Ryan Hill opens at Civilian

Opening Reception: Friday, May 21, 2010

Civilian Art Projects artist Ryan Hill continues his process of exploring the contemporary cultural imagination through found images and word associations. The works on paper found in “SuperFacial” play with ideas of the spectacular, the facial and glamour. Drawings based on images of spa treatments, facebook profiles, fashion magazines, and entertainment websites ask the question “how do we look at faces?” “what happens if we are not sure if we are looking at a face at all?” and “what do faces mean to us anyway?”

Ryan was initially inspired to make this series of related works by a friends wedding reception on Halloween’s eve at a New Orleans mansion.

The artist found interacting with the masked wedding guests both confusing and exciting since he couldn’t read the social cues from people’s faces when they spoke or reacted to his responses. Also, the artist wore a range of fake noses and teeth throughout the night, evolving them from smaller to larger prosthesis as it progressed. This social experiment gave the artist both a sense of glamour and invisibility, allowing his face to be read in ways unfamiliar to him. People projected their fantasies on his new features in ways that allowed him to maintain a comforting sense of anonymity. He found parallels to this process of masquerade on social networking sights, celebrity discussion forums and even in the act of how the public interpretation of art is a private act done in public.

Images are drawn onto the paper with some areas blocked out by frisket. Ryan then sprays layers of washes over the drawing and works back into them with ink and brush.

Ryan's textworks are enlarged from copious notes he takes while drawing. Words are often drawings in themselves or overlaid on top of images as a way of complicating meaning.

He presently experimenting with cutting out text and hanging them sculpturally on the walls. Like previous exhibit, "Everything Must Go," the nature of the textwork are based on personal anecdotes and imaginary personas.

The artist will also show his related collages and textworks along with a video collaboration with local DC area experimental filmmaker Rob Parrish.

Wanna go to an opening tomorrow?

One of my favorite artists on this planet is Mary Coble and her solo show "Source" and performance at Conner Contemporary Art in Washington, DC opens tomorrow, Saturday, May 15th, 6-8pm.

Important News follow: Mary Coble's performance begins at 2pm and will continue on into the opening which is from 6-8pm. Coble will also be showing video, photography and an installation piece as part of the exhibition.

New video and photographs by New Yorker Janet Biggs in an exhibition titled Nobody Rides for Free will also be on display. This is Biggs' first solo exhibition with the gallery.

Be there!

This weekend: go to Reston

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.

50,000 people will show up to look and buy art. Drop by and say hi at Booth 204.

Tomorrow: Gateway Open Studios

The many talented artists around the Gateway Arts District are having a joint open studios day tomorrow. You can also join the Washington Glass School as it celebrates its 9th Anniversary tomorrow with an Open House and Artwork Sale - art and craft from over 20 studio artists and instructors will be available.

WGS artists exhibiting include: Michael Janis, Tim Tate, Erwin Timmers, Syl Mathis, Robert Kincheloe, Jessica Beels, Nancy Donnelly, Sean Hennessey, Rania Hassan, Jennifer Lindstrom, David Pearcy, Anne Plant, Cheryl Derricotte, David Cook, Allegra Marquart, Chris Shea, , Nancy Krondstat, Kirk Waldroff, Allison Sigethey, and more! Torchwork demonstrations, discounts on class registrations, music, food & fun!

The surrounding artist studios (Red Dirt Studio with Margaret Boozer, JJ McCracken; Flux Studios with Novie Trump, Laurel Lukaszewski; Ellyn Weiss Studio) will be participating in the huge event, along with the Gateway Arts District’s Mount Rainier Day events along Rhode Island Avenue.

A free shuttle bus from the West Hyattsville Metro station will loop through the area beginning at 11:30am with a last run at 5:00pm. For more information and a PDF map go to the Gateway CDC web site here.

While you are in the area, check out the exhibition "Space / Place" which opens this Saturday, May 15th, from 5-7 PM, at the 39th Street Gallery within the new Gateway Arts Center in Brentwood, MD. The show will present the work of painter Matt Klos, draftsman Matt Woodward, and photographer Andrew Zimmermann. The work of each of the three artists presents a different concept of space and of how that space is used to describe a particular place.

It's all free and open to the public.

Opportunity for Artists

The WPA announces:

About the project:

In September 2009, the Washington Convention and Sports Authority (WCSA) and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, DC Creates! Public Art Program (DCCAH) partnered to create an innovative approach to public art by transforming retail windows into a street side art exhibition entitled Windows Into DC. These temporary art spaces are popular ways to energize storefronts and windows, while drawing in visitors. For phase one of Windows Into DC, 14 DC artists were selected to paint on the storefront windows and install original works in the display windows. Now in phase two, the project looks to activate the space with incubator space, street festivals, a neon installation, portraits of DC residents, and original works of art in the display windows.

Washington Project for the Arts (WPA), through the support of DCCAH and WCSA, is inviting artists to submit proposals for Arcade, a street-level window gallery that will transform the Convention Center display windows along M Street NW between 7th and 9th Streets NW into showcases for art. Six windows will be available for the creation or installation of artworks, selected from artist proposals.

