Wodziansking...

DC artist Andrew Wodzianski is living small. He's also living under public view.

POP-UP LIVING is Wodzianski's latest over the top performance piece (after a still-unconfirmed casket piece in October) that houses the second tallest man in the DC art scene into of a 100 square foot cube (Note: ubercollector Phillip Barlow has him beat by an inch).

The minimalist space is considered Wodzianski's home until May 1, and while he does leave once in a while to teach courses at the College of Southern Maryland, he's spending a lot of time inside his new box. While inside his new digs, he's under the constant observation from not only a 24/7 surveillance camera, but also curious pedestrians on U Street NW.

Wodzianski says, "The work has many discussion points, which makes it fascinating for a lot of people. At its core, I believe my performance is straddling two issues: living with less, and perhaps more provoking - the separation between reality and fiction."

Wodzianski's "performance" hours:

Sunday, April 18 10:00 AM - Monday, April 19 6:30 AM
Monday, April 19 3:00 PM - Tuesday, April 20 11:10 AM
Tuesday, April 20 10:30 PM - Wednesday, April 21 6:30 AM
Wednesday, April 21 3:00 PM - Thursday, April 22 6:30 AM
Thursday, April 22 8:30 PM - Monday, April 26 6:30 AM
Monday, April 26 3:00 PM - Tuesday, April 27 6:30 AM
Tuesday, April 27 3:00 PM - Wednesday, April 28 6:30 AM
Wednesday, April 28 3:00 PM - Thursday, April 29 6:30 AM
Thursday, April 29 8:30 PM - Saturday, May 1 5:00 AM

Read and then see the NBC4 TV News piece here.

Read the Washington Post article on the performance here.

Check out some videos of the performance here and here.

Location: 1318 U Street NW
Washington, DC 20009

POP-UP LIVING is Wodzianski's performance piece in a much larger collaboration and cause. Wodzianski partnered with The JBG Companies, Studios Architecture, and Coakley Williams Construction for the Cultural Development Corporation's Pop-Up Gala. An additional four partnerships were formed to create POP-UP structures across the region. Each structure is on display until May 1, when they will be relocated to the CuDC's Gala at Longview Gallery. More information about the Gala, CuDC, and the other POP-UPs can be found at this website.

New Drawing

This is only my second drawing of the year.

"Writing with her finger on the floor, she plotted her revenge against men."
8 x 40 inches. Charcoal and colored pencils on board. c. 2010


"Writing with her finger on the floor, she plotted her revenge against men". Detail.
8 x 40 inches. Charcoal and colored pencils on board. c. 2010

Wanna go to a Maryland opening tomorrow?

Artists Circle Fine Art has its first 2010 exhibition, featuring the works of five local artists who were selected for their "immensely diverse portrayal of different subject matter, unique use of materials and incredible craftsmanship." Artists Circle Fine Art considers these artists some of DC’s “hidden art gems”.

Francie Hester is a long-time resident of the Washington, DC area. Armed with a variety of power tools and refined palettes of paint, Francie tackles thick, waffled sheets of aluminum to create abstract, dimensional works that have a raw, industrial – yet aesthetically beautiful – look.

Angie Seckinger has thrived in the DC area as a corporate-industrial, studio product and editorial photographer for the past 25 years. Her little known secret? - She takes fantastic macro photos that are a testament to her technical mastery of the camera.

Alan Simensky is a self-taught artist residing just outside of DC. His bright, post-Pop-esque works incorporate recognizable imagery which have been referred to as both fanciful and witty. The show will feature several pieces from Alan’s Disgruntled series, portraying themes from the workplace.

Jessica van Brakle’s most recent body of work is inspired by construction in the DC area and an ongoing interest in nature and decorative textures. Jessica’s mix of precise, hand drawn lines with carefully painted organic patterns makes for an intriguing and striking body of work.

Pamela Viola began making photography-based images at the age of fourteen. Emerging as an outgrowth of her extensive experimentation with photographic transfer printing, her current photography work focuses on textural DC landscapes

The opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 22nd from 6 to 9pm.

Fierce Sonia at the Art League Gallery

The current “Paper Dolls” exhibition by photographer/model Fierce Sonia set all kinds of “new” for The Art League Gallery in Old Town Alexandria. For one thing, I am told that the opening reception and meet the artist function was one of the largest, if not the largest opening in the gallery’s long history.

