O'Sullivan took over, Arts Beat was essentially a visual arts review column augmenting "Galleries" coverage.
And so, every Thursday we'd have two separate and distinct gallery art reviews in the Style section. Today, the WaPo has reduced "Galleries" to once every two weeks, and "Arts Beat" has also been reduced to once every two weeks, and now covers all the arts, without a visual arts focus. Like they say: "If you don't get it, you don't get it."
Last month was also the second year anniversary of DC Art News. Those first few months I'd average around forty visitors a day, while we're now well over 700 visitors a day and nearly 900 page views a day, and we passed 200,000 visits quite a while back.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Craghead
True Defenders of the Craft: Drawings by Warren Craghead runs from November 4 - 26, 2005 at the Second Street Gallery, 115 Second Street SE, Charlottsville, Virginia. There will be an opening reception on Friday, November 4, 6:00-8:00 pm, with an artist talk at 6:30 pm.
Why am I posting an opening for a show in C'ville? Because Warren is a cool guy, a fellow blogger, a new Dad (and thus could surely use the money from some sales) and a damned good artist.
Charlottesvillians and others: go see this show!
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Sculpture Unbound
Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran and Washington Sculptors Group
present:
Sculpture Unbound: "An exhibition of work stretching the boundaries of the field of sculpture"
Edison Place Gallery, 701 8th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
January 9 - April 6, 2006
Juror: Glenn Harper, editor Sculpture magazine.
The competition will be juried from digital images and slides by Glenn Harper, editor of Sculpture.
Work to be considered: Three-dimensional freestanding sculpture, wall and ceiling hung sculpture, installations, and new media. No pedestals will be provided. Gallery has 8 feet high ceilings, loading dock with standard double door to enter the gallery, movable walls and track lighting. All work accepted and exhibited must remain on display for the full duration of the show.
Eligibility: The exhibition is open to members of Washington Project for the Arts/Corcoran and Washington Sculptors Group. Artists who are not already members may join either or both organizations. New members may request a membership form by calling and leaving a name and address or downloading it from the websites: WPA/C 202-639-1828 or www.wpaconline.org. WSG 202-686-8696 or www.washingtonsculptors.org
Existing members of either group must have paid their dues for 2006 to be eligible for this exhibition.
Digital Images: Artist must send digital images as an email entry. The artist must include an up to date resume and Image Index including name, address, phone of artist and title, dimensions, materials, date completed and insurance value for no more than 2 entries and no more than a total of 4 images. Each image should be labeled with the artist's last name, first initial and image number 1-4. (WalkerF1, WalkerF2)
1.) All images must be saved as Jpegs (.jpg)
2.) All images must be saved at 72 dpi
3.) All images must be no larger than 4x5 inches or 800k in size
Mailing address for Digital Entries:
dren@corcoran.org
For more info: WPA/C
Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran
500 17th St., NW
Washington, DC
t: 202.639.1828 or f: 202.639.1778 or wpainfo@corcoran.org or www.wpaconline.org
Art Obituaries is an immensely interesting project designed to commemorate "art that was" by documenting accounts of an artwork's death, and thus creating a living discourse where there once was none.
Through an online process on their website, they invite artists to document the untimely or planned death of their work of art, providing a rare glimpse into an artwork's eleventh hour, exploring the nature of an artwork's life, death, and the process in-between. Artists are encouraged to investigate the concept of their artwork's obituary through a written or photo essay, text, image or whatever creative expression that pays proper tribute to their dearly departed.
Visit them here.
Calligraphart
Rose Folsom’s artwork grows out of her life-long passion for writing and of her years as a professional calligrapher. After years of study in classical western writing, Ms. Folsom began to explore writing as an expressive art: words and moving lines working together to say something new through their shape, movement and color.
Rose Folsom: Written Paintings will be on display at the first floor galleries in Strathmore Mansion on Rockville Pike opening on November 20th from 3-5PM. The show goes through Dec. 30th.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Top 100
Matt with a list of the "Power 100" in international art from the Financial Times.
Read it here.
Boy or Girl?
"Hey, is that a boy or a girl? - Artists Look at Gender" is a new exhibition opening next Friday, November 4th from 6:00pm-to 10:00pm and on view through Sunday, December 4th, 2005 at the Warehouse Gallery.
Below is "going...#1" by Allison B.Miner.
Monday, October 31, 2005
News Break!
The Style section has a visual arts review on a Monday!
