City Papers

In Baltimore, Deborah McLeod reviews Adrienne Figus, Elizabeth Graeber, and Lexy Singer at the Sheppard Art Gallery.

In Philly, Robin Rice reviews Philadelphia Stories: The Building of a Great American City at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, and Mary Wilson picks YouthArtWorks at Asian Arts Initiative.

In DC, Kriston Capps picks Useless at Project 4 and Maura Judkis picks Earth on Stone on Earth Is Naturally So at Flashpoint.

Today in Bethesda

Today, Friday, August 10th, is the second Friday of the month and thus it's the Bethesda Art Walk with 13 participating art venues and with free guided tours.

From 6-9PM - go see some artwork!

Today in Baltimore

Antagonism, Hacks, and Hoaxes (curated by Michael Benevento) opens tonight, Friday, August 10 at Maryland Art Place, with a Gallery Talk at 6pm, followed by an Opening Reception at 7pm. And you won't want to miss a performance of The Ed Schrader Show at 8pm! The exhibition will remain on view through September 1, 2007.

Featuring the works of: Aghost, Lara Emerling, Evie Falci, Michael Farley, Erin Gleeson, Natalie Jenison, Brian Kaspr, Dina Kelberman, Andrew Laumann, Rob Loucks, New Jedi Order, Robby Rackleff & Blue Leader, Jimmy Joe Roche, Jeremy Rountree, Ray Roy, Richard Sawka, Alexandr Skarlinski, Spectacular Society Corporation, Christopher Tate, Vishwam Velandy, Wham City, and Damon Zucconi.

This exhibition is a collaborative effort of Current Gallery and Maryland Art Place.

Today in DC

PhotoFocus, a regional show of photography juried by former Clinton White House photographer, Sharon Farmer is opening today, Friday Aug. 10th, at the Touchstone Gallery on 406 7th St, NW, DC, second floor from 6-8:30 PM.

Christmas Day, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 2005 © Susana Raab

McNatt on WGS

The Baltimore Sun's art critic is Glenn McNatt, and today he makes some excellent points in a review of the Washington Glass School's artists at the Patricia Touchet Gallery in Baltimore.

Read the review here.

By the way, note something very different in the way that the Baltimore Sun's art critic and the Washington Post's art critic operate.

In the Sun, McNatt's byline is "Sun Art Critic," and he writes a review nearly every day, discussing both art galleries and art museums.

In the WaPo, Blake Gopnik's byline is "Washington Post Staff Writer" and Gopnik writes an art review once a week or so, but is allowed by his editor to ignore art galleries and only focus his talent on art museums all over the planet.

Little nuances that indicate how local newspapers view, treat and react to their native art scene.

More enlightment for Sozanski

More responses to the Philly Inky's art critic Edward J. Sozanski's curious statement in a recent review (see this).

Artist Josephine Haden (who has an upcoming solo at the McLean Project for the Arts, in McLean, VA opening September 20 7-9 PM.) writes:

Hi Lenny,

More, for the uninformed: Kiefer's new work was just shown in Paris, France, at the newly renovated Grand Palais. The show was the first in a series called Monumenta, and it was spectacular. He may well be the greatest living artist today!

See this Herald Tribune article.

Best, Josephine

Congrats!

To New Yorker Matt Murphy, who dived into the scrum and came up with the ball from Barry Bonds' historic and record-breaking 756th homerun.

With 250 San Franciscans and one New York Mets fan fighting for the ball, it was a no contest for the Mets' fan to come up bloodied but hanging on to a ball that will bring him around $300,000 to $400,000 bucks; the Bay Area fans had no chance.

I know this because even though as a child my family lived in Brooklyn, once I graduated from Our Lady of Loretto School, I went to Aviation High School in Queens, and my High School was only a few subway stops away from Shea Stadium, so every year I'd watch 30-40 Mets games. Half the fun was watching the fights in the stands, so Matt, as a Mets fan, was well-trained.

Back then people would order a beer, which came in a plastic cup, and then they'd start stacking the plastic cups atop each other as they drank more and more. At some point in the game, usually towards the later innings, the cup stack could be dangerously high and wobbly, which could cause it to tip over and spill on the guy sitting in front of you, which more often than not meant that he'd come up swinging and then the melee would start.

If the game went into extra innings, then fuggedaboutit; it was guaranteed automatic brawling in the stands as drunks got drunker and plastic cup stacks higher. I have even seen an outfielder get distracted watching a really good fight and miss a fly ball. Or even some players come out of the dugout to watch a really good brawl in the expensive seats.

The funny thing was that when the cops would show up, the fighting would magically stop a few seconds before the cops actually arrived and then nobody seen nuthin' and the fight would be over.

So Matt was well trained, as I imagine that the brawling tradition in Shea Stadium continues to this day.

