Blogger Show Reviews

The Blogger Show in Pittsburgh and New York has been getting quite a few reviews both in the printed press and the artblogsphere. The show closes today.

In the spirit of me, I wanted to point out the nice things that the Pittsburgh City Paper's Lissa Brennan wrote about this blog.

Annapolis and the Trouble with Resort Galleries

I'll have a few words to say about "art auctions" on cruise ships when I return to serious blogging, but meanwhile the below piece by Shauna Lee Lange seems to be in the same touristy vein...

Annapolis and the Trouble with Resort Galleries
By Shauna Lee Lange

If you've been around art for any length of time, then you know that the commercial availability of art can become regionalized. Meaning, that what sells in Paducah may not sell in Santa Monica, and that artists who like working locally usually sell locally.

Art regionalism also means that people in St. Thomas are generally buying works featuring marine life, sunny skies, and bright and happy colors (for the most part) while people in Vail are buying snowscapes, tree lines, and other cold weather art.

There's a whole theory and science to how people live geographically and how vacation homes (second and third homes) in resort communities have a very different art purchasing base.

So it is very important to get out to these resort and rural areas and look around to see what's new in different parts of the country - and this is why some of the larger art shows are so popular. One can see what's hot in New York, Florida, and London all in one venue without having to travel. In large metropolitan areas, inventory tends to change fairly rapidly, but in smaller, rural towns, art inventory can have a longer wall life - and this is one way that an arts advisory, or the general public, can learn which artists have staying power in which communities and why.

Recently I decided to visit Annapolis, and although Annapolis, Maryland is not very far from my desk (over 25 miles - less than 50), Annapolis has the benefit of being both a resort community and a seaside community with a big boom in summer and a huge focus on marine art.

Now, as many of you may know, I'm originally from Rhode Island and spent a great deal of time in Newport, Rhode Island - arguably a comparable community. The trouble with resort galleries, particularly right after Christmas on a very slow Monday, is that they're closed. Or they're closing. Or they have relocated, or they're only open on a Tuesday when the moon is blue, or the gallery attendant is a bored college student on winter break.

It's frustrating to hear gallery owners lament about the difficulties of managing gallery overhead (and all the associated costs of insurance, shipping, contracts, etc.) when they have store hours of 10 - 2 or when they're only open on the weekends.

As an arts advisory service firm, Shauna Lee Lange and Company work far more than we should - developing leads, answering questions, helping people connect, exploring calls for submissions, researching art purchases - the list goes on. This is not a good thing, always to be pushing and working, but it is difficult from our perspective to understand how an art gallery can close its doors to the public it serves or the artists it represents.

And frustrating too, is that some of these spaces and curators and owners are very high quality. Certainly, January is a far cry from June, but when did it happen that art buyers only bought in June? The day that we visited was a glorious sunshiny, warm, spring-like day and Main Street Annapolis seemed dismal in comparison. Many spaces were for lease or rent - alarming so - even shops that have been in business for some time. Is this a condition of the economy? Is it normal turn-around for post-season stores? Or does the unavailability of art galleries speak to a larger causality, the growth of Internet galleries, the reduction of pedestrian traffic due to technology, or the cavalier approach some long-term gallery owners may have adopted along the way?

Most of the gallery owners we know do it because they love it and they're good at it. They live, eat, and breathe art. And we have to wonder in Annapolis, where is everyone?

It'll take a few months to see how Annapolis fares through changes it is facing with Main Street development along with many other communities in similar situations. We wanted to share some first hand impressions, a few photos of sights we saw along the way today, and a heart-felt plea to open your doors.

Back on Land

Back safe and sound, with the cleanest hands on Earth after one terrific vacation at sea... have almost 1,000 emails to catch up on, so posting will be fast and furious over the next few days, but today I've got to watch the Seahawks beat the odds against the Packers.

Back later with tons of pics and movies and loads of announcements and discussions...

Haze Gray and Underway

I'm outta here until 12 January... I'll be out at sea on a Caribbean cruise, sans computer and sans cell phone. Tomorrow is Three King's Day, which is the "actual" gift-giving day in most of the Christian world... and I scored a GIANT self-gift for my book collection of modern first editions as I've just got a super sweetheart of a deal on over 200 books, most of them signed, from an area book dealer going out of business after many years! One knows it is a great deal when a confidentiality agreement is part of the deal!

