Botero in DC

If my memory serves me right, Fernando Botero's career started accidentally in Washington, DC in the 1950s.

And now my good friend Jack Rasmussen, who runs the American University Museum at the Katzen is bringing Botero's most controversial work to the Katzen.

Read it all here.

WOW!

Opportunity for Artists

"Sex Issue" exhibition at Projekt30.

Announcing the second annual "Sex Issue" exhibition at Projekt30. An exhibition showcasing fine artists exploring or commenting upon issues of gender and sexuality in our society. We are accepting work ranging from the personal, to the political, to the near-pornographic. The exhibition will be publicly juried: All artwork submitted will be presented February 2-13, 2007 so visitors may help select what will be included, unlike other juried exhibitions everyone receives exposure. The final exhibition will consist of work from 30 artists. It will run from Valentines Day, February 14 to April 15th, 2007. Mailings will be distributed to over 50,000 galleries, collectors, and fellow artists. Fee: $35 for up to 10 images. Go to: this website for complete details or to www.projekt30.com to apply online.

If you don't get it

In 1999 the Washington Post sent out a letter to all their subscribers detailing some major changes in the paper which were designed to improve the newspaper itself.

The letter, signed by Donald Graham, the publisher of the Post, asked for feedback and opinions, and so I wrote them the below letter. In the letter I not only expressed what I thought were shortcomings in the WaPo's arts coverage, but also gave the WaPo several ideas for improvement.

Sadly, since then coverage has only become worse. The "Galleries" column is now published about 20 times a year instead of weekly, and "Arts Beat" is also no longer weekly, but apparently ad hoc.

All of the names mentioned in the letter have since left the Post, retired, or been replaced, but by a freelancer and by a chief art critic who does not write about Washington, DC art galleries and artists.

If you don't get it, you don't get it.

January 27, 1999

Donald E. Graham
Publisher
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Mr. Graham,

Thank you for your letter dated January 24, 1999. I'm eagerly looking forward to the new "improved" Washington Post.

Since you asked me for my opinion on how the new, improved Post can serve its readers better, I'm hereby sending you a few comments and some facts which may be of interest to you, and which may in fact help you in the future as you continue to improve the Washington Post.

One area of the newspaper, which continues to receive local attention and acute criticism, is the Post's lack of coverage of the metropolitan visual fine arts scene. While the Style section and the Weekend magazine combine to deliver a complete, in-depth coverage of many of the genres which make up a city's cultural life, (such as music, movies, theatre, opera, architecture and our museums) the Post continues to ignore largely the visual arts as defined by the art exhibited and the artists of the Greater Washington, DC area.

The immediate gut reaction of the Style editor might be "but Ferdinand Protzman covers the galleries on Thursday?" Yes, that is true and that answer may reflect the lack of understanding to the key to the problem. Not Protzman, but the fact that his weekly column is the only mention which local galleries and artists routinely get in the Post.

The "Arts Beat" column, which also appears on Thursdays, does on occasion cover a visual arts event, but that is the exception, rather than the rule. If we switch over to the Weekend magazine, it does not take a lot of research to discover that in the last few years (yes years) the "On Exhibit" section, although having a masthead which proclaims it to be about "Galleries, Museums and Art Spaces" has not covered a single fine art gallery in this city in years. It is devoted exclusively to museum shows in our city and other cities.

This lack of "participation" in the development of our city's visual art scene is shameful in a city which boasts over 200 art galleries and which once had one of the most vibrant local visual art scenes in the nation. What makes it even more astounding is the brilliant coverage that the other cultural genres receive from the Post.

Museums (or "dead artists" as living counterparts often refer to them) get brilliant coverage in the Post and I applaud this! With one of the best museum scenes in the world this is commendable. Thus, three of your art critics (Jo Ann Lewis, Burchard and Paul Richards) all write about museum shows and on very, very rare occasions write something which is "local" in nature. This is the exception, rather than the rule; it may happen once or twice a year. They even cover museum shows in other cities. These writers do not write about local art galleries -- only Protzman, and we must wait for his words to be decanted once a week, to read and breathe local visual arts.

