Wanna go to an opening this week?

Marymount University's Fine Art and Graphic Design Faculty Show has an opening Friday, October 22, 5-7:30 pm. The dates for the show are: October 22-December 12, 2010.

Auction alert: Campello original

This Ebay auction offers a drawing that I did while in Art School. It is circa 1980. It is being offered by some antique store in Washington state.

It's pen and ink of an unicorn. The piece, as I recall, was one of many, many different unicorn and fantasy drawings that I did during that period for a fantasy periodical in Seattle (name escapes me now, but that stuff was hot in Seattle in the 1980s). I would get a small chunk of money for each drawing they used, and then I'd get the original back and sell it at the Pike's Place Market in Seattle.

Between 1977-1981 I sold artwork at Pike's Place Market... everything including all of my art school assignments once they were graded and all of the pen and ink illustrations that I did for this periodical (and others). I'm guessing that I probably sold anywhere from two to three thousand drawings, paintings, watercolors, etchings and woodcuts at Pike's Place Market in those four years - don't be too impressed, the price point ranged from $5 to $100 or so.

The unicorn pen and ink original, framed is starting at only $20 bucks! Hurry, there's only a day left in the auction!

Bid for it here.

Scope Art Fair "freefall" continues?

A while back I noted the various artblogsphere posts describing the various issues surrounding the once mighty Scope Art Fair and describing what's happening to Scope as a "freefall."

Scope had to cancel its Hamptons fair this summer, doing so at the very last minute possible and getting a lot of irate grumbling from the scheduled exhibitors.

And there's something odd going on now with the exhibitor selection process for Scope's Miami version.

Initially, the deadline for announcing the final set of exhibitors for Miami was supposed to be in early October. When that didn't happen I called Scope to find out why and I was told that the date was "October 14 all along."

This is not what I had been told (and what I had in my notes) earlier on, but I said OK and waited.

When October 14 came and went, and no exhibitors had been notified, I called them again and after being put on hold for a bit, I was told that the new date was November 1st.

When fairs keep extending deadlines for applications and/or notifications of exhibitors there are usually a few things that drive this train wreck:

1. Not enough applicants (and thus not enough application fees and deposits gathering interest in bank accounts)

2. Not enough "good" applicants, at least from the self described "cutting-edge contemporary art from around the world" art fair. Judging from the Miami Scopes of the last two years, this fair has been slow in deciphering that because of the drastic economic slowdown, both galleries and collectors are becoming a little more grounded in the plebeian realities of selling artwork than in trying to get attention through the often salesless avenues of cutting-edge art tricks.

3. Not enough cash at hand to actually make the fair happen

I don't know if any of the above applies to Scope and its reason for once again delaying notifying applicants of their acceptance status, and I think that Scope Miami will take place one way or the other (after all, they have a shiny new 80,000 square foot pavilion next to Art Asia and Red Dot and across the street from Art Miami; all of them centrally located in the center of the Wynwood Arts District).

But I do know that this continuing delay in notifying applicants of their acceptance or rejection status is not only highly unprofessional, but it is also creating havoc with galleries' art fair schedules as alarmed artists keep putting pressure to know if their particular dealer is in Scope or not.

Why? Because in the complex chess game that is Art Basel week in Miami, any artist worth his or her artsy business cards must be in an art fair somewhere from the 25 or so art fairs that surround Art Basel Miami Beach. In the 21st century visual arts games, you gotta be in Miami somewhere or you're still so 20th century.

But fairs like Scope demand that galleries, if showing in Scope, can't show in any other fairs.

And art dealers/gallerists, being the over-protecting cabal that we are, usually demand that only one dealer show the artist in Miami (I've always thought the opposite - that is, that the more dealers that show the same artist in various fairs, the better for both the artist and the various dealers - but in that line of thought I am alone in the art dealer universe). And thus one can have the case where an artist has said to his "other" dealers: "Look, my New York gallery has applied to Scope, and if they get in, only they can show my work in Miami during Art Basel week."

In the past, when Scope actually stuck to its timetables, if a dealer got rejected from Scope, they could always (and usually) did, apply to another art fair, and another, until accepted in one of them. But with about six weeks left before Art Basel Week, and Scope still delaying the process, by the time November 1st comes along, there are only four weeks left to find hotels, ship artwork (imagine this nightmare if you're an overseas gallery trying to ship artwork from your location in Europe or Asia to Miami in four weeks), etc. It's a train wreck in the making for the selected exhibitors and a train wreck already in process for those who will be rejected, and scrambling - with four weeks to go - to find another art fair with some booth space still available.