If I get the blogging DT's, I may slip into the dollar-per-minute Internet cafe at sea and blog something here and there, but until then, blogging will be sparse, email checking will be non-existent, the house is being guarded by a really mean house-sitter, and I'll be back on January 12 with a ton of stuff to catch up on, so y'all come back now!

Earlier tonight I dropped by the Rodger LaPelle Gallery in Philly to visit Andrew Wodzianski's second solo at that space in as many years. On view he must have had around 80 new mixed media works from his oddly mesmerizing (and radical departure) new series. I think these new works will go a long way for AW.

Meanwhile I leave you with this image of the Multinational Peacekeeping Force Medal for Service in Cuba.



Multinational Peacekeeping Force Medal for Service in Cuba
Oil on Gessoed Paper. 12 x 36 inches. 2007
By F. Lennox Campello
A ribbon for the future envisioned medal which will be awarded to the service men and women of various nations for participation in the future peacekeeping operations that will be required in Cuba once Castro dies and the prison island begins to descend into chaos.

Original oil available starting January 10, 2008 at Color Invitations. Call (202) 588-1701 if you want to purchase the painting ahead of the opening. I am still designing the medal itself.

And, Who Are You?

Part One


Part Two


Part Three


Part Four

Where did they look?

"they couldn't find a Native artist who did formal portrait sittings like this."

James V. Grimaldi reports in the WaPo that W. Richard West Jr., the founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, spent $48,500 in museum funds to commission a portrait of himself. Asides from the sensationalistic issue being made about the cost of the portrait - always try to minimize the value of the visual arts - what caught my eyes was this statement:

The portrait of West by New York artist Burton Silverman hangs in the patrons' lounge on the fourth floor of the flagship museum, which is dedicated to the arts and culture of American Indians. Silverman said West picked him after he saw a portrait Silverman had done of former Smithsonian secretary Robert McCormick Adams. The Adams portrait, completed about a decade earlier, was smaller and cost about half as much.

Silverman, of Polish descent, was chosen, said Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas, after "they couldn't find a Native artist who did formal portrait sittings like this."

What!

What!

What!

Are you fucking pulling my leg?

I'm not even remotely a fucking expert on Native American artists, but off the top of my head I can think of a couple of DC area and former DC area Native American artists who are (among other things) excellent portrait artists. One of them, Michael Clark has made a worlwide reputation for his obsessive portraiture of George Washington, and he has also done dozens and dozens of portraits of JFK, Jefferson, Jackie O and many, many portraits. He's in the collection of a couple of DC area museums I believe.

His brother Mark (who I think used to work for the Smithsonian for God's sakes) is also a superb artist, a brilliant trompe l'oeil painter and has done many hyper-realistic portraits as well!

They're both of Native American descent.

But we all know by now that most DC area museum curators ignore their own backyard. But couldn't one just pick up a phone and call some art galleries in Santa Fe or Sedona?

Or use the web? So just for fun let's see if we can Google some Native American portrait painters:

Mike Larsen.

Johnny Lee.

Mary Anne Caibaiosai.

Karen Clarkson

Reno Moreno.

OK... some are better than others, but if in less that five minutes I can come up with half a dozen Native American artists who appear to be portrait artists, including one - Mike Larsen - a Chickasaw portrait artist who was named the 2006 Oklahoman of the Year!

Note to Kevin Gover, who took over as the Indian Museum's director early last month: when it's time for your portrait and you're looking for a Native American portrait painter: call me!

Or learn to use Google.

Cuban Hall of Fame

In Rockville, Maryland there's an excellent Cuban restaurant called "Cuban Corner." As far as my palate is concerned, this is the best and most authentic Cuban restaurant in the Greater Washington, DC area. They are at 825 Hungerford Drive, near Ivy League Lane, Rockville, MD, 301-279-0310. Essentially on a strip mall right on Rockville Pike.

The food is authentic, affordable and plentiful (see the menu here). My favorite dish there is "Ropa Vieja," although the "Vaca Frita" is also superb. Either of those dishes, with a side of yucca con mojo or tostones, will delight your mouth and belly.

A visit to Cuban corner also delivers the interesting spectacle of the restaurant's Cuban Hall of Fame... or as they call it: The Wall.



The Cuban Hall of Fame, as determined by Joaquin Cabrejas, the restaurant's feisty owner, is composed of Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and people of traceable Cuban ancestry, and is made up of hundreds of name plaques glued to the restaurant's walls.