Movies are reviewed or discussed nearly every day in Style and it is not unusual for the same movie to be written about (by different authors) in Style and in the Weekend section on Fridays. The same goes for theatre; even though there are more art galleries than theatres in this city, and the public is more exposed to them than to the theatre, every play in every recognized theatre gets exposure and reviews. The same goes for music, be it live, stage or recorded. This is all good, but it again highlights the huge differences in the coverage as compared to the local art galleries and visual artists.

Why is this phenomenon unusual? Because other major newspapers, especially papers as powerful as the Post do not act in the same manner. The Post is the only major newspaper that I know of which does not have a galleries art critic in its staff (as you know Mr. Protzman is a freelancer). I have been told that the New York Times has eleven gallery critics writing for them, The Seattle Times four, the S.F. Examiner three and the L.A. Times four.

Washington artists and art galleries deserve better. In fact, they deserve equal print space. Art criticism and art reviews are not easy to write; yet a variety of skilled critics do exist in our city, so the writing talent is here; this is not an excuse.

Your reading public deserves better. Mr. Protzman's weekly piece is just not enough and it's only one point of view. This is not healthy for our artists and for our art scene.

Several weeks ago, at the Art Symposium sponsored by the Washington Art Dealers Association, one of the representatives from the Post made the statement that the "reason that art galleries do not get reviewed in the Post is because they don't advertise." I refuse to believe, even in today's austere economic environment, that this could be the reason.

What is the reason for this lack of coverage -- especially when compared to the brilliant job which the paper does for the "other" local arts in general? In my opinion the reason is that the editors of both Style and Weekend do not feel that your reading public is interested in art galleries and local artists. They want to publish "only" what they feel their public wants to read. Even if this were correct, which I doubt it is, I think that this is not the attitude and goal for one of the world's greatest newspapers.

Why does this concern me? Three months ago I was contacted and commissioned by an ad hoc group of local artists who commissioned me to do a one year study on the coverage of the Washington Post to local art galleries and then quantify that coverage in terms of proportion to other arts coverage. The initial results, some of which I have mentioned in this letter, have been particularly astounding.

Secondly, I am deeply involved in the city's art scene. I am a member of the D.C. City Arts Projects Program Advisory Panel, an artist, a gallery owner and a regularly published regional art critic.

As such, I encourage you to perhaps think about refocusing more attention to our Washington artists and galleries. There is a variety of ways in which this can be done and my suggestions are:

(a) Assign one week out of the month to local gallery coverage in Weekend's "On Exhibit" section (or take 'Galleries' off the masthead).

(b) Keep Mr. Protzman's weekly "Galleries" column on Thursdays.

(c) Nicole Lewis' "Arts Beat" should not echo what has already been covered by music critics or theatre critics, etc. Devote at least 50% of that column, which runs concurrently with "Galleries," to visual arts. Keep Thursdays focused on Art Galleries (which it's supposed to be its focus anyway).

(d) Pick up a "pool" of local art critics and assign a different one each week (also on Thursdays) to write mini-art reviews to augment Mr. Protzman's more elaborate, in-depth art criticism.

(e) Six times a year assign one of your museum art critics to do a piece on a local gallery show, or local art movement, or local gallery groups, etc. Something flavored by the local arts.

(f) Have local art critics and even Mr. Protzman write more reviews and just "publish" them in your excellent web pages.

There were over 30 pieces written about the van Gogh exhibit by the Post, ranging from front-page coverage to the business section. This shows that someone at the Post recognizes the interest in your reading public about the works of art which hung so vociferously at the National Gallery; I submit to you that this same interest can be kindled for the van Goghs of the future.

Thank you for your attention,

F. Lennox Campello

The Art Market

Do people really believe the kitschy pictures of naked girls with pussy cats by German painter Martin Eder are any good or are buyers simply jumping on the bandwagon because his prices have reached $500,000? When we learn that a newish painting by the second-rate latter-day Neo-Expressionist Marlene Dumas sold for over three million dollars, does it alter how we think of her work? Does it alter the ways magazine editors or curators think about it?

