Craftiest Bastard

I voted for "goshdarnknit" - vote for them here.

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Gopnik on Yo

WOW! What a surprise in the WaPo

If Yo were shooting, say, in 1972 -- just when her technology was fiercely up to date -- she'd be on the cutting edge, as good as anyone, and her future would seem certain. All she'd have to do is keep developing the skills that nature gave her. Nowadays, however, to fully realize her promise, she'll have to aim at redefining what a photograph can do, not just at taking yet another telling shot.

Yo is acutely aware of the predicament that she, and her entire art form, is in. "The future is scary," she says. But she trusts in her vocation.

"I love photography, and I will be an addict until the day I die."

That newspaper's chief artc ritic, Blake Gopnik has a very glowing article on Corcoran student Michelle Yo.

I recently caught up with Yo in the house she's sharing just up from the bars of U Street. She showed me a portfolio that's amazingly mature.

The article does make Yo's work sound interesting (the compliments from Andy Grundberg and Terri Weifenbach confirm her photographic presence) and also puts her forth as a really nice kid as well.

Shot on a Corcoran trip to El Salvador, Yo's image of a local woman seems perfectly "straight." Yet it achieves a quietly artistic balance between zones of leaf-green (two well-groomed shrubs) and of pale blue (the woman's skirt and a patch of mural). To complicate its vision and temper any artiness, it also throws in some out-of-focus branches that are almost illegible. That makes it all the more artful. -- Blake Gopnik (By Michelle Yo)

I also find interesting the need to disclose that Gopnik's wife (the superbly talented and elfin-like Lucy Hogg) "teaches in fine arts at the college, but does not know Yo." Call that the Tyler Green policing effect on the world of fine arts writing.

Update: By the way, Gopnik doesn't mention it, but the exhibition where he saw Yo's work was curated by Terri Weifenbach and the very hard-working gallerist Jayme McLellan from Civilian Art Projects.

Job in the Arts

The Washington Printmakers Gallery located on Connecticut Avenue in Dupont Circle's prime arts district is offering a part-time position to a qualified candidate with an arts background, familiarity with printmaking, strong writing and computer skills, marketing savvy, office administration, and sales proficiency. This is a 25-hour a week job offering salary and commission on sales, plus a two-week vacation.

This 24-year very successful gallery consists of 40 professional highly skilled printmakers, a board of directors and several robust committees.

Salary: $12,000/year. Commission: 20% of sales. Health Benefits: None. Hours: 25 hours per week - Wed & Thurs Noon to 6 pm; Fri Noon to 7 pm; Sat 10 am to 5 pm. Vacation: 2 weeks.

Please send them: 1. Your resume. 2. A cover letter explaining what you would bring to this position, and. 3. A one-page press release describing a two-person exhibition featuring the work of two of the WPG artists whose work appears on WPG's website www.washingtonprintmakers.com.

Details here.

Auction

There are some potential steals in this auction in Philly on October 3rd.

Fulbright grants

Fulbright grants are available for artists for 2-6 week lecturing and research abroad. No application fee, stipends are available. How to Apply: Contact:

Fulbright Senior Specialist Program
Council for International Exchange of Scholars
3007 Tilden St NW, Suite 5L
Washington, DC 20008-3009

Phone: 202/686-7877; email: apprequest@cies.iie.org; website: http://www.cies.org

New DC gallery

Studio H, a new Washington, DC art space, is located in the burgeoning and energetic H street corridor on the North end of Capitol Hill.

The grand opening is Saturday, October 17 with an opening reception from 6-8PM for Sarah Griffin Thibodeaux.

Founded by Washington, DC native and Capitol Hill resident Philip Hutinet, Studio H Gallery and Workshop will serve DC residents through interdisciplinary artistic, cultural and social events. The gallery at Studio H will feature monthly art exhibits from local artists and expand to show national and international artists from the mid-Atlantic region, Europe and Latin America. Studio H Gallery and Workshop will present lecture series open to the public at no cost. As a working space, Studio H also provides various services including website design, custom illustrations, portrait paintings and public murals.

Art tax woes in PA

The budget deal reached late Friday in Harrisburg, which includes an extension of the state sales tax to cultural performances and venues - including museums - has stunned and angered the arts community.

Read all about it in the Inquirer here.

At Parish Gallery in Georgetown

I've been hearing a buzz about the current exhibition at my former next door neighbor in Canal Square, the Parish Gallery, which has been in business for 18 years now, which in gallery years in like a 100.

Twenty-seven artists are featured in the current exhibition and this group exhibition is honoring the work of Dr. Margaret Burroughs, the living founder of the National Conference of Artists (NCA).

