Californication: Thinking Out Loud

Today I heard on the radio that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were suing Showtime over the title of the Showtime TV series "Californication," which is the same title as the RHCP song.

And pretty much the same title as my 1978 pen and ink drawing "Kalifornication: The Rape of the Earth," done while I was a sophomore at the University of Washington School of Art in Seattle, Washington.

The "K" instead of "C" was a cool thing at the time - for example, some artsy people used to spell "America" as "Amerikka," etc. The drawing was done as a reaction to the huge changes taking place in downtown Seattle at the time, as the city revived slowly from enormous urban decay.

As I recall, I got a crappy grade for the drawing from Bill Ritchie, who was my drawing professor at the time. Nonetheless, I had 25 reproductions prints made from the drawing and sold them all during the four years that I sold my artwork at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, where the Kalifornication was taking place. I still have the original.

"Kalifornication - The Rape of the Earth" c. 1978 by F. Lennox Campello
India Ink on Paper. 9.5 x 9.5 inches
I don't have any plans to sue either Showtime or the RHCP over the use of the made up word, but it got me to think about the lawsuit-happy society that we have become... and about Abu Ghraib imagery.

Musicians can "sample" music from the vast set of all music ever written to create "new" works. And many artists "appropriate" images to incorporate them into their work, although I am not sure how the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 reacts to that issue. Visual copyright appears to be a different aspect of the whole "sampling" or "appropriation" issue.

Which got me to thinking about Botero and the Abu Ghraib paintings currently on exhibit at the Katzen Arts Center in DC.

As we all know by now, Botero based the works on the infamous photographs taken by the mutants in charge at the prison.

Their photographs.

And thus my question: does the copyright to those photographs and associated imagery belong to whoever took the photos?

Do they have the right to sue the countless newspapers and news agencies worldwide who published the photographs without permission or payment?

Do they have the right to sue Botero?

Or, since the photographs were part of a heinous crime, do they forfeit the right to the copyright?

Who "owns" these images and the copyright to them?

An issue for a legal opinion; email me.

PS - If the RCHP want to send me 10% of whatever they get from Showtime or if Showtime wants to give me a free membership for life, I wouldn't turn it down and I would watch Dexter all the time!

Update: A Boterotista clarifies that:

"the paintings are all from the point of view of the suffering of the victims. He imagines them based on photos and written accounts but there is a huge difference. The photos are more like souvenirs taken by the poor dumb guards who mugged for the camera and took the wrap for the CIA and George II."

Good points!

Congratulations

To DC area painter Elena Maza, who will be getting her first museum solo show at the Museum of Florida Art and Culture in Florida.

The show opens on Dec. 5, 2007 and closes January 17, 2008. Maza will be doing an artist talk at the museum on Jan. 17.

This museum, by the way, has a terrific collection of works by the Florida Highwaymen, one of the most educational art stories of how the only art critic of any permanence is time.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: January 11, 2008

19th National Drawing & Print Competitive Exhibition at the College of Notre Dame. A minimum of $1500 available in purchase prize money. Drawings and prints (not photography) in any medium are eligible.

Juror: Jed Dodds, Artistic Director, Creative Alliance at The Patterson, Baltimore, MD. A non-refundable entry fee of $30 entitles the artist to submit up to three entries. For prospectus vist this website or send a SASE to:

National Drawing and Print Competitive Exhibition
Attn: Geoff Delanoy
College of Notre Dame of Maryland
4701 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210

Tim Tate: I told you so...

I've received some emails from readers asking how artists get on my "buy now" list.

Disclaimer: zip objectivity. For years and years now I have been advising collectors to buy Tim Tate. He has been, and remains one of the key "buy now" artists on my list for collectors.

This advice comes from a place that's a mixture of savvy art dealer (I was one of Tate's art dealers until mid 2006), art collector, prognosticator, and experience in digging out the details of what makes an artist "tick," coupled in most cases with that artist's work ethic and talent and luck. Hopefully those hard to quantify details are what balance my resulting objectivity vacuum in regards to Tate.

