These things really spin me off... If I said that NPR is going to cover an art show about an artist who is doing a whole exhibition about Mexican "Lucha Libre" (wrestling), where the artist takes his influences from an obsession with Mexican wrestlers and their masks. What would you think? Well... if you were slightly plugged in to the DC area art scene, you'd hopefully think Andrew Wodzianski and his recent Georgetown solo of Mexican wrestlers? Right? You'd be wrong, because NPR did not do a story of Wodzianski's elevation of Mexican wrestling to the realm of the fine arts in a gallery less than half an hour cab ride from the NPR studios, but instead sent a whole crew to the other side of the country to do a story about a photographer who takes shots of Mexican Lucha Libre and then has the exhibition in a bookstore! 

 And in case you're wondering, yes - we do blanket NPR with press releases about our shows. I am almost resigned to the fact that most of our area's museum curators all but ignore their own backyard; but Noah Adams - you're breaking my heart!

Talking about Mexico and Mexicans... it baffles me that the egg heads in the Democrat Party cannot foresee what every contemporary Latino/Hispanic knows in his or her heart: One day, not too far in the future, as the Hispanic population in the US continues to grow,  and because we are so diverse in thought, culture and perspectives, that one day, a decade or two from now, when Latino numbers make Latinos the largest ethnic minority in the US... the DNC will be shocked to "discover" that Latinos will not be obedient voters for the Democrat ticket only, and Latino/a politicians will run and win under the Republican party, and large percentages of the Latino vote will go to the right.

This will come as a shock to both the DNC and to their so called experts with a vowel in their last name but little otherwise of real knowledge of the immense diversity of the nations and peoples south of the US.  "They" are making and will continue to make the mistake of viewing Hispanics/Latinos as a monolithic "group", rather than the racially diverse, culturally tied by language and "some" customs, but NOT a single-think group of people.  As the millions continue to pour in from the southern border, expect the first warning shots to the DNC come from Hispanics/Latinos (mostly of Mexican ancestry) come from South Texas.

10 to 15 years from now... faster if the DNC continues to drift left.

Case in point: I know of not one single Cuban or Cuban-American "Lucha Libre" wrestler in the history of that sport... Although I did like the "El Santo" photo-comics when I was a teen in New York! They were awesome!

In Baltimore...

I'm going to swing by Baltimore tonight after I get off work at the gallery, and drop by the opening reception for Robert Stuart Cohen at the Light Street Gallery.

Afterwards, if I have time, I'm going to try to make it to the 14K Cabaret to see Little Orphan Fannie, which I hear is really funny.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: December 19, 2005

The Chesapeake Gallery at Harford Community College in Bel Air, MD invites you to submit drawing-related works, which use unexpected materials, are on unexpected surfaces, and/or have unexpected content for When you least expect, which is a juried drawing exhibition open to all artists, with preference given to artists working in the Mid-Atlantic states.

Please send no more than five slides and/or digital images and an SASE to:
Heidi Neff
Joppa Hall
Harford Community College
401 Thomas Run Road
Bel Air, MD 21015

Or email digital images or web addresses to hneff@harford.edu.

Notification letters/emails will be sent out January 10. Accepted work must be delivered by February 15, 2005. The exhibit runs from February 20 through March 16, with an opening reception on February 21 from 6:30-8:00 PM. The Chesapeake Gallery does not pay for any shipping.

Flashpoint Request for Proposals

The Cultural Development Corporation (CuDC) is requesting proposals for exhibitions in the Gallery at Flashpoint’s September 2006 – August 2007 season.

This request is open to artists, curators, arts organizations, galleries and/or anyone choosing to present contemporary work in any medium. All proposals must be received no later than 6 pm on Wednesday, January 11, 2006.

For more info contact:

Rebecca Lowery, Gallery Manager
Cultural Development Corporation
916 G Street, NW | Washington, DC 20001
202.315.1310 (fax)202.315.1303

Email: rebecca@culturaldc.org.

Also see some interesting views on this subject being currently discussed at Thinking About Art here.

