Touchstone Gallery moving
After a long intensive search, Touchstone Gallery is putting the finishing touches on plans for a new and modern gallery at 901 NY Avenue NW, an attractive street-level location between the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the new DC convention center, and around the corner from the new Longview Gallery.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wanna go to a DC opening later this week?
Project 4 presents a solo exhibition of paintings by San Francisco based artist, Adam “5100” Feibelman. Drawing from historical influences in photography, printmaking and painting and combining them with the contemporary process of graffiti, Adam “5100” Feibelman creates photorealistic, monochromatic scenes reminiscent of the grit of industrial cities.
Art Shanghai
Dr. Milagros Bello, the curator of the Latin American Pavillion at the Shanghai Art Fair 2010 has invited me to exhibit my work at Art Shanghai 2010.
I'm buzzed about that - now if only the logistics cooperate.
Alan Feltus and Lani Irwin at the KatzenI missed the opening this last weekend The opening is this Saturday, Jan. 30th, but I'm already hearing great things about the Alan Feltus and Lani Irwin exhibition at the Katzen Museum at American University.
Alan Feltus. 2004 Summer.
This traveling exhibition started at the University of Tulsa. After American University Museum it will proceed to George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, April 5 - May 7, then to Space 301 in Mobile, AL, May 14 - July 4, and on to the SoFA Gallery, Indiana University, Bloomington, September 3 - October 9.
There is a Gallery talk with Alan Feltus and Lani Irwin on Saturday, Jan. 30, 5 p.m. Free and open to the public.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Angry
Greg Allen reports on the Running for cover(age) panel discussion that took place a couple of weeks ago.
As I said last night, the Washington )#$%ing Post has absolutely no critical credibility with anyone in the art world outside of DMV. And it should be obvious from last night, too, that many people in DC feel the same way.138 people showed up on a freezing night! DMV stands for DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Read his report here.
Pink Line also reported on the panel and her report also is a good read.
Many people who attended the panel discussion were upset that the Dawson article wasn't thinky enough for them. It wasn't meant to be thinky! In fact, I'm not so sure any of the writing in a newspaper is meant to be thinky. Several suggested that we need a publication dedicated to art reviews in DC. Not a bad idea! It would fill the gap that a paper like the Washington Post can't fill. Wish there were a way to make such a print publication financially viable. Perhaps an online forum would do the trick?Read the Pink Line report here.
Some were upset that the article was too negative and didn't uplift our art community. Kriston [Capps] said newspaper writers do not have a responsibility to uplift an art scene and build community. Their job is to write stories that people want to read. When writers pitch stories to their editors, the stories must have an angle or a hook that will compel people to read the paper. This is the nature of journalism.
Benefactor Strikes Again
Remember the "Benefactor" and his DC artworld antics? Well... he's back.
Check his latest antic here.
Maryland Symposium
Online Registration is now open for the upcoming symposium co-sponsored by the David C. Driskell Center and the University of Maryland University College
Autobiography/Performance/Identity: A Symposium on African American and African Diasporan Women in the Visual Arts - March 5 and 6, 20010
Featuring a keynote address by Lorraine O'Grady, and a performance by my good friend and Boston Cuban-American artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and more.
See the program online here and register for the symposium online here.
For more information contact
David C. Driskell Center
1214 Cole Student Activities Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
TEL 301-314-2615
FAX 301-314-0679
On the subject of titles
I'm sort of a title fanatic when it comes to artwork, and often as the artwork itself develops, it reveals a title to the artist - unless that artist is a lazy bum with a propensity for "Nude #9" or a myriad of "untitled" as titles.
A perfect example of this is my drawing Woman on the Moon about to be swept off her feet by a Flying Bald Man.
"Woman on the Moon about to be swept off her feet by a Flying Bald Man"
Charcoal on Paper, c. 2005. 6 x 4.5 inches
When I started this drawing, it was just the female figure with her arms wide open. As I introduced the dark charcoal around her, a flying figure revealed itself amongs the layers of charcoal and I grabbed the kneaded eraser and worked the charcoal to reveal a figure of a flying bald man. Titling the drawing was then super-easy.
In Facebook, Jerry Salz posted:
What are good titles for works of art. Damien Hirst is a bad artist with good titles: The Shark is "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living." The crappy skull is called, "For the Love of God." There's always, Courbet's "The Origin of the World;" Morton Schamberg's "Portrait of God;" and Picabia's "Portrait of Cezanne."And do far he's received 154 responses.