And it wasn’t just the exceptional photography which caused all the “buzz” in the Greater DC arts community, but also the photographer herself (who is the subject of her own work), who contributed to the immense interest in this solo debut by one the area’s best known, drawn, photographed and painted art bodies. You see, Fierce Sonia is usually seen posing, rather than creating.

But a creator she is. Several years ago I came across her seminal photographic work, and even curated her into my WPA/Corcoran show "Seven", where her early photographs sold well. This new work, the first that I've seen since then, is a spectacular departure and growth from those early images of her nude body.

Ritual Repeat by Fierce Sonia
Her press release said it all:

“During her tenure as a figure model for The Art League School, Fierce Sonia quietly acquired a top-notch visual arts education. Motivated by the artwork she saw, she became eager to create her own work. She cabled her camera to her TV and released the shutter with an infrared remote. Sonia used herself as her own model, learning more about composition and technique based on what she saw on the screen.

Her figurative photography has evolved to a new and exciting place. The focus is on process. In Sonia’s latest series “Paper Dolls,” the same images reoccur with confident changes to the surface. Her work is no longer straight photography. With the integration of painting and collage into her images, Sonia’s work has reached a new level.

The black and white images of herself are often printed on paper that has been painted white, which creates a rich texture. Each piece is created in a unique way. Previous prints may be collaged to create depth. Multiple runs of the same print may be made on the same piece. More painting, layering might be necessary to create the desired effect. These alterations to the surface blur the identity of the original image, and make the series of work about the medium and the process, and not about the subject matter.

Sonia’s work has been exhibited and won accolades nationally. She is a professional art model and muse for artists and photographers and has worked with nationally and internationally known artists.”

And for years, this muse for artists has been absorbing, truly by osmosis, an art education that is truly remarkable.

For "Paper Dolls", Sonia used her camera like a weapon; trained it onto her own body, put a focused mind to work on the photographs, and created a memorable set of images that make her solo debut one of the best, if not the best, photography shows that I’ve ever seen at the Art League.

And Sonia doesn’t simply follow in the footsteps of those who have focused the camera to themselves; most notably Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin. She does that and then twists the weapon a little deeper into our visual cortex: she manipulates the image, she manipulates the paper, she manipulates our most primeval erotic thoughts with images of her body and imagery of bones, and repetitive imagery of thoughts buried deep inside our moist hereditary memories.


Material Things 13x 29 inches.
This is an old soul being displayed on these 21st century images. We knew her in the caves of Altamira and Lascaux, and her image graced the walls of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and perhaps a standing stone or two in the ancient lands of the Picts.

But this new 21st century imagery has been now manipulated, twisted, tortured, reworked and updated by Sonia.

She brings it to a delicious 21st century dialogue where her image is no longer about herself. It is now about ideas, about texture, about layers, and about the sensually cognitive act of repetition. It is also most importantly about the harsh de-objectification of her own figure, or perhaps the attempt to do so, while leaving tantalizing remnants of her presence.

This is an artist who uses her body to make a living as a professional model. And in "Paper Dolls" she makes a bold statement about her own physical attributes that demystify that ancient quality that she possesses and re-invents her figure as part of the whole of her art, rather than the sole commodified subject of the art.

In refreshing this ancient imagery through a fresh set of eyes, Fierce Sonia accomplishment covers many roads and ideas, and seldom have they been traveled so successfully in a photographer’s solo debut.

The show is "Paper Dolls" and it is on through May 3rd at the Art League, inside the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria. Don't miss it.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

I think that the brutal dictatorship of the Castro brothers is beginning to show the secondary signs of the end of their world as they know it.

Cuba's Roman Catholic cardinal says the country is in one of its worst crises in recent times, with its people demanding political and economic changes sooner rather than later.

More evidence here.

Meanwhile the Damas de Blanco keep marching in Havana and keep getting beaten up by Castro's thugs; but they do not give up. Other than the local news in Miami, you'd never know what's going on in Cuba from the US main stream media.

How Linn Meyers draws

Also, on Friday April 30th at 12:30PM, Meyers will be giving a talk at the Hirshhorn Museum with Carlene Stephens, Curator of Time at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, and Ryan Hill, Curatorial Research Associate at the Hirshhorn. The talk is part of a series called "In Conversation".

MFA Thesis Shows

The MFA Thesis III and First-Year Shows at MICA will open next Friday, April 23. This preesents an opportunity to start keeping an eye on Katie Miller's work. She will have a new painting in the First-Year Show, located in the Pinkard Gallery on the first floor of MICA's Bunting Center, at 1401 West Mount Royal Avenue.

