The Shape of Things to Come

The WaPo's art critic Michael O'Sullivan shows and tells us not only about a few of his favorite art objects and places in the Greater DC area, but also the shape of things to come in art reporting and writing with this beautiful multimedia piece in the Washingtonpost.com.

A well done to whoever came up with this idea!

WPA Registry

The Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) has announced the recent public launch of the WPA ArtFile Online, an interactive web-based image registry of WPA members’ artwork, accessible 24 hours a day through the WPA’s website.

As I recall, back in the 1900s, Jack Rasmussen, then the spry young Assistant Director of the Washington Project for the Arts established the original ArtFile Slide and Media Registry, conceived as a centrally located repository containing slides of local artists’s work.

For many decades the original ArtFile has served as a go-to resource for curators, gallerists, collectors, artists, and members of the general public to see a cross-section of the artwork being produced in and around Washington DC.

In 2005 I used it to review about 20,000 slides (twice) in order to select the artists for the "Seven" show that I curated for the then WPA/C.

Funded by a grant from the Philip L. Graham Fund and developed by database firm ClearDev, the new WPA ArtFile Online contains over 3,800 images from more than 400 artists -- numbers that are growing daily. Visitors to the ArtFile Online can:

- browse alphabetically by artist’s last name
- search for artists by name or keyword
- sort artists by media (drawing, painting, etc.)
- sort artists by style (abstract, conceptual, etc.), or
- view artists by geographic location.

Visitors also have the option of registering -- free of charge -- as a Curator, allowing them to maintain a “Lightbox” -- a saved folder of their favorite artists’ portfolios.

Portfolio pages in the WPA ArtFile Online are one of the membership benefits given to WPA member artists, who are able to log in at any time from any computer with an internet connection to update their images, image captions, artist statement, resume, contact information, and the style and media keywords that best describe their artwork. Each artist’s portfolio page displays up to 12 images, and allows the artist to provide a link to their own external website where more images and information can be found.

Direct link to the WPA ArtFile Online: artfile.wpadc.org.

For additional information, please contact David William at dwilliam@wpadc.org

Photos of Miami Beach Art Fairs

The Cappster has many photographs of the various art fairs from ABMB; see them all here.

Baltimore struggles over public art

The Baltimore Sun, has a fascinating insight into what happens behind the scenes when someone wants to add a work of public art to a city.

In a nutshell, a group wants to honor former mayor and governor William Donald Schaefer by commissioning and putting a 9 foot statue of him on a prominent corner in Baltimore's Inner Harbor? This is all at no cost to the tax payers, other than perhaps as a eye sore to people who didn't like Schaefer.

Sculptor Rodney Carroll rough proposal concept sketches for the Schaefer statue
But seriously, it seems that every time that these issues on public art become, ah... public, the following happens:

(a) if the proposed honoring statue is an abstract work of art, someone complains because it doesn't really reflect clearly enough the intent or focus of the honoree.

(b) if the proposed honoring statue is a representational work of art, and actually looks like the person being honored, then someone complains that it is too traditional.

To that effect, Darsie Alexander, a sculptor on the panel, apparently took course (b) and stated one of the most traditional of lines and one of the dumbest arguments consistently taken by the boring "representational versus abstract" soldiers (note that I did not say "traditional," as it is clear to the most casual student of art history that abstract art, because of its age and proliferation in academia and public art these days, is as "traditional" as representational art).

According to the article Darsie Alexander said that:

"she saw a disconnect between the groundbreaking nature of the Inner Harbor redevelopment and the 'old-fashioned' quality of Carroll's sculpture. She warned that putting a traditional statue along the refurbished shoreline isn't likely to help put Baltimore on the map as a destination for cutting-edge art - and therefore she feels Carroll's piece may be inconsistent with what the Inner Harbor is all about."

Please... an interesting art destination, even a "cutting edge art" destination, is a tapestry of many colors and textures, not just one kind of artwork or style or genre; whatever happened to diversity?

And now let me take the other side.

Say that Mayor Sheila Dixon and the Baltimore city fathers all nod their head to Darsie Alexander's traditional opinion on this issue. Then I hope that Alexander's influences and opinions are educated enough to go past the "if we put an abstract work on the Inner Harbor and a plate that says it's William Donald Schaefer so that people actually know what it's all about" notion.

How about some really cutting edge art?

No, not a just a video piece of Hizzoner... that's also traditional stuff by now; it has been around for over half a century - let's get modernized folks!