When Fraser Gallery gave Tate his first ever solo show in 2003, collectors could have picked up an original Tate piece for as little as $300 - many did, as that show sold out, and those prices are already a distant fact of the past.

I acquired the work below, titled "Positive Progression;" a piece discussed in this Washington Post review of that first solo show. At that seminal show I also broke another piece while packing it, and thus bought that one as well, and over the years have accumulated the world's largest collection of broken Tim Tates.


Over the years Tate worked very hard in his own peculiar marriage of biography, social commentary and need to drag glass away from the crafts world and towards the fine arts arena. "The Hirshhorn," a Hirshhorn curator once emailed me, years ago, "does not collect glass."

He worked at a pace that was amazing to behold, and brought new things into the fragile glass world that were amazing to witness: cement, metal, found objects, AIDS and HIV imagery, ceramics, terracotta, and most recently videos and a dizzying array of technology (motion detectors, voice recordings, etc.).

Tim Tate discusses his work on Push Pause TV show
Filmed at his most recent Fraser Gallery solo show
He also worked very hard to make sure that people noticed what he was doing; no need to wait for a curator or art critic to come to you; as every museum curator and art writer in the Greater DC area knows, Tate has no issue in picking up the phone and cajoling you into visiting his studio or his latest solo show. And the coverage has been spectacular, especially for the Greater DC area. Only the Washington Post's Jessica Dawson has resisted the uberartlandslide and managed to avoid reviewing all four Tate Washington, DC area solo shows.

He also worked very hard in public art projects that brought a new refreshing look to public art: He was the winner for the International Competition to design the New Orleans AIDS Monument. Also Tate public works are at Liberty Park at Liberty Center, Arlington, VA; The Adele, Silver Spring, MD; at the US Environmental Agency, Ariel Rios Building Courtyard, Washington DC; at the National Institute of Health, Hatfield Clinic, Bethesda MD; at the Upper Marlboro Courthouse, Prince Georges County MD; at the American Physical Society, Baltimore Science Center, Baltimore MD; at The Residences at Rosedae, Bethesda MD; Holy Cross Hospital, Silver Spring MD; The Carmen Group, Washington DC and many others in process.

Hard work.

And now the payoff is beginning to taking place. In the last year alone, in addition to being represented by the Fraser Gallery in the Greater DC area, Tate has now picked up additional representation by the Maurine Littleton Gallery (outside of Greater DC area and arguably one of the world's leading fine art glass galleries), the Duane Reed Gallery in St. Louis, the Jane Sauer Gallery in Santa Fe, and he's also in the process of completing negotiations with three other major galleries in California and Idaho and Philadelphia. In 2008 his European debut will take place with a solo show at Gallery 24, in Berlin, Germany, and talks with a British gallery should start soon.

Acquisitions by several museums (including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick in the DC area) have also all contributed to the development, and growth of this talented and ground-breaking artist.

The art fairs have also played an important part. SOFA NY was the start a couple of years ago, followed more recently by SOFA Chicago and AAF NY and also artDC. He's now heading to Art Basel Miami Beach where his work will be at FLOW. At the last fair in Chicago, Tate sold 14 sculptures (including a museum acquisition), and I am told that his newest video pieces were the buzz of the fair. In "Call for Redemption" (to the right), a motion detector triggers a video while a small speaker wails the Moslem call to prayers recorded by Tate at Istanbul earlier this year (where he was with Michael Janis teaching glass techniques at a workshop in Turkey).

The results from all these aggregate points and events yield an artist with a trail of many years of hard work now beginning to reap what he has sown. And because art is a commodity, prices are an indicator as well, and Tate's now start around $2,500 $3,500 and up, and look for the "up" part to continue to rise.

Buy Tim Tate now.

Update: [Added after Art Basel Miami Beach] And it looks like both collectors and museums are all in synch: Tim Tate's new and groundbreaking self contained video glass sculptures sold out at SOFA Chicago and sold out at Art Basel Miami Beach!

Too Funny...

Read this.

About time...

For years and years, when artists donated a work of art to a museum, all that they could deduct from their taxes was the cost of the materials to make the artwork.