The curator of Dumas's upcoming MOMA exhibition, the otherwise excellent Connie Butler, recently responded to one of my public hissy fits about the overestimation of this artist by saying, "Dumas has been making portraits of terrorists," as if to suggest that certain subject matter exempts art from criticism. In fact, this subject matter is not only predictable and generic, and in that sense utterly conservative, its perfect fodder for a culture in disconnect.

It's wonderful that mediocre women artists now command the same astronomical prices for their art that mediocre male artists always have. But do artists who don't sell for high prices have less of a chance to ever make money? Are Vito Acconci and Adrian Piper fated to forever being 'Lifestyles of the Poor and Famous' artists? If you're unknown and over 35 do you have a shot? In this era of the 30-month career, what happened to the idea of the 30-year career?

The Village Voice's Jerry Saltz intelligently rants and raves about the art market in a piece titled Seeing Dollar Signs - Is the art market making us stupid? Or are we making it stupid?

Read it here.

Re-examining the Camel Toe

I'm pretty sure that the above headline will get me some interesting Google referrals, but it's all about performance artist Kathryn Williamson, whose performance "Size Zero: Re-examining the Camel Toe" is done "as a commentary on America's obsession with female body image in popular culture."

Williamson says that she "will try to put on a pair of jeans that are several sizes too small. If Sarah Jessica Parker, Nicole Richie and the Olsen twins wear a size zero, why can’t I?"

The performance will take place at the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda at 4PM on Saturday, January 20 and it is part of a jam-packed week two of the Bethesda Artomatic events, which in addition to Williamson's performace at Fraser includes many other events for the four days stretching from Friday, January 19th to Monday, January 22nd.

There are talks by artists Matt Sesow and Elizabeth Morisette at Creative Partners Gallery, an open dance rehearsal and lecture-demo at Joy of Motion featuring Crosscurrents Dance Company, a free concert by area favorites Dead Men’s Hollow at the Round House Theatre, a headshot party at the Washington School of Photography (where WSP instructors will provide each attendee/artist with a free headshot on a CD, for use by the artist in promotional materials - bring your own CD), and much more.

To make it easier they’ve put together the day-by-day schedule of Artomatic associated events, as well as a walking map to the venues which can be found at this website.

Wanna go to an art event in DC tonight?

I am told that if you didn't RSVP that you can still show up! See below...

Congratulations

To former DC area artist Jiha Moon (represented locally by Curator's Office), and a past winner of the Trawick Prize, as two of her pieces have been acquired by the Hirshhorn Museum as a generous gift of my good friend Mario Cader-Frech, and Robert Wennett.

Buy Jiha Moon now!

Robin Tierney's Top 10

Robin Tierney writes art criticism and covers art events and issues in the Greater DC area for the Washington Examiner. Below is her list of her Top 10 DC area art shows:

"I'm going from memory. These are in no particular order of preferences, and I would prefer to list 15 or 20 in my top 10 (metaphysically speaking). These don't include big-gallery shows (like dada at NGA, Joseph Cornell at SAAM, Hiroshi Sugimoto at Hirshhorn & Sackler, the smartly focused "women" shows that Jack curated (non-locals) at AU/Katzen, etc.); just local artist-focused showcases.

1. Juke, Jefferson Pinder's video installation at G Fine Arts

2. City Hall "HeART of DC" Art Collection (because it's a fantastic array of local, diverse talents of several generations).

3. Katzen/AU: "Remembering Marc and Komei."

4. Warehouse shows such as Freak House (Dana Ellyn and Russell Richards...I hadn't known of him before; such a combination of imagination and precision/technique). And the Peace show (which may have also been called War).

5. Fraser Gallery: now how can one decide between Interface, Compelled by Content II and Annual Photo Show? Maybe Interface first.

OK, some that other folks may not mention:

6. Sculpture Unbound: like a playpen for the mind.

7. Touchstone's Mud, Earth... I am forgetting the name. But then again, now I'm thinking I was more pleasantly surprised by fiber creativity at Touchstone's Woven Tapestries by the Wednesday Group (a group of local fiber artists).

