Fundraising Auction

On November 3, 2007, Equality Maryland, together with students from the University of Maryland Pride Alliance, will be hosting "Equality Beats," a benefit to support Equality Maryland's efforts to secure full marriage equality for same-sex couples in the State of Maryland. The benefit will bring together cultural activities with activism, complete with music, a silent auction of donated artwork, a raffle, and activism campaigns targeting state legislators from the home districts of the people attending. The event will feature a number of high-profile local LGBT and allied musical and comedy acts, DJ's, and low-cost food and drink.

I am donating a piece of my own work and any other artists wishing to donate artwork as prizes for their raffle or silent auction, or if you have any questions about Equality Maryland or this event, please contact Patrick Wojahn at 240-988-7763 or plwojahn@gmail.com or send to:

Equality Beats Silent Auction
Equality Maryland
1319 Apple Ave.
Silver Spring, MD 20910

New arts blog

Studio Frido, based partially in Manchester, MD that has developed a unique process for generating art from small natural and man-made objects. They use "a patent-pending process to transform microscopic computed tomography (CT) scans of natural and man-made objects into works of art. Studio Frido is dedicated to furthering cancer research, children’s education, and general appreciation for the inner beauty of all things."

They also have a blog here and have created a unique print series for the cancer benefit auction at the Scott Carter's Heroes Golf Classic in Tulsa, Oklahoma on August 27, 2007.

Gold

By Shauna Lee Lange

A little over two years ago, Irene Winter, Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard University, gave a talk on the ancient Assyrian site Nimrud and the Queen's ornate crown at the National Gallery. Winter spoke in exacting detail about the aesthetics of radiance, Summarian burial practices, the politics of acquisition, and practices stemming out of antiquities legislation all in connection with her life's work in art and archaeology.

I am not certain why, but what stuck with me was the gold and its immutable nature. I remember viewing slides of gold used over ivory, gold clustered stars, gold appearing as textiles, gold earrings and armlets worn by men, gold bracelets inlaid with turquoise and lapis, gold rosettes, Christian ornamentation and halos, and yes - gold Buddahs.

When you think about it, gold has a certain aura, a living vitality, a shimmering light. It's power, heat, shine, and luster. It's the golden calf, the representation of the sun, the great dome in Jerusalem. Gold is radiance, luminosity, emanating, strong, and durable. It's a strong cultural response. It's a visual and neurobiological reaction that grabs the eye and stimulates pleasure. Gold manifests outwardly, reflecting inner nature.

A high-end experience, gold is - and that's why I love it. It's vitality, auspiciousness, allure, and beauty. It's seductive, compelling, lovely, splendorous, and glorious. This malleable mineral, while today being expensive, also denoted money and wealth in its own accord all those years ago. It can be considered somewhat controversial. A thinking man has to ask what's the morality of luxurious acquisition and excess in a world of demise and suffering?

But to the artist, gold is greed and need. Who among us is satiated with only one hit of Klimt's gold foil, leaf, and paint? No. No. No. We need gold's lift again and again. Give us hearts of gold. Let us hold ourselves to the gold standard. Award us all the gold medal for courage in creating. Let us all live on the gold coast or by the golden rule (if we so choose). Please protect us all from the gold diggers and let us each come across our very own golden opportunity. The luxury of a luminous lift.

Airborne Today


Heading back home... this post from St. Louis Airport, where the gate display says that my flight is departing on time (at 6:50PM). As it is now 6:49PM, I asked the nice AA gate attendant if the flight is going to be late. She says "we're waiting on the pilot to let us know if we're going to be late."

At 7:00PM the multimillion dollar airport display system still has the flight departing at 6:50PM. Someone notices and it goes black.

At 7:12PM the announcement is made that the flight will depart at 9:30PM. The reason: "We're waiting for the captain."

Usual translation: the crew for this flight was re-scheduled on the go to another flight whose crew didn't show up on time, but has a higher priority to depart on time because of arrival time restrictions, and as there are no back-ups in today's austere flying environment, which somehow manages to lose money in spite of filling every seat on the flight, the airlines now has to gather a "new" crew from those on break, or re-assign another crew as the arrival time domino effect begins to take place.