Opportunity for Disabled Artists

Deadline for receipt of international entries: March 24, 2006.

"Transformation" call for art. VSA arts invites artists to reflect on the many ways art transforms our lives, focusing on the influence of education and disability. Open to artists (ages 22 and over) who are committed to their artistic progress and who have a physical, cognitive, or mental disability.

A distinguished jury will review two slides of earlier work and three slides of current work within the span of 5 years. Recent work entered must be at the onset of disability. An entry-specific artist statement should be included with slides.

No entry fee; round trip shipping expenses covered; selected artwork does not have to be framed. For eligible media and entry forms in English, Spanish, French and ASCII visit www.vsarts.org/transformation. Braille and large print available upon request.

Exhibit will debut in Washington, DC during June of 2006.

Contact: Stephanie Moore, director of visual arts, VSA arts at stephaniem@vsarts.org or 202-628-2800.

cIndy

cIndy Blog is a podcast dedicated to independent and contemporary arts. In the podcast, Christopher A. Shields interviews artists and curators.

So far he has interviewed several people including Dale Chihuly, as well as the curator of the current Andrea Zitell show; in addition he will be soon interviewing the Deputy Director of PS1.

Visit cIndy Blog often.

Hoya Article

The fair LiJia Gong interviews me for the Georgetown Hoya.

Read the interview here.

Party on Saturday

Studio One Eight has a "Holiday Kickoff Champagne Party" which will take place tomorrow, Saturday December 3rd, from 7-10pm.

The party is for "Threesome: A Girl, a Guy, and a Gay" at Studio One Eight, which is a new gallery in Adams Morgan located at 2452 18th St. NW in DC. The show features new paintings and drawings by Dana Ellyn Kauffman, Gregory Ferrand and Scott G. Brooks.

Sounds like the place to be on Saturday night!

Tate is the word that we've heard (part III)

This is the last weekend to see Tim Tate's third solo exhibition, currently on display at our Fraser Gallery Bethesda.

Sales have been brisk, and nearly half the exhibition, which consists of 45 pieces, is sold. Tate's previous two solos have sold out, and this one (which is by far his largest exhibition ever) is well on the way.

But there's more good news: as a result of this show, Tate will be exhibiting next year at Vanderbilt University.

Furthermore, two of his narrative wall panels have made their way to the permanent collection of the University of Virginia Art Museum, and we're now negotiating with two other museums for more acquisitions (none of them are DC-based museums... sigh).

And two of Tate's pieces will be part of 500 Glass Objects, to be published soon by Lark Books and edited by Susan Kieffer.

The show was reviewed by Dr. Claudia Rousseau. Read that review here. And the Washington Blade also did a nice article about Tate. Read that article here. And WETA TV did a little television piece.

I tried really hard to convince Jessica Dawson to come by and look at the show, but so far she has ignored all three of Tim Tate's shows (more on that later).

And, as many of you know, the new proposed baseball stadium is slated to land right on top of the current location for the Washington Glass School (Tate is the co-founder and co-director), and they're being kicked out through the eminent domain trick.

Their original intent was to move the school to Prince George's County in Maryland, but they are now working on an even better opportunity in Arlington, Virginia.

In the interim, the Washington Glass School will be holding classes in their temporary home at the Arlington Arts Center.

They will be reopening on a larger scale somewhere between March and June of 2006 with double the classrooms and triple the kiln space! This incredible opportunity came upon them quite suddenly, and I will keep you posted as to the status and exact location as soon as all papers have been signed.

Meanwhile come see the show before it closes next Wednesday.

Video Killed the Radio (and Art?) Star

Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star

Pictures came and broke your heart
Oh-a-a-a oh

Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club
Michael O'Sullivan's eloquent review in today's WaPo makes a powerful point about art videos. Read it here.

And it got me to thinking.

I don't hide the fact that most art videos (which I have sometimes called artists' home movies) leave me pretty ambivalent, especially as I try to view them as art, rather than entertainment.