8. Rebecca Cross Mackenzie's Raku. Actually, CM had two shows that had many standout pieces. Some folks classify ceramics/pottery as 'other than art' but I respect Rebecca's efforts to show the art potential of such works and think her gallery helps build up the DC art scene's foundation.

9. Cupidity at Gallery Neptune. Liked the lively alchemy of this artful experiment (among other shows there).

10. Various rotating displays of member work at Washington Printmaker Gallery. Not necessarily a particular feature artist exhibition, but over a few visits there one can discover treasures along with magic etching tricks.

Jobs in the Arts

Assistant Professor, Arts Management American University, Department of Performing Arts - Washington, DC.

The Department of Performing Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences at American University invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor in Arts Management, beginning fall 2007. Applicants must have a Master's Degree in Arts Management or in a related field. PhD, preferred.

Three years professional experience in arts management or a related field is required. Applicants should be prepared to teach graduate courses in marketing and public relations, arts programming, and related undergraduate level courses including General Education, advise and mentor both graduate and undergraduate students in arts management and related fields, and have demonstrated excellence in teaching and scholarship in arts management and/or a related field. Send letter of application addressing teaching and research interests and experience, curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation to:

SEARCH COMMITTEE
DEPARTMENT OF PERFORMING ARTS
KATZEN ARTS CENTER
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
4400 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20016-8053

For best consideration, applications should be complete by January 20, 2006 (yikes! that's tomorrow!). Direct inquiries to streeks@american.edu.

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Director of Development: Smithsonian Institution, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden - Washington, DC

The Hirshhorn, one of the nation's leading contemporary art museums, seeks to broaden its base of private sector support to provide a platform for the art and artists of our time, to connect more fully with their regional and local community and to better serve the 750,000 visitors they welcome annually.

Building on the strength of an existing program, the Director of Development, will expand their capacity in individual and major gift campaigns, corporate and foundation relations and develop strategic alliances and sponsorship programs that will support the museum goals in exhibition, educational programming, and collections development. For a detailed position description and application procedures visit www.si.edu/ohr listing Vacancy announcement #EX-07-02, closing date 1/19/07. The Smithsonian is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Email or fax resume with a cover letter referencing experience and qualifications by closing date to lawrencet@hr.si.edu or fax 202/275-1115.

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VSA arts seeks Director of Outcomes and Evaluation - Washington, DC

A position description can be found at the Employment button of the Kennedy Center web site. Applications can be submitted from that web site. Interested individuals can also contact:

James E. Modrick
Vice President, Affiliate & Education Services
VSA arts
818 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 600
Washington DC 20006
202-628-2800

Jazz & Art at the Katzen

The Katzen at American University in having a free Jazz & Art night this coming Saturday at the museum from 7-9PM. See details here.

Bloomberg looks at DC art

Roger Atwood of Bloomberg.com checks in with a piece on some DC area art shows. Read it here.

Congratulations

Contemporary Art Gallery magazine has a nice article by Tia Marks on our own Rosetta DeBerardinis. Read it here.

Philip Barlow's Top 10

Ubercollector Phillip Barlow is a towering presence at most DC area art shows, and also has done a super job in his first venture as a curator. Below is his list of his top 10 DC area art shows for 2006 and they are in order

1. Simon Gouverneur – Curator’s Office (1/28/06 – 3/4/06)

2. Brandon Morse – Conner Contemporary (3/17/06 – 4/29/06)

3. Iona Brown & Jefferson Pinder – G Fine Art (11/18/06 – 1/6/07)

4. Jae Ko – Marsha Mateyka (9/28/06 – 10/28/06)

5. Laurel Lukaszewski – Project 4 (6/16/06 – 7/22/06)

6. Robin Rose & Sharon Sanderson – Hemphill Fine Art (9/16/06 – 10/28/06)

7. Dan Treado – Addison/Ripley Fine Art (9/9/06 – 10/14/06)

8. Manon Cleary – WAM (Edison Place Gallery) (9/14/06 – 10/27/6)

9. Amy Lin – District of Columbia Arts Center (12/15/06 – 1/15/07)

10. Teo Gonzalez – Irvine Contemporary (9/8/06 – 10/14/06)

More Baltimorism

Uli Loskot is a talented photojournalist from Austria who shoots for the Baltimore City Paper.

