Wanna go to an opening tomorrow?

Wanna go to an opening this Sunday?


Friday, November 20 – Sunday, January 10
Where: DCAC, 2438 18th St. NW Washington, DC 20009
Opening Reception: Friday, November 20, 7:00 pm-9:00 pm
Artists Talks/Closing Reception: Sunday, January 10, 5:00 pm-7:00 pm

Jurors: Renee Stout, Blake Kimbrough, and Marvin Bowser
Curator: Amber Robles-Gordon
Co-Curator: Daniel T. Brooking
Judges: Teresia Bush and Eugene R. Vango

Featuring work by John Earl Cooper, Arcmanoro Niles, Cedric Baker, Jacqueline Lee, Valentina Andaya, Akili Ron Anderson, Viola Leak, Bruce McNeil, Gloria C. Kirk, Stanley Squirewell, Claudia Gibson-Hunter, Michael Platt, Sonya Clark, Ann Marie Williams, Alec Simpson, Daniel T. Brooking, Amber Robles-Gordon, Prelli Williams, Kristen Hayes, Serinity Knight, Anne Bouie, James Brown, Jr., T. H. Gomillion, Adjoa J. Burrowes, Deidra Bell, Willard Taylor, Carlton Wilkinson, Constance Porter Uzelac, and Juilett Madison.

Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium Networking Social

Thursday, November 19, 2009
6:00pm - 9:00pm
Blackfinn Restaurant & Saloon
4901 Fairmont Ave, Bethesda, MD

Join other emerging arts leaders for a networking event at Blackfinn of Bethesda.

For a suggested $10 donation to the Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium, you will be able to schmooze and socialize with other area young professionals who share a passion for the arts. All while enjoying great free appetizers and specials. To RSVP join the event on Facebook.

Blackfinn is located near the Bethesda Metro stop along the red line. Walk north on Old Georgetown Road, take a right onto Fairmount and join the party! Street and garage parking are available in the area as well.

The Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium, now in its third year, is an annual meeting for young professionals who work in the arts, held at American University. It is an opportunity to discuss the issues, unique or universal, that affect arts organizations, with students, peers, and experienced professionals. For more information click here.

New DC gallery

Artists/Owners Natasha Mokina and Victor Pakhomkin envision their recently opened gallery, Winter Palace Studio, as "a sanctuary for realist art that combines classical craftsmanship and contemporary concepts." The gallery will exhibit paintings by Mokina and Pakhomkin and group shows by local and international artists who share the gallery's philosophy. It will also hold realistic painting and drawing classes, workshops and seminars.

The two artists have worked in the Washington, DC area for nearly twenty years creating highly realistic oil paintings, murals, portraits by commission and teaching academic painting and drawing in their studio in Bethesda. Natasha Mokina is also on the faculty of the Corcoran College of Art and Design.

“It still feels like a dream to see ourselves and our paintings in this beautiful historic courtyard, says Natasha Mokina. This is the prettiest place in Georgetown. I just cannot get over the sense of this fantastic mix of times and places: the C&O Canal reminiscent of canals in St. Petersburg (our birth place), old brick buildings of Georgetown evoking “The Little Street“ by Vermeer… ”

Winter Studio Contemporary Realism gallery is located at “Galleries 1054” in Canal Square at 1054 31st Street NW. The gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday 12:00 to 6:00 pm.

The opening reception for a new exhibition ”Black Kitchen Magic, Etc” featuring the paintings by Natasha Mokina and Victor Pakhomkin is Friday, November 20, 2009 from 6 pm to 8 pm.

Staged History

It's the iconic photo that captures the essence of the Spanish Civil War: a soldier falling to his death, arms splayed out behind him, gun still in hand, after being shot on a grassy hill.

But new evidence now claims to prove once and for all that the camera does lie - and Robert Capa's famous Falling Soldier was faked.

Read the fascinating detective story in the Daily Mail here and then read George Will's take on the whole issue in the WaPo here; Will writes:

Capa was a man of the left, and "Falling Soldier" helped to alarm the world about fascism rampant. But noble purposes do not validate misrepresentations. Richard Whelan, Capa's biographer, calls it "trivializing" to insist on knowing whether this photo actually shows a soldier mortally wounded. Whelan says that "the picture's greatness actually lies in its symbolic implications, not in its literal accuracy."

Rubbish. The picture's greatness evaporates if its veracity is fictitious. To argue otherwise is to endorse high-minded duplicity -- and to trivialize Capa, who saw a surfeit of 20th-century war and neither flinched from its horrors nor retreated into an "I am a camera" detachment. As a warning about well-meaning falsifications of history, "Falling Soldier" matters because Capa probably fabricated reality to serve what he called "concerned photography."