If I was Matt I'd sell that ball pronto, as in about five or six years, when A-Rod overtakes Bonds' record, it will surely drop in value as the new record baseball is caught by some other fightin' New Yorker somewhere.

Congrats!

This coming Saturday

We're big fans of student work, and in DC Irvine Contemporary has Introductions3 opening this coming Saturday. This exhibition is a selection of recent graduates from leading national and international art schools.

This third year of Introductions at Irvine Contemporary is the first gallery exhibition of its kind. Over 250 artists from 60 different art colleges were reviewed for Introductions3, and final selections were made with the advice of a panel of art collectors, rather than curators or gallerists. Introductions3 has grown to an inclusive “MFA annual” that brings the best rising artists to Washington, D.C. Participating artists are listed below with their most recent college or institute affiliation. Opening reception with artists, Saturday, August 11, 6-8 PM.

By Akemi Maegawa
Look for the work of Akemi Maegawa (Cranbrook Institute, Sculptures and Installation) and Sarah Mizer (Virginia Commonwealth University, Sculpture and Installation) to stand out.

Modern Living in DC

William Hanley with a good read on some DC area art exhibitions in ArtInfo.

Read the reviews here.

Curiouser

A couple of days ago I told you about the curious statement by The Philly Inquirer's art critic Edward J. Sozanski, who in his recent review of "Kiefer, Polke, Richter" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art writes:

"One doesn't hear much about Kiefer these days, or Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, A.R. Penck, Georg Baselitz, Jorge Immendorf, or any of the other so-called neo-expressionists. While their moment dominated a good portion of the 1980s, an especially vigorous decade for new art, it's long past."

A good DC friend writes: "I don’t know what planet the Philly critic is on, but I was at the Venice Biennale and visited the Berlin Hamburger Bahnhof museum on the same trip in June, and Kiefer and Polke are still very much forces to be dealt with and creating powerful new works. A series of large indigo ground and silkscreen paintings by Polke at Venice, and a huge installation of Kiefer’s paintings and sculptures in Berlin (taking over the equivalent of the real estate in the main entry hall in our Union Station)."

Easy to do if you're already famous

Several of London's leading artists are setting up their own galleries. Damien Hirst has reportedly bought a series of railway arches in Vauxhall in which he wishes to open a gallery and restaurant, rumoured to be opening next year. Jake Chapman is also said to be negotiating a lease for his own permanent gallery site. Already up and running is Wolfgang Tillmans, who opened the exhibition space Between Bridges in east London last year. Tillmans says that the gallery, which focuses mostly on political art, "is for art that doesn't necessarily have a voice because the artists are either dead or of no commercial interest. I want to do things other galleries wouldn't be interested in doing."

Read the Guardian article here.

What Degas Saw

(Tks Rev!) The WaPo has apparently moved its Arts coverage to the Health section, but it is nonetheless a fascinating article on what Degas actually saw and how his vision may have affected his painting style.

Read it here.

And then there were two?

It has nothing to do with the visual arts, but much ado has been made of the fact that Bill Richardson is a "Hispanic" candidate for the Presidency. I'm still mulling his "Hispanicity," a label that most of you know I have some issues with...

I recently heard on some radio show that Mitt Romney's parents were born in Mexico, not from Mormon missionaries who were visiting Mexico as part of their Mormon mission, but born from Mexican-born Mormons who had been living in a Mormon colony called Colonia Juarez, which his great-grandfather had helped to create 122 years ago.

South Americans by the millions who are of Italian, Japanese, or German ancestry are still labeled "Hispanics" because they're born in a Spanish-speaking country. Thus we have Alberto Fujimori (former Peruvian President and son of Japanese immigrants) and Alfredo Stroessner (former Paraguayan strongman and son of German immigrants) as "Hispanics."

I know it's silly, but I didn't make the rules - I think the Nixon administration was the one which invented the term back in the 1970s. Before that we were Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc.

But, since Mitt's grandparents were Mexican, does that make him a Hispanic? If you say no, because theirs and Mitt's ancestry is "American," then that immediately disqualifies loads of people from this curious cultural misnomer?

Like Fidel Castro, whose parents were Galicians, and although Galicia is geographically located in Northern Spain, their people are not ethnic Spanish, but Galeg, with a different language, culture, etc. Galicia is one of the remaining Seven Celtic Nations.

Or maybe Shakira (Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll - born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She is the only child of Nidia del Carmen Ripoll Torrado, a Colombian of Catalan-Italian descent, and William Mebarak Chadid, an Arab-American of Lebanese-Catholic extraction).

Otherwise Mitt is a "Hispanic" and so is Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire. After all, his father, John H. Sununu (White House Chief of Staff for Bush The First and three-times NH Governor) was born in Havana, Cuba to Victoria Dada (a lady born in Central America) and John Saleh Sununu, a Boston-born businessman then living in Cuba.