She has been spending a lot of time in Mexico and those works will be included in the exhibition "Northern Comfort" at The Whole Gallery (405 W. Franklin Street in Baltimore). The exhibition also includes works by Seth Mathurin, Steve Dewey, Dirk Joseph and Mike Miller.

Check it out Saturday, January 20th. Music by Lighter Thieves and Puddle. 7PM to Mindnight.

Art Horror Story

Read this Los Angeles Times story about artist John O'Brien and what happened when he decided to sell reproductions of his paintings.

Add a dishonest art dealer to the mix and this is what you get.

Baltimore Yarns

"Yarns of the Material World" opens January 20, 2007 from 6-10 pm at Cubicle 10 in Baltimore.

The exhibition features work by Ken Ashton, D.Billy, Zoe Charlton, Jeffry Cudlin, Rick Delananey, Richard Dana, Candace Keegan, Bridget Sue Lambert, Bill Johnson, J.T. Kirkland, Jefferson Pinder, Michael Platt, Stan Squirewell, Alex Schuchard and Trish Tillman.

The gallery is at 1431-1435 North Central Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21202 and can be reached at 202-247-0595.

While there swing by the new Patricia Touchet Gallery and see DC artist's Sean Hennessey's first solo, as I've been hearing good things about that show.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: February 1, 2007

The National Society of Arts and Letters 2007 Water Media Art Competition is accepting applications from younger artists, age 18-29. Deadline is February 1st, 2007. $4,000 prize with opportunity to win $10,000 prize at the national level. Works must be made with water-soluable paint or ink. Details here.

Exhibit for the competition will be at Heineman Myers in Bethesda, MD from March 18-25, 2007.

Art Party on 14th Street

By Rosetta DeBerardinis

January is usually a dead month for art, but there was a party going on opening night along DC’s newest art district - 14th Street, N.W. Bright lights were flashing, car horns blowing and art lovers spilling onto the sidewalk in front of the galleries. It was a wild night in the city.

Hemphill

As I made my way through the narrow entrance at 1515 14th Street to visit some of the best galleries in city, I rubbed past many familiar faces dodging wine-filled plastic cups.

Ah-to be pencil-thin again!

Once inside the three-story urban industrial space, two friends suggested I begin with Hemphill Fine Arts. It was filled with people who looked like hires from Central Casting. Everyone was chic, hip, urban - and young. A great place to check-out the latest fashion trends in eyewear.

The show “Colby Caldwell | small game” (a collection of mostly landscape inkjet prints on wood), gave you a sense of space and depth in a gallery that had none. It was jam-packed!

"after nature (41)" by Colby Caldwell

Some sought relief from the tuxedo-clad servers who were generously dispensing wine, beer, water or whatever would take the edge off the intense body-heat. My favorite print was “after nature (41),” or #9 according to the signage on the wall. I assume it is part of a series because there are eight paintings with the same title on the price list.

This work captures the hues of darkness and the formations of water with a very thin color-line depicting a horizon far into the distance. There lies the subtle beauty of black and white photography and its size (45 7/8” x 61 3/8”) captivates the viewer, however, the striped abstracts that open the show are not as compelling as Caldwell’s transformable landscapes.

Adamson

The hallways on my way to Adamson Editions were filled with chatter and more members of the fashion crowd. Adamson usually has a more mature, sophisticated and moneyed crowd at his openings. But, where there is free food and free alcohol there is the infamous DC moochers (as anointed by the City Paper).

"Jessie Mann: Self Possessed, Photos by Len Prince," an exhibit of black and white photography was the strongest show in the building. I overheard conversations from the locals who disagreed with me and conjured up recollections of the Mapplethorpe debacle.

First of all, the show exhibited the human figure which everyone loves and can relate to - especially in Washington. I particularly liked the nude female seated on a rickety old staircase holding an Ipod with its cord running up the staircase still connected to its charger. And, the beautiful outline of a female sitter like a relief in the round, her considerable charm form the fluid grace of her outline.