I'm still debating what side to take on the whole issue... it does seem to deflate the whole image a bit... any thoughts on the subject? Leave me some comments.

And speaking of comments, like almost everything in the nation these days, this photographic issue has become a barbarous debate between the vast right wing conspiracy and the equally vast kooky left wing nuttery. Read the WaPo's comments to Will's point of view here and have fun with the kooks from the extreme right and the nuts from the extreme left.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: Nov. 20th, 2009

If you read this blog then you know that I've been always very impressed with the BlackRock Center for the Arts gallery's 1500 square feet of exquisite gallery space. With its high white walls and beautiful windows strategically placed, this gorgeous gallery allows in just the right amount of natural light. BlackRock Center for the Arts is located at 12901 Town Commons Drive Germantown, MD in upper Montgomery County, about 20 minutes from the Capital Beltway (495).

They currently have a call to artists and the call is open to all artists residing in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC over the age of 18.

Original artwork only. All work must be ready for sale and to be presented in a professional manner to the public at the time of delivery.

This call will cover exhibits in the gallery from September 2010 through August 2011. An exhibit may include one applicant or a combination of applicants, based on the judgment of jurors (i.e., 1 or 2 wall artists may be combined with a pedestal artist). A jury will select the artists and create eight exhibits to be included in the exhibit year. The jury panel is comprised of my good friend and gallerist Elyse Harrison, Jodi Walsh, and yours truly.

Jurying: First Week of December
Notification: Early January
Exhibit Year: Sept. 2010 – Aug. 2011

How to apply: All correspondence will be done by e-mail, so contact Kimberly Onley, the Gallery Coordinator at konley@blackrockcenter.org and ask her to email you a prospectus.

Don't wait to the last minute! Get the prospectus now!

Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Lynch

“ASEre ¿SI o NO?
6x16 in. framed to 14x22. Charcoal and Conte on Paper. 2009.
F. Lennox Campello
Asere is a Cuban street slang word that means something akin to dude, or friend, or buddy, or "bro"... you get the drift. In this drawing, the wall graffiti asks "Asere, Yes or No?" while the question itself answers by the capitalization... and Che laughs.

Janis, Marquart and Baker at the MPA

The three artists included in this exhibition, curated by Nancy Sausser and which just closed last Saturday at the McLean Center for the Arts in McLean, Virginia, Michael Janis, Allegra Marquart and Tom Baker, are all, according to the curator, storytellers. She is not only right, but I would add that they are superb storytellers who employ the visual arts in their own distinct ways to narrate their stories.

Both Janis and Marquart are commonly associated with the revolutionary artists of the Washington Glass School. It is people like them, along with artists like Tim Tate and Erwin Timmers, who have been redefining the way that we think, interpret and discuss glass in the modern dialogue of contemporary art.

For the revolutionary minds of the 20th and now 21st century, glass in the context of the postmodern art world has nearly always been defined as craft, rather than art. This absurd designation, in my opinion, has been levied upon this entire substrate because of the spectacular success of a couple of "crafty" glass artists such as the gigantic figure of Dale Chihuly.

A few years ago a former Hirshhorn Museum curator told me that the "Hirshhorn does not collect glass." Replace the word glass with any other art medium and you see how nearsighted that statement was.

And the "craft" brand has also stuck because the successful names of the craft world drifted apart over the years, and also over the years built a formidable collectors' base developed at fairs such as the Smithsonian, SOFA, etc. These fairs generally predated the now common "high art" art fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach, Pulse, Scope, Red Dot, etc.

The "craft" world was doing hugely successful art fairs many years before it became more common for the "high art" world (and yes, I know that Art Basel in Basel itself has also been going on for decades).

And thus, for years glass artists and other "crafty" artists were happy with their vessels and bowls and organic marine forms that commanded good prices from a very specific (and limited) set of collectors.

And then a few years ago, centered around the Greater Washington, DC region, a new glass movement began to emerge. This group of artists saw glass as just another substrate to create artwork, all kinds of artwork, not just bowls and vessels and pretty organic forms.

They used those materials to develop narrative stories, as Janis and Marquart do in this show. And they married glass to technology, as Tim Tate does with his self contained video installations. And they had glass emerge as a powerful new form of "green art," as Erwin Timmers does with his recycled materials glass sculptures.

