CHAW Arts Ball

The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW) is holding its eighth annual Arts Ball fundraising gala on Saturday, October 3, 2009 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at its historic building on Capitol Hill. The Arts Ball supports CHAW’s tuition assistance, outreach, and education programs. The theme for this year’s event is Indian Nights and CHAW’s building will be transformed into an Indian odyssey, including a Taj Mahal gallery of art-to-be-auctioned, entertainment in the Bollywood Theater, dancing in the Bombay Palace, and shopping in the Delhi Bazaar. The silent auction and raffle features dinners at the Indian Embassy, airplane tickets to Italy, works from local artists and members of the Capitol Hill Art League, unique experiences, and a wide array of prizes from retail items to gift certificates and jewelry.

Tickets are $50 per person in advance and $75 at the door and can be purchased at www.chaw.org, by calling the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop at (202) 547-6839, or email to victor@chaw.org. CHAW is located at 545 7th Street SE, the corner of 7th and G Streets SE

Wanna go to an artsy wine tasting this Friday?

Touchstone Gallery will be having a closing reception for their 90 artist juried group show "My Space on 7th" together with a wine tasting offered by the Washington Wine Academy.

It's all free. Art & Wine starts at 6pm and goes through 8pm this Friday, Sept. 4th.

Labor Drawings

And nu?... you all knew that if I was having a new son at my early middle age, than in addition to a million photos I'd be doing some drawings, right?

Click on the drawings for a larger version of them... now to do some baby paintings for the boy's room...

Alida in Labor (Birthing Drawing Series).
August 27, 2009. Ink on paper by F. Lennox Campello

Alida after her Epidural (Birthing Drawing Series).
August 27, 2009. Ink on paper by F. Lennox Campello

Anderson Campello after he was cleaned up (Birthing Drawing Series).
August 28, 2009. Ink on paper by F. Lennox Campello

Hiltonian Lawsuit

Socialite and member of the prominent Hilton family Ann Hilton is the target of a lawsuit brought against her by artist Alexander Presniakov alleging she stiffed the artist out of $10 million in original artwork.

Read the Reuters story here.

Bird Brain

Is art criticism so easy that a pigeon can do it?

... Here's what happened. Shigeru Watanabe (a psychologist at Keio University in Tokyo and possibly a man in league with the birds) set up a nefarious experiment. Watanabe showed children's paintings to pigeons; a panel of adults had deemed each work either good or bad. He trained the pigeons to distinguish between them with a system of tasty rewards. When the pigeons pecked correctly, he gave them some seed. Later, he presented 10 paintings to the birds they had never seen. Five of these paintings had been deemed good by humans, five bad. The pigeons recognized the good paintings as “good” twice as often as they recognized the “bad” paintings. In short, they came off as pretty good critics.

Read Morgan Meis at Drexel University's The Smart Set here.

New Maryland gallery reviewing portfolios

Red Studio is reviewing portfolios for their upcoming gallery space which will be in Antique Row, Old Town Kensington, Maryland. Open to all artists and genres such as interdisciplinary, traditional, experimental, and functional art are welcome.

For art submissions:
Shara Banisadr
Red Studio Gallery
Antique Village
3758 Howard Ave
Kensington MD 20895

Or email shara@redstudio.org

From the LAPD Wanted List

Do you recognize this man?

The Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Art Theft Detail is searching for art dealer Matthew Taylor, 41, who lives in Vero Beach, Florida. An arrest warrant has been issued for Taylor for grand theft and receiving stolen property in connection with the theft of a Granville Redmond painting. Bail has been set at $500,000.

Taylor has worked as an art dealer who would visit various art galleries, obtaining art on consignment. In October of 2006, Taylor visited the L.A. Fine Art Gallery in Los Angeles where he was known to the owner and staff. Detectives believe that Taylor took advantage of this trust to remove [an] available painting out of a storage room that is not accessible to the public. He then borrowed a car and went to an art show in Santa Monica where he offered the painting for sale to William Karges who owns art galleries in Beverly Hills and Carmel. Taylor offered the painting for sale out of the trunk of his car in the parking lot, stating he was selling it for his mother.