Overdue Recognition

A Master Works Challenge and Artist Reception will be held Saturday, August 25, 2007, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m at the Overdue Recognition Art Gallery, 6816 RaceTrack Road, Bowie, Maryland.

The event culminates an opportunity for both new and established artists to show their works and compete for a private reception. The challenge ran from June 23 - July 28, 2007 and each artist produced works within the time constraints.

Participants include: Pamela Hilliard; Karen Y. Buster; Larry "Poncho" Brown; James Redd; Deborah A. Shedrick; James Murphy; Yolanda Redd; and Larry O. Brown.

Overdue Recognition owners, Jackie and Derrick Thompson, along with Authentic Art Consulting curator Sharon Burton, will jury the show and decide which of the talented artists will receive a gallery showcasing at Overdue Recognition Art Gallery this late fall.

Ms. Thompson stated, "I'm very excited about the show. It has always been a goal of ours to give new artists a venue to show their work, and we're hoping to make this an annual event."

For more information, contact Overdue Recognition Gallery at 1-866-726-8642, or (301) 805-8812 or e-mail: jackie.thompson@overduerecognition.com

Multiplicity

Three artists from New Jersey, Don Simon, Luke Weichmann, and Charles Katzenbach, will be exhibiting their art work at StrataSphere, an exhibition space in Philadelphia.

The exhibition is entitled Multiplicity, which refers to the idea of repetition and duplication. The show, curated by Carol Taylor-Kearney, will be at StrataSphere from August 25th through September 29th. An opening reception for the show is from 2pm until 5pm on Saturday, August 25th.

Job in the Arts

The Honfleur Gallery, a project of the ARCH Development Corporation, is
seeking a very self motivated individual who is capable of working in a team
based environment reporting to the Gallery Director, Creative Director and at
times the CEO. Applicant must bring a sense of enthusiasm to the 2008 season
and be able to speak clearly and knowledgably to clients & potential funders.

Fundraising and Development responsibilities are as follows:
• Creation of Corporate Giving Plans & Exhibition Sponsorships
• Gallery Membership Maintenance and Development
• Outreach including government, community and individuals
• List Creation and Maintenance
• At times, Exhibition Support and Press Announcements
• Representation Follow Up and Assistance
• General Research & Development pertaining to both funding and artist support
• Occasional support with grant proposals and meetings

Individual must be able to identify and prioritize the needs of the gallery. Honfleur is seeking increases in the following areas; Individual buyers,
Corporate buyers/sponsors and Grant assistance.

Salary commensurate with experience.

Requirements:
Bachelors Degree
At least 3 years Development Experience
Some type of artistic background ie visual, music, film etc…
Microsoft Suite

Deadline for applications is September 7th 2007. Please submit a current
resume/CV with references and a one page writing sample to: arts@archdc.org.

Hollywooding

After the usual nightmare that is guaranteed to occur when one flies from Philadelphia Airport, arrived in San Diego, which had the also usual perfect day, and drove to Hollywood to see my daughter and some friends.

Windy streets overlooking Universal City and the whole valley below afforded a spectacular sunset view from every room in the house, and also discovered that a few doors down was William Shatner's home.

It got me to think how Captain Kirk is a living example not only to actors but artists of all sorts.

If anyone could have been typecast by early success it was Shatner. The cult status of Star Trek gave Shatner and Nimoy and others worldwide fame and also could have trapped Shatner into a typecast (like it did for Adam West for example) role.

Shatner grabbed the typecast noose and instead of succumbing to the temptation to give up, he used it to rope us all in and kept re-inventing himself and coming back generation after generation, be it via TJ Hooker or Boston Legal or even that forgettable recording of that Elton John song that shall remain nameless.

This is a lesson for visual artists as well. Witness the typecasting of Piet Mondrian's work once he discovered the success formula for his best-known body of works.

Picasso once said "God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the ant. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things."

That's what Shatner did and there's a lesson in there for young visual artists.

Bravo Captain!

Airborne Today


Heading out to La Jolla, California for a week of work, fun and some beach running. More later...

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: January 8, 2008

Sarasota, FL - "Embracing Our Differences" invites artists, photographers, professionals, amateurs, teachers and students to participate in its 5th annual visual art exhibit celebrating diversity. National and international submissions are encouraged. 39 artists will be selected for the exhibit.

