Kahlo sets record

The sale of Frida Kahlo´s self-portrait, “Roots” sold for $5.6 million dollars at an auction held by Sotheby´s. This sets a record for the most expensive Latin American painting sold at an auction.

Read the details here.

The Arts and the Race for DC Mayor

This posting about DC mayoral candidate Michael A. Brown and this posting about Alma Thomas at the Hirshhorn triggered a DC Arts News reader to send me the following:

Anthony A. Lewis is the current president of Verizon Washington, D.C.

He succeeded Marie C. Johns, who is now running for mayor of DC (AND doing "meet and greets" at local white-owned art galleries).

Here are a few organizations that Tony Lewis is part of:

- he is a member of the DC Chamber of Commerce's Governing Board,

- he is a member of the board of directors of the Greater Washington Board of Trade,

- he is a member of the Washington Performing Arts Society,

- he is a member of the Federal City Council,

- and he is a member of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington

Now here is a black man who maybe ought to be tapped to be on the Hirshhorn's Board of Trustees or be groomed to become a purchasing friend who might buy a Lois Mailou Jones and give it to the Hirshhorn.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden generally accepts gifts of art only if it intends to accession them into its collections. The museum must, of necessity, be very selective to ensure that objects acquired are appropriate to the collections and can be properly cared for and displayed.

So maybe Tony Lewis will drop into the local DC white-owned gallery and maybe someone will convince him to buy up a Renee Stout and give it to the Hirshhorn.

Interesting points... if my memory serves me right, recently the Hirshhorn received a gift of a Renee Stout from Ubercollector Fred Ognibene; but the Hirshhorn could certainly use another one!

P.S. Tony Lewis: I know of a local, African-American owned, highly reputable art gallery which has a really nice (and early) Lois Mailou Jones original for sale. Talk to me!

Transcripts

Here are the transcripts from this morning's Weekend staff online session.

These online talks are rapidly becoming a forum for people to discuss on ways to expand the Weekend section's arts coverage and has also become a somewhat creative way for some of the Weekend staffers to keep sidestepping the issue.

Consider this really good suggestion/question:

McLean, Va.: How can the Weekend section give out a little more info on gallery shows, etc.? It seems like a lot of space is used to list page after page of museum shows (a lot of which are static and never change) on every issue ...

How about a once a month museum listing like you do now, and the other three weeks only list those museum shows that are new or opening (like you do with galleries).

That would free up additional space to discuss (maybe mini reviews) more art gallery shows ...

Bottom line is that the static museum listing, issue after issue ... seems a little "dusty" and that whole part of Weekend may need to re "re-freshed" -- We're starving for more art reviews out here ...

Aficionado de Arte

Good suggestion uh? I wish I had thought of the idea, which is a good workable suggestion to free up space in the section for more art coverage. But then witness how the suggestion itself is ignored in the response:

Curt Fields: More art reviews would be nice. We also hear from people who want more on Classical music, theater events, etc. And we'd love to write more on all those topics. Unfortunately the amount of space we have is not unlimited. It's a tricky juggling act.

Did Fields read the question/suggestion?

We know that the "amount of space" is not unlimited! But the suggestion offered a way to "free up" space. And yet he ignored that part and gave the canned "we have limited space and everyone wants us to cover their pet interests" answer.

WaPo Changes

This coming September, the WaPo is going to combine the Home, Health and Food sections into something called new The Daily Source.

It will have a staff of 30.

This is possibly an area where "new" or additional arts coverage could happen, since currently the Home section does occasionally run notices of art openings and certain art related gimmicks that feature decorating or interior design.

WaPo's Weekend Staff Online

The WaPo's Weekend staffers are online at 11AM today answering questions about Weekend and its coverage.

You can email your question to them here.

Update: Here are the transcripts from this morning's session. These online talks are rapidly becoming a forum for people to discuss on ways to expand the Weekend section's arts coverage.

The Corcoran's Roof

Oooh... Sommer Mathis over at DCist hits on a good one as she highlights Ed Lazere's (the executive director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute) most interesting piece in the current Hill Rag reviewing the Mayor's current budget proposal for arts funding in 2007.

Arts Funding in the Proposed 2007 Budget
Corcoran Roof - $8 million
Arena Stage Expansion - $10 million
Community Arts Programs - $8.1 million
Arts Education - $1.7 million
Howard Theater - $2.5 million
Barracks Row Theater - $2.5 million
Public Art Projects - $2.5 million

Lazere notes that

"Last year, the city pledged $20 million to support a major expansion at Arena Stage. This year's budget would raise the contribution from DC taxpayers even further, to $25 million, with $10 million coming in 2007. Overall, the budget would devote more to the Corcoran and Arena Stage in 2007 than to all other arts programs combined."

Read Lazere's entire piece here. It's interesting to me that the theatres are getting six times more funding than public art projects ($15 million compared to $2.5 million).

