Don't Miss this Opening in DC

The glass that Washington Glass School co-founder Erwin Timmers uses in the process of creating artwork comes from the least recycled of materials: window glass.

The vast majority of this material comes from the building/demolition sector and is largely disposed of in landfills or used as secondary aggregate. Unlike the glass made specifically for craft and fine arts use, window, or float glass is difficult to remelt, and not much information exists on the properties and annealing temperatures.

As the Washington Glass School becomes more and more of not only a cultural leader, but also a technical innovator in the most technically-challenging of the the fine arts, Timmers has developed new fusing techniques to exploit the characteristics of the recycled tempered glass, and he often works the glass into reconfigured steel housings, including discarded traffic lights.

This work is part of the new movement now emerging that recycles discarded materials into art and some now call it "green" art, and Timmers is one of the leading and earliest practitioners of this "green art movement."

These are not artists who just re-use materials - that has been done for a long time - but artists who are concerned also with environmental and social issues in their themes, apply it through their techniques and it's not just the finished product, but also the process used to create the art. They also work with "green" architects in the process of incorporating artwork into the design of the new green buildings.

Erwin Timmers opens in DC's Studio Gallery with an artist reception on Friday May 25th, 2007 from 6 - 8pm and there's an artist talk on Sunday, June 10th at 3pm. Studio Gallery is the oldest artist owned gallery in Washington, DC.

Nayda Collazo-Llorens at Project 4

Talking about DC's Project 4, last Saturday they opened Navigable Zones by Puerto Rican artist Nayda Collazo-Llorens.

In this site-specific exhibition organized by the super-talented independent curator Laura Roulet, the entire gallery space will be hyper-linked as a multi-media installation.

According to Roulet, "evoking themes of displacement, navigation and language these installations seek to examine Collazo-Llorens's dual cultural existence as a Puerto Rican living and working in the United States. Her paintings, drawings, text and video act as interconnected systems to form a non-linear mindscape. Employing repetition, variation and mapping the work explores the mind's internal systems that perceive, order and remember external environments."

The show goes through June 16, 2007.

Artomatic's last week

As AOM winds down and closes on May 20, I've been thinking about how each AOM seems to serve not only to re-charge the artistic energy of the region, but also manages to pop out an art superstar or two from amongst the masses of artists. I will also finally answer JT Kirkland's question from three years ago.

Artomatic began in 1999 in the historic Manhattan Laundry building in Washington, DC. Around three hundred and fifty artists had cleaned, set up lights, painted and took over the 100,000 square feet space. Over 20,000 visitors attended the first Artomatic over a period of 6 weeks. The uberartist(s) emerging from this first AOM were the Dumbacher Brothers, who went on to showing at Fusebox Gallery and others around the country, as well as exhibiting at the Corcoran.

In 2000, 665 artists exhibited and 200 others performed at the old Hechinger’s building as AOM returned bigger and attracted more visitors. The name that emerged from that second Artomatic was Tim Tate, who went on to show many times at Fraser Gallery, open the Washington Glass School (now the nation's second largest warm glass school), start a whole new movement in glass, and place his work in a multitude of museums.

In 2002 more than 1000 artists and performers took part at the 3rd AOM at the Southwest Waterfront Building. M. Jordan Tierney's gorgeous installation began to propel her towards her current success, including exhibitions at the NMWA and many galleries

Even more artists participated in 2004 at the old Capitol Children’s Museum in Northeast DC. Both Kelly Towles and Kathryn Cornelius jumped out of that AOM, but the true superstar artist from that show was Frank Warren of Postsecret. By then, around 40,000 visitors were checking out AOM.

So who will be the emerging artstar from the current Artomatic?

My money is on Laurel Lukaszewski, already represented in the DC area by Project 4 Gallery.

Only time will tell, but buy her work now.

Make the time

To swing by the Distric of Columbia Arts Center in DC and see Ian and Jan: The Undiscovered Duo, A Secret History of the Washington Body School, featuring Jeffry Cudlin and Meg Mitchell.

In the video, Cudlin and Mitchell stage an art historical intervention, weaving an alternative history for Washington art. Cudlin and Mitchell mount a retrospective for their alter egos, Ian and Jan — a fictitious husband-and-wife performance art duo.

According to the exhibition’s premise, "Ian and Jan led the Washington Body School , a group that, in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, exhibited their body art alongside the work of prominent Washington abstract painters.

Ian and Jan: The Washington Body School provides humorous commentary on Washington ’s cultural legacy, on revisionist art historical agendas, and on gender bias and power politics in the arts. The show includes photographs, drawings, props, and videos of the couple in action."