The NCA, established in 1959, is the first professional organization devoted to the creation, promotion and education of art by African American Fine Artists.

The show goes through October 13, 2009 and it includes the following artists:

This exhibition will include the following artists:

Ana Maria Allen, Kwabena Ampofo-Anti, Daniel T. Brooking, Gloria A. Bradley, Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs, Dr. Floyd Coleman, Dr. David C. Driskell, Dr. Sandra Epps, Claudia “Aziza Gibson-Hunter, Margo Humphrey, Larry B. Joseph, Gloria C. Kirk, Serenity Knight, E. J. Montgomery, F. Magruder Murry, Bruce McNeil, Norman Parish, Donte Player, Rachel Pope, Amber Robles-Gordan, Malia Kai Salaam-Steeple, Emma Smith, Frank Smith, George “Shoman” Smith, Willard Taylor, and Derrek, Vaughn

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: October 1, 2009

The City of Bowie, Maryland is seeking artists for two public art projects: one, a kinetic sculpture, $80,000, and the second a large working sundial, $100,000. The RFQ call is nationwide and artists may apply for one or both projects. To view the Call for Artists, please visit www.cityofbowie.org and click on "Call to artists to design artwork for the new City Hall." For more information, contact Annette Esterheld, Arts Specialist, at 301.575.5601 or aesterheld@cityofbowie.org.

Electrifying nature

"Forget the notion of a reverent nature photographer tiptoeing through the woods, camera slung over one shoulder, patiently looking for perfect light. Robert Buelteman works indoors in total darkness, forsaking cameras, lenses, and computers for jumper cables, fiber optics, and 80,000 volts of electricity. This bizarre union of Dr. Frankenstein and Georgia O'Keeffe spawns photos that seem to portray the life force of his subjects as the very process destroys them."

Read the cool article in Wired here, but for an even cooler perspective, check out his work currently on display at Artists Circle Fine Art in North Potomac, MD.


Robert Buelteman, Eucalyptus
I love it when artists take their subject matter and change their perspective by the use of technology, such as Buelteman does by using electricity, or Andrzej Pluta does with submergence and ink dyes.


Robert Buelteman, White Clematis
This is a terrific show that readers of the Washington Post will never be aware of because their gallery critic (Jessica Dawson) rarely, if ever, gets outside the District, unless it is to bash the Bethesda art scene with her silly un-comparison to Brooklyn.

So don't expect her to get to North Potomac, wherever that is...

Cola nut, un-Cola nut...

Wanna go to an Alexandria opening this week?

Renowned American painter, Thomas S. Buechner will be sharing work spanning 60 years of his career in his upcoming solo exhibition: ‘A Retrospective: 60 Years of Painting, 1948-2008’ at Alexandria's Principle Gallery. Featured paintings will include figurative, still life, and landscape pieces. The 83-year-old painter has had three Retrospective Shows in prominent American museums, but this will be the first time paintings that he has held in his private collection will be available for acquisition through a independently owned commercial fine arts gallery.

Mr. Buechner’s paintings can be found in collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Arnot Art Museum. The artist’s remarkable career also includes being the first Director of the Corning Museum of Glass (1950-1960), Director of the Brooklyn Museum (1960-1971), President of Steuben Glass (1972), and later Vice President of Corning Glass Works. He helped establish the Rockwell Museum in 1972. He is also an accomplished author who wrote the glass section for the Encyclopedia Britannica, founded the Journal of Glass Studies and the New Glass Review, and wrote books, Norman Rockwell, Artist and Illustrator, How I Paint, and Seeing A Life.

This exhibit will begin with a reception open to the public on Friday, 25 September 2009 from 6:30-9pm. The artist will be in attendance to meet with collectors, discuss the inspiration for his paintings, and sign books.

Anderson Pooper

I call this short video "Time for Formula!" - starring Anderson Pooper. He is hungry and not fooled by the pacifier.

Animal rights and visual imagery

"Nitsch, an Austrian artist, uses animal entrails, blood and carcasses in his performances to embrace Dionysiac orgy and catharsis. A show including Abdessemed’s Don’t Trust Me at the San Francisco Art Institute was cancelled in March 2008 after animal rights activists threatened museum staff with bodily harm. An exhibition of the video was also closed in Turin, northern Italy, in February, after protests and questions of legality, although the show subsequently reopened.

Meanwhile, animal rights groups and 26 states have filed or joined briefs in support of the 1999 law, which makes it a crime to create, sell or possess depictions of animal cruelty with the intent to sell them in interstate commerce."

Details here.

Fun with the Internet(s)

I was screwing around the Internets a while back, as I was trying to see if there was anyone out there (besides Batman) named Adam West, who was also married to a woman named Mae.