All of this maelstrom because a once mighty art fair appears to be scratching its ass trying to figure out what to do next, not realizing that they've already thrown a huge wrench in the gear works of a couple of hundred galleries and a couple of thousand artists.

Hurry! Opportunity for Photographers

Deadline: Tonight at 11PM, October 18, 2010

This competition has an interesting twist to it. It features figurative and Fine Art Nude photography with a twist of fetish to celebrate Halloween. It is titled the "Halloween Fine Art Nude/Figurative Photography Show" and it is being held at the The Carriage House Studio and Gallery in DC. All entries are submitted online.

Submission Guidelines: Content may be any image in the realm of fine art nude photography. Winners will be selected and exhibited in the following categories:
1) best figurative image
2) best costume/fetish image
and two special exhibits
3) best figurative/fine art nude image shot on film and
4) best image of Nika (www.modelmayhem.com/853632), who is returning to to Washington DC from Germany and will attend the show as their Feature Model.

The images for the exhibit will be selected by three judges with background in fine art photography, who will be announced shortly. The top selection in each category will receive a complementary shoot at the Carriage House studio during the 60 days following the exhibit. Participants whose work is not selected will also have their work displayed on a wide-screen display.

All images must be received by 11 pm on Mon, October 18th. You may send up to 5 jpegs (1200 px x 1200 px max) for consideration.

All the details are here. The show will be at The Carriage House Studio and Gallery, a new arts cooperative in Washington, DC, located in the historic Logan Arts Circle District. The studio is located in a historic landmark 1860's carriage house.

Later this month: Sandra Ramos solo show in Norfolk

Havana-based Cuban artist Sandra Ramos is in many people's opinions, the leading contemporary Cuban artist in the world, and later this month, her solo exhibition titled Exodus, running from October 23 - December 27, opens in Norfolk's leading independently owned commercial fine arts gallery: Mayer Fine Art.

MFA, which also represents my work, is by far the top fine arts venue in the Tidewater area, and its hardworking owner, the talented Shiela Giolitti, daughter of the legendary comic book artist Alberto Giolitti has been preparing for this, Ramos' second ever solo show in the USA, for a long time.

Sandra Ramos. Flying to Miami. Charcoal and Acrylic on Digital Canvas Print. 130 x 90 cm. Circa 2010
The opening is Saturday, October 23rd from 6-9PM.

Additionally, Ramos will be leading a printmaking workshop at the Chrysler Museum on Oct 23 and 24th. You can register for that workshop here.

Then, on October 26th at 7PM, Sandra Ramos will present a lecture on contemporary Cuban art at the Baron and Ellin Art Galleries of Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Free and open to the public.

I'm driving down for this opening; see ya there!

Rousseau on Goodwin and Shapiro at Iona Center

By Dr. Claudia Rousseau

Something like a retrospective of the photographs of Lee Goodwin is now on view at the Iona Center in NW Washington. Goodwin, who was named “Artist in Residence” there for this year, is widely known for his photos of the area, especially the Potomac and the C&O Canal area.

The photos in this exhibit include both the gelatin silver prints that he was creating until a couple of years ago, and his new archival digital prints, many in color.

The subject matter remains the same: familiar places made to look very unfamiliar, exotic, desirable. One delicately colored photo of a figure reading a newspaper on an early foggy morning on the Mall looks like an impressionist painting. Another, taken after the first snowfall this past winter, is a study in perfection. Taken just at dawn, the rising sun is framed in the center of trees covered in white. All the photos are both sensitively and expertly composed, using features in the landscape to create unusual effects.

Goodwin’s photos are accompanied by sculptural work by 98-year-old special guest artist Marilee Shapiro. Shapiro has been working in bronze for decades, and many of her more recent works are figurative, naturalistic, expressive, and rather small.

They are all displayed in vitrines. Yet, to her great credit, recently, when working in bronze became too much of a burden, this Washington DC artist reached out, took a Photoshop class, and hired a private tutor to teach herself everything about the program and its potential to transform imagery.