Karges bought the painting for $85,000 and sold it to a client for over $236,000. The painting was not discovered missing and reported to the police until after Karges sold it to a client. Detectives posted a crime alert on the LAPD website. Karges gallery personnel stumbled upon the alert in 2007 and contacted police.

In 2009, detectives finished their investigation and obtained an arrest warrant for Taylor. However, before Florida police could respond to Taylor’s residence to take him into custody, detectives learned that Karges’ attorney had inexplicably tipped off Taylor of the criminal charges filed against him. As a result, police have thus far been unable to locate Taylor. Taylor’s attorney, Harlan Braun, has tried to arrange for Taylor’s surrender on several occasions but Taylor has repeatedly failed to appear.

During the investigation, L.A. Fine Art Gallery recalled several other thefts of art that coincided with visits to the gallery by Taylor. In 2004, paintings by Johann Mertz and William Malherbe, valued at $40,000, were stolen from the front showroom. A $20,000 Lucien Frank painting similarly disappeared from the showroom in 2006. Taylor had visited the gallery during both time periods.

Detectives would like to speak to anyone who may have been victimized by Matthew Taylor, who has also used the name Matthew Taylor Nelson. Detectives are also searching for Taylor’s mother, Patricia Taylor, 76 years old, to determine if she is being exploited by her son. Patricia is believed to be in poor mental and physical condition.

Read the LAPD report here and see images of the stolen paintings here.

One Sunday when I was sitting the desk at my old gallery in Bethesda, I got a phone call from a lawyer who explained that he was looking for Mr. ___________, whose name I recognized as a former well-known former DC art dealer, whose tendrils still have offspring in the DC art world.

The lawyer wanted to know if I knew that dealer. I told him that I knew of him, but that he predated me by at least a decade, and that I had never met the man. He then explained that he was trying to track the art dealer in question, as he had been hired by a former client of said dealer, who had been burned in a somewhat interesting scheme.

I asked him for details.

Apparently the DC art dealer had sold a small Picasso watercolor (or was it a set of prints?) to a collector for (all $ figures are for example purposes) $100,000. A couple of years later, the dealer called the collector and said that he had someone interested in purchasing the Picasso for $200,000.

The collector declined, and the art dealer called a few days later and stated that the interested party was now offering $300,000.

And so the Picasso was returned to the DC gallery, where the dealer told the collector to wait for the sale to take place.

Apparently the sale did take place, but for around $75,000 to a second buyer; a damned good deal for a Picasso piece. The DC art dealer then closed up shop.

So essentially, at least according to this lawyer's telephone story, the Picasso painting was sold twice to two separate collectors and the dealer kept both payments.

The police recovered the painting from the second poor buyer and returned it to the original owner.

The second buyer was the one burned in this deal and the one who hired the lawyer to track down the art dealer; I'm not sure if/why the police were not the ones doing the tracking down.

Keep your eyes on your fries.

Art Censorship?

I'm hearing some rumblings about what seems to be an overt form of art censorship in a regional area art gallery. More details as I dig out more info.

Wanna go to an opening in Frederick, MD?


Opening Reception: Saturday, September 5, from 5 - 8 pm at the Artists' Gallery, at 4 East Church Street in Frederick, Maryland.

"Minimalist yet complex, this exhibit is a showcase of Robert Sibbison's sculptures characterized by the shifting relationships between regular and irregular forms and space. Patterns are established, evolve and mutate within the deceptively simple forms. The play of light and gravity on steel and wood create visual ambiguity, beauty and tension. The result is a synergy of simple parts adding up to a compelling whole.

Robert Sibbison's work has been honored with national grants, commissions and prizes including a National Endowment for the Arts individual grant, and a large outdoor sculpture commissioned by Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio as part of their permanent collection. He received a BFA from the University of Colorado and a Masters of Fine Art from Cranbrook Academy of Art and has taught at various private schools and public universities. Robert is currently an adjunct professor at Frederick Community College, Frederick MD."

ICAFair DC09 Canceled

Citing the economic climate, the third iteration of the International Caribbean Art Fair, scheduled to be in DC next month, has been cancelled.