Let's maybe explore some robotics, some motion sensors, some audio and video combos... I envision a moving statue of William Donald Schaefer; either a solid robotic one or a holographic one, with some sophisticated software and robotics properties (the art geeks from Dorkbot DC can design this part), which interacts with people as they pass by.

To really make it realistic, and consistent with Schaeffer's past actions, the statue could be equipped with some visual recognition algorithms to recognize attractive young women and issue a cat call every time that a pretty girl walks by.

Rousseau on Lin

I've been telling you all about Amy Lin for a long time now. And now Dr. Claudia Rousseau, writing for the Gazette newspapers reviews her current exhibition at the Heineman-Myers Fine Arts in Bethesda, a takes an indepth look at the sources for Lin's works:

"The work of emerging regional artist Amy Lin, now on view at the Heineman Myers Gallery in Bethesda, presents something of a conundrum. The interest it has generated, and the sales, threaten to make it suspiciously too popular to be taken seriously. Couple that with a widespread fascination with the artist’s technique — hundreds of small circles of varying sizes hand-drawn in curving strings with little tail-like ends — discussions of Lin’s work tend to be on the level of a ‘‘temple of toothpicks” rather than the kind of analytical response usually accorded abstract compositions. What passes for commentary on her work has tended to focus on the amazing number of dots, the sort of thing that could be done with a computer in short order, but which Lin tediously, obsessively, draws with colored pencils. But does this emphasis on the ‘‘wow” effect do it justice? If there were no more interest here than the dazzlingly meticulous way they are made, would they really be worth looking at? The fact is, once past that level, there is much to be seen and thought about here, and the artist’s much overlooked serious intent, particularly in terms of self-expression, deserves some attention."

Read the review here and you can meet Lin on these two dates at the gallery:

Friday, December 14, 6-9pm (Bethesda Arts Walk)
Sunday, December 16, 2-4pm (wine/cheese reception - artist talk at 2pm)

Buy Amy Lin now!

Miami Art Fire

Among the hundreds of paintings destroyed in a post Art Basel fire at the Harold Golen Gallery in Miami are apparently works by former DC area hanger about Ron English.

More Art for your Buck

See this and then join something!

Open Studios

Join the Washington Glass School's open house and annual Washington Glass School Holiday Party and Glass Sale. Lots of fine arts glass, class specials, artwork from a dozen prominent and emerging artists, music, food! This yearly event is always their biggest bash of the season and I am told that this is the largest sale that they have ever had! The perfect way to pick up original holiday gifts!

What: The Washington Glass School's Annual Holiday Sale and Party

Where: The Washington Glass School (3700 Otis St. Mt. Rainier, MD 20712; just across the DC city line; tel: 202-744-8222)

WashGlass.com for more info on the school.

Plenty of free parking and just 4 miles up Rhode Island Ave from Logan Circle.

When : Saturday, Dec 15th from 2 to 6pm

Wanna go to an opening in DC on Thursday?

You are all invited to the opening reception of Elements at Prada Gallery next Thursday, December 13, 2007. This exhibition features the work of Mark Cameron Boyd, Craig Cahoon, Willem de Looper, Pamela Frederick, Flora Kanter, Pepa Leon, Gene Markowski and Alex Mayer.

Prada Gallery is new to me and it is located at 1030 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, in Georgetown between M and K Streets, next to the Embassy of Thailand.

The reception is from 6:30 to 8:30 pm - please RSVP to (202) 342-0067.

Matt Nagle on Campello

Another Campello gets reviewed... this time my daughter Elise gets reviewed by Matt Nagle of the Tacoma Weekly.

Read the review here. That's her to the left.

Hands

artPark has some really nice things to say about one of my drawings that they purchased for their collection.

Read it here.

Market Five Gallery in trouble

For over 30 years Market 5 Gallery has operated in the north hall of Washington, DC's historic Eastern Market as an alternative art space.

Despite the fact that the space has no indoor plumbing or climate control, this non profit arts organization has thrived and launched many DC area artists. A few years ago, Market 5 went to court to fight what the gallery terms "an illegal eviction" by the city.

The case was then settled out of court but according to sources, the rent was raised almost 10 fold with the promise of indoor plumbing, heat, an upgraded electrical system and other improvements to bring the entire market up to code.

Now that improvements are underway on the south hall of the market, the city apparently trying to evict Market 5 Gallery again.

Please help the gallery by signing a petition to stop this eviction. Go to market5gallery.org for information about the gallery and then go to this website sign the petition.

Wanna go to an Arlington, VA opening tonite?

At the Arlington Art Center: Hope and Fear, Curated by Carol Lukitsch and part of the Winter solos 2007, and in the Jenkins Community Gallery: Art Enables: Outsider Art Inside the Beltway.