Some potential surprises to non Cubans (and even to some Cubans):

- Angela Anais Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell - otherwise known as Anais Nin, one of the 20th century's sexual goddesses nymphomaniacs (and a damned good writer as well!).

- Amazon's creator Jeff Bezos.

- Benjamin Huberman, Science Adviser to several American presidents.

- Truman Capote (by adoption)... took the last name of his adopted dad. Capote in Spanish is a large cape or the hood of a car.

- Ysrael A. Seinuk, the "father of the modern New York skyline."

- Eamon de Valera: The father of the modern Irish republic was Eamon de Valera, who was born in New York in 1882. His father, Juan de Valera, although technically on paper always reported as a Spaniard, was really a Cuban, born in Cuba (which was part of Spain back then), the son of a Cuban sugar planter and escaped to New York during the Independence Wars with Spain. There he earned his living as a piano teacher. He met and married Irish immigrant Catherine Coll. Juan died shortly after the birth of their son Eduardo. After Juan's death, his wife sent Eduardo to Ireland, where her family changed his name to the Gaelic version of Eduardo: Eamon.

- Cameron Diaz... we all know who she is.

- Dr. Steve Pieczenik, author of 39 books, including 16 bestsellers. He is critically acclaimed author of psycho-political thrillers and the co-creator of the New York Times best-selling "Tom Clancy's Op-Center" and "Tom Clancy's Net Force" book series. He is also one of the world's most experienced international crisis managers and hostage negotiators.

- Olga Viso, the Hirshhorn Museum's former director and now director of the Walker Art Center.

- The Joker... I mean Cesar Romero.

Ambrosio José Gonzales, this Cuban Confederate Colonel played a significant role in the Civil War and was essentially responsible for building Confederate coastal defenses. He had his finest hour during the Civil War as the artillery commander at the Battle of Honey Hill.

Cubanos todos de alguna manera!

Iranian Campaign Medal

"Iranian Campaign Medal", Oil on Canvas, 24 x 48 inches, c.2007
By F. Lennox Campello (from the Digitalia series)

A ribbon for the future envisioned medal which will be awarded to US service men and women for participation in the future campaign in Iran. Original oil available starting January 10, 2008 at Color Invitations. Call (202) 588-1701 if you want to purchase the painting ahead of the opening. I am still designing the medal itself.

15 for Philip

In the words of co-curators Linda Hesh and Ian Jehle, "Philip Barlow is an unmistakable fixture of the D.C. arts community as a collector, curator, and overall arts benefactor. A quick scan of almost any arts event in Washington will find Philip, at 6'4" - usually head and shoulders above the crowd - somewhere in the room."

True to the last word! Barlow is without a doubt one of the elements that make the DC art scene one of the most vibrant in the nation. He is a key element in the nation's capital art tapestry and an inspiration and goal for others.

15 for Philip: Fifteen Artists Look at Arts Patron Philip Barlow opens at Curator's Office in DC on Saturday, January 12, from 6 - 8 pm and runs through Feb. 16, 2008 and promises to be one of the most interesting looks at one of the District's most towering art scen figures.

Rob Parrish, 252 Works of Art Owned by Philip Barlow
The exhibition includes works in a range of media by this city's emerging and established artists including Colby Caldwell, Kathryn Cornelius, Joseph Dumbacher and John Dumbacher, Nekisha Durrett, Alberto Gaitán, Max Hirshfeld, Linda Hesh, James Huckenpahler, Ian Jehle, Amanda Kleinman, Al Miner, Rob Parrish, Eric Powell, Robin Rose, and Jeff Spaulding.

Trekkie Sues Christie's

Hee, hee... you gotta read this.

Brent Spiner as Mr. Data

Zulma Aguiar Favorite Artwork

Zulma Aguiar is at the leading edge of a new wave of electronic art talent now beginning to establish itself as the 21st century approaches the end of its first decade. And Zulma responds to my call for readers' favorite artwork. She writes:

Indigurrito by Nao Bustamante

Its a performance art piece where she strapped-on a burrito to her loins and called for white men to come up on stage, take a bite out of the burrito and absolve themselves of 500 years of the white man's guilt.

There was no shortage of enobled participants, who knelt in front of the protuding offering, some taking delicate bites, others deep-throated chunks.

Bustmante was quoted as saying, "This year I was told any artist of color must complete a performance based on 500 years of oppression in order to get funding."

Indigurrito Performance by Nao Bustamante

Happy New Year's

From the snowy Poconos: I hope that 2008 bring all of you loads of good and positive things.