"The Embracing Our Differences exhibit will be displayed throughout the month of April 2008 at Island Park along Sarasota's beautiful bayfront. The exhibit will also be displayed throughout the month of May 2008 in North Port, Florida. Since 2004, the exhibit has been viewed by more than 400,000 visitors. The exhibit will contain 39 billboard-sized (16 feet wide by 12 1/2 feet high) images of the selected artworks. Final selections will be chosen based on artistic excellence in reflection of the theme "Embracing Our Differences". The art-work will also be evaluated on how effectively it will read outdoors when enlarged to billboard size - 16 feet wide by 12 1/2 feet high. Artists are encouraged to use bold saturated colors and strong lines. Final selections will be made by a 3-judge panel of professional artists, curators and art professionals. A total of $2,500.00 in awards will be presented.

For more information please visit the "website or email: info@embracingourdifferences.org

Opportunity for Artists of Cuban Heritage

Deadline: January 14, 2008

The Cintas Foundation invites applications in the visual arts including painting, sculpture, installation art, design, video art, photography and filmmaking. The fellowship is awarded annually in the amount of $15,000 and is generously funded by the Emilio Sanchez Foundation.

Eligibility is limited to artists of Cuban citizenship or direct descent (having a Cuban parent or grandparent) living outside of Cuba. The fellowship is not awarded to artists currently pursuing academic studies. The fellowship is not awarded for academic writing, study, or research or to performing artists. The Cintas fellow is free to pursue their artistic activities as they wish according to their application, in the United States or in other countries approved by the Cintas Foundation.

Since 1963, Cintas Fellowships have honored over 300 artists of Cuban ancestry including including Carlos Alfonzo, Teresita Fernández, Anthony Goicolea, photographers Andres Serrano and María Martínez-Cañas, sculptor Maria Elena González, filmmaker Mari Rodríquez-Ichaso, among others.

The application deadline for the Cintas Foundation Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts is January 14, 2008. For more information and application forms, please visit the website www.cintasfoundation.org or contact: Ingrid LaFleur Rogers, Cintas Fellows Collection Manager, at ingrid.rogers@fiu.edu.

Arts Job

With the recent departure of Pamela G. Holt, Maryland Citizens for the Arts’ (MCA) Executive Director, the MCA Board has initiated a formal search process for a new Executive Director.

The job opening announcement and position description is posted online here.

Shifts and Moves

I've been hearing for the last few weeks of a major move by one of DC's key galleries which will also bring along another gallery to its new location. More later - after the closing for the building is done!

I also hear about another major DC arts presence which will also be moving in the near future. More later on that as well.

And Provisions has to move soon as well...

The Mural Stays

A Philadelphia city appeals board on Tuesday unanimously rejected a Historical Commission order to remove a mural painted on the wall of a building in the Rittenhouse-Fitler Residential Historic District. Peirce College, whose campus is across the street, had complained to the Historical Commission.

Score one for art, one less for burocracy.

Read the story by Joseph A. Slobodzian in the Inquirer here.

Media, Pennsylvania

Check out this very cool video of the little town that I settled in after my move from DC. It's part of a contest sponsored by IKEA and if you feel like it, vote for Media. So far it's number one in the whole nation! Winner gets a Main Street "makeover."

See the video here.

Trawick Finalists Announced

The artists selected as Trawick Prize finalists are:

Mary Coble, Washington, D.C.

Mary Early, Washington, D.C.

Suzanna Fields, Richmond, VA

Inga Frick, Washington, D.C.

Jeanine Harkleroad, Chesapeake, VA

Linda Hesh, Alexandria, VA

Baby Martinez, Washington, D.C.

Kathleen Shafer, Washington, D.C.

Jo Smail, Baltimore, MD

Bruce Wilhelm, Richmond, VA

Nicholas F. Wisniewski, Baltimore, MD

The jurors for this year's Trawick are Anne Ellegood, Associate Curator at the Hirschhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden; Amy G. Moorefield, Assistant Director and Curator of Collections for Virginia Commonwealth University’s Anderson Gallery and Rex Stevens, Chair of the General Fine Arts Department at Maryland Institute College of Art. Catriona Fraser, owner of the Fraser Gallery in downtown Bethesda, is the non-voting Chair of The Trawick Prize.