Through June 3, 2007.

New addition

I swung by the IV Annual Bethesda Fine Arts Festival yesterday for a little bit and picked up two works of art - one is a gift and one will be a new addition to the collection.

There are some suberb artists out there as well as some really high end crafts. The festival goes through 5PM today.

Consultants

Why some art collectors hire consultants... read it here.

A Lesson?

There's a lesson to be learned here.

Wanna go to an opening in DC tomorrow?

Opening this Saturday, May 12, 2007 in a couple of DC art venues: "Big in Japan," a cross-town collaborative exhibition between Transformer and Shigeko Bork Mu Project.

Opening Receptions: Transformer - Saturday, May 12, 7 to 9 pm and Shigeko Bork Mu Project - Saturday, May 12, 5 to 8 pm.

Exploring the duality in Japanese art today, Transformer is partnering with Shigeko Bork Mu Project to present "Big in Japan" a cross-town collaborative exhibition featuring a diverse array of contemporary Japanese artists who interpret and respond to the tradition and popular culture of Japan.

Transformer has Not Only A, But Also B - featuring work by Aki Goto, Misaki Kawai, Chikara Matsumoto, Kazuyuki Takezaki, and Soju Tao, each channeling the tensions affecting a new generation of contemporary artists in Japan. Not only A, But Also B is guest-curated by Atsuko Ninagawa.

Shigeko Bork Mu ProjectMeditation Rooms featuring Yumi Kori and Shinji Turner-Yamamoto, whose works uniquely incorporate ancient Japanese tradition and contemporary culture.

Visits

April was a record-breaking month for Mid Atlantic Art News with nearly 80,000 visits, which by many politico blogs standards is piddly numbers, but for a visual arts blog dedicated generally to a specific region is pretty good (I think), and further makes me think that we're doing something right.

Thank you and keep 'em coming!

Newhall on Sam Gilliam and "Post Painterly Abstraction"

The Inky's Edith Newhall reviews "Post Painterly Abstraction" at Locks Gallery, and also DC's Sam Gilliam at Sande Webster Gallery.

Read her review here.

Wanna go to a Baltimore opening tomorrow?

Touchet Gallery has an opening tomorrow, Friday, May 11, for their new erotic art exhibition which is titled "Uninhibited."

The exhibit features the works of Austin artist Ray Donley, Larry Scott, the Baltimore City Paper’s 2005 Best Visual Artist and Philly sculptor Christopher Smith.

Opening reception: May 11, 6-9pm and then there's an after-party at Koopers Tavern in Fells Point.

Wanna go to a DC area opening tomorrow?

"Trio: three artists, one show" featuring work by Azeb Zekiros, Amy Kincaid, Kendra Denny and running May 11 — May 31, 2007 has an opening reception on Friday, May 11, 6:30 to 9:00 pm at Artful Gallery located at 1349 Maryland Ave, NE, Washington, DC 20002.

Also of note, at Touchstone Gallery in the District, Ellyn Weiss and Rima Schulkind have an opening on Friday, May 11th from 6:00 to 8:30 pm.

Or you can also swing by Bethesda and do the Art Walk (or take the free mini bus ride) and see about a dozen openings and shows in one walk-through. Details here. There's also a free guided tour that starts at 6:30PM - Details here.

Mark your calendar

There's a ton of art events happening this weekend, but certainly one not to miss and taking place on the Bethesda streets is the IV Annual Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. Nearly 130 artists from all over the country, music and food.

This really cool (and free) outdoors fine arts event will take place on Auburn and Norfolk Avenues in the Woodmont Triange of Bethesda, MD. The event is located six blocks from the Bethesda Metro station and is near several public parking garages where visitors can park for free on Saturdays and Sundays. Last year around 40,000 of your fellow Washingtonians and suburbian kinfolk showed up and bought a ton of artwork, so make plans to visit the fair.

Artists, restaurants, directions, details and photos here. Saturday, May 12 - 10am-6pm and Sunday, May 13 - 10am-5pm.

Go and buy some art!

Wanna go to some Philly openings tomorrow?

Friday is the city's ever growing Second Fridays gallery openings and extended hours. Swing by Seeber Fine Arts for recent paintings and drawings by Rachel Bomze. Opening is from 5-9PM.

The Sun on Probst

It tells you something about DC's daily newspapers when an out-of-town newspaper has better coverage of an exceptional DC gallery show than the local daily rags.