2008 will be a super busy and interesting year for me. In addition to several art fairs where I will be participating, I will be also curating four exhibitions for four separate art venues in the Greater Washington, DC area, as well as potentially working a seminal project with a major gallery in London, plus having at least one solo show of my own work in Virginia later this year, plus several speaking engagements throughout the Mid Atlantic.

For me 2008 starts with "Color Invitations" at the new R Street Gallery in Washington, DC.

A while back the gallery's owner approached me, interested in exhibiting my newly revived interest in painting with a series of works based on my military decorations - a series that I started back in 1999-2000 as detailed here.

Because of the fact that these works have been selling quite briskly, and due to the timeline of the proposed exhibition, I declined the opportunity for the solo, as I didn't have enough works for it, and instead proposed to I curate a show for the gallery centered around a concept of artists working issues of color, texture, and some diverging from the type of work which they had been doing in order to explore color.

And thus on January 10, with an opening reception for the artists on January 16, 2008 from 6-8PM, the exhibition "Color Invitations" opens at the R Street Gallery with new work by Maggie Michael, Jeffry Cudlin, Amy Lin, Andrew Wodzianski (who also has a solo show opening at the Rodger Lapelle Gallery in Philadelphia this coming Friday, January 4, 2008), John Blee, Steve Lapin and myself.

On exhibition I will have some preparatory watercolors that I did in 1999-2000 in preparation for this this show at the McLean Project for the Arts, as well as a brand new painting from the series.

Expeditionary Service Medal, Watercolor on Paper, c. 1999
2.25 x 7.5 inches by F. Lennox Campello
The paintings themselves have shifted slightly in focus and technique. While the first few ones were essentially exploded pixillated huge oils of my Navy ribbons and medals, the new works "invent" new decorations and medals for imaginary, or predicted new military campaigns, perhaps as dreamed about, or envisioned by our political leaders in our nation's future, and as shaped by a visionary perspective on world events.

And thus at R Street Gallery, in addition to the prep work for the earlier pieces done circa 1999-2000, there will be a new oil painting depicting the "Iranian Campaign Medal," which will be awarded to American sailors, Marines, soldiers, airmen and Coast Guard personnel for participation in the future military campaign in Iran.

A second new oil painting on gessoed paper titled "Multinational Peacekeeping Force Medal for Service in Cuba," depicts the ribbon for the United Nations medal to be awarded to military and naval personnel who will be taking part in the peacekeeping occupation of Cuba as directed by the United Nations as that Caribbean island descends into chaos in a post Fidel Castro era.

The latter is part of my proposal package for a Cintas Foundation grant package that I submitted a few months ago, in which I propose to create a dozen new paintings, all depicting future campaign medals and ribbons associated with the imminent arising issue of the mess that is certainly to drag the US and the UN into Cuba once the brutal Galician dictator finally dies and his alcoholic brother fails to institutionalize a familial dictatorship in the style of Haiti's Papa Doc Duvalier or North Korea's Kim Il-Sung.

So pencil in January 16, from 6-8PM and come by the R Street Gallery, located at 2108 R Street (second floor), NW Washington, DC in the Dupont Circle gallery cluster.

The Power of the Web

A while back I put out a fun request as a call for this blog readers' favorite artworks, based on an idea triggered by the Washington Post's art critic Michael O'Sullivan's "Conversation Pieces" in which he listed some A-list folks' favorite art in the Greater DC area.

Since then I have been slowly but surely publishing them -- to those who have sent them in: patience! I am way behind and on holiday in the mountains.

And today I received an email from a publishing house interested in pursuing the effort in a book form, with an expanded format to be discussed!

I will be mulling that idea for a while, as I have a super busy January coming down the pike, but I am pretty sure that I will do the project if I can fit it into what's already looming as a super-busy 2008 for me.

Is that great or what?

More later...

Martin Irvine's Favorite Artwork

DC area gallerist Martin Irvine quickly established Irvine Contemporary as one of the leading Mid Atlantic art galleries and has led the way in bringing the super hot Chinese art to the DC region. He responds to my call for readers' favorite artworks and writes:

I was just in the NGA-East and was impressed by the nice little suite of works they have up from 1962, the turning point year in pop. I love Andy Warhol’s “200 Campbells Soup Cans” (1962): it’s entirely hand painted with some cut stencil work, and made before the now iconic soup cans from silk screens. Andy started silkscreening in 1963 after learning it from Gerard Malanga. The 200 hand painted soup can painting on canvas seems even more subversive because he made a painting that looks commercially made, a repetitive series of logos and product graphic design ubiquitous in every supermarket, but rendered back into a painting made by hand. The outrageousness of that — in 1962!