P.S. No, not a DC show silly, it's a Brooklyn Museum restrospective of a Canadian photographer.
Burtynsky is 6 feet 2 and, aside from a graying goatee, he doesn't look particularly artsy, nor is there anything pretentious or obscure about the way he discusses his work. He could pass for upper management at some small business where it's always casual Friday, which is actually what he was, for a while. In the mid-'80s he started a photographic printing company called Toronto Image Works, which he still owns and which now has 35 employees.News Break II
We're philistines!
News Break III
The WaPo's former Chief Art Critic on Monica Castillo at NMWA.
The WaPo's current Chief Art Critic on Turkish Imperial silks Putting on a dazzling show at the Sackler.
Openings this Week
I'll be updating these openings later and adding some more events...
On the first Friday of the month, the Dupont Circle area art galleries have their extended hours and openings. Don't miss Christine Kesler's "New Directions," opening at Irvine Contemporary with a reception for Kesler from 6-8PM. The show runs through November 26. At Kathleen Ewing, Michael Gross opens his show "Sources," with a reception also from 6-8PM. The show runs through December 30. Over at Aaron Gallery, the fair Sabrina Cabada exhibits her latest paintings and has a reception from 6-9PM. At Conner, Wayne Gonzales has new paintings and the opening is from 6-8PM.
Over in Georgetown, the fair Anne C. Fisher exhibits Far Flung in her Canal Square gallery. The show includes a recent travel collage series by Marcie Wolf-Hubbard, photo transfers by Laura Seldman and intriguing maplike drawings by Karey Kessler. Opening reception is 6-8PM.
German abstract artist Roswitha Huber opens Saturday, Nov. 5 at Nevin Kelly Gallery with a reception from 5-8PM. The exhibition runs through the 30th. Also on Saturday, William Willis and the very talented Mary Early have an opening reception from 6:30-8:30PM at Hemphill.
On Sunday, November 6 at 2-5PM in Target Gallery in Alexandria, there's a talk with curator Ginny Friend about the current "Hardware" show at the gallery.
Yuriko Yamaguchi
One of our area's most elegant and interesting artists, Yuriko Yamaguchi returns to Numark with a show titled "Return." That exhibition opens on Friday, Nov. 14 with a reception from 6:30-8PM at Numark's beautiful award-winning space. The show runs through December 17, 2005.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Tate is the word that we've heard
A few days ago I visited Tim Tate's studio at the Washington Glass School to see what Tate has been working on for his new solo show that opens next November 11 at our Bethesda space.
And WOW! For this (his third solo show with us) Tate continues to drag glass away from the vessel (and craft) and towards the genre of the narrative and the fine arts.
Be ready to see a marriage of glass, steel and cement that will definately set a new path for this talented artist.
The show opens at Fraser Gallery Bethesda on Friday, Nov. 11 with an opening reception from 6-9PM. If you only see one of our shows this year, make this one the "it."
Artomatic 419
The city of Toledo, Ohio likes the idea of Artomatic so much that they’re considering doing an Artomatic 419.
Artomatic 419 uses their area code (419) for the northeast corner of Ohio as their unique identifier.
Artomatic has made also the great leap forward into incorporation is now officially a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Arthelps 5th Annual Silent Art Auction Benefit and Reception
JAM Communications is the sponsor for this year's Arthelps 5th Annual Silent Art Auction Benefit and Reception to raise money for Food & Friends and the DC Arts Center (DCAC) – two organizations are in their own way are key components of our area's social and cultural tapestry.
Support from artists and art donors is integral in making this night a success and that is why they are asking for your help. They welcome a variety of art donations–from original and limited edition paintings and prints, to photographs, glasswork, jewelry and sculpture. I intend to donate to this auction.
In fact today, for the first time in ages, I had some time to sit down and do a drawing, and I did the below charcoal and conte drawing, which I will donate to the auction, marking the proceeds for DCAC.
For more information on how you can donate art, and for additional details on the Arthelps event, please go to www.arthelps.org – where you can download a PDF art donation form.
To arrange for a pickup of your artistic donation call: 202.986.4750 and talk to Ambre Bosko (ext 19) or Alex George (ext 13) or email: ambre@jamagency.com or alex@jamagency.com
You can also drop off or mail your donation to the JAM offices located at:
1638 R Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC, 20009,
between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm (Monday – Friday).