However, this past March, Congressmen Jim Ramstad (R-MN) and John Lewis (D-GA) have introduced the "Artists-Museum Partnership Act" – a bill to provide a fair-market value tax deduction for works of arts donated by artists to arts institutions. By the way, Congressman John Lewis is an avid art collector himself and a very visible presence at the occasional art gallery opening in both DC and Atlanta.

This bill, (known in Congressional lingo as H.R. 1524) has been gaining Congressional co-sponsors, now standing at 58, with a number of them serving on the powerful House Ways & Means Committee.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) and Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT), has 25 co-sponsors in the Senate.

Here's how you can help: The Congressional Arts Caucus recently circulated a “Dear Colleague” inviting members to join the bill as a co-sponsor. To see if your House or Senate member has co-sponsored this legislation, visit this website. If they have ignored HR 1524, then give them a call or email them a note scolding them for their apathy towards artists. You can email them or call them from here.

And if you don't do that, then you give up your right to bitch about everyone else's apathy towards the arts and the people who create it.

Slow Movin' Outlaw

Willie Nelson and Lacy J. Dalton (Lyrics by Waylon Jennings)

All your stations are being torn down a high flying trains no longer roar

The floors're all sagging with boards at a suffering from not being used anymore

Things're all changing the world's rearranging a time that will soon be no more

Where has a slow movin' once quickdraw outlaw got to go...

The whiskey that once settled the dust tasted so fine now taste so faint
And the mem'ries that once floated out come back stronger
And more clearly with each drink you take

And the women who warmed you once thought so pretty now look haggard and old

So where has a slow movin' once quickdraw outlaw got to go

This land where I travel once fashioned with beauty now stands with scars on her face

The wide open spaces are closin' in quickly from the ways of the whole human race

And it's not that I blame them for claming her bounty
I just wish they're takin' her slow

Cause where has a slow movin' once quick draw outlaw got to go

Tell me where has a slow movin' once quick draw outlaw got to go

Whitney Biennial 2008

The artists for the 2008 Whitney Biennial have been announced.

As usual, the list is essentially (again) the New York and California Biennial, with a sprikling of artists from a handful of other places.

Congrats to Philly's own Karen Kilimnik and the Charlottesville's Kevin Jerome Everson, who were some of the rare non New Yorkers in the show.

I just don't know how to fix this show so that it's just not another New York artists show...

artDC returns

artDC, the District's only major international art fair, returns for its second year on May 16-18, 2008, with an opening night VIP Preview scheduled for May 15.

Read my review of artDC 2007 here.

The New Media section, which I helped to curate last year, also returns for a second year and "this small group of exhibitors will display a variety of digital, sound and installations of mixed-media works, along with other gallery artists."

artDC 2008 will also feature "Art W," which is described as "a project paying tribute to contemporary and historical women artists. As an invitational, Art W will highlight select women artists whose work merits special recognition. Art W will additionally be spotlighted in on- and off-site seminars addressing the topic of women in the arts and in special events with partner institutions in Washington."

I suspect that we will see a lot more Mid Atlantic area galleries represented in this second year, as the relative success of the first year insures some sort of safety net for galleries with a limited art fair budget to do a "new" fair. I know this because one question that I get all the time as I wander through Philly's galleries is "how was artDC?"

And I know that we will see a lot more DC area galleries as well, as the fair's first year success now gives some sort of degree of assurance about the art being exposed to a large body of attendees and collectors.

On Collecting Prints

One word that has been hijacked from the art lexicon by the art merchants is the word "print."

A print is a woodcut, or a linocut, or an intaglio etching, etc. It is created by the printmaker, from beginning to printmaking. Anything else is a reproduction.

So if the original is a watercolor, or an oil, etc. and then you get digital copies of it, or four color separations, etc. all of those are reproductions of the original. However, it's hard to sell something when you describe it as a reproduction, and thus why dealers and artists alike describe their reproductions are "prints."