Pink Linin'

If you haven't seen the new Pink Line Project website, then you're missing one of the best resources for the visual arts in the nation's capital region.

And if you're a gallery or art PR person and you're not sending Philippa P.B. Hughes all your art press releases for the site's most excellent calendar, then you're missing out on a great venue to spread the art word.

Visit it here.

Economist on the Torpedo Factory

The Economist visits Alexandria's Torpedo Factory.

Don't anticipate anything game-changing or jaw-dropping here. Expect plenty of cats and cows in different media, as well as watercolours of beach houses, ersatz Abstract Expressionist paintings, stained glass made for the walls of large suburban houses, baubles and knick-knacks and thingummies galore. All of it is skilfully done; most of it is pleasant.

The photography is an exception: the Multiple Exposures Gallery is first-rate, displaying not merely beautiful pictures but inventive techniques as well. On a recent visit the gallery showcased landscapes, including an especially arresting wide-angle aerial shot of a field in Fujian after a storm. Crops glinted in the rising sun like rows of wet sapphires, the scalloped grey clouds echoing the terraced farming beneath.

Read the whole article here.

The last paragraph of the Economist article:

The Torpedo Factory’s biggest draw, however (particularly for visitors with children), is not on what is sold but in the demystifying access visitors have to artists. While the galleries function traditionally, the artists work and sell out of the same studio; their raw materials and works in progress—the artistry behind the art—are all on display. Many of them are happy and eager to talk; one was soliciting the help of passers-by to complete a work (she wished to know how to say and write a certain phrase in Hebrew vernacular—a quest that might take time to complete in a yachty southern suburb). A metal sculptor sat on a stool patiently working a piece of metal back and forth in his hands. The centre of his studio was filled with a huge hollow sphere made from hundreds of cylinders of perhaps anodised aluminium. It seemed we were witnessing the first step in a thousand-mile march.

Tate in Neural

Europe's Neural magazine reviews Tim Tate.

Read the review online here in English and here in Italian.

Ace

Anderson Lennox Franklin Lars Timothy Angus Pict Eric Florencio Brude James Tiberius Campello Anderson Cruzata Jaspersen Alonso Zaar Marrero Karling Comba Noren Dalke Hartsell y Lennox. Circa August 28, 2009. Flesh and Blood. 20.5 inches by 8lbs 2 oz. NFS

It's a boy!

I am a father again! Welcome to the world Anderson Lennox Campello, born today, 28 August, 2009 at 0325AM after putting his mom through 41 hours of labor!


In the Cuban tradition I am giving him a ton of names... so although officially his name is Anderson Lennox Campello, his real name is Anderson Lennox Campello plus he also has these for the family record: (these are middle names following) Franklin Lars Timothy Angus Pict Eric Florencio Brude James Tiberius (and extended last names from his parents lineage in the right order) Anderson Cruzata Jaspersen Alonso Zaar Marrero Karling Comba Noren Dalke Hartsell y Lennox.

Wanna go to an opening at UM?

From Wednesday, September 2 through Wednesday, October 3, Profess: Department of Art Faculty Exhibition provides a glimpse into the creative research and professional activities of the University of Maryland’s Department of Art faculty.

The seventeen full-time faculty members included in the exhibition are: Audra Buck-Coleman, Patrick Craig, Dawn Gavin, Margo Humphrey, Wendy Jacobs, Patrice Kehoe, Richard Klank, Tadeusz Lapinski, Ruth Lozner, John McCarty, Brandon Morse, Jefferson Pinder, W.C. Richardson, John Ruppert, Foon Sham, Justin Strom, and James Thorpe.

The exhibition takes place in The Art Gallery located on the 2nd floor atrium of the Art-Sociology Building at the University of Maryland, College Park campus. A reception takes place Wednesday, September 2, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.

Mack, The Knife

I've always liked this song and always wondered what the hell it is about...

Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear

And it shows them pearly white

Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe

And he keeps it … ah … out of sight.



Ya know when that shark bites, with his teeth, babe

Scarlet billows start to spread

Fancy gloves, though, wears old MacHeath, babe

So there’s nevah, nevah a trace of red.