Diamonds are a Hirst's best friend

A few years ago we were approached by a (very wealthy) artist in her twenties who wanted to exhibit her (very bad) paintings in our galleries. Part of her gimmick was the fact that each work had around $50,000 in precious stones embedded in the thickly applied paint that she used.

We turned her down.

Leave it to Damien Hirst to outdo her; his latest project is a skull cast in platinum and covered in diamonds. This will be the most expensive piece of artwork ever created, and will bring Hirst closer to the Jeff Koons Art League.

The skull will cost around $15-18 million smackers.

"I just want to celebrate life by saying to hell with death. What better way of saying that than by taking the ultimate symbol of death and covering it in the ultimate symbol of luxury, desire and decadence?

The only part of the original skull that will remain will be the teeth. You need that grotesque element for it to work as a piece of art. God is in the details and all that.

I've always adhered to the principle that the simplest ideas are the best, and this will be the ultimate two fingers up to death. I want people to see it and be astounded. I want them to gasp."

I'm already gaggingsping.

Alma Thomas

The Hirshhorn has some of the Alma Thomas paintings in its collection currently on exhibition.

Thomas, who lived most of her life (and taught art to children for many years) in DC, didn't even have her first solo show until she was 68 years old, and still managed to fit in retrospectives at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and what was then called the National Museum of American Art, and then became the first African American woman to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC.

She died in 1978, and many of the Thomas' paintings in the Hirshhorn collection were gifted to the museum after her death.

I find it a little curious that the Hirshhorn has eight Thomas in its collection, but only one Lois Mailou Jones, who was one of Thomas' professors at Howard (Thomas was Howard's first Art Department graduate in 1924).

Jones died in 1998. Time for some more gifts to the Hirsh...

Lecture

Next week, on Wed. June 7, 2006, at 12 noon, Michelle Greet, Assistant Professor of Art History, George Mason University will deliver a slide lecture titled "From Matta to Gego: Modes of Abstraction in Latin America" at the Art Museum of the Americas, a truly gorgeous, and often ignored, art space in our region.

Free and open to the public!

Bailey in the WaPo

Bailey is in today's WaPo.

See it here.

We have them too

An alert DC Art News reader points out that in the WaPo's District Extra, there is an article about how Michael A. Brown is getting political endorsements for his DC mayoral campaign in places outside the DC area.

So what's this story got to to do with the visual arts?

Apparently Brown was in Atlanta to raise funds for his campaign, which he last reported in March as having less than $12,000 in cash. Andrew Young endorsed him in front of a crowd of about 150 who paid $100 to attend a reception at an African American-owned art gallery.

Now this is something that has never happened in DC... or has it?

And what is it with WaPo's writers and their "generalizing" of art galleries or museums (describing them as "an art gallery" or in Big Al Carter's article, as "an art museum"), rather than telling their readers the name of that art gallery in Atlanta? Had it been a defense contractor, or any other business, we'd know immediately who it was.

And Mr. Brown, if you need to pick up some endorsements in our area, and need an excellent African-American owned art gallery to host the event, we have them too! I'll even tell you the name of some of them.

Zuik

As you can probably tell from the dearth of postings, I have been super busy and away from DC this week.

And tonite just back from Heineman-Myers where Argentine painter Martha Zuik had a nice artist's talk amidst some really good Argentine wine tasting... more on Zuik later.

Carter's Show

Another DC Art News reader points out that this link has all the info about the Big Al Carter museum show that the WaPo article failed to reveal.

Online grilling

Last Sunday's Washington Post Magazine did something quite out of the ordinary: it actually had a profile of a DC area artist: Allen D. Carter.

And one of DC Art News readers wrote to me that

"it's INFURIATING thru the whole article they keep referring to some museum in North Carolina where Carter's work will be featured in group show... after searching on the curator's name you can dig up The Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum. Would it kill them to mention the name of the museum? would this kind of writing be tolerated for a political story or a sports story? That town hall meeting that happened somewhere in North Carolina? That game that was played somewhere in the south? I dont think so..."

Good points!

And then today, the author of the piece, Mary Battiata, was online discussing the article (I was away all day and missed it!) and answering questions and yikes... was she grilled!

Everything is online here.

Reston Report

Back from jurying the 15th Annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival in Reston, which expects to gather anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 art lovers this weekend to check out 150 artists and artisans from around the nation.

The jurying was brutal work, as there were many talented artists, and it also seems like sales were going gangbusters (Marvin Blackmore sold a $25,000 piece while we were jurying around!).

Also ran into Bailey, who was a volunteer at the show and was delivering lunches and water and sodas to the artists.

And Kirkland also benefited from the first day of the show, as one of his pieces sold at the GRACE gallery. His solo looks really good and clean (more on that later).