In this MPA exhibition, Janis shows us what he contributes to that incendiary new group of narrative galss artists, if we can even call them just "glass artists" any longer. In this show he exhibits seven pieces from his Tarot Card series. These wall hung glass panels, elegantly bordered in metal, each depict a card from the ancient fortune telling card system. Using the traditional process of sgrafitto, Janis essentially draws on glass with glass dust and then fuses it all to deliver what can best be described as a glass drawing. They are simply rendered in a minimalist style on sheets of translucent glass that forges a brilliant aura of ethereal context to his subjects.

Marquart is an enviable technician and astute artist who searches the world of fairy tales to discover and present in a new visual way a subject matter that often resides in our childhood memories. In this show she exhibited both kiln formed glass and relief printmaking to deliver the tales. It was a superb partnership of genres. These are sculptural stories.

Tom Baker had eleven intimate and exquisite silkscreen relief prints which unfortunately were a little overpowered by the larger works of Marquart and Janis, and yet, probably because of their intimate size, still managed to attract those of us who like to get nose-close to a work of art to explore it deeply and precisely. His dizzying visual dialogue includes pyramids, electric mixers, ballistic missiles, etc. all waiting for close inspection and interrogation to deliver the narration component of this artists works.

And the same narrative thread that joins all three artists' works into a cohesive exhibition, is the glue that joins the viewer to the conversation in the viewing of the show.

Here's a quick, minute-long video walk through the exhibition.

Civilian: Be there tonight!

Join Civilian Art Projects as they debut their new digs and the first exhibitions in their new space in the Warehouse Arts Complex at 1019 7th Street NW (at NY Avenue). Civilian is one of the District's hardest working galleries and we all wish them the best in their new spaces, which I can't wait to see.

And for the debut show Jayme will have Terri Weifenbach's "Woods" (with an essay by Gareth Branwyn) and new sculptures by artist, super chef and musician Carole Wagner Greenwood in a show titled "A Little Give and Take."

Nov. 13 - Dec 19, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, Nov. 13, 7-9pm.

Mellema on local art shows

Kevin Mellema reviews several DC area shows and as usual hits the nail on the head on all of them and agrees with me on the key Novie Trump piece.

Nice as that series is, it's Trump's "Out of the Fire" piece that packs the hardest punch. Here we find 11 white bird wings singed by fire. Like several other pieces here, it deals with personal hardships, survival and the ability to fly onwards in the aftermath. It's a notion that all of us have to deal with in some capacity throughout our lives.

Read Mellema here.

Black & WTF


Trust me, you're going to be glad that I pointed you to this very weird photography website.

Goodbye Geocities

Just received notice that a while back Yahoo had decided to stop hosting the free Geocities webpages.

Back in the early days of the Internets, Geocities was the starting point for many websites, including mine, which I built there sometime in the very early 1990s. It was through Geocities that I taught myself HTML and it was through Geocities that I made my very first Internet art sale sometime in 1993 or 1994.

And when we first opened the original Fraser Gallery in Georgetown in 1996, it was Geocities that hosted the gallery website for a couple of years until the real name domain was available sometime in the 1998 and we snatched it up.

There were millions of websites and pages on Geocities, and now, just like that they are all gone, including (I suspect) loads of art websites (like my original one) and perhaps loads of business online histories, such as those early years of the gallery.

When Yahoo acquired Geocities a few years ago, the last thing that I thought was that they'd be shutting the servers down and immediately destroying some of the web's very first websites. This is a shame, considering how relatively inexpensive servers have become and what a moneymaker powerhouse Yahoo continues to be.

Goodbye Geocities...

Reaching Out with Tim B. Wride

A couple of interesting Weekend Seminars at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC:

Artist Seminar
Introduction to Critical Looking: A Seminar for Thinking Photographers
Friday, November 13, from 7:00 –9:30 pm

After all the practical workshops, after all the tech consultations, after all the seminars, after all the portfolio reviews ….now what?

How does all of the information apply to YOUR process and YOUR work? How do the trends and climate of the art world affect you and your work? Do you know how to look at photographs — including your own — and CRITICALLY ascertain the direction and relevance of them? What is the difference between the work you want to do and the work you SHOULD do? How do you know which way to turn in order to grow as an artist?

Curator/writer/educator Tim B. Wride will guide you toward a fuller understanding of the art climate in which you are working and the social, economic, and creative pressures that are affecting your photography. Through a dynamic program of lectures, Q&A’s, and group interaction, we will explore the state of the market, the directions of creative interplay, and, most important, the necessity of critically and intensely LOOKING at the work you see as well as the work you make. For too many artists this is the most overlooked aspect of their tools and talents; for all artists, however, CRITICAL LOOKING is the most basic skill that must be developed in order to challenge and advance their artmaking ability.