Now on the sidewalk … uuh, huh … whoo … sunny mornin’ … uuh, huh

Lies a body just oozin' life … eeek!

And someone’s sneakin' ‘round the corner

Could that someone be Mack the Knife?



A-there's a tugboat … huh, huh, huh … down by the river don’tcha know

Where a cement bag’s just a'droopin' on down

Oh, that cement is just, it's there for the weight, dear

Five'll get ya ten old Macky’s back in town.



Now, d'ja hear ‘bout Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe

After drawin' out all his hard-earned cash

And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor

Could it be our boy's done somethin' rash?



Now … Jenny Diver … ho, ho … yeah … Sukey Tawdry

Ooh … Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown

Oh, the line forms on the right, babe

Now that Macky’s back in town.



Aah … I said Jenny Diver … whoa … Sukey Tawdry

Look out to Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown

Yes, that line forms on the right, babe

Now that Macky’s back in town …


Look out … old Macky is back!!

Cuban art is caliente!

Because I am an art dealer, and because I have several art collectors that retain me as an advisor, I try to figure out the art scene from a commodity perspective as well as an artistic one; a key marriage often eschewed by most art critics because of their natural antipathy at admitting their symbiotic relationship with every facet of the art world, including the fact that art is everything, including a commodity.

How long have I been shouting "buy Cuban art!"? A long time... and not just because I may be a prognosticating commercial art genius, but because of the two great recent examples in the worldwide industry of making a piece of art climb in price: Russia and China.

Not just me, by the way, but also the Wall Street Journal, which looks at all things from a money perspective.

And of course, being self-serving because I'd rather people buy the artwork produced by the artists that I represent, I am always glad when they continue to do well, as they are "discovered" by the greater American art public in these three forthcoming exhibitions, all featuring the work of Sandra Ramos, whose amazing work I've pushing for years now and whose American solo gallery debut took place at my former gallery several years ago!

Sandra Ramos, "Alumbramiento (Enlightment)" - Mixed Media Etching. 22 in. x 30 in. (56 cm x 76 cm). 2005.
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut has just announced a new exhibition, Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul, opening September 12, 2009 and on view through February 21, 2010.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s partner, the Hispanic Alliance of New London, has provided support for this exhibition with its coordinating programs and events. Cuban culture has been characterized as an ajiaco or a rich stew consisting of a vast array of ingredients. It is this synthesis that is the essence of Cuban art and the subject of Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul. The exhibition seeks to interpret the diverse social dimensions of Cuban art in a global context through the exploration of its relationship with African, Asian, European, and indigenous influences and belief systems.

This art incorporates the tales of the Orisha of Africa, the calligraphy of Chinese Tao Te Ching, and the rituals of indigenous peoples. The formats change, the materials vary, but the mix remains constant in both Cuban and Cuban American art. Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul is not only about Cuban art; it explores diaspora. In broader terms, this project addresses both the immigrant experience and the expression of cultural identity in a new place.

The curator, Dr. Gail Gelburd, a professor of art history at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut, writes,

“Isolated and yet educated, restricted and yet heralded, the Cuban artist embodies the angst of their situation and yet embraces the loftiest of goals. Their syncretist tradition and heritage allows them to go beyond the monotheistic traditions in order to find the origins of their soul, the geist or inner spirit of their art.”

Gelburd has been conducting research on Cuban art and artists for over fifteen years. She travels to Cuba regularly and has lectured there for the Havana Biennale, Havana University, and Casa Africa. Gelburd has received numerous grants and awards, including a Rockefeller Foundation grant to conduct research on Cuban art and she is publishing a book on Contemporary Cuban art. Her article “Cuba: The Art of Trading with the Enemy" was published in Art Journal in Spring 2009.

This exhibition consists of more than fifty objects, including paintings, works on paper, photographs, sculpture, installations, and audio works by twenty-two artists. Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul will feature such major figures in Cuban art as Wifredo Lam, Manuel Mendive, Jose Bedia and Sandra Ramos, among others.

Following its time on view in New London, Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul will travel to the Chelsea Art Museum in New York City and then on to the Hilliard Museum at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, Louisiana.