Show Dates: December 4 – January 19

Reception: Tonite! December 7, 6 – 9 pm

Location: Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd, Arlington VA.

You’ll see works in their main floor galleries by Michael Platt, Sandra Parra, Janis Goodman, M.V. Langston, Rachel Waldron, Steven Williams, Laurel Hausler, and Shahla Arbabi -- all selected by former AAC Curator, Carol Lukitsch, in her show exploring both beauty and unnerving tension in contemporary art: "Hope and Fear."

In their Chairman’s Gallery on that same floor, and in their Truland experimental galleries downstairs, you’ll also find three disparate WINTER SOLOS shows that highlight both established and emerging contemporary artists from around the Mid-Atlantic region: Jennifer Levonian, Young Kim, and Joe Mannino.

Downstairs, a selection of works from ART ENABLES — a D.C. arts organization working with adults who have developmental and/or mental disabilities -- will be on view in the Jenkins Gallery. And upstairs, you’ll find the colorful representational paintings and prints of resident studio artist Edith Heins in her show, Up Close and Personal.

The reception will include the premiere of a new dance choreographed by Lucy Bowen McCauley, with performances at both 6:30 and 7:30 in the Meyer Gallery by Bowen McCauley Dance.

Hope and Fear curator Carol Lukitsch will give her remarks in the Tiffany Gallery at 7:00.

Read the WaPo review here.

Wanna go to a DC opening tomorrow?

Tomorrow, December 7 is not only the anniversary of the day when, according to John Belushi in Animal House, the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, but also it is the last in the inaugural round of 9x10 exhibitions featuring the work of WPA member artists!

In tribute to the late William Warren Parker’s support for emerging DC artists, his family has generously donated space at the William W. Parker (WWP) Gallery – housed in Mickelson’s Fine Art Framing at 629 New York Ave NW - to the WPA for a new “nine-by-ten” exhibition series: 9 shows of 10 member artists each.

These shows provided a new outlet for WPA member artists, and each exhibition presented a diverse cross-section of the WPA membership to the public, showcasing works in all media.

Show #9: December 7, 2007 – January 4, 2008, featuring works by Michele Banks, Michael Kent, Preeti Gujral Kochar, Pepa Leon, Laurie Messite, Mary D. Ott, Bailey Rosen, Andrei Trach, Jennifer Trice and Irene Zweig.

OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 6:30 – 8 pm
WWP Gallery (Mickelson’s Fine Art Framing)
629 New York Ave NW, 3rd Floor
Washington, DC 20001
Info: 202.639.1828 or here.

In addition, Michele Banks has a solo show of her abstract watercolors running at Gallery Frame Avenue in Bethesda through December 31.

McQuaid on Campello

The Boston Globe's Cate McQuaid reviews "Ozspirations" at The New England School of Art and Design Gallery at Suffolk University in Boston and has something nice to say about my drawings, although she pretty much dismisses the rest of the exhibition.

Read her review here.

New Acquisitions

A sculpture by Sol LeWitt and an oil painting by William D. Washington, a 19th century Washington, DC raised artist famed throughout the South for his "Burial of Latane" Civil War painting, have been acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

VMFA is a state museum with private endowments for art purchase. I think that this is perhaps the ideal public/private partnership, because art is purchased with private funds and then becomes the responsibly of the state for its ongoing care.

Throughout their history, they have benefited from many generous donors, including Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Rita Gans, Lillian Thomas Pratt, and Sydney and Frances Lewis, among many others.

The LeWitt was a partial gift of the Sol LeWitt estate and Pace Wildenstein in honor of Frances Lewis and in memory of Sydney Lewis, in addition to some funds from the Sydney and Frances Lewis endowment.

VMFA's new Sol LeWitt sculpture is titled "Splotch #22" and was created in acrylic on fiberglass this year. It stands just more than 12 feet tall.

"Much of today's art practice would be unthinkable without LeWitt's pioneering work in Conceptual Art in the 1960s and 1970s," says John Ravenal, VMFA's Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

"Our new sculpture is the largest and most complex of LeWitt's series of non-geometric sculptures. It is also LeWitt's last work."

Ravenal says that the artist made two drawings for "Splotch #22" on which he indicated colors and height. A fabricator then translated the drawings into 3-D using a computer. The result is a sculpture made of layers of industrial-grade foam that were laminated, carved and sanded before being coated with epoxy resin, fiberglass, and multiple layers of paint and varnish.