Artwork:

Creative use of the window space is expected. Painting, three-dimensional work, multimedia, photography, graphic design and site-specific installation are all welcome for consideration. Video will not be permitted for this phase. Artists should take into consideration the location and size of their preferred window in their proposal, and are strongly encouraged to visit the Washington Convention Center, located at 801 Mt Vernon Place, NW, to view the windows before submitting their application.

Submissions Requirements:

To apply for the Arcade exhibition opportunity, please send a brief written description and 1-2 images of your concept or the work you wish to submit for consideration (with dimensions) to submissions@wpadc.org with "ARCADE EXHIBITION PROPOSAL - YOURLASTNAME" in the subject line. Please be sure to include your name, address, website URL, and telephone number in your submission.

Schedule:

Deadline for proposals: Sunday, May 16, 2010, midnight
Artists notified: Friday, May 21, 2010
Installation dates: Friday, June 11, 9am through Monday, June 14 at noon
Exhibition opening: TBD
DCCAH/Mayor's RibbonCutting Ceremony: TBD
Exhibition run dates: June, 2010 through March 30, 2011
De-install dates: March 30, 2011 (subject to change)

Submission guidelines can also be found here.

For questions, please email submissions@wpadc.org or call them at 202-234-7103.

Art in Embassies Program

Established by the United States Department of State in 1964, the ART In Embassies Program is a global museum that exhibits original works of art by U.S. citizens in the public rooms of approximately 180 American diplomatic residences worldwide. For more information, contact artinembassies@state.gov.

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. 50,000 people will show up to look and buy art.

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

Commercials imitating art?

Am I the only one who thinks that the current AT&T commercial where they wrap up everything (buildings, beaches, etc.) in orangey material is a direct rip off of the whole Christo art legacy?

Remember when Mickey D's ripped off former DC artist Thomas Edwards?

Donnelly on Gopnik

Is there room for delight in the vocabulary of art? Perhaps. Sometimes perception is actually bigger than the current vocabulary of criticism. Not everybody wants always to be striving for a leg up, or to express anger or despair. Other sides of human experience are also valid, and a great relief.

DC artist Nancy Donnelly argues that there is room and therefore disagrees with WaPo Chief Art critic Blake Gopnik. Read Donnelly's argument in the Post here.

Wanna go to an artist talk tonight?

The join "a pop up project" for a memorable artist talk starting at 6 pm with Margaret Bowland, whose work in the current show there is my favorite. She will be discussing her Murakami Wedding series, an artwork of which is currently featured at National Portrait Gallery and her series of powerful Thorny Crown drawings, exclusively available at the pop-up project exhibition.

Artist Talk and Reception
Wednesday, May 13, 2010
6 pm
625 E St, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Project Create

Hillwood has a new director

Ellen MacNeile Charles, president of Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, announced today the appointment of Kate Markert as executive director. Currently the associate director at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Markert will succeed Frederick J. Fisher, who has led Hillwood as executive director for over 20 years and has long planned to make 2010 his final year heading up the former estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post in northwest DC. Markert, who will be Hillwood’s second professional director since its founding in 1977, will assume leadership on August 2.

Markert is co-author of The Manual of Strategic Planning for Museums (Altimira Press, 2007), which has become a trusted guide book for many museum directors and boards.

Art that sells itself

On Jan. 28, while on a business trip to Chicago, Terence Spies used his iPhone to monitor an eBay auction. He was trying to outbid a couple of rivals to win a black plastic box that was at the time on display at an art gallery in Seattle. Spies had read about “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter,” as the piece is called, on a Reuters financial blog. That’s a strange-enough place for a collector to learn about art, but Spies’s interest seems even more curious given that the blogger Felix Salmon’s write-up of the piece’s sale was titled “The Uncollectible Artwork.” Even if Spies won the object, created by a young artist named Caleb Larsen, his ownership would be tentative: the technical innards of “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” carried a program that would relist the thing on eBay every week, forever. Indeed, the terms and conditions for submitting a bid clearly stipulated that the device must be connected to the Internet, constantly trying to resell itself at a higher price to someone else.

The minimum bid was $2,500. Spies won with a bid of $6,350. “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” had generated a fair amount of buzz online when it first went up for sale as part of a show of Larsen’s work at Seattle’s Lawrimore Project gallery. And I understood why people found the concept compelling (or annoying) enough to write about it. But I wanted to know why somebody would find it compelling enough to spend thousands of real dollars to sort of own that concept.

Spies, who is the chief technology officer at Voltage Security in Palo Alto, Calif., describes himself as a collector of “baffling contemporary art.” (He mentions the almost monochrome panels of Anne Appleby and Molly Springfield’s meticulous drawings of photocopies.) He says another collector once advised him to buy art that “people have a reaction to — good or bad.” And “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” has elicited reactions ranging from “You’re really crazy” to “You’re slightly crazy.” He’s O.K. with that. It “sets people off,” he continues, “because it’s not even clear what you own.”

Read the NYT story here.

Focus on Michele Banks

Craftzine has a cool focus on the work of DC area artist Michele Banks.