Cool question uh? So let me copy Jerry's interesting question and ask: what are some good titles? Let me know in the comments.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Time for the Trawick!
Deadline: Friday, April 9, 2010
The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is accepting submissions for The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards. The annual juried contemporary art competition awards $14,000 in prize monies to four selected artists. Deadline for submissions is Friday, April 9, 2010 and up to 12 artists will be selected for a group exhibition during the month of September.
The competition will be juried by Harry Cooper, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Robert Haywood, Deputy Director at the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, MD and Emily Smith, Curatorial Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, VA.
The first place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A “young” artist whose birth date is after April 10, 1978 may also be awarded $1,000.
Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. Original painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video are accepted. The maximum dimension should not exceed 96 inches in any direction. No reproductions. Selected artists must deliver artwork to exhibit site in Bethesda, MD. All works on paper must be framed to full conservation standards. Each artist must submit five slides or five images on CD, application and a non-refundable entry fee of $25.
Details here.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wanna go to an opening tonight?
Sixteen writers and sixteen visual artists from Washington, D.C., and beyond have paired to create artworks that resonate with each other for a new exhibition, Call + Response. The show, which includes the work of a Guggenheim fellowship recipient and seven Hamiltonian Fellows, will run from January 23 until February 13, 2010, at the Hamiltonian Gallery. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, January 23, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Call + Response's participants have given a new twist to the term "call and response" (a succession of two distinct phrases played by different musicians in which the second phrase comments on or responds to the first). For each pairing, the writer has provided the call and the visual artist has created the response. The result is paired works that resonate with each other, building a bridge between two distinct but fertile communities.
The writers each wrote several short pieces, which were then distributed to the artists. One at a time, each artist selected a piece to respond to without knowing the identity of its author, until every author was paired with an artist. At the gallery, each artwork will be displayed together with the written piece to which it responds.
One pairing brings together writer Matt Klam and artist Anthony Dihle, both residents of D.C. Klam, the author of the short story collection Sam The Cat and a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, a National Endowment of the Arts grant, and a PEN/Robert Bingham Award, contributed a new story entitled At Donna's,Thanksgiving 1992. Dihle, who earned his BFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and curated a show of D.C. indie rock concert posters at Civilian Art Projects in June 2009, is responding to it with a series of oil paintings.
Another pairing matches poet Eleanor Graves with artist Lam Vuong. Graves has been teaching poetry, literature, and composition since coming to the D.C., area in 2003. She received an MFA in poetry from George Mason University and is a recipient of the Mary Rinehart Award in Poetry, with poems appearing in Phoebe, Practice, and Hayden's Ferry Review. Vuong was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, to Vietnamese refugees. His photography, watercolors, and installations deal with the nuances of loneliness and confusion in dating and Asian American culture. He started his MFA at CalArts last fall and is responding to Graves' new poem Gorgeous Evasions with a photographic work.
Call + Response is co-curated by William Bert and Kira Wisniewski. "So many writers and artists live in D.C., and we wanted to get them talking to one another and sharing work," says Bert. "We knew that what they produced would be something special."
"Collaboration and communication are at the root of this project, and we hope that the paired works spark dialogue beyond the participants and into the community," explains Wisniewski.
As a part of their Support Local Creativity campaign, independently-owned Flying Dog Brewery, based in Frederick, Maryland, will provide sponsorship in the form of world-class, locally-produced American craft beer, available complimentarily at the opening.
Friday, January 22, 2010
H&F Fine Arts Gallery Closing
From their news release:
After 3 years of support from the Metro DC area, we have made the difficult decision to close. The past year has been very challenging for our local arts' communities. Several galleries in the metropolitan area have closed and unfortunately we will follow suit.H&F Fine Arts was a beautiful space and will be sorely missed.
The past 3 years have been an incredible experience. Great exhibitions curated by J.T. Kirkland, Lenny Campello, Tonya Jordan, and Marvette Perez. The excitement of our first Washington Post Review! Exhibitions with artists Alan Binstock, Kristen Copham, Dana Ellyn, Andrew Krieger, and Michael Platt just to name a few.
Thank you to everyone that supported our exhibitions. Many of you traveled from DC, VA, and many areas of MD. We always appreciated the support!!!
Sincerely,
Karen Handy and Cheryl Fountain
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Cream at the Katzen
Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) has announced the opening of its newest exhibition, Cream, January 30 - March 6, 2010, at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center.