I am curious as to the technical aspect of this... once the "fabricator" has created a 3-D digital file, is it then fed to a machine which then "builds" the sculpture, or creates a mold for it? And who carves and sands the industrial-grade foam? Who coats it with resin and fiberglass and then applies the paint and varnish?

Possibly not LeWitt, and that's OK...

But is this the same general idea as a watercolorist creating a watercolor and then handing it over to a lab which then scans it into a hi resolution image and prints it into a canvas, and then another machine replicates the artist's original brush strokes in a finishing clear medium and recreates another work which is not the original piece.

We call those reproductions.

But then say that the artist's watercolor is scanned into a 3-D translation and made into a sculpture?

Makes my head hurt.

Miami Day One

As the entire human art universe is now focused on Miami, I thought that it might be fun and interesting to have an artist's viewpoint reporting from Miami.

Each day I will publish the District's uberartist Tim Tate's experiences from Miami. Here's the first installment:

A day by day impression of ArtBasel from the perspective of an artist showing there for the first time. Call it my mini blog for just these few days. One artist's journey through the most complex art maze on Earth.

The weather here is spectacular... about 75 degrees yesterday and cool and breezy. I cabbed in from the airport to my hotel (which is a totally adorable guesthouse in South Beach) then went to see my gallery space at the Flow Art Fair.

FLOW is one of the spin off shows from ArtBasel Miami Beach and is right next to Bridge and Aqua (two other art fair spin offs). And all are right next to "the" ArtBasel MB.

I arrived in late afternoon.... this is just set-up day. Wednesday is press preview at noon and the actual opening is Thursday night.

FLOW is being held at the Dorset Hotel. When I arrived it was a little underwhelming. It seems that each gallery that is participating in FLOW gets a hotel room.

FLOW is considered one of the best off shoot fairs as it's an invitation only show, which means that a gallery has to be invited to show there - in other words, a gallery can't apply to the show, it has to be invited.

I am showing here with a gallery with an incredible reputation, and they are totally featuring me. I can't quite believe it.

And a hotel room is what you get... a small hotel room.... about 15 x 20 feet.

It's all so odd. They have covered the toilet with fabric and it is its now a pedestal for a sculpture. They have covered the sink with a black disc and it is now another pedestal. Thank God that they also covered the flocked brocade wall paper that dominated the room!

It totally reminds me of just starting out in my art career when we would take over a friend's apartment for a home show.

So finally I am being represented at the largest art show in the world, and it feels just like I'm starting all over again. Just like Annie Adjchavanich's $100 art sales used to be in the District years ago!

But maybe that's the point: I am starting over. Just on an international level.

I am told that this is the way its done and so I am hopping on board for this ride. For better or worse, I will report it all to you.

Last night they threw a welcoming party for us on the roof of the Dorset Hotel. Tons of liquor and sushi; it was very nice. George Hemphill of DC's Hemphill Fine Arts, came over to me and said hi and welcomed me to FLOW (he is showing here too).

At the same time, right across the street was a huge VIP opening for the super-swells... klieglights... limos... furs... very fancy (I think Lenny was there).

And as I stood on this roof deck... klieg lights dancing across the buildings, George Hemphill saying hi... everyone coming up to me telling me how blown away they are by my video pieces... I thought: "maybe I have arrived."

But as my life has taught me... my hubris in these situations is always quickly corrected by the Universe... we will see as the days unfold down here.

More tomorrow...

Tim

New Hands

The District's Aaron Gallery has been around for a long time. Recently the director and owner passed away, and now the gallery is in the hands of the talented Sabrina Cabada and she's slowly but surely re-inventing the gallery, one step at a time.

And something new already!

They're having an art exhibition by gallery artists - as opposed to the same work hanging all the time as they used to be.

Join the gallery and artists on Friday, December 7th for an opening reception at 1717 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington DC at 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Contact info@aarongallerydc.com for further details.

Work by Chico Hardraker, Chris Milk Hulburt, Francine Shore, J. Aaron Alderman, John Blee, Mary Jennings, Matt Sesow, Rebecca D’Angelo and Sabrina Cabada.

New Director at the Phillips


Dorothy Kosinski, Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Dallas Museum of Art, has been selected as The Phillips Collection's new director.

"I am thrilled to have been selected as the next director of The Phillips Collection," says Dr. Kosinski. "I have long admired Duncan Phillips’s extraordinary record as a collector of modern art and his deep commitment to contemporary artists."

Dr. Kosinski will assume her post next Spring and succeeds Jay Gates, who announced his retirement in June 2007. Read the WaPo's Jackie Trescott's article on the subject here.

Welcome to the DC area!

Washington Color School