Cost: $95 (Students: $47)
No reservations necessary
Payments can be made by check or cash at the door

---

Workshop
Critical Looking: The Art of Conscious Creativity
Saturday, November 14, 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Do you know how to look at photographs—including your own—and CRITICALLY ascertain the direction and relevance of them? What is the difference between the work you want to do and the work you SHOULD do? How do you know which way to turn in order to grow as an artist? CRITICAL LOOKING is the key to expanding your awareness and applying a conscious understanding of your artistic process.

Tim B. Wride guides you through a dynamic series of historical perspectives, contemporary observations, interactive exercises, group critiques, and one-on-one portfolio reviews with the goal of awakening a fuller understanding of YOUR unique creative process and the directions that may be open to you with this new understanding. Open up your creativity and apply it to the way in which you approach images and imagemaking. Make the move to growth through self-awareness.

Cost: $375
Class size limited to 15; to make a reservation call 310/200-9477

BIOGRAPHY

Tim B. Wride is a voracious consumer of photographic images. He likes nothing better than to look at photographs and talk to photographers about their work.

As Curator of the Department of Photographs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for 14 years, Tim curated over 50 exhibitions, authored and contributed to a dozen books, and has lectured, participated in panels, juried exhibitions, and provided portfolio reviews internationally. In 2004, Tim became the founding Executive Director of the No Strings Foundation, a Los Angeles-based non-profit that provides individual artist grants to U.S. photographers.

Tim is currently developing and offering seminars, workshops, and individual consultations with photographers whose goal is to grow as an artist. Updates to his schedule and programs available in your area can be found at www.CuratorialEye.com

Warholian bucks

An Andy Warhol painting of 200 dollar bills was sold for $43.8 million at a New York art auction by London-based art collector Pauline Karpidas, more than 100 times what she paid in 1986.

Read about it here.

Jones on New Realism

Rula Jones reviews New Realism at Irvine Contemporary.

Read it here.

Cuba as the focus of art

Re-discovering these watercolors from my 1981 art school project has re-triggered that art school interest of Cuba as the focus of work and I've returned to watercolors for a couple of new pieces which I intend to take down to the fairs in Miami in December.

Cuba, Isla Desbaratada (Cuba, Disassembled Island). Pen and Ink. 2009.


Cuba, Isla Encarcelada (Cuba, Jailed Island). Watercolor and Wire. 2009.



Cuba, Isla Judia (Cuba, Jewish Island). Watercolor. 2009.

Bird on Cuban Art

Michelle Bird, who is a Curatorial Assistant at the Department of European Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, pens a gorgeous article on collecting Cuban art for Caribbean Art World Magazine.

Many years ago at Rutgers University, through research for a paper on Wifredo Lam, I learned that Alfred H. Barr, Jr., visited the island in the early 1940s. In addition to purchasing works of art by Cuban artists, he also organized an exhibition called “Modern Painters of Cuba” in 1944, bringing the island and its arts to the attention of the international market. During this period, he acquired Lam's "The Jungle" for the Museum of Modern Art. It was hung near Picasso's Guernica, to which it was compared. The relationship barely had time to produce little more than name recognition for its author and his native country when the connection was severed by the 1959 Revolution and subsequent political changes. By the mid-eighties, the painting was hanging in a hallway leading to the museum's coatroom. This single action shows how easily Cuban art was marginalized and made inaccessible to the public.

Read the article here and buy Cuban art here or here.

Braggin'

I know that this is just braggin' and name throwin', but I get to go to a black tie gala tonight (the Lab School's 25th Annual Gala honoring Outstanding Achievers with Learning Disabilities) and not only is George Stephanopoulos the MC, but Vice President Biden is the Keynote Speaker.

Now where is that tuxedo again?

Thank you!


To all US veterans, both those who have served and those who are serving in all corners of the planet while we're home with our families. A well-deserved thank you to all the soldiers, sailors, airmen/women, Marines and Coasties.

This Veteran's Day is especially somber in view of the terrible terrorist attack executed by Dr. Hasan in Ft. Hood last week and we should be even more thankful to those who wear and who have worn the uniform with honor.

Below is Petty Officer Third Class Lenny Campello back in 1975!


And then Lieutenant Commander Lenny Campello back in 1992!

Portraiture 2.0


Portraiture 2.0, curated by Michael Pollack, and part of FotoWeek DC opens this coming Thursday November 12th from 6:30-8:30PM at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center’s Main Gallery, 8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910-4511, and runs until December 5th 2009.

Work by Victoria F. Gaitán (that's her work above), Chan Chao, Matt Dunn, Nicholas Pye & Sheila Pye, Paul Vinet and Josh Yospyn.