Creating large sheets of paper printed with exotic patterns created in Photoshop, Shapiro wraps these around shipping tubes. The results are reminiscent of those “rain maker” cylinders that sound as they are turned. These don’t make that lovely sound, but are fine, inventive works just as they are.

Iona Center
4125 Albemarle St. NW
Washington DC 20016

Patricia Dubroof, Gallery Director. Call for information: 202-895-9407

Vote now!

The Washington Post asked readers to submit their work to their "Real Art D.C." contest on Washingtonpost.com:

Since April, Galleries columnist Jessica Dawson has been scouring the submissions, and from the 4,000 images submitted, she chose 10 finalists. The finalists work with neckties, petri dishes and Bertoia chairs; they use Holga cameras, watercolor, needlepoint, video and pixels. Their subjects range from the inside of a Korean liquor store to the inside of the artist's studio. Now it's your turn. Go to http://washingtonpost.com/realartdc to vote for your favorite.

Vote now and vote here.

Opportunity for Photographers

Deadline: October 18, 2010

This competition has an interesting twist to it. It features figurative and Fine Art Nude photography with a twist of fetish to celebrate Halloween. It is titled the "Halloween Fine Art Nude/Figurative Photography Show" and it is being held at the The Carriage House Studio and Gallery in DC. All entries are submitted online.

Submission Guidelines: Content may be any image in the realm of fine art nude photography. Winners will be selected and exhibited in the following categories:
1) best figurative image
2) best costume/fetish image
and two special exhibits
3) best figurative/fine art nude image shot on film and
4) best image of Nika (www.modelmayhem.com/853632), who is returning to to Washington DC from Germany and will attend the show as their Feature Model.

The images for the exhibit will be selected by three judges with background in fine art photography, who will be announced shortly. The top selection in each category will receive a complementary shoot at the Carriage House studio during the 60 days following the exhibit. Participants whose work is not selected will also have their work displayed on a wide-screen display.

All images must be received by 11 pm on Mon, October 18th. You may send up to 5 jpegs (1200 px x 1200 px max) for consideration.

All the details are here. The show will be at The Carriage House Studio and Gallery, a new arts cooperative in Washington, DC, located in the historic Logan Arts Circle District. The studio is located in a historic landmark 1860's carriage house.

ARCH's Artist Residency Program

Deadline(s): December 1, 2010 and March 1st, 2011

This artist residency program is:

"an opportunity for artists to pursue their creative projects amid DC's vibrant and diverse urban environment. Two residencies (for up to 4 artists each session) are offered; spring and fall. The residencies are approximately 8 weeks each.

Each artist will work closely with the creative staff at the Honfleur Gallery and The Gallery at Vivid Solutions to determine the parameters of the residency and needs of the artist in advance of their arrival. These parameters will focus primarily on details of the artists' project, but are also about how to best connect to the local community, foster dynamic interaction and develop exposure to the resources of the greater DC cultural community."

The program will offer free housing and free workspace to participating artists. Application fee $25.

* Winter/Spring: DEADLINE December 1st, 2010 - The Winter/Spring Residency will run from February 21st - April 22nd 2011 and is open to any type of visual arts.

* Summer DEADLINE March 1st, 2011 - The Summer Residency will run from May 30th - July 22nd 2011 and is open to any visual arts.

More details on how to apply:
www.honfleurgallery.com/news.html
www.vividsolutionsdc.com/gallery/newsgallery.html

Questions: arts@archdc.org

Wanna go to an artists' talk tomorrow?

Charlie Dale and Rosemary Luckett invite you to a free artist's talk about the creative processes and how they arrived at the works in their current solo exhibits.

The artist talk is Sunday, October 17, 2 pm at Touchstone Gallery.

RSVP to info@touchstonegallery.com

The Power 100

Art Review has their "Power 100" list up.

It would be fun to come up with a Power 100 list for the DMV.

I think I will start working on that just for fun and see what trouble I can get into.

Meanwhile here's the list and guess what? 3% of those on this list own one (or more) of my drawings!

Is that cool or what?

Now I need to work on the other 97.