In the nearly 70 year history of artists' home movies, I can probably count in one hand the number of them that I would even remotely consider as something more than a low budget attempt at making a film, and most of those on that list start before the VCR was invented.

Nonetheless, it is a fact that most of the voices in the art world that count and weigh in a lot heavier than mine, do still view video (pun intended) as the leading edge for creativity in the modern dialogue of the visual arts (even though the genre is now in its 7th decade).

Witness the recent video overload in the Whitney Biennial list as the most recent evidence.

History lesson for anyone born after 1980 or so: Before everyone had VCRs or DVD players in their homes, if you wanted to see a movie, you generally had to go to a movie theatre, and many American cities had a seedy neighborhood where porn theatres were concentrated - when I was a kid in Brooklyn, that seedy area was in and around Times Square in NYC.

And just like video killed the radio star, it also killed seedy porn theatres all over the landscape but concurrently it gave the porn industry a huge new life that they had never hereto dreamed of and also gave them access to the privacy of the home as it eliminated the requirement to visit a seedy theatre in order to view a porn movie.

And as O'Sullivan intelligently deduces, now the Vlogging Revolution hands us all a brilliant opportunity to once and for all do for art videos what VCRs and DVDs did for the porn industry (in a sense), but in this case remove them from our galleries and museums and put them on the web, where we can watch them whenever and wherever we want!

This is a win-win situation for nearly all.

Not for us mossbacks, but it will open up gallery and museum space for other artsy stuff, whatever else "new art" may be lurking out there now disguised as technology (I predict some sort of hologram-type stuff). And for art video aficionados, it will deliver an exponential growth in the genre, as millions of weekend arts and crafts projects now take to the web and populate millions of Vlogs full of new videos.

And as soon as your Aunt Elvira (I do have an aunt so named) sets aside her weekend watercolors and oils, and picks up the new family digital camera (now fully capable of recording movies) and starts making art movies by the millions, I can guarantee that curators will leave tire tracks on their way to find something "new" in art.

The allure of the "new" in art has been an interesting topic for discussion over at Thinking About Art, and I found the below comment by Lou Gagnon right on the point of the issue:

Innovation, in technology, is important in that it offers "new" tools and techniques. What is made with these new tools and techniques is typically derivative of what was made with the old tools. Most innovation is fueled by a desire to make an existing process more efficient.

Humans have been mixing pigment with fat to document the human condition for tens of thousands of years. The innovations of fresco, oil or acrylic are derivative improvements. Photography offered efficient alternatives to painting in the already established need to document contemporary life (events, people and places). Video offers alternatives to photography in that the linear format has the potential to distribute a more explicit narrative.

Efficiency and effectiveness are not the same. The limit to a tool's effectiveness is in the imagination of the maker. In art, I believe effectiveness is measure by the power of a work to engage people. Does the engagement temporarily distract someone from his or her daily existence or does it shift his or her paradigms and actions? Work premised on technology will be irrelevant when the technology changes. Work premised on the human condition has the potential to be timeless. Have there been innovations in light, color or form? What about fear, love, desire, freedom or apathy?

The "new" in art is that unique intimate engagement between an individual and his or her relationship with these larger issues. That fragile union between the ephemeral and the eternal is magic.

Amen!

Massacre

Later today I am going to delete from the DC Art News BLOGroll all those listed bloggers who haven't posted stuff in months.

Why BLOGrollem if no blogging takes place?

At least my deletions will be because of lack of activity rather than pettyness.

Elephant Dung

We've all been bored to death with all the attention that some American museums have been getting online due to a variety of unethical lapses, deaccessioning of artwork, construction or deconstruction, parking lots, etc.

Yawn...

And over in that odd amalgamation of countries and peoples known as Great Britain, they're having their own issues (pronounced the BBC-way or eesssssius), with the Tate spending well over a million dollars (£705,000) in acquiring Christopher Ofili's work The Upper Room, which is partly made by using a few dozen dollops of elephant dung.