And another one:

The Center for Contemporary Printmaking (CCP) in
Norwalk, CT heralds in the fall with an exhibition of Latin American prints, September 24, 2009 through November 07, 2009. The exhibition opens with a gallery reception on Thursday, September 24, 2009, 4 – PM, and is free to the public. Entitled “Creative Dialogues: Latin American Prints & Printmakers”, the exhibition focuses on the human figure and the interaction of different Latin American cultures to their environment and living conditions. Approximately 50 works of art are in the exhibition. Gallery talks and a workshop exploring contemporary Caribbean and Latin American prints and printmakers are planned to coincide with Hispanic Month, which takes place in October 2009.

Artists participating in the exhibition hale from many countries, and underscore the diversity of imagery presented at the exhibition. Gallery visitors will have the opportunity to review the work of two artists who create their images at a printmaking atelier in Cuba, images that are rarely exhibited in the United States; to review the work of Antonio Frasconi, an international artist who resides in Norwalk; or take in a lecture by Sandra Ramos, an internationally known installation artist, and Alicia Candiani, workshop owner and artist whose imagery emphasizes women and women’s issues. Sandra Ramos and Alicia Candiani are traveling stateside to create new prints at the CCP Helen Frankenthaler Printmaking Cottage and participate in the Artist-In-Residence program for several weeks during the “Creative Dialogues” exhibition.

On Friday, October 2, CCP is hosting a special gallery event, open to the public. Join guest Curator Ben Ortiz for a walk and talk of the “Creative Dialogues” exhibition at 6 PM, and listen to Sandra Ramos and Alicia Candiani talk about their images in the exhibition at 7 PM. Following the gallery talks, attendees will have the opportunity to view new works by Sandra Ramos and Alicia Candiani at the Helen Frankenthaler Printmaking Cottage.

And lastly, Wake Forest University is presenting "Cuban Artists, Books and Prints, 1985-2008." The exhibition gathers over 120 books, maquettes for unpublished projects, related prints, and printed objects. The books were designed for Ediciones Vigía, a collaborative artists’ press founded in 1985 in Matanzas. The only press of its kind in Cuba or perhaps anywhere, it began with a mimeograph machine and a borrowed typewriter. The show includes 120 works (handmade books, prints, sculptures, film about artists, digital frames, and mixed media) and it is curated by Linda S. Howe, curator and Professor at Wake Forest University, in conjunction with Paul Bright, Assistant Director of WFU Fine Arts Gallery.

Prints by Ibrahim Miranda and Sandra Ramos offer romantic, nostalgic views of the island or ironic interpretations of patriotism. Miranda superimposes fantastic beasts on old maps of Cuba. For her book Jabberwocky, Ramos mixes excerpts from Lewis Carroll’s text and John Tenniel’s images for Through the Looking Glass with her own on pages facing foldout mirrors (where they must be read). Other prints combine photographs of herself as a child with her illustrations of contemporary Cuban life, suggesting its fairytale quality, sardonically sketching the quotidian, and voicing her sense of loss.

The exhibition goes from August 26 - October 6.

And, remind me later to blog my mother's most excellent Ajiaco recipe!

Worst Nobel Peace Prizes ever

It has nothing to do with art, but this article is pretty good and cements something that I really believe: sometimes the prize just goes to the wrong bloke. Read the David Rothkopf article here.

My vote for the worst Peace Prize ever? Yasser Arafat.

Gopnik on Sanborn

"Terrestrial Physics," as the new installation is called, is possibly the most substantial work of art to come out of Washington since the 1950s, when Morris Louis stained his first canvases. Except Louis's fans had seen big, colorful abstractions before. No one has come across a thing quite like the new art Sanborn has made, working almost alone in his studio over the past three years.

Read Blake Gopnik's excellent profile on Washington area artist Jim Sanborn here; there's an interesting lesson for all artists in the last 6-7 paragraphs of the story.

And by the way, I was very glad to see Gopnik do something rare last Saturday: cover a couple of local DC galleries. Read that here. Gopnikism of that article: "Though boyish, the piece also is sober and adult."