The graduating second-year MFA candidates are showing in the Fox Building next door. Both shows feature work from all of the graduate programs, generally encompassing painting, sculpture, photography, video, interdisciplinary, and installation.

Miller will be at the opening reception on April 23 from 5 - 7 pm. The opening involves both the Pinkard Gallery in the Bunting Center, and the Meyerhoff, Decker, and Fox 3 galleries in the Fox building.

MFA Thesis III
Friday, April 23-Sunday, May 2
A public reception with the artists takes place Friday, April 23, 5-7 p.m.
Gallery Talks: Tuesday, April 27, 3-5 p.m. and Wednesday, April 28, 1-3 p.m.
Fox Building: Decker, Meyerhoff, and Fox 3 galleries (1303 W. Mount Royal Ave.)

For a slideshow of Thesis (second-year) work, please visit this website.

See Katie Miller's work here.

Open Studios

April 24 & 25th - click on image for more info.

At George Washington University: More Photographs Than Bricks

By Bruce McKaig

There is only a couple of weeks left (through April 20) to catch an exhibition in DC at GW's Luther W. Brady Art Gallery that pushes the envelope about what a photograph can be. More Photographs Than Bricks (exhibition title and part of a quote from John Szarkowski) has assembled a myriad of works that explore the medium and act of photography in surprising ways, including photographs that are not pictures and a few works that are not photographs.

The artists chosen include emerging and world famous artists: Nancy Breslin, Edward Burtynsky, Chuck Close, Kim Keever, Ana Labastida, Amy Lamb, Bruce McKaig, Megan Marrin, Abelardo Morell, Yasumasa Morimura, Martin d’Orgeval, Sean Scully, Jeffrey Smith, and JeongMee Yoon.

Jeongmee Yoon, "Emily and her pink things" (2005)
Jeongmee Yoon was born in Seoul, South Korea and moved to New York in 2004. Her work, inspired by life experiences with her own children, examines cultural codes and gender-subjective consumerism. In Emily and her Pink Things, Yoon constructs then photographs a Pepto-Bismol world cute enough to make anyone sick to his or her stomach. This work does not stop at examining the way gender is used to market products. It is thoroughly personal – Emily is Yoon’s daughter, who “loves pink, like my son [Donghu and his Blue Things] loves blue” – so it is also a confession about having acquiesced, to being engulfed in the marketing strategy.

Martin d'Orgeval (French, b. 1973) lives and works in Paris. His work is an impressive use of space, history, and imagery. Touched by Fire blends tragedy and beauty with images from the entomology and taxidermy store Deyrolle, devastated by fire in 2008. These constructed still lifes have a temporal reference, depicting the passage of time less like a voyeur and more like a detective, or even an archivist trying to put the pieces back together.

Kim Keever (American) lives and works in New York City. Keever’s “landscapes” are studio productions, still lifes in fact. Keever constructs underwater scenes then photographs them, hence the moody weight to his images. Heavy atmosphere aside, the nature of the work requires Keever to capture the scene under a sense of urgency as the materials are in fact more fleeting than stable.

Ana Labastida (Mexican) lives in San Francisco. Her installations are composed of bugs and baskets, moths in this case, made from fabric and photographs printed on glass. From a distance, the installation wants to be playful – and it is – but on closer inspection, the urban imagery on the giant insect wings becomes somewhat disturbing.

According to Lenore Miller, Gallery Director, and Olivia Kohler, Assistant Director, the exhibit started by searching for works that could be academically classified as “new history” or “new landscape” and so forth, but months of conscientious and creative detective work uncovered photographic explorations that would not conveniently fit into “categories that had served to structure art from the 16th to the 19th century.” This discovery prompted the selection process to include some non-photographic works.

The exhibition catalogue has an essay written by Virginia K laying out some of the historical context for the visual dialogue between photography and painting. Many artists and authors have commented on the interaction between photography and painting, and some have examined the resurgence of 19th century techniques in contemporary art.