It's not the elephant doody that is the issue, but that at

"...the heart of the affair is the fact that, when The Upper Room was purchased from him for £705,000 earlier this year, Ofili was himself a Tate trustee. This, critics say, represents a major conflict of interest. It also seems to contradict official Tate guidelines, which say: "Even the perception of a conflict of interest in relation to a board member can be extremely damaging to the body's reputation."

Read the story in The Independent here.

About ten years ago, something somewhat similar (in my opinion) on a much lesser scale, happened here in DC as a result of a very generous donation left in the will of DC area artist Gene Davis to the then-named National Museum of American Art (now called the Smithsonian American Art Museum).

Read that story, published in 1995 in the WaPo, here.

Openings on 1st Friday

There's a ton of openings tomorrow, being first Friday and all...

Over in Georgetown, Addison/Ripley Fine Art has Wolf Kahn opening with a reception for Kahn from 6-8PM.

Also in Georgetown, Govinda Gallery has photographs by Mark Selinger in an exhibition titled "In My Stairwell." The opening reception is from 6-9PM.

And still in Georgetown, two of the Canal Square galleries are having openings from 6-8PM.

On the second floor of the Square, the Anne C. Fisher Gallery hosts a reception in honor of their well-received, current exhibition, South American Holiday. This lively exhibition by several South American artists is a feast for the eyes! It includes mixed media collages by Joan Belmar, paintings in acrylic on canvas and acrylic on paper by Patricia Secco, and monoprints, hanging paper constructions and the video Zapatos Blancos by artist Helga Thomson.

Under the Anne C. Fisher Gallery, our neighbor Parish Gallery opens a new group show with work by Floyd Coleman, Victor Ekpuk, Ron Flemmings, Liani Foster, Naza McFarren, Roberto Morassi, Deanna Schwartzberg, Stephanie Parish Taylor, and Yvette Watson.

On 7th Street, Zenith Gallery has the DC debut of Drew Ernst in an exhibition titled "Connected." The reception is Friday from 6-9PM and Ernst has an artist's talk on Saturday, December 3rd starting at 2PM.

Around Dupont Circle, Irvine Contemporary has Sean Foley: Rubes, Scuttlebutt & Loggerheads through December 31. The gallery will be part of the 1st Friday extended hours from 6-8PM, but the actual opening for Foley is December 9, from 6-8PM. Nearby neighbor Washington Printmakers has prints by Jenny Freestone, who teaches at the Corcoran. In addition to the extended hours from 6-8PM tomorrow, a formal opening for Freestone will be held Thursday, December 8, from 6-8 pm (and earlier there's aGallery Talk/Brown Bag Lunch on Thursday, December 8, 12-1 pm).

Most of the other Dupont Circle area galleries will also have extended hours from 6-8PM. Go see (and buy) some artwork!

Bailey

Has Kiki Smith fighting Cindy Sherman.

See it here.

Bailey, Bailey, Bailey...

The Quilts as Stamps

Remember the superb Quilts of Gee's Bend exhibition at the Corcoran? (If you don't then click here).

Well they are soon to be USPS Stamps!

Stats

Warning: Own horn tooting coming next...

November stats show that DC Art News received over 22,000 visits and nearly 26,000 page views during the 30 days of November, as readership has more than doubled since the beginning of 2005. And MyBlog stats show that in the last week alone, DC Art News sent over 2,000 visitors to other sites through a link offered here.

Still a drop in the bucket, but always growing!

And it still cracks me up how several of our fellow online art bloggers now hide their daily stats (which were once visible) under passwords in order to hide our/their relative insignificance in the overall massive world of information dissemination.

Insecurity is a difficult thing to conquer; let's all keep growing.

Pot Calling the Kettle Black

In an interesting and well-crafted review of "The Art of Richard Tuttle" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the WaPo's Chief Art Critic writes (italics mine):

"Hilton Kramer, then a famously conservative critic at the New York Times, took the show as the perfect occasion to release some of his trademark bile. He called the exhibition "irredeemable," "pathetic," "a bore and a waste."

Mmm... a review of the Pot's last couple of years' worth of art reviews may reveal a few violations of the Kettle's trademarks.