Giclees is a modern artsy way to describe a reproduction. Giclee is the French word for "spray" or "spurt." It describes the Iris burst printers originally used to make the beautiful new digital reproductions that started appearing in the art world around 15 years ago.

Nothing pisses off a printmaker faster than hearing a reproduction called a print.

On Tuesday, November 20th, from 6:30-8:00 pm, Pyramid Atlantic has an excellent opportunity for beginning and experienced print collectors: Pyramid & Prints: An Evening on the Potomac. This is a presentation by Mary Bartow, Director of Prints and Drawings, Sotheby’s New York.

The presentation will take place at the Old Potomac Boathouse, Georgetown (3530 Water Street, NW, Washington DC 20007).

6:30-7:00 pm Wine and hors d’oeuvres
7:00-7:30 pm Talk by Mary Bartow
7:30-8:00 pm Discussion and allocation of prints

Tickets: $100 and as their gift to you, an original print is included to add to your collection from one of the artists listed below. For tickets, please call 301.608.9101

Participating Artists include:

Andis Applewhite, Rob Evans, Joyce Jewell, Jake Muirhead, Tate Shaw, Maria Barbosa, Aline Feldman, Gabriel Jules (Zepecki), Nina Muys, Tanja Softic, Scip Barnhart, Micheline Frank, Maria Karametou, Lee Newman, Renee Stout, Dorothea Barrick, Helen Frederick, Barbara Kerne ,Minna Nathanson, Lou Stovall, Sally Brucker, Yolanda Frederikse, Madeleine Keesing, Judith Nulty, Henrik Sundquist, Wilfred Brunner, Jenny Freestone, Kathleen Kuster King, Martha Oatway, Lynn Sures, Judy Byron, Inga Frick, Robert Kipniss, Cara Ober, Terry Svat, F. Lennox Campello, Lonnie Graham, Mai Kojima, Mary Ott, Helga Thomson, Kathy Caraccio, Mary Heiss, Andrew Kreiger, Terry Parmelee, Caroline Thorington, Y. David Chung, Richard Hellman, Akira Kurosaki, Margaret Adams Parker, Claudia Vess, Charles Cohan, Ellen Hill, Bridget Lambert, Susan Due Pearcy, Vicky Vogl, Rosemary Cooley, Lisa Hill, Trudi Ludwig, Tracy Pilzer, Joyce Ellen Weinstein, Pepe Coronado, John Hitchcock, Tonia Matthews, Michael Platt, Ellen Verdon Winkler, Sheila Crider, Shireen Holman, Betty McDonald, Steven Prince, Liz Wolf, Lama Dajani, Joseph Holston, Kevin McDonald, Pyramid Atlantic Ann Zahn, Richard Dana, Tai Hwa Goh, Clay McGlamory, Andrew Raftery, Jason Zimmerman, Joan Danziger, Susan Goldman, Nancy McIntyre, Cecilia Rossey, Deron Decesare, Jody Isaacson, Michele Montelbano, Miriam Schaer, Erik Denker, Judy Jashinsky, Johanna Mueller, and Gretchen Schermerhorn.

By the way, Jose Dominguez is the new Executive Director of Pyramid Atlantic, and he starts on December 3, 2007. However, you can meet Jose at the opening of PM's CONTINUUM exhibit on Saturday, December 1st, from 6-8 PM with remarks from Katherine Blood (Curator of Fine Prints at the Library of Congress and the exhibit's curator), at 6:30PM.

Evolution of a drawing

It's always interesting how a piece of art evolves over time to be reborn (sometimes). Below is a ink and watercolor drawing that I did in art school around 1980.


I found it while rooting around the studio, and it's part of dozens of such drawings that I did in art school with people with all sort of things growing out of them.

And that 1980s piece gives birth to the following:

"Porcupine Woman"
Charcoal on Paper, 2007. 9 x 12 inches
By F. Lennox Campello

Speaker's Corner Tomorrow

The Arlington Arts Center is hosting Speaker’s Corner tomorrow, Saturday, November 17, from 12 – 4 pm . No subject is off limits! This is a special opportunity to speak out about issues of concern. Walk-ups are welcome, but if participants would like to reserve a 2 to 4 minute slot within a particular hour, they are advised to register in advance. Please call 703.248.6800 to register.