1. Larry Gagosian
2. Hans Ulrich Obrist
3. Iwan Wirth
4. David Zwirner
5. Glenn D. Lowry
6. Bice Curiger
7. Sir Nicholas Serota
8. Eli Broad
9. RoseLee Goldberg
10. François Pinault
11. Adam D. Weinberg
12. Jeffrey Deitch
13. Ai Weiwei
14. Agnes Gund
15. Alfred Pacquement
16. Anton Vidokle, Julieta Aranda & Brian Kuan Wood
17. Bruce Nauman
18. Marc Glimcher
19. Beatrix Ruf
20. Dominique Lévy & Robert Mnuchin
21. Iwona Blazwick
22. Marian Goodman
23. Marc Spiegler & Annette Schönholzer
24. Barbara Gladstone
25. Jay Jopling
26. Mike Kelley
27. Cindy Sherman
28. Dakis Joannou
29. Franz West
30. Gavin Brown
31. Peter Fischli & David Weiss
32. Steven A. Cohen
33. Tim Blum & Jeff Poe
34. Anne Pasternak
35. Marina Abramovic
36. Bernard Arnault
37. Victor Pinchuk
38. Eugenio López
39. Takashi Murakami
40. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
41. Matthew Slotover & Amanda Sharp
42. Okwui Enwezor
43. Matthew Higgs
44. Tino Sehgal
45. Maja Hoffmann
46. Monika Sprüth & Philomene Magers
47. Jeff Koons
48. Nicholas Logsdail
49. Sadie Coles
50. Brett Gorvy & Amy Cappellazzo
51. Tobias Meyer & Cheyenne Westphal
52. Ann Philbin
53. Damien Hirst
54. Emmanuel Perrotin
55. Gerhard Richter
56. Nicolas Bourriaud
57. Matthew Marks
58. Udo Kittelmann
59. Michael Ringier
60. Kasper König
61. Daniel Buchholz
62. Anish Kapoor
63. Daniel Birnbaum
64. Toby Webster
65. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
66. Christian Boros & Karen Lohmann
67. Germano Celant
68. Maurizio Cattelan
69. Neo Rauch
70. Boris Groys
71. Helga de Alvear
72. Thaddaeus Ropac
73. Ralph Rugoff
74. Victoria Miro
75. Jerry Saltz
76. Anita & Poju Zabludowicz
77. Massimo De Carlo
78. Maureen Paley
79. Yana Peel & Candida Gertler
80. Roberta Smith
81. Charles Saatchi
82. Tim Neuger & Burkhard Riemschneider
83. Mario Cristiani, Lorenzo Fiaschi & Maurizio Rigillo
84. Johann Konig
85. Caroline Schneider
86. Johnson Chang Tsong-zung & Claire Hsu
87. Dimitris Daskalopoulos
88. Rirkrit Tiravanija
89. Wolfgang Tillmans
90. H.H. Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi & Jack Persekian
91. Massimiliano Gioni
92. Magnus Renfrew
93. Nicolai Wallner
94. Stefan Kalmár
95. Christine Tohme
96. Gregor Podnar
97. Elizabeth Dee
98. Richard Chang
99. Bruce High Quality Foundation
100. Margot Heller

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: November 12, 2010

Gallery West in Old Town Alexandria has a call for artists for their 14th Annual National Juried Show (Exhibit Dates: February 9–March 6, 2011).

The all media show will be juried by yours truly and awards to total $1,000. Click here to download the prospectus.

Easton and Cambridge

I'll be in Easton and also in Cambridge, Maryland this weekend, relaxing with the family and checking out some of the local art spots and galleries. Too bad I wasn't there on a Wednesday, otherwise I could have hung around the Wednesday Morning Artists:

Wednesday Morning Artists is a diverse group of local artists with a common desire to engage our community in experiencing the arts while cultivating the growing artist community in Cambridge, Maryland and surrounding areas.

Is that cool or what?

More later from Cambridge and Easton.

Another artist complaint against Klaudia Marr Gallery

Steven Kenny is an artist whose works are well-known to me; he's a former prizewinner at one of the Fraser Gallery's former competitions at the original Fraser location in Georgetown. He writes:

You can add my name to the list of artists who have been robbed by Klaudia Marr. In October of 2009 she returned my paintings to me after moving her gallery to a new location. One painting was missing and it took her a month to reveal that it had been sold although she claimed not to know when or to whom. She admits to owing me $2,475.00 but has continually claimed to be unable to make any payments.