Breaking Down the Whitney Biennial List

A DC Art News reader has spent some time doing some research in breaking down the list of artists selected for the 2006 Whitney Biennial. As expected (considering the curators): lots of home movies, photography and sculpture/installation.

Other fun facts: The researcher counted two people from Cal Arts and five people from Houston, Texas. Also about four people were art critics as well as artists. There may also be a few gallery owners. Here's the breakdown (and also see updates at bottom of posting):

All over the place - Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla
? - Dawolu Jabari Anderson
Video - Kenneth Anger
Video - Dominic Angerame
Anonymous Collection
Video - Christina Battle
Video - James Benning
Video - Bernadette Corporation
Photography - Amy Blakemore
Video - Louise Bourque
Mixed Media on Canvas - Mark Bradford
Drawing and Photography - Troy Brauntuch
Video Installation and Drawing - Anthony Burdin
Video - George Butler
? - Carter
Performance/Happenings - Carolina Caycedo
Research Organization - The Center for Land Use Interpretation
Video - Paul Chan
Video - Lori Cheatle and Daisy Wright
Poetry/Photography/Multimedia - Ira Cohen
Video - Martha Colburn
Painting - Dan Colen
Photography - Anne Collier
Composer or Video - Tony Conrad
Performance and Lecture Group - Critical Art Ensemble
Photography/Mixed Media - Jamal Cyrus
Grass Roots Satellite Network - Deep Dish Television
Mixed Media/Installation/Painting -Lucas DeGiulio
Sculpture/Installation - Mark di Suvero and Rirkrit Tiravanija
Painting - Peter Doig
Video/Performance - Trisha Donnelly
Photography/Installation - Jimmie Durham
? – Maybe Sound art - Kenya Evans
Sculpture/Installation - Urs Fischer
Video - David Gatten
Video - Joe Gibbons
Sculpture/Installation/Drawing - Robert Gober
? - Deva Graf
Video/Photography - Rodney Graham
Sculpture/Mixed Media - Hannah Greely
Painting - Mark Grotjahn
Sculpture/Photography/Drawing - Jay Heikes
? - Doug Henry
Video/Sculpture/Photography - Pierre Huyghe
Printmaking - Dorothy Iannone
Sculpture/Installation - Matthew Day Jackson
Video - Cameron Jamie
Robotics - Natalie Jeremijenko
Music/Cartoonist - Daniel Johnston
Video - Lewis Klahr
Painting - Jutta Koether
Video - Andrew Lampert
Sculpture/Assemblage/Installation - Lisa Lapinski
Sculpture - Liz Larner
Photography - Hanna Liden
Video - Jeanne Liotta
Video - Marie Losier
Photography - Florian Maier-Aichen
Painting - Monica Majoli
Drawing - Yuri Masnyj
Performance/Video - T. Kelly Mason and Diana Thater
Photography/prints - Adam McEwen
Video/Poetry/Performance - Taylor Mead
Installation/assemblage - Josephine Meckseper
Photography/Painting - Marilyn Minter
Sound art - Momus
Sculpture/Drawing - Matthew Monahan
Painting - JP Munro
Photography - Jesús "Bubu" Negrón
Photography/Installation - Kori Newkirk
Drawing/Painting/Printmaking - Todd Norsten
? - Jim O’Rourke
Collaborators - Otabenga Jones & Associates
Must be a MultiMedia Video Installation - Tony Oursler and Dan Graham with Rodney Graham, Laurent Berger, and Japanther
Hybrid Sculpture/Painting - Steven Parrino
Painting/collage - Ed Paschke
Video - Mathias Poledna
Drawing/Sculpture/Installation - Robert A. Pruitt
Painting/Drawing - Jennifer Reeves
Sculpture - Richard Serra
Installations/sculpture - Gedi Sibony
2 artists named Jennie Smith.. One paints; one does glass. Who is it? - Jennie Smith
Photography - Dash Snow
Video - Michael Snow
"fictional artist, performer and art dealer" - Reena Spaulings
Mixed Media/Painting/Drawing - Rudolf Stingel
Photography - Angela Strassheim
Photography/Installation - Zoe Strauss
Video - Studio Film Club
? - Sturtevant
Painting - Billy Sullivan
Painting/Drawing - Spencer Sweeney
Video - Ryan Trecartin
Painting - Chris Vasell
Video - Francesco Vezzoli
Sculpture/digital manipulation - Kelley Walker
Sculpture - Nari Ward
Photography - Christopher Williams
2 artists with this name. One painter, one video - Jordan Wolfson
It’s a small Gallery - The Wrong Gallery
Video - Aaron Young