This annual exhibition features works by more than 110 local and national artists selected by an esteemed group of eight top curators including scholars, museum directors, practitioners and collectors. All works are on view until the WPA Annual Art Auction Gala, which will take place March 6, 2010, during which the exhibited works are available to the highest bidders.Best deal in the auction block (in my clearly biased opinion)? This gorgeous piece.
An opening reception will be held on Saturday, January 30, 2010 from 6-9pm, along with a talk by the curators on Thursday, February 25, 2010, 6:30-9:30pm, both at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC.
The 29th iteration of this exhibition highlights some of the region's most talented artists, presenting a broad range of media and styles of both new and emerging artists as well as more established career artists. As an annual WPA presentation, the auction exhibition has gained new stature and recognition, evolving from a brief 'showing' of artists' works as a preview for the WPA's auction event, to one of the most prestigious and recognizable art showcases of its kind, with a high caliber of notable curators selecting the works. Cream is a notable survey of contemporary art in the region and beyond, with selected works representing the cream of the crop and the talent of the artists included that rose above thousands of others viewed during the curatorial process.
"We are tremendously pleased with the participating curators and their art selections - the work is fresh and exciting, and there are artists with long-standing ties to WPA as well as new names that the curators are introducing to the public," said Lisa Gold, WPA's Executive Director. "It was particularly rewarding to have a window into the curatorial process this year," she added, referring to 36 Studios- Part I, a 36-hour tour with collector Mera Rubell, during which she visited with 36 artists to inform her exhibition artwork selections.
Curator View and Presentation of Alice Denney Award
Thursday, February 25, 2010, 6:30-9pm
Curator and former WPA Executive Director Jock Reynolds will present the Alice Denney Award for Support of Contemporary Art to James F. Fitzpatrick, followed by a slide show and short talk by Cream curators about their exhibition selections and a preview of the exhibition.
Admission to the exhibition and curator talk is free and open to the public. Seating for the curator talk is limited; attendees are encouraged to RSVP by February 19 to info@wpadc.org.
Cream exhibition curators and their selected artists include:
KEN ASHTON, Visual Artist and Museum Technician for Works on Paper, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DCMargaret Adams, Chan Chao, Natalie W. Cheung, Billy Colbert, Frank Hallam Day, Matthew Girard, Avi Gupta, James Huckenpahler, Michael Dax Iacovone, Hatnim Lee, Marissa Long, Kate MacDonnell, Beatrice Valdes Paz, Ding Ren, E. Brady Robinson
KRISTEN HILEMAN, Curator of Contemporary Art, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MDKen Ashton, Clarke Bedford, iona brown, Renee Butler, David Carlson, Zoë Charlton, Mary Coble, Jennifer Dorsey, Susan Eder & Craig Dennis, Bernhard Hildebrandt, Ryan Hill, Brece Honeycutt, Dean Kessmann, Cara Ober, Erik Sandberg, Joe White
CAROL K. HUH, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Asian Art, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DCJon Bobby Benjamin, Howard Carr, Neil Greentree, Max Hirshfeld, Tim Hyde, Franz Jantzen, Courtney Jordan, Martin J. Kotler, Jeffrey Smith, Stanley Staniski, Oliver Vernon
JOANNA MARSH, The James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DCMark Dion, Michelle Elzay, Kota Ezawa, Devon Johnson, Mark Newport, James Prosek, Jean Shin, Joseph Smolinski, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, René Treviño
JOCK REYNOLDS, The Henry J. Heinz II Director and Visual Artist, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CTWilliam Christenberry, Tom Green, Jacob Kainen, Betsy Packard, Lisa Scheer, Jeff Spaulding, Alan Stone, William Willis, Yuriko Yamaguchi
CHARLES RITCHIE, Visual Artist and Associate Curator of Modern Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of ArtJay Bolotin, Astrid Bowlby, Georgia Deal, Douglas Florian, Cassandra Kabler, Mark E. Karnes, Karey Ellen Kessler, Sangram Majumdar, Rob Matthews, Beverly Ress, James Stroud, Lynn Sures, Bill Thompson, Alice Whealin, John Wilson, Janine Wong
MERA RUBELL, Co-founder, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FLm. gert barkovic, Holly Bass, Judy Byron, F. Lennox Campello, Rafael Cañizares-Yunez, Adam de Boer, Mary Early, Victoria F. Gaitán, Carol Brown Goldberg, Pat Goslee, Jason Horowitz, Barbara Liotta, Patrick McDonough, Brandon Morse, Dan Steinhilber, Lisa Marie Thalhammer
N. ELIZABETH SCHLATTER, Deputy Director and Curator of Exhibitions, University of Richmond Museums, Richmond, VAHsin-Hsi Chen, Irene Clouthier, Joelle Meredith Francht, Ron Johnson, Sue Johnson, Kirsten Kindler, Martin McFadden, Susan Noyes, Erling Sjovold, Jessica Van Brakle, Barbara Weissberger, Andrew Wodzianski, Amy Glengary Yang, Shannon YoungAdditional works on view in the exhibition this year include a new series of glass sculptures created by Joe Corcoran, David D'Orio, Steve Jones, and Megan Van Wagoner, members of DC GlassWorks, a public access glass blowing and sculpture facility located in Hyattsville, MD. These pieces will be featured in the museum exhibition and on the dining tables during the auction event, also available for bid.