Granted, the Sun's art critic Glenn McNatt is also a photographer and thus has a deep interest in photography shows. His review of Barbara Probst at G Fine Arts in DC is good, but it also makes us sigh because it is rare when a DC-based newspaper gives the same kind of attention to a local DC gallery that McNatt gives G Fine Art's superb exhibition.

And granted, I suspect that Baltimore galleries probably get a little ticked off when their hometown paper's chief art critic goes to another city to review a gallery show.

But the point is that a DC gallery show attracts the attention of a critic from another city's major newspaper while it is essentially ignored by DC's own comatose daily newsmedia.

Good thing we have the CP.

No Representation at Warehouse

Closing this Saturday, May 12 Just extended through June 9, 2007 is one of those shows that makes the Warehouse Galleries and Theatre complex such a key member of the DC art scene.

Curated by Molly Ruppert, Sondra Arkin, Ellyn Weiss and Philippa P.B. Hughes, "No Representation" is as close as any show can come to deliver a powerful mini survey of DC area artists working the abstract genre of art.

Spread through three of the Warehouse's warren of art spaces, the exhibition is a treat to the eyes in its successes and a quick glance in its failures. It is also next to the two galleries hosting the "Supple" exhibition, as by now everyone in the DC area knows that the Warehouse came to the rescue of that show when its initial venue backed out at the last minute.

The unexpected juxtapositioning of "Supple" and "No Representation" works for me. In fact, had there not been a sign declaring the name difference between the two shows, I'd challenge anyone not to flow from gallery to gallery and not think that it was not a single show.

But I digress; back to "No Representation."

I've been following the work of Rex Weil for many years, usually through his inclusion in many of the old Gallery K's shows. For the most part I've always remained distant and mostly uninterested in Weil's works.

Until this show.

His piece "Black Stars a/k/a You Are Here" (oil and enamel on wood and a steal at $2,500) finally grabbed my attention. "The dark areas take out all the romance out of this beautiful painting," said the woman who was in the gallery looking at the work, almost hypnotized by it.


They do. Weil's work is a visceral work that enters that realm where the eyes can't stop examining and wandering all over it many surfaces, spills, finger tracks, accidents. And the black areas that so attracted the visitor purposefully work to herd the composition and sidetrack and bend the viewing in a way that they do erase the beauty out of the painting and in an unexpected way make it more sophisticated and bleak and ultimately one of the most successful abstract works that I have seen in a long time.

I also liked Anita Walsh's "Living Drawing 5x5" (rubber, birch and brass on plywood), and Andres Tremols' "Untitled Blue Form" (archival digital print on paper), a gorgeous work where beauty works like it is supposed to, in a blazing display of Tremols' logical progression from working in glass to taking the glass imagery to a two dimensional plane.



Finally, in the Cafe gallery, the stand-out piece by far was Janis Goodman's "Wedge, Low Tide" (graphite on paper). As most of you know, I have a particular soft spot for good drawings, and this piece exemplifies all that is good about drawing, especially when executed in the hands of a talented artist. In fact, more often than not, dig a little into the record of a bad painter, and you'll find an artist with minimal drawing skills.


But Goodman flexes her artistic muscles in this drawing, showing the sensuality of the simplest of art materials - graphite and paper - to deliver a complex and elegant composition that is organic and somehow sexual, perhaps like the after results of a wet, lapping ocean.

Other stand-outs in the show were the deceptively complex text rearrangements of Mark Cameron Boyd, the mixed media pieces of Pat Goslee, and many others.

The last day to see "No Representation" is May 12 June 9, 2007.

Salary Parity for Anne d'Harnoncourt

Let me join in Lee Rosenbaum's call for salary parity for the Philadelphia Museum of Art's able Director and Chief Executive Officer Anne d'Harnoncourt.

CultureGrrl points out that on page 13 of the current issue of The Art Newspaper, you can read the results of their 2006 international survey of salaries for museum directors, and according to Rosenbaum, it appears that d'Harnoncourt's compensation is among the lowest in her peer group of US museum art directors.

Time for the PMA trustees to consider why and then fix it.

Who done did doe'd it?

The WaPo's Reliable Source columnists tell us about a $10,000 art kidnapping.

Read it here.

Now they've done it

In what surely must be a new level of barbarity, Hamas is now employing a Mickey Mouse rip-off to convince little children to become suicide bombers.

As artists and other folks know well, the forces of the Disneyan Empire do not take lightly to such copyright violations, and I am sure that the sickos of Hamas who thought up this disgusting idea will soon discoverer that whatever you do in life, you don't fuck with The Mouse.