Please RSVP for the event at www.arthelps.org.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Openings
There's a ton of openings next week, but meanwhile, Carol Brown Goldberg opens tonight, at Osuna Art & Antiques in Bethesda. Opening Reception is from 6-9PM.
And this Saturday, October 29th from 6:30-8:30pm is the opening of "Me, Myself and I: Artist Self-Portraits from the Podesta Collection" at Curator's Office (that's Marina Abramovic's Lips of Thomas at Curator's Office - Image Courtesy Sean Kelly.
Power of the Web
JT has a pretty spirited discussion ongoing over at Thinking About Art about Ms. Blake's comments on my criticism of her work.
Read it here.
Conner at Artissima
Conner Contemporary Art will be participating in Artissima XII, International Fair of Contemporary art in Torino, Italy, November 11-13, 2005.
For the new entries section of the Fair, they will present new oil glaze on wood panel paintings by Erik Sandberg, digital photographs by Julee Holcombe and drawings by Avish Khebrehzadeh.
Hidden Track
The book's pre-publishing publicity states that:
"the book illustrates how urban and street art have recently broken even further out of the subculture and are being featured more often in galleries and museums worldwide. It analyses how these public art forms are being perceived in an international art context and investigates the fundamentally different forms of presentation that this new context demands."Artists featured include Dave Kinsey, Barry McGee and Mark Jenkins' Storker Project.
As far as I know or can remember, two of our area's art galleries (us and David Adamson) have recently featured street artists, and I included a couple of them in Seven. I am curious as to who will be the first DC area museum curator to curate, organize and/or include a street artist in a DC museum show.
But when and if they do, I bet they will go to either NYC or LA or London streets to look for the street artists; after all their streets are better than our streets.
Update: I am reminded that there was one other street artist show in the District a while back that we don't want to forget: Ron English at MOCA in Georgetown. English is in many ways a "founder of the movement" and took on Camel Ads. His work was also featured in that movie "Supersize Me."
There was also the documentary ("Popaganda: The Art of Ron English") in a small DC film festival. Showed English doing his billboard wheatpaste overs and they had interviews with Mark Clark, Slash from Guns n Roses, and Jonathan Levine.
Sheila Blake Responds
Options 2005 artist Sheila Blake responds to my criticism of her work:
Dear Lenny,
It's possible to look at two thousand, or 20 thousand paintings and still miss what looking is all about. Fortunately for me, Libby Lumpkin has that ability but I wish you'd at least concede that there are some things that you don't understand -- (I love Vermeer, but that has nothing to do with my intention; The tradition I work in has much more to do with Bonnard and Rousseau, Birchfield and Wolf Kahn).
My paintings can be looked at forever and they'll keep yielding up new things. The most superficial way of seeing them is that they're paintings of my back yard. (Although if you came out to my back yard, that's not what you'd see.) What I'm doing is constructing a reality and if you'd let yourself enter into the paintings, really walk around in them, you'd feel the air, and a specific moment in time. If you look up at the sky there'd be the surprise of that particular sky and the whole configuration of buildings and trees creates spaces that you can wander up to, through, even around and be endlessly satisfied. And there is also an ominous quality -- spring isn't the pastel spring that you think of, but some almost acidic feeling of being oversaturated with the moist air. Winter has to do with the rhythm of the bare branches and shadows and the golden light hitting the tops of the trees and sometimes a feeling of gloom. If you look at the pastels, the information is in them; they are my point of departure, but then the paintings are re-imagined to create a new reality.(That's not kudzu on the tree -- it's Virginia creeper, but what's on the real tree is English ivy. The crepe myrtle I lifted from Pinehurst N.C. along with the loblolly pine.) And then there's the light. The way I use color to create light has everything to do with the most subtle color interactions.
It's easy to dismiss as the cliché' of "light" -- but who really does this in the way I do? My color isn't representational, but creates a light and atmosphere which can be felt. I've never seen it and I'll bet you haven't either.
I'm writing this because I'm so disappointed at the superficial way you have categorized and dismissed my work. It's clear from your critique that you are either unable or unwilling to immerse yourself in a deeper way of looking.
I'm going to quote Jed Perl here: "the more an artist asks us to look at a work over a period of time, the more a work drops beneath the radar screens that criticism has set up to track the contemporary scene."
I have the highest standards for my paintings. I mean every single brush stroke. I've been a painter my whole life; I taught at Duke for years and at the Corcoran.
I know what I'm talking about. My hope is that you'll think about what I'm saying and take another look.
Sheila Blake