I hate the labelling of people, and thus why I am wasting your time this Tuesday with this silly issue.

Only in America can a made-up cultural misnomer grow into a label which sometimes passes for cultural, and sometimes for ethnic, and sometimes for racial, depending on the ignorance or agenda of the user.

We wouldn't call a full-blooded Apache person an "Anglo-American," but we call the full-blooded Mayan person doing your landscaping or cleaning your house, a "Hispanic."

Fun with Lenny and silly labels.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 5, 2007

Albertus Magnus College invites artists to submit postcard size artworks that explore the impact of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights on the lives of people living in the United States today. Postcards can engage topics such as: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and the right to bear arms.

The exhibition will be in Rosary Hall, on the campus of Albertus Magnus College, with an opening reception on September 10, 2007 at 4:00 pm. Format: postcard, 4 x 6" maximum, mailed with sufficient postage (works w/ insufficient postage not accepted). Return address required. All works thematically linked to topic will be displayed. (The College reserves the right not to display works which are patently obscene or degrading.) No entry fee, no jury, no insurance or returns. Exhibition dates: Sept 10-30, 2007. Send entries to:

ATTN: Dr. Sean P. O'Connell
MAIL ART SHOW
Albertus Magnus College
700 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511

Grants

Deadline: August 13, 2007

National Endowment for the Arts Access to Artistic Excellence - Offers funding to foster and preserve excellence in the arts, as well as provide access to the arts and arts appreciation for children, youth, and intergenerational education projects. Applications may be submitted in the following categories: Dance, Design, Folk & Traditional Arts, Literature, Local Arts Agencies, Media Arts, Multidisciplinary, Music, Musical Theater, Opera, Presenters, Theater, and Visual Arts.

Funding range is from $5,000-$150,000. For more information, contact:

National Endowment for the Arts
Nancy Hanks Center
1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20506-0001

Curatorial Fellowship

The Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University has announced a search for The Ann Tanenbaum Curatorial Fellow (2007-08) in the area of modern and contemporary art.

This one-year full-time fellowship offers an outstanding opportunity to to gain professional curatorial experience with the Rose's internationally recognized collection, which includes iconic art works from early 20th century American masters to De Kooning and Warhol; Rauschenberg and Lichtenstein. The fellowship will offer curatorial training and support scholarly research in connection with the permanent collection to an exceptional graduate-level candidate.

The fellow will have a passion for modern and contemporary art, a proven desire for curatorial work and research, and have recently completed graduate work in art history, either a Masters or Doctorate, specializing in modern and/or contemporary art. The fellow will be exposed to all aspects of curatorial work, gain experience in education and research, publications and cataloguing, acquisitions and conservation. He or she will also participate in a major project of publishing a comprehensive catalogue of The Rose's permanent collection. With a start date of October 2007, the fellowship will carry a stipend of $25,000.

Applications must be filed by Sept. 1. Application requirements: letter of interest describing the applicant's interest in the fellowship, museum work, and reasons for applying; resume; two letters of recommendation from academic and/or professional settings; and two writing samples. Please send applications to:

Curatorial Fellow Search
The Rose Art Museum
Brandeis University
MS 069
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728

Or Email: rosemail@courier.brandeis.edu

Separated at Birth

One of my favorite DC area sculptors is Adam Bradley. For years and years, even as a student at GMU, Bradley has been recycling junk and found objects and creating intelligent allegorical and narrative sculptures from them. He was doing "green art" without realizing it. See his work here.

One of my least favorite airports is the Philadelphia Airport, which essentially has been stuck in the 1970s for three decades. While at the airport, I spotted the below Honda ad:



Which looks suspiciously close to the well-known "Skirt" sculpture by Bradley shown below:

Curious

The Philly Inquirer's art critic Edward J. Sozanski has a curious statement in his recent review of "Kiefer, Polke, Richter" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sozanski writes:

"One doesn't hear much about Kiefer these days, or Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, A.R. Penck, Georg Baselitz, Jorge Immendorf, or any of the other so-called neo-expressionists. While their moment dominated a good portion of the 1980s, an especially vigorous decade for new art, it's long past."

Mmmm... that's news to me.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

By Kris Kristofferson

Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert.
Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt.
Then I washed my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

I'd smoked my mind the night before
With cigarettes and songs I'd been picking.
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Playing with a can that he was kicking.
Then I walked across the street
And caught the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken.
And Lord, it took me back to something that I'd lost
Somewhere, somehow along the way.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.

In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl that he was swinging.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the songs they were singing.
Then I headed down the street,
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing,
And it echoed through the canyon
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.

Senior Artists Initiative

Via artblog I've learned about the Senior Artists Initiative (SAI).

The purpose of the Senior Artists Initiative (SAI) is to assist senior artists in understanding the need for, and process involved in, organizing their life's work, and to develop programs that provide recognition for senior artists.

Details here.