The Cream exhibition is open for viewing, Tuesday - Sunday, 11am - 4pm at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Admission is Free. More information on the exhibition is available at www.wpadc.org. Preview the works at auction.wpadc.org.
About the Art Auction Gala
Now in its 29th year, the WPA Art Auction Gala will be held at the Katzen Arts Center on the campus of American University and is the organization's most important fund raising event. Guests include more than 400 artists, collectors, and business leaders vying to bid on the works included in the Cream exhibition, as included above. The event supports WPA mission's to promote emerging and established artists in the greater DC metropolitan region. The gala dinner is sold out but information on purchasing party tickets will be available at auction.wpadc.org.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Smirking Chimp on Gopnik
But it is a great shame if some of the last outposts of criticism should be used to play "Nearer My God To Thee" as the ship sinks. That funereal sense is really what you could get from Mr. Gopnik's description in today's Washington Post of going to the Phillip's Collection to see Renoir. He spoke of having to "drag" himself in front of the picture. And by the way, even if Mr. Gopnik is not gay, he sure sounds like a drama queen. Naturally he then must let us in on the great secret: that this great painting is "coy" and "staged". Well, truly this painting has always been recognized as one of the most artificial in the sense of the German Kunstlisch, and "staged" and "coy" are close relations to that sense . What Gopnik is observing is more telling about the ennui that is created by having to regularly look at so much bad art, and trying to come up with reasons for why it shouldn't be portrayed that way. Thus when he stands in front of a great painting like the Luncheon, he has no choice but drift into the Cultural Autism that characterizes our age.Read the whole thing here.
Jessica off the mark... again
In this article, the Washington Post's freelance galleries' critic Jessica Dawson writes that an artist's "highest calling" is "creating work that challenges social and political norms."
Really, did I miss that in Janson's?
OK, OK, I know that this is simply Jessica's own opinion being passed as some sort of highest calling agreement that we've all signed up to before receiving our art degrees.
Because Jessica Dawson is an art critic and not an artist, she views what "real art" should be from a postmodern theoretical viewpoint in which a lot of art critics and writers, and some artists, may see art's highest calling as indeed creating work that challenges social and political norms.
That artwork and those artists are just members of a much larger set of artists and art which has an equally important "higher calling" in their art that has zip to do with social or political norms, such as 98% of contemporary abstract painters with the other 2% just claiming that their work does challenge some social or political norm. For some of those, their higher calling may just be the beauty of what can be achieved by a talented hand and brush with the nuances of color and form and shape.
But Dawson's comment is an eye-opening inside view at the mind of this Washington Post freelancer, and somewhat sad in that her viewpoint excludes the vast majority of other highest callings that artists may have.
Philippa over at the Pink Line Project drives a good historical stake through the heart of Dawson's silly segregationist viewpoint. Read that here.
Feh!
Opportunity for Artists
Deadline: February 1, 2010
The Kinsey Institute 2010 Juried Art Show is now accepting submissions from all artists 18 years and older creating work relating to human sexual behavior, gender and/or reproduction. They welcome a broad range of submissions exploring subjects including: sex, gender, sexuality, eroticism, reproduction, romantic relationships, the politics of sex and gender, human figure, sexuality and illness. The exhibit will explore the positive and negative ways these topics affect individuals, couples and/or society.
All selected works will be exhibited at the Indiana University SoFA Gallery, May 28-July 30, 2010. Entries must be original works from medias including: painting, drawing, video art, installations, printmaking, photography, sculpture, ceramics, fibers, computer based art, or mixed media.