Instead I discovered that Philly-born Teller of Penn & Teller fame is half Cuban!

People say that Castro is the only Cuban in the world who doesn't dance. I think that Teller is the only Cuban in the world who doesn't talk.

Bow Down to Washington

After losing 15 in a row, the Washington Huskies are back and yesterday they beat number three USC.

TV Heaven

First The Office finally came back funnier than ever, and now Curb Your Enthusiasm, by my standards the funniest show on TV, comes back tonight.

Now if they still had Blackadder shows on, I'd be in TV heaven.

Ofrenda

Ofrenda - Art for the Dead is an art exhibition of local artists' shrines, altars, paintings, music, dancing, and spoken word based on the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) tradition.

Ofrenda remembers the dead and celebrates life (the two emphases of the holiday) with artist-made Dia de los Muertos altars and ofrendas (offerings) that venerate the beloved dead, and draw them to visit their loved ones, feast on their favorite food and drink, and listen to their favorite music.

This year marks the third annual Ofrenda Show and Art Outlet will partner with the Torpedo Factory Art Center for the show.

The event will begin Saturday, October 31 and run though November 3. On Saturday Oct 31, there is a parade starting at 7pm and a mask ball with multiple performances at 8pm during the reception.

This presents an opportunity for artists: Create and show your personal altars, icons, shrines, and offerings (ofrendas). They are seeking 2- and 3-D artwork (any media), which fits the Dia de los Muertos tradition. Art Outlet will curate 1152 square feet of wall exhibition space (18 panels, courtesy of Artomatic) and space for sculpture/media on the first floor of the Torpedo Factory Art Center. They estimate this space will hold 36 two-D and 20 three-D artworks.

Art may include candles or incense, but these will not be burned during the show. There will be a public altar outside the Torpedo Factory that will include candles and incense. They especially welcome 3-D works and installation. The art and activities of traditional El Día de los Muertos celebrations look warmly and humorously on life, death, and the departed. When considering your submission, please be respectful. Art displayed at Ofrendas—Art of the Dead will take place in this same tradition.

Details here.

Fighting over Kahlo

Policing the legacy of artists can be a tough business. Nowhere is it tougher than in Mexico, where the magnetic, self-mythologizing painter Frida Kahlo (1907-54) shot from relative obscurity to iconic status only in the last quarter-century.

The LA Times Christopher Knight with an entertaining article on the fight of Frida Kahlo's newly discovered assortment of work(s). Read it here.

Here's the coffin

Andrew Wodzianski: House

Now I know what the tiny coffins are all about... if you didn't get one: suffer!

A lot more on this later, but pencil in Thursday, October 8, 2009 and Friday October 30, 2009 at Flashpoint. Opening Reception: Thursday, October 8, 6-8pm, House Party: Friday, October 30, 9-12pm.

Andrew Wodzianski: House opens on the 8th of October and his paintings will lift imagery from William Castle’s b-movie horror flick from 1959, House on Haunted Hill, but this is going to far from just being another "painting" show.

OK, OK, this may be a "painting exhibition in its own right," but House will also incorporate the gimmickry and audience participation for which director Castle was legendary for movies. Around DC Wodzianski has becoming an "opening night legend" on his own right (such as showing dressed up as a ninja to an opening reception one time).

Six foot five Andrew Wodzianski as the world's tallest Ninja.
In this exhibit you will see thirteen artworks (not a coincidence), nine of which will be paintings. All nine paintings depict interior sets and props used in William Castle’s cult campy film House on Haunted Hill, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The paintings are a triumph of technical and creative visual minimalism as still images from the film are manipulated and juxtaposed onto tinted canvas, and obfuscated by multiple layers of white glaze and velaturas [literally, there is only white titanium oil paint on a pastel ground]. Much like the 1959 film, the paintings themselves appear veiled and slightly threatening and unresolved.

Visitors to the gallery will be invited to participate in a scavenger hunt (the scavenger hunt, House Hunt DC, will begin October 8 during which the artist will release a series of five clues via Twitter (twitter.com/househuntdc)) and hunters will ultimately have the chance to win paintings from the exhibition. Scavenger hunt winners will redeem their findings to win actual paintings from the exhibition on October 30, during House Party, a costume party and gallery fundraiser.

There will also be a funerary performance by Wodzianski on the opening night of the exhibition (thus the tiny coffins as invites!). I will also have an essay on Wodzianski.

Abra Cadaver, an exhibition of Wodzianski's drawings will be on view concurrently at Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, MD. The exhibition opens October 9 from 6-9pm and runs through November 14.

Again, House Opening Reception: Thursday, October 8, 6-8pm and House Party: Friday, October 30, 9-12pm at Flashpoint.