Atrial Fibrillation. 6 × 9" on 300 weight watercolor paper. Michele Banks
See it online here

Open House at the Washington Glass School

Join the Washington Glass School as it celebrates its 9th Anniversary this coming Saturday with an Open House and Artwork Sale - art and craft from over 20 studio artists and instructors will be available.

Artists exhibiting include: Michael Janis, Tim Tate, Erwin Timmers, Syl Mathis, Robert Kincheloe, Jessica Beels, Nancy Donnelly, Sean Hennessey, Rania Hassan, Jennifer Lindstrom, David Pearcy, Anne Plant, Cheryl Derricotte, David Cook, Allegra Marquart, Chris Shea, , Nancy Krondstat, Kirk Waldroff, Allison Sigethey, and more! Torchwork demonstrations, discounts on class registrations, music, food & fun!

The surrounding artist studios (Red Dirt Studio with Margaret Boozer, JJ McCracken; Flux Studios with Novie Trump, Laurel Lukaszewski; Ellyn Weiss Studio) will be participating in the huge event, along with the Gateway Arts District’s Mount Rainier Day events along Rhode Island Avenue.

Washington Glass School & Studio
9th Anniversary / Open Studio / Sale
3700 Otis Street, Mount Rainier, MD 20712
202.744.8222
Noon til 6 pm, Saturday, May 15, 2010
Free and open to the public
www.washglass.com

Novel way to get glass into Hirshhorn

A few years ago, when I was trying to convince the Hirshhorn to accept a donation of some of the very early glass sculptures by a DC artist, a curator there (since then long gone) informed me that the "Hirshhorn does not collect glass."

That's a silly statement of course, like saying that the Hirshhorn does not collect granite or bronze or chocolate or mud (all of which are substrates of artwork in the Hirshhorn's collection). In other words, the substrate of the artwork shouldn't matter, right? What she really meant to say was that in her mind, all that she could visualize for glass was vessels and containers and Chihuly-like organic forms: craft

A bomb squad was called in Monday night after a UPS delivery truck crashed into the side of the Hirshhorn Museum, but no explosives were found.

Officials said the truck was heading eastbound on Independence Avenue just before 9 p.m. when it swerved into oncoming traffic. The truck narrowly missed a car, jumped the curb, hit a light pole and a concrete flower pot barricade before slamming into the glass exterior wall of the museum's lobby, located at 7th and Independence SW.

Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said the truck came about a foot into the circular-shaped building and shattered a large glass window.

Read the whole story here. My dad used to work for UPS; let's all hope the driver is OK if he had a medical issue or something that caused this accident.


Update: Mike Licht has the real scoop here.

At the end of the fair

Overall Mayer Fine Art sold nearly 40 works of art during last week's Affordable Art Fair in NYC. Work by Shiela Giolitti, Alexei Terenin, Heather Bryant, Michael Janis, Matt Sesow, and a few more artists, sold by MFA.

I sold about a dozen drawings, including three of the pieces that I had done for the Mera Rubell studio visit last week.

On Sunday I sold two big drawings, including "Fallen Angel" and "Superman Flying Naked and Close to the Ground in Order to Avoid Radar"; both of these were "Rubell visit drawings." I also sold a large female nude drawing titled "America Desnuda".

"Superman flying naked and close to the ground in order to avoid NORAD radar"" Charcoal on Paper. 20x24 inches.

Artist Jeremy Drummond to speak at MPA

Jeremy Drummond will give an artist talk about his current exhibition at MPA, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere: A Photographic and Video Installation.

Mr. Drummond is a professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Richmond and he will speak at McLean Project for the Arts on Thursday, May 13 at 7 pm.

The talk is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and reservations are a must. To reserve your seat, please email info@mpaart.org or call 703-790-1953.

Scots

Just found some notes that I wrote and had in my car when I lived in Scotland at the Little Keithock Farmhouse near Brechin in Angus. I used to have a Russian made Lada for a car. Perhaps the worst car ever made in history.

muckin = clean
croft = small farmhouse
jine = join
kill = overcome with weariness
swir = unwilling to work
auld Nick = the Devil
tint =lost
fit like? = how are you?
besom = broom
deen = done
barra = barrow
widna row its leen = would not hold it's load
siccan = such
soss = dirty wet mess
strae = straw
swipe = sweep
greep = gutter in the byre
fell sklite = fall heavily
neep = turnip
ben = through
soo = female pig
booin'doon = bending down
goon = gown, dress
midden = refuse heap
riggs = strip of ploughed land
tyke = dog
bumbee's byke = beehive
lang syne = long since
tyne = lose

Vandals at work

A public art piece in Richmond worth more than $1 million was vandalized this week, prompting the president of the Vancouver Biennale to call on police to treat it as a serious crime rather than an act of mischief, should the perpetrator be caught.

"This was vicious and intended," said Barry Mowatt, president and founder of the Vancouver Biennale, which brings large public art installations from all over the world to Vancouver and, more recently, Richmond. "It should be treated as a crime."

Read the whole story here.