200 Campbell’s Soup Cans, (detail) 1962 (Acrylic on canvas, 72 inches x 100 inches), by Andy Warhol

Art Job

The Mint Museums, comprising the Mint Museum of Art and the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, NC, is looking to hire a Director to oversee responsibilities for the development, care and presentation of one of the finest collections of contemporary craft and design within the United States.

The collection's history begins an exciting new chapter as The Mint Museum breaks ground for a 145,000 square foot building that will be the centerpiece of a thriving cultural district in the city of Charlotte. The anticipated opening of the new facility is fall 2010. The museum will provide over 18,000 square feet dedicated to the Craft and Design Collection and special exhibitions

The successful candidate should have a minimum of five years professional curatorial/management experience within a museum environment. Salary and benefits shall be commensurate with experience. Submit application letter and resume to: Caroline Schuster caroline.schuster@wachovia.com (Job Code Reference: MM0107).

Fun with art

Shanthi Chandra-Sekar's Favorite Artwork

Artist Shanthi Chandra-Sekar responds to my call for readers' favorite work of art and writes:

It is the Chola bronze of Nataraja. I always get inspired when I look at a sculpture of Nataraja. According to Indian philosophy, he represents Space and I love this sculpture for its use of space. It is so totally packed with symbolism and meaning that the more I look at it, the more I learn from it.

I am currently reading a book by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy called The Dance of Shiva in which he describes the symbolism of Nataraja. Coomaraswamy is known for introducing the Nataraja sculpture to the West.

Shiva Nataraja, ca. 990, Indian
Chola dynasty, Bronze, India

Poconoing

In the Poconos for Christmas and the New Year's...

More later, with some interesting exhibition news for 2008 and even more interesting new curating projects...

Blake Gopnik at his best

We all know a few things about Blake Gopnik, the Washington Post's Chief Art Critic:

- He doesn't like painting.
- He especially doesn't like representational painting.
- He very, very rarely reviews his hometown's art galleries, and focuses his reviews on museums all over the nation, biennials, etc.
- Some of his fellow newspaper critics don't think much of him.

But the Anglocentric, Oxford-educated Gopnik is also sharply equipped to skewer, debone and consume his visual art victims when he wants to make a point, and is especially effective when he has a valid one.

And Blake Gopnik makes a very valid point in "The Overripe Fruit of John Alexander's Labors," his current review of the John Alexander retrospective at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (the show will then go on to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston - remember that).

After decimating Alexander's paintings during the first few lethal word descriptions of some of the work at the exhibition, and after re-channeling some often repeated Gopnikisms about painting and the tired "someone has already done this," or the "masters did it better," blah, blah, blah, Gopnik delivers a superbly clear message about one of the cornerstones of art throughout the ages: it's not just talent that gets ya there, it's also who you know! Gopnik executes the show when towards the end of the review, in discussing Alexander he writes:

I'd place him somewhere up there among the 5,000 or so best artists in the country. Which is more than enough to justify his continuing to paint and collectors' continuing to buy him. What I don't understand is why our national art museum, with such limited exhibition slots and an already iffy reputation for its contemporary programming, would want to highlight such a secondary figure. Alexander has barely had a significant museum show since the early 1980s, when his good friend Jane Livingston first displayed him at the Corcoran, where she was a talented chief curator. Livingston, now working freelance, also organized this show; her boss at the Corcoran, and again for the current survey, was Peter Marzio, now director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

By curating Alexander into our national museum, Livingston is billing him as one of our next Gilbert Stuarts, Edward Hoppers, Jackson Pollocks or Jenny Holzers. That's more than his modest talent can bear.

Bravo Mr. Gopnik!

Read the whole review here.

Gail Enns Favorite Artwork

California's Anton Gallery's owner and director Gail Enns responds to my call for readers' favorite artwork and she writes

I'll tell you that aside from the new work by Tony Sheeder, I love the work by Brazilian artist, Walter Goldfarb, now on view at MOLAA (Museum of Latin American Art) in Long Beach, CA. Title of the show is D + Lirium and it goes through May 18, 2008. Hope you get to see it.