The Trawick Prize is clearly the DC area region's premier fine arts prize and once again kudos to Ms. Trawick! Lots of surprises on who was dropped from the semi-finalists' list. A public opening will be held at Creative Partners Gallery on Friday, September 14, 2007 from 6-9pm in conjunction with the Bethesda Art Walk. Creative Partners Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12-6pm.

I've got my money on Mary Coble!

Talcott on Modernism

The WaPo's Jacqueline Trescott has a really good article on the results of the Corcoran's much heralded Modernism exhibition.

This follows on the WaPo's former Chief Art Critic (and now mostly a resident of soggy Scotland) Paul Richard, writing a while back about the disappointing numbers of visitors attending the Corcoran's mega exhibit "Modernism."

But eventually the show drew "93,000 visitors over 116 days, an average of 801 a day. The projected attendance was 100,000," so I guess that it did OK, especially when viewed in the perspective that this was the Corcoran's most expensive exhibition ever ($2 million), and its third most visited ever -- "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years" was open for six months in 2002 and had 153,000 visitors. In 2004, "Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms: Paintings That Inspired a Nation" attracted 110,000 visitors in five months.

Last March I was elated to discover that a major Frida Kahlo exhibition was coming to Philly from the Walker Art Center, where it was curated by Michael Taylor; from Philly it will travel to SFMOMA.

I was a little disappointed that this show is not traveling to any DC area museum; it would have been a perfect blockbuster for the Corcoran, but I suspect that those decisions were made prior to Paul Greenhalgh arriving to take the helm of the Corcoran.

Another positive development revealed by Greenhalgh was that they "got 1,800 new members, and that was a dramatic success." He also told Talcott that "he hopes to do a survey of the postmodernist movement in late 2010."

Postmodernism survey? Yawn...

Of course, a while back I had some ideas for some megashows that the Corcoran or other museums should consider. Here they are again + a new one:

Mega Art Show Ideas

Frida Kahlo - In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), will present a major exhibition of the artist’s paintings spanning her career. Curated by art historian and Kahlo biographer Hayden Herrera and Walker Associate Curator Elizabeth Carpenter, Frida Kahlo will open at the Walker October 27, 2007 – January 20, 2008, before traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and SFMOMA. Why Kahlo is not coming to any DC museum is a mystery to me, and I can already hear the k'ching of cash registers in those museums selling posters, books, etc.

The Art of Comic Books - Hollywood gets it, so when will the artworld get it? Comic book characters generate big bucks for la la land, and I suspect that a massive survey of original artwork by both the vintage artists of the early to mid 20th century, as well as the cult icons like Frank Frazetta, Berni Wrightson and others, coupled with the young new hard guys and gals is sure to (a) expose the brilliant genre of art that is comic book art, and (b) get huge lines to see the original boards for Superman, or Batman, or Spidey, or Frazetta's spectacular series of Conan, The Barbarian illustrations.

PostSecret - Why someone hasn't done this on a massive scale is beyond me. Imagine a museum lined up with 100,000 postcards of Frank Warren's secrets. If they stood in lines around the block when the WPA/C did it in hard-to-get-to and hard-to-park Georgetown, imagine what it would do in a highly visible museum setting and to that scale.

The Ivy League and Seven Sisters Nude Photographs - It was an apparently long-established and bizarre custom at most Ivy League and Seven Sisters schools for incoming freshmen to pose nude for a series of photographs. In some cases, pins were attached with adhesive to their backbones at regular intervals from the neck down. These "posture photos" were in some of these schools a routine feature of freshman orientation week, and designed to "discover" those students with an erratic postural curve, and those were then required to attend remedial "posture classes." I kid thee not. Both George Bush presidents, Bob Woodward and many other now famous folks were required to do it at Yale. At Vassar, Meryl Streep did it, and at Wellesley, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Diane Sawyer also did it. Can you imagine the lines of people waiting to peek at a naked Dubya?