Anyway, we awarded the best in show to Chris Plummer, a really young printmaker from Kentucky with some deeply interesting woodcuts.

I also liked the work of Michigan artist Helen Gotlib, but couldn't swing a prize for her (she won a prize last year).

Also of interest were the amazing retablos of Nicario Jimenez, last seen locally at an exhibition last year in the Corcoran.

Other prizewinners included woodturner Kim Blatt, sculptor Valerie Bunnell, watercolorist Randy Eckart, an amazing young minimalist jeweler by the name of Geoffry Giles, who won the First Prize in the Crafts category, and the always intelligent photographs of Vincent Serbin.

And I also fell in love with the furniture of Damian Velazquez: this guy is amazing and affordable!

Update: Bailey's report here.

Saturday Assignments

If you're in an artsy mood and want to hang around Bethesda, you can start your day by attending the artists' talk at Fraser Gallery at 2PM and then walking over to the opening of the new exhibition at Heineman Myers Contemporary Art.

First: Many of the artists from the current Compelled by Content II exhibition will deliver an artists' talk, sponsored by the James Renwick Alliance at the Fraser Gallery on Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 2PM.

The talk is free and open to the public and will also offer an opportunity to learn more about the Renwick Alliance. There will be plenty of sangria at hand.

Then Heineman-Myers Contemporary Art opens its second show ever with an exhibition of new works by acclaimed Argentine painter Martha Zuik. The opening for Zuik is from 6-9PM.

Restonin' Today

I'll be in Reston all day, one of three jurors selecting the prizewinners for the 15th Annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival in Reston, Virginia. About 150 artists from all over the country, a few thousand dollars in prizes, tons of bucks in sales, and between 60,000 - 80,000 people attend, look at and buy art at the festival, which runs Saturday and Sunday. Details here.

Missed it!

Weekend section writers had their Friday online chat this morning, but I missed it as I hadn't seen them on the schedule.

Lots of beach questions, but someone asked:

Washington, D.C.: While I understand that there is concern for cultivating the "new" reader (i.e., the under-35 demographic) it seems the Weekend section believes that the cult of celebrity is what is of chief concern.

Why else has the erudite O'Sullivan been assigned to waste his talents interviewing Hollywood celebrities when the Metro area under-35 crowd really HUNGERS to read more in-depth analysis of why the young artist Laurel Nakadate creates artwork that is "almost sickening in its soul-deadness" yet this very "soul-deadness" has "undeniable power" WHY IS THAT this reader wants to know?

This 32-year-old reader finds the celebrity interview sickening in its soul-deadness. It is noteworthy, that today's thought provoking piece on artwork featured in a local commercial gallery occurs when O'Sullivan has not split his focus with Hollywood.

I want more of The Weekend section HERE, not in Hollywood.

Michael O'Sullivan: I think there's a question buried in there somewhere, and I'll try to address it, along with another point only implicitly raised by my erudite questioner. Laurel Nakadate's work is powerful for exactly the paradox you've put your finger on -- not despite, but because of its sickening soul-deadness. There's a kind of power in art that makes us angry, or scared, or even nauseated. Not everyone may like that feeling. I kind of welcome it. I think this would have been clearer if I had written more extensively about Nakadate's work, instead of including her with four other artists showing in three different galleries housed under the same roof. I wanted to get them all in though, even if only briefly, since they're all worthwhile shows in my opinion. Other questioners (and perhaps even this one) in previous chats have wanted more coverage of local art. That's what I'm trying to do, with occasional "round-ups" of multiple shows like this, which are, of necessity, less in-depth than if I had devoted all my attention to a single artist.

The questioner is referring to O'Sullivan's review of Nakadate in today's Weekend. Read that here.

Submit your questions (for next week) to the Weekend staffers here.

Here Comes the Judge

I'll be jurying a couple of art related events this weekend:

First of all, I'm one of three jurors selecting the prizewinners for the 15th Annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival in Reston, Virginia. About 150 artists from all over the country, a few thousand dollars in prizes, tons of bucks in sales, and between 60,000 - 80,000 people attend, look at and buy art at the festival, which runs Saturday and Sunday. Details here.

Today is the deadline for the 10th Annual Greater Washington, DC International Fine Arts Competition, which I juried back in 1997 and which I will jury again this year. Drop off entries by the gallery today!

Recent AU Acquisitions

Recent acquisitions of AU's Watkins Gallery and the Katzen Collection are on view at the Katzen Arts Center now and will be through June 18, 2006.

This exhibition of acquisitions, the first since the museum opened in July 2005, features work by several Washington-based artists — there's a stone sculpture by Jim Sanborn, Noche Christ’s folk-like painting of a fantasy harem, a color abstraction by Howard Mehring, as well as contemporary art from by New York color field painter Jules Olitski and California funk artist Roy De Forest.