This is a show of beauty, talent, creativity and excellent technical execution.

G Fine Art

Walking sideways through another packed hallway, I wiggled into G Fine Art who was hosting "Civilian @ G," the second launching of Jamie McLellan’s new gallery without walls, the Civilian Art Projects.

The Projects is currently a roving installation of its gallery artists held at host venues. Its first exhibition was at the Warehouse in December. It is my understanding that these premier exhibits are intended to introduce Civilians' stable of artists.

It was also packed with many familiar faces in the crowd. Washington collector and curator Phillip Barlow stood towering over the crowd, and somehow “the moochers” had beaten me there.

It was a non-thematic group exhibition. And, a little signage on the walls to tell us the “who and what” about the works would have surely helped.

I found the show of edgy and innovative works uneven, but like every exhibit, there were a few outstanding pieces. The two collages with paper cut-outs of urban hipsters wearing summer outwear (eg. Birkenstocks, sleeveless t-shirts, sunglasses) strolling through the stark white aftermath of a major blizzard was the best.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, confusion and my ignorance, I missed what I heard is a superb G Fine Art photography group show in the back gallery including works by one of my favorite photographers, Chan Chao.

Irvine

Exiting the building was as difficult as entering it. Now it is around eight-something, so I dashed to Irvine Contemporary Art, housed in the next block.

Luckily, the crowd there had thinned. It is showing two exhibits “Melissa Ichiuji: Nasty Nice” and Kahn Selesnick’s “The Apollo Prophecies: New Photographs.”

Ichujii’s doll-like sculptures leaning toward surrealism dominates the front gallery. When you enter the space “Snake-n-eggs” is a hair-less form relaxing on a white pedestal flaunting her fertile eggs that are lying atop an array of beautiful colored feathers. From this point on in the exhibit you know this is no typical doll-show.

The wall text reads: “Beauty is dangerous in narrow times, a knife in a slender neck of the rational man, and only those who live between the layers of these strange days can know its shape and name.” (From Great Jones Street, 1973).

The gallery assistant began to flicker the lights like a call for seating in a theatre. “We will re-open on Tuesday,” she announced. Flickering lights usually signal a beginning but instead it marked the end of a great night for art on 14th Street-in January!

Call for Curatorial Proposals

Deadline: January 31st, 2007

The Bronx River Art Center, a 2,000 sq. ft. storefront exhibition space consisting of two interconnected galleries, is seeking dynamic and challenging curatorial proposals from emerging and mid-career curators. Selected proposals will be included in BRAC’s 2007-2008 exhibitions program.

They welcome innovative concept-based proposals involving new media, new genres and interdisciplinary practices as well as projects that interweave site-specificity and public/community interaction, however all submissions will be reviewed and considered.

All proposals should include:

*A written statement of the proposed project (including its concept and its relevance to contemporary society, contemporary art and/or the Bronx community)

*CVs and bios for all participating artists and curator(s)

*Documentation on the artwork proposed in slide form, 8.5”x11” prints, CD or DVD

*An accompanying Image List for all of the visual materials submitted. This list can also include a short description of each of the pieces if applicable.

*A SASE for the return of materials (optional)

Proposals should be mailed to:

Bronx River Art Center
c/o Jose Ruiz – Gallery Coordinator
1087 East Tremont Avenue
Bronx, NY 10460

For additional information, please contact:
Jose Ruiz – Gallery Coordinator
(718)589-5819 (x14)
jruiz@bronxriverart.org

$7 Million Gift for the Eakins' Cause

Athena and Nicholas Karabots of Fort Washington, PA, have contributed a total of $7 million to the homegrown Philly effort to keep Thomas Eakins' "The Gross Clinic in Philadelphia."

This is the second largest gift towards the effort after after that of the Annenberg Foundation. So far $37 million has been raised.

Now... if DC could get their local Greek-American philantrophist(s) such as Ted Leonsis (go Caps!), to contribute a good chunk of greenbacks to the cause of a Washington Art Museum for Washington, DC - as every other major American city has a "local" museum, then we'd all be in sweet art heaven.