The program is part of "The 0 Project" - inspiration of artist Rosemary Feit Covey, an interactive installation art piece involving worldwide participation. Its official launch was at the Arlington Arts Center on October 5, where the centerpiece of the project—0 (Zero), a 300-foot long, 15-foot high banner that wraps AAC’s building on Wilson Boulevard — will be on view until February 2008.

Cornelius at Curator's Office

If you haven't checked out Kathryn Cornelius new work at Curator's Office then you are missing work by one of the Greater Washington DC's most refreshing and innovative young artists and another name on my "Buy Now" list.

Read the CP review by Kriston Capps here and the Artinfo.com review here and the essay by Jeffry Cudlin here. The exhibition goes through December 22, 2007.

Then go and buy Kathryn Cornelius now.

Call for Exhibition Proposals

Deadline: February 8, 2008.

The University of Minnesota Visual Arts Committee is now accepting applications for the 2008/2009 school year and there's no entry fee!

The Visual Arts Committee organizes nine solo, group, or theme-based exhibitions per year at the St. Paul Student Center''s 520 sq. foot Larson Art Gallery. It also organizes four solo exhibitions at Coffman Memorial Union''s Coffman Art Gallery.

Please make sure to include all of the following with your application:

* Note which Gallery you are applying for (coffman or larson).

* 2-5 slides of your artwork or digital images in jpeg format.

* Artists'' statement.

* Self-addressed stamped envelope for return of images.

The deadline for Fall2008/Spring2009 submission drive is February 8th, 2008, but they accept applications for consideration year-round. Send complete proposals to:

Minnesota Programs & Activities Council''s Visual Arts Committee
University of Minnesota- Coffman Memorial Union
300 Washington Ave SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Nude Bush Update

Remember when the below painting by Kayti Didriksen caused all that uproar at Artomatic and became the Internet's most downloaded image? It became the most popular contemporary political art of all time.

As an update, Kayti tells me that she

"Sold the painting to a diplomat who asked to remain anonymous. When I delivered the painting to his home in Brooklyn, I asked why he wanted it; his response was perfect, he thought that it was a great souvenir of his time in America."

Delaware Arts in Trouble?

Maureen Milford, writing for the News Journal, has an excellent article about the state of arts organizations in Delaware. Read that article here.

As an aside, I've yet to find one independently owned fine arts commercial arts gallery in Wilmington, If there's one, someone please let me know.

Randi Hopkins on Campello



Boston's Randi Hopkins at The Phoenix discusses the current exhibition Ozspirations at at the New England School of Art & Design and mentions my How Dorothy Killed the Witch.

"How Dorothy Gale really killed the Wicked Witch of the East"
Read it here.

Amy Lin Preview

I don't know how tonight's opening of Amy Lin's solo at Heineman-Myers Contemporary in Bethesda, MD went, but I dropped in yesterday to take a look at the work.

Buy Amy Lin now.

Wanna go to a Philly Opening this Friday?

Damian Moppett's After the Fall, which will run from November 16, 2007 - February 17, 2008 opens at the Temple Gallery in the Tyler School of Art. The openingr eception for the artist is Friday, November 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition will be accompanied by several programs; for more information visis this website or call 215.782.2776.

Some good lots

Rago Arts and Auction Center has a Post-War and Contemporary Art Auction on November 17, 2007 (exhibition starts today) and as usual there are some great "estimated" deals to be had...

- A Gene Davis color pencils on paper.

- This Wolf Kahn pastel

- Also a great deal on this Teo Gonzalez.

- A signed Rauschenberg print for under a thousand and also this screen print for under a thou.

- A Sol Lewitt drawing for under $500. Also litho for under a thousand.

- Four huge William Christenberry Polaroid transfers in one lot estimated at around $800 each ($2K - $3K for the lot).

- Jenny Holzer estimated at $2,000.

I have conveniently not mentioned the lots that I am bidding for, but there are a lot more "estimated" deals to be had.