David Hockney makes a comparison between photography and painting with his assertion that “photography is really good for making pictures of drawings.” (Hockney on Art, 1999). Hockney insists that the lack of “hands on” in photography explains why paintings are better at depicting reality. However, in the same book, he also says that because society is increasingly less certainty that photography is ideally suited to depict reality, photography “has been brought back into the area that painting has always dealt with.” What would Hockney have to say about this exhibition? Another prominent figure in the art world, John Szarkowski, once said, “A photograph is essentially a picture. Not everything that is sensitive to light produces a photograph. A sunburn is not a photograph.” (Looking at Photographs, 1973) Where would Mr. Szarkowski place these works? Perhaps the curator, author and historian Jean-Claude Lemagny (French, b. 1931) best describes where to place these artists by asserting that some artists are photographers, some bump up against photography.

Nineteenth century photo techniques never entirely disappeared from the art world, but the last decades have seen a significant resurgence of these dated processes used to produce contemporary works. Photography’s Antiquarian Avant-Garde (Lyle Rexer, Abrams 2002) lays out an historical timeline to situate these processes, then proposes a number of contemporary artists’ twists on how they are used today (Chuck Close - also in this exhibit, Susan Rankaitis, Jin Lee, Ilan Wolff, Mark Kessell, Bruce McKaig, to site a few). In Rexer’s words, these artists “[work] in both mystical and material ways, letting the chemistry of the emulsion register chance and time, turning Talbot's ‘pencil of nature’ into a paintbrush."

More Photographs Than Bricks is the second of three exhibitions supported by Clarice Smith with a focus on creating a dialogue by bringing the highest quality art for display in the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery. Ms. Smith is a local patron of the arts who has supported numerous large-scale projects to help bring art and people together, and personally explores the arts through her paintings.

More Photographs Than Bricks
March 24-April 30, 2010
Luther W. Brady Art Gallery
The George Washington University
Media & Public Affairs Building, 2nd Floor
805 21st Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20052
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

For more information about the Exhibition and the Luther W. Brady Gallery: Click here. For more information about the author: click here.

American Contemporary Art magazine

The April/May issue is out and there are several reviews of DC galleries as well as a DC-centric article by yours truly in pages 22-23.

You can also read it online here.

Calling all Artists: Win This House Essay Contest


The lead says it all. Details here.

Little Junes Update

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 April 16, 2010. Flesh and Blood. 24 inches by 24lbs 2 oz. NFS

Fierce Sonia at the Art League

The review is coming.

Meanwhile, if you didn't go to the opening (as around 400 people did), see the video below and check out what an immense happening you missed. Seldom has a new artist's solo debut gathered this sort of response around here, especially at the Art League.

The show is "Paper Dolls" and it is on through May 3rd at the Art League, inside the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria. Don't miss it.

Going Postal in London

Deadline: June 7th, 2010

On 16th June, the Chelsea College of Art and Design is having an auction of postcards and postcard-sized artworks created by international artists and designers. This event will be called 'Going Postal' and any monies raised by this auction will go towards funding their final MA show in September 2010. They tell me that they "would be delighted if you would be willing to contribute a piece to this auction."

If any of you want to participate, either work on the postcard they can send you upon request or produce another piece of an approximately commensurate size (A6 or 105 × 148 mm) in any materials you want. Please return all work for the attention of Brian Chalkley to the address below before June 7th.

The auction will be held at the ICA, Central London and looks set to be an interesting night with a range of international artists, collectors, gallerists in attendance and compered by artist and head of MA Fine Art at Chelsea, Brian Dawn Chalkley

Contact
Attn: Brian Chalkley
Chelsea College of Art and Design
16 John Islip Street
London SW1P 4JU

Some online contact info here.

Congrats!

To DC area artist Amy Lin, who was just awarded a Strauss Grant!

Lin's current exhibition, "Kinetics", is at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, 1670 Wisconsin Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20007 through April 24, 2010. The artist will be in the gallery today from 4-6pm.

Buy Amy Lin now.

Open House This Saturday - Meet The Artists

Pyramid Atlantic and the Washington Printmakers Gallery will be hosting an Open House on Saturday, April 17 from 1 pm to 4 pm at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center, 8230 Georgia Avenue.

City Gallery

A new cooperative gallery on the H Street corridor NE
By Bruce McKaig

Last month, a group of artists formed a new cooperative gallery on the second floor at 804 H Street NE. City Gallery, with approximately 20 member artists, opened March 6th, 2010 with a members group show and will cycle through the membership hosting solo exhibits for most of the year ahead. Members work in diverse media; painting, drawing, photography, sculpture etc.