After I learned of my undisclosed sale I decided to see how widespread the situation was. It seems I am one of the lucky ones. I contacted 10 artists who were represented by Klaudia Marr Gallery and five replied that they were owed money.

Regards,
Steven Kenny

Sandra Ramos' workshop

Havana-based Cuban artist Sandra Ramos is in many people's opinions, the leading contemporary Cuban artist in the world, and later this month, her solo exhibition titled Exodus, running from October 23 - December 27, opens in Norfolk's leading independently owned commercial fine arts gallery: Mayer Fine Art.

MFA, which also represents my work, is by far the top fine arts venue in the Tidewater area, and its hardworking owner, the talented Shiela Giolitti, daughter of the legendary comic book artist Alberto Giolitti has been preparing for this, Ramos' second ever solo show in the USA, for a long time.

Sandra Ramos. Flying to Miami. Charcoal and Acrylic on Digital Canvas Print. 130 x 90 cm. Circa 2010
The opening is Saturday, October 23rd from 6-9PM.

Additionally, Ramos will be leading a printmaking workshop at the Chrysler Museum on Oct 23 and 24th. You can register for that workshop here. Hurry! There are only three spots left!

Then, on October 26th at 7PM, Sandra Ramos will present a lecture on contemporary Cuban art at the Baron and Ellin Art Galleries of Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Free and open to the public.

Ramos is in the permanent collection of MoMa, MFA Boston, Dallas Museum, Miami Art Museum and many other US, European and Latin American art museums.

I'm driving down for this opening; see ya there!

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: December 3, 2010

The Foundry Gallery has a "Call to Artists" for their January 2011 show which will have "Celebrate Gay Marriage" as its theme. The Foundry Gallery is located at 1314 18th Street, NW, 20036 near Dupont Circle. The deadline for entering is Friday, December 3, 2010, 5pm. To obtain the pospectus go to this website and click on the link to "Call to Artists".

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: October 17, 2010

The Greater Reston Arts Center is requesting proposals for solo and/or group exhibitions for periods of approximately 4-6 weeks during the 2012 season.

GRACE's gallery is one of the most beautiful and flexible contemporary art spaces in the metropolitan area. With moveable walls and an open, hexagonal floor plan, the space is reconfigured for each show.

New this year - proposals will be accepted from artists living or working in a wider geographic area: Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia.

Deadline October 17, 2010

All proposals for exhibitions at the Greater Reston Arts Center must be submitted online through this this website.

Morton Fine Art to present its second *a pop-up project

The exhibition, titled Ritual: Form, Script, Gesture, is a selection of artworks by national and international artists Sally Curcio, Ethan Diehl, Sungmi Lee, Choichun Leung, Julia Fernandez-Pol and Hadieh Shafie.

*a pop-up project will be on display from October 23 through December 18, 2010 at:

Wash Art (formerly Osuna Gallery)
The Artery Building
7200 Wisconsin Ave
Bethesda, MD

The opening reception will be held on Saturday, October 23 from 5 – 8 pm.

Images can be previewed online at www.apopupproject.com

Opportunity for DMV Artists

Deadline: October 30, 2010

The BlackRock Center for the Arts has a huge gorgeous gallery space and their call for artists for the 2011 art season is now up.

The 2011 Call to Artists is open to all artists residing in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC over the age of 18 for original artwork only. This call will cover exhibits in the gallery from October 2011 through August 2012. An exhibit may include on applicant or a combination of applicants, based on the judgement of jurors. The jury panel is comprised of Kathleen Moran, Jack Rasmussen and yours truly.

Details here.

Howard County Cultural Arts Showcase 2011

Deadline: November 5, 2010.

The Howard County Arts Council is now accepting artist applications for its annual Cultural Arts Showcase presented in partnership with the Recreation & Leisure Service Branch (RALS) of the Maryland Recreation & Parks Association (MRPA).

The event will be held at Howard County Center for the Arts at 8510 High Ridge Road in Ellicott City on March 3 & 4, 2011. Showcase is a program designed to assist school and civic organizations in identifying performing, visual and literary artists for workshops, performances, demonstrations, and in-school residencies. Attendees of Showcase include cultural arts representatives, PTA Representatives, festival and special event coordinators from Recreation and Parks and other members of the community.

For artist application information, please contact the Howard County Arts Council at 410.313.2787 / MD RELAY 711 or visit them on the web at www.hocoarts.org.