Ansel Adams Revealed - There are some fill-in-the-blank American art icons whose name alone guarantees a mega show because their art has become part of the American identity. In addition to Adams, other such artists include Georgia O'Keefe, Norman Rockwell, Andrew Wyeth, Andy Warhol and maybe Hopper. Because the Library of Congress owns thousands of Ansel Adams negatives created while Adams worked for the Dept. of the Interior, I suspect that a hard-working curator could dig and put together an exhibition of seldom seen Adamses.

Sports Art - People are always yapping about political art (yawn), which is simply another genre or subject that artists look at once in a while. And if we simply consider focusing an art exhibition on a particular subject matter, just to get a general survey as to what artists are doing on that particular subject, then a potential idea would be a survey of sports-related art. What has happened in this genre since the great George Bellows paintings? Some photos have become an iconic part of Americana, such as the great Ali - Liston photos. What else is out there?

Other interesting ideas (not guaranteed to be mega exhibits):

Ebay Artists - At any given time there are around 150,000 lots classified as art on Ebay and around 12,000 by self-representing artists. Ebay is generally where bottom-feeders dwell (for the most part) in the world of art. But we also know that it's not that unusual anymore for museum curators to occasionally troll through Ebay looking for specific stuff. Can a decent exhibition be curated from the massive numbers of artwork being exposed through Ebay? Just an exhibition of copy cats may be fun.

Blank Canvas - Imagine that a local museum sets up 100 4 ft. x 4 ft. blank canvasses on easels and sets up an online and snail mail lottery where artists from all over the world submit their details and at a certain point 100 of them are picked at random via a lottery style (or a curated process I guess) and selected to come to the museum for a specific period of time and create a painting live and in situ.

Googlart - A variation of the above, but a more contemporary approach, where the museum sets up 25 big LCD screens in a cool minimalist way, and each screen in hooked up online and connected to a wireless keyboard somewhere else in the museum, where visitors can type in some sort of search parameter and using some new dorky CGI script of whatever, in conjunction with Google Image Search, be constantly presenting images on the screen, say 10 seconds each? Because this is the USA, some sort of safety net to try to avoid porn would be needed, so perhaps a hidden human in the loop to prevent porn from going to the screens may be a good idea. Get Google to sponsor the exhibition, pay for the screens and for the minimal software development and you're set!

The New Idea

"Castro's Cuba: A Survey of Contemporary Cuban Artists." Guaranteed to cause tons of protests and perhaps even some vandalism when it travels to Miami! The "can't touch" mystery of this jailed island and its brutal dictator has always had a magnetic romanticism to Americans, and the title alone will ensure that the interest and curiosity of both visitors to the DC area and local Washingtonians is raised. When I co-curated "From Here and From There: Artists from the Cuban Diaspora," I knew that there was interest in the subject, which ended up being our most successful exhibition ever, both in terms of sales and spectacular press coverage. Couple the survey with filling one of the galleries with historical photographs of the Cuban revolution borrowed from the Library of Congress, and this not only puts the survey in some sort of context, but also gives the public lots of photos of the superphotogenic Che Guevara and other young bearded guerrilla gods.

Success guaranteed and also guaranteed to get a few museums interested in the show as well.

Elvisversary

Today is the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, and below is a drawing that I did while I was in art school 30 years ago, upon hearing that the King had died. It is titled "Marilyn Monroe and Frida Kahlo waiting in icon heaven for Elvis Presley."

"Marilyn Monroe and Frida Kahlo waiting in icon heaven for Elvis Presley"
24 x 20 inches c. 1977, ink wash on paper

Capturing the New Berlin

Official, private, and intimate – Berlin is seen and captured in the Goethe-Institut’s exhibition Portrait: Berlin – Contemporary Photography and Video Art. From August 22 - September 27, 2007.

Stefanie Bürkle – Daniela Comani – Oliver Godow– Armin Häberle – Frank Hülsbömer – Jens Liebchen – Wiebke Loeper – Gerhard Kassner – Christian Rothmann – Mariana Vassileva – Brigitte Waldach.

Curated by Matthias Harder, Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin. Opening reception on Wednesday, August 22, 6 – 8 pm with photographer Christian Rothmann.

RSVP to 202-289-1200 ext. 165

Roadin'

I was out on the road all day on Wednesday... more later.