Zhu Qi Slams Uli Sigg

Two months ago, Uli Sigg, the Swiss art collector and Switzerland’s former Ambassador to China, donated 1463 pieces of his Chinese contemporary art collection to Hong Kong’s M+ museum. The bequest, which included works by 350 artists such as Ai Weiwei and Zhang Xiaogan, initially received widespread praise. Then on June 25, the Art Critic column of the Oriental Morning Post, a Shanghai-based Chinese newspaper, slammed the affair.  “The donated works aren’t worth their HK$1.3 billion ($163 million) valuation.” the columnist Zhu Qi declared. “They are mostly junk.”

(Via) Check the whole story here.

Two things:

1. Zhu Qi needs to read some old reviews by Blake Gopnik and Jessica Dawson in order to learn the proper snarky etiquette required to label art as "junk."
2. The Oriental Morning Post clearly hasn't received the memo from the PC police and are not aware that Oriental is not a cool term to use anymore.

Volunteers for (e)merge art fair

(e)merge art fair is looking for energetic, efficient volunteers to assist with various aspects of the  fair. No experience is necessary, but knowledge of the art field or experience with art events is preferred. This is a valuable experience for anyone involved with or  interested in contemporary art. 

(e)merge will take place at the Capitol Skyline Hotel October 4-7, 2012. 

Volunteers will be invited to an orientation at the hotel prior to the event. Whether you want to assist for a day, or for the duration of the art fair, dedicated volunteers are essential to the success of the fair and deeply appreciated. 

If interested or have any questions please contact Irene Clouthier at irene@emergeartfair.com

Eyes on the Borders

Pencil this in and if you want to know the history, oddity and meaning of the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino", then come to the lecture as well...

Wanna go to an opening tonight?

August 18 - September 15, 2012

Opening Reception : August 18, 7-9 pm 

Please join Hamiltonian on Saturday, August 18, 2012, from 7-9pm for the opening of their annual group exhibition new. (now). in which they will debut the work of their six new, distinguished Hamiltonian Fellows for 2012.  They will introduce:

• Milana Braslavsky (MFA, University of Pennsylvania)
• Annette Isham (MFA, American University)
• Amy Boone-McCreesh (MFA, Towson University)
• Billy Friebele (MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art)
• Timothy Thompson (MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art)
• Jerry Truong (MFA, University of California, San Diego)   

The 2012 Hamiltonian Fellows were selected from a pool of over 160 promising artists who applied this year.  The External Review Panel, comprised of six acclaimed art professionals, evaluated every applicant based on criteria including artistic merit, relevance to today's art world, and the candidate's potential to thrive within the fellowship program.  Hamiltonian Gallery is located at 1353 U Street NW, Washington, DC, 20009. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 12 pm - 6 pm.   The panelists were:

• Doreen Bolger - Executive Director, Baltimore Museum of Art
• Zoe Charlton - Visual Artist, Co-Director of MFA Program, American University
• Katherine Mann - Visual Artist, Hamiltonian Fellow Alumna
• Frank Hallam Day - Photographer, Addison/Ripley Fine Art  
• James Rieck - Visual Artist, Professor, Corcoran College of Art + Design
• Mollie White - Show Director, Scope Art Fair    
  