Artist can submit their work online at this website or by mail with images stored on CD and payment by check. Entry fees are $30 for one piece, $35 for two, $40 for three.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Visiting Artist Program at the Torpedo Factory Art Center
Deadline: February 28, 2010
The Torpedo Factory Art Center in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia has opportunities for one, two, or three-month residencies between June 1 and August 31, 201.
Visiting Artists will be provided with studio workspace, and will be able to display and sell original work to the public.
Download the prospectus and application form from this website.
There is no application fee. The deadline for application is February 28, 2010.
Juror: Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center.
Send questions to: vap@torpedofactory.org. No telephone calls please.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
On creating art
When I was in Miami doing the Miami International Art Fair a few days ago, I received a phone call from a very well-known poet.
Once he identified himself, he explained that he was calling because he was interested in using one of my drawings, which is in his collection, in his next book. The drawing, he explained, which he hangs in his kitchen in New York, has managed to be come a stern and vigilant observer of his daily activities, and he has written a poem about it.
I was honored by both the request (to which I gave my permission) and also curious as to where he had acquired the piece, which once described I recognized as a piece that I did maybe 2-3 years ago.
He told me that he had acquired the piece at an auction in New York, where he resides.
We connected rather well and spoke for nearly 30 minutes, and I promised to send him a CD with more images of my available work.
But the point that stayed behind with me, and something that I’ve been mulling for years now, is the curious travels and life of a piece of artwork once it leaves the artist’s studio and is acquired by someone.
I first started dispersing my artwork back when I was a teenager in Brooklyn. Around when I was 13 or 14, I lived in a six apartment brownstone in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn. The building was owned by my uncle, and part of my duties was to sweep and mop all three floors every weekend. As such I had access to the basement, which was used mostly for storage and had a rather sizable assortment of old paint cans of all sizes and colors.
Those paints, along with regular commercial paint brushes and cardboard were my first canvasses, and I used to paint imaginary landscapes on them, which then I would take to Manhattan and sell them in parks around 14th Street, across the street from Macy’s.
Then when I was in art school at the University of Washington, I was one of the many artists who sold artwork at Seattle’s wonderful Pike Place Market. It was there that I sold nearly every one of my art school assignments as well as hundreds of watercolors and drawings created specifically to be sold.
After art school I moved to Europe, returned to the US for postgraduate school, moved back to Europe, returned again for good, and all through that time began to sell work at gallery shows and art fairs, and by my own estimates I believe that by now I have sold, given away, traded and dispersed well over 5,000 paintings, drawings, prints, reproductions and sculptures in the last 40 years.
Out of that rather huge number, I have no idea where 98% of them are, although all through those same years I have never, ever, stopped producing art. Even when I was in Beirut, in the middle of a war back in the early 80s, I never stopped drawing and creating art.
Every once in a while, like the phone call from the New York poet, a work’s location returns to me, and with the emergence of the Internet, more and more have been making their way back to me as often their new or original owners want to gather information on the creator.
I’ve had emails from Europe, Latin America and Asia, with images attached, as someone who has come across and acquired a Campello wants to know more about it, or confirm its provenance.
Works have been donated to universities and other to institutions. Collectors have bought them at auction (oddly enough mostly in Europe), and people have even acquired them at antique shops and other stores.
It’s a fascinating trek that the art takes and that occurs without the knowledge of the artist. I often regret that I never kept better records of where and who owns the work (I still don’t), but then again, I also like the fact that these pieces are dispersed all over the planet and will probably be still around for centuries after I am gone.
Some don’t even have owners. Between 1975 and 1992 I created about 100 small figurative clay sculptures that I then buried underground throughout Europe (mostly in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom). I wanted them to be “discovered” accidentally by future diggers. Some may never see the surface again.
I’ve also done a “hotel art intervention” project where I would disassemble whatever hotel art was in my room and either create a new piece of art done on the back of the print or whatever was in the frame, or in the rare cases where a bad painting (usually one of those one of a million Chinese oil paintings), I would “add” to the painting, and reframe the work and re-hang it in the room. I did this dozens and dozens of times over the years and just did one during one of my last hotel stays.
And in three instances, between 1977-1981, wearing a pair of white workman’s overalls, I installed three separate framed large watercolors in three different lobbies of three different skyscrapers in downtown Seattle.
I haven’t got the foggiest idea where any of that work is today.
But they’re out there, most of them anyway, and years from now, when I’m no longer here, they’ll still be out there.
It’s a good feeling.