The Art Newspaper interviews the curators. Read it here.

Update: Chris from Zeke's Gallery comes through with some updates:

1. "Dawolu Jabari Anderson" is probably "Jabari Anderson."

2. "Carter" might be Rob & Nick Carter (but then again might not).

3. "Deva" might be a tag name for a GRAFfiti artist.

4. "Kenya Evans" appears to be more of a painter than anything else. See it here.

5. "Jim O’Rourke" is a member and the producer of Sonic Youth (the downtown NY noise band)

6. "Sturtevant" is here.

And Chris also can't find anything concrete for Doug Henry, and Jennie Smith.

Corcoran Director

Paul Greenhalgh is the new Corcoran director.

DC Art News extends a welcome to Greenhalgh and wishes him the best of luck in running the only DC area art museum that actually pays a little bit of attention to DC area artists.

Read the WaPo article here.

Whitney Biennial List

According to their press release, the 2006 Biennial is the "signature survey measuring the mood of contemporary American art." It is however, loaded with European artists.

Nonetheless, congratulations to all the artists in the Biennial!

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla
Dawolu Jabari Anderson
Kenneth Anger
Dominic Angerame
Anonymous Collection
Christina Battle
James Benning
Bernadette Corporation
Amy Blakemore
Louise Bourque
Mark Bradford
Troy Brauntuch
Anthony Burdin
George Butler
Carter
Carolina Caycedo
The Center for Land Use Interpretation
Paul Chan
Lori Cheatle and Daisy Wright
Ira Cohen
Martha Colburn
Dan Colen
Anne Collier
Tony Conrad
Critical Art Ensemble
Jamal Cyrus
Deep Dish Television
Lucas DeGiulio
Mark di Suvero and Rirkrit Tiravanija
Peter Doig
Trisha Donnelly
Jimmie Durham
Kenya Evans
Urs Fischer
David Gatten
Joe Gibbons
Robert Gober
Deva Graf
Rodney Graham
Hannah Greely
Mark Grotjahn
Jay Heikes
Doug Henry
Pierre Huyghe
Dorothy Iannone
Matthew Day Jackson
Cameron Jamie
Natalie Jeremijenko
Daniel Johnston
Lewis Klahr
Jutta Koether
Andrew Lampert
Lisa Lapinski
Liz Larner
Hanna Liden
Jeanne Liotta
Marie Losier
Florian Maier-Aichen
Monica Majoli
Yuri Masnyj
T. Kelly Mason and Diana Thater
Adam McEwen
Taylor Mead
Josephine Meckseper
Marilyn Minter
Momus
Matthew Monahan
JP Munro
Jesús "Bubu" Negrón
Kori Newkirk
Todd Norsten
Jim O’Rourke
Otabenga Jones & Associates
Tony Oursler and Dan Graham with Rodney Graham, Laurent Berger, and Japanther
Steven Parrino
Ed Paschke
Mathias Poledna
Robert A. Pruitt
Jennifer Reeves
Richard Serra
Gedi Sibony
Jennie Smith
Dash Snow
Michael Snow
Reena Spaulings
Rudolf Stingel
Angela Strassheim
Zoe Strauss
Studio Film Club
Sturtevant
Billy Sullivan
Spencer Sweeney
Ryan Trecartin
Chris Vasell
Francesco Vezzoli
Kelley Walker
Nari Ward
Christopher Williams
Jordan Wolfson
The Wrong Gallery
Aaron Young

Read about the Biennial here.