Adah Rose Pop Up Gallery at Kate's

Opportunity for PG County Artists

Call for Entries   Under The Influence:  The 24th Annual Prince George's County Juried Exhibition Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center 10701 Livingston Rd. Fort Washington, MD 20744 Under The Influence is a juried exhibition of works that show all kinds of influences, including, but not limited, historic, aesthetic and cultural. The exhibition is sponsored by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George's County, Arts and Cultural Heritage Division. The exhibition will be on display from November 5 through December 28, 2012. Juror Mr. F. Lennox Campello is an internationally accomplished artist, author, published art critic, teacher and one of the internet's leading art bloggers. His local, national and international knowledge of and experience with the pulse of the art scene is an invaluable contribution to this year's juried exhibition. Exhibition Dates: November 5 - December 28, 2012 Public Reception: Saturday, November 17, 3-5pm Artist Talk and Refreshments: Saturday, November 24, 12noon-2pm  Eligibility & Submission Criteria This call for entries is open to all artists 18 years and older who live, work, attend school or have studios in Prince George's County, MD. Artists may submit a maximum of 3 artworks for consideration. All works must be original (no reproductions). Proposals for installations or performance works should include sample images, video or audio of the type of work being proposed as well as a brief description of the proposed art work.   What to Send A CD/DVD containing images and/or segments of audio/video, each no longer than five minutes in duration. A bio, artist statement with contact info and a list of the works submitted with titles, media, and dimensions in MS Word. If you would like your materials returned, please include a SASE.   Where to Send It Materials can be submitted by mail or delivered in person to the arts office at Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center, 10701 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington, MD 20744 or emailed to: Stuart.Diekmeyer@pgparks.com Submission Deadline: Monday, October 1, 2012 All submissions, in the form of digital images, must be received by 5pm on Monday, October 1. Notification of selected works: Friday, October 12, 2012 All selected artists will be notified via email Delivery of artwork to AHHRC: Friday, October 26, 9am-5pm All artists are responsible for the delivery of their artwork to AHHRC Exhibition closes: Friday, December 28 Artwork pick-up: Wednesday, January 2, 9am-5pm Guidelines for Digital Files Efforts will be made to review all submissions, regardless of format. However, please be aware that incompatible files may cause submissions to be rejected. Applicants are encouraged to format files as described below. Name each file according to the following format: "last name" underscore "document". Example: jones_statement.pdf. Please number each image file corresponding to the work sample list. Example: 01_jones_untitled.jpg Image files should not be larger than 1MB, and should be formatted as jpeg, tiff or png. Video and audio submissions may be submitted as a DVD or on a CD and formatted as Quicktime, Windows Media, .wave or .mpeg. Purchase Awards On the recommendation of the juror, the Arts and Cultural Heritage Division will purchase select works of art for the inclusion in the Parks and Recreation art collection. Delivery & Installation Artists are responsible for transporting work to and from the gallery. Art work must be delivered ready to hang and appropriately presented. For works that require projection, sound or other electronic equipment, those materials must be provided by the artist. Art works that differ significantly from the images submitted for judging, or are not ready for gallery installation, may be rejected. If you need to ship the work, please call us to let us know what arrangements you have made. The exhibition will be installed and dismantled by M-NCPPC staff unless the nature of the work requires special assistance. All work accepted for exhibition will remain for the duration of the exhibition. Sales & Insurance The M-NCPPC will retain a 25% commission on all art works sold during the exhibition. The M-NCPPC will insure all consigned artwork in the custody of Arts/Harmony Hall for 75% of it's sale value, from the time they are received by delivery, until the pick up date only. Additional Information If you have any questions or would like additional information, please contact: Stuart Diekmeyer, Assistant Director, Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center, 10701 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington, MD 20744 or email Stuart.Diekmeyer@pgparks.com. Participation implies agreement with all aforementioned conditions.

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund

Deadline: September 15, 12. 

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund invites visual artists (excluding filmmakers, video artists, and performance artists) to apply for grants to enable recipients to develop their talent and concentrate on their art. Artists must be 40 years or older, and must live within 150 miles of Washington, DC. Three grants totaling $60,000 were awarded in 2011. Applications must be postmarked no later than September 15, 2011.  Application forms are available for download from  www.baderfund.org.  Send email inquiries to grants@baderfund.org or call 202-288-4608. Please note that the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund no longer accepts slides. All images must be submitted in digital form. For details, see the application form, which may be downloaded from the Fund's website.

Conner Contemporary has a new name

Opportunity for Photographers

Submissions accepted: June 15–September 15, 2012.  

The Center for Documentary Studies / Honickman First Book Prize in Photography is a biennial prize offering $3,000 in grant money, a solo exhibit at the Center for Documentary Studies, and most importantly, the publication of a book of photography, published by Duke University Press in association with CDS Books. 

To learn more, go to firstbookprizephoto.com or send an SASE to:

CDS/THF First Book Prize in Photography
Center for Documentary Studies
1317 West Pettigrew Street
Durham, NC 27705.  

Website: http://firstbookprizephoto.com

Saturday: Procedures for Ground Loss Safety

Washington Project for the Arts and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design present Procedures for Ground Loss Safety, a performance by Sarah Levitt, taking place on Saturday, August 15, from 12pm to 5pm.

Procedures for Ground Loss Safety asks the question: What happens if the ground has an expiration date, if the solid foundation on top of which we've built our homes, roads, and bridges suddenly gives way? Taking inspiration from cheery Cold War safety films from the 1950's, Sarah Levitt will demonstrate Procedures for Ground Loss Safety, instructing the audience through movement and sound on the appropriate steps to prepare for sudden ground loss. Exploring the idea's literal and metaphorical potential, the artist will investigate the relationship between the body and the ground, utilizing the Performance Bridge's invisible floor and proximity to the White House to further amplify the body's new relationship to eroding foundations.

Procedures for Ground Loss Safety is part of Take It to the Bridge, a nine-week series of installations and performances taking place through September 15 in the new Performance Bridge located inside the Corcoran's glass entryway on 17^th Street. The Performance Bridge was first constructed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art as the stage for Holly Bass's performance Moneymaker, a seven-hour endurance work that took place on February 11, 2012, during the final weekend of the Corcoran's landmark fall exhibition 30 Americans. For Take it to the Bridge, eleven artists living and working in the DC-Baltimore region will present nine installations and performances, investigating the Bridge's physical characteristics and pushing the boundaries of this non