The gallery’s principals, Philip Hutinet, Geoff Ault, and Ellen Cornett make the decisions about membership and exhibition scheduling, but all members can participate in meetings as part of the decision making process. Membership exists at two levels: full membership and associate membership. Each category has different terms and perks.

When the trio decided to open a gallery, they took a look at how other cooperatives work to assess strengths and weaknesses. One thing they felt important: do not require members to take on gallery responsibilities. As a new facility, they are still forging some of the policies and practices they will eventually establish and hope to develop relationships with other art groups in the area and eventually beyond to bring member art to other venues and perhaps host nonmember work in their space. As well as hosting exhibitions, City Gallery also provides gallery space rental and catering, art advisory and curatorial services, art installation and new collector consultations.

The current exhibition, Magical Realism, displays watercolors and collages by local artist Gina Clapp.

A long-term personality in the Capitol Hill arts scene, Gina’s works demonstrate a rigorous understanding and control of her medium though the subject matter sometimes sits shallow. Gina’s meticulous control of the medium stands out in the gallery, despite the diversity in sizes, eclectic framing and assorted subjects.

Song of late summer. Watercolor by Gina Clapp
The exhibition also includes recently made collages. These collages also demonstrate Gina’s firm grip on visual composition, but with surprising material choices, including sequined cloth. Whereas her mastering of materials is part of what holds the watercolors together, somehow it seems a bit unresolved in the collages. With the more adventurous, want-to-be playful choice of materials, perhaps the collages are waiting for a looser, more playful gesture in their construction.

In Gina’s words:

My watercolor work often takes weeks/months to paint. Collage takes less time and is relaxing and more cerebral. I like to arrange the shapes and colors to depict a mood without having to do the intense realistic studies beforehand. The other aspect of collage that I enjoy is collecting and using odd bits of Japanese papers, exotic or florid fabrics, and papers with unique textures. Combining these scraps with some watercolor, I create collages that are more symbolic of a mood, time of day, landscape, or place. They are rather abstract, the watercolors more realistic. Yet in both I strive to suggest the motion, life, and magic of living things, and their relationships with objects that surround them.

City Gallery’s presence on the H Street corridor brings the number of galleries in the area to seven. The various galleries are pursuing possible ways to collaboratively work to bring more artists and art aficionados to the area.

The next exhibition at City Gallery will be Light and Allusion, showcasing works by Nancy Donnelly (glass) and Jill Finsen (painting) May 1-29. The opening is May 1st, 6-9pm.

City Gallery
804 H Street NE Washington, DC 20002
202.468.5277
Hours: Friday 1-5, Saturday 1-5 and by appointment
For more information about City Gallery:
www.citygallerydc.com
For more information about the author: www.brucemckaig.com

Wanna go to an artist's talk tomorrow?

Our own Rosetta DeBerardinis is giving an Artist Talk on Sat. April 17th at 7pm in conjunction with her solo exhibit, "Coming Home: A Collection of Works by Rosetta DeBerardinis" at the Corner Store.

The Corner Store is at 900 South Carolina Ave., S.E. @ 9th Street near the Eastern Market. The band Gessford Court to follow. Contact Kris Swanson @202-544-5807 for additional info.

19th Annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival

Check out the artists juried into the 19th Annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival. This is one of the best outdoor art festivals in the nation. It takes place on the streets of the Reston Town Center — Reston, Virginia, May 15 & 16, 2010. 10am — 6pm daily.

Pencil it into your schedule and drop by and say hi at Booth 204.

Tax Day

According to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization, about 47 percent of Americans will pay no federal income taxes for 2009.

Having paid income tax since my very first job ever at age 13 (after school vacuum cleaning several stores along Pitkin Avenue in Brooklyn and also cleaning their bathrooms after they closed), I've managed to pay income taxes every year since that year and this past year was the most brutal tax year ever for me.

It has also always escaped me the fairness of having about 1% of US households pay about 40% of all taxes collected in this nation and the other top 9% of US households combine to pay almost 75% of all taxes collected.

The reason that most European nations and especially the new democracies from the former Soviet empire adopted either a flat tax system or a Value Added Tax (VAT) system is simple: "It's simple!"

Every nation in Europe that I've lived in had a flat tax, except for the UK, which has a VAT (17.5%).

But here, the tax laws are so complex, and the tax load so disparate and so huge, that we need an army of IRS folks to enforce them and an even bigger army of accountants and lawyers to interpret them.

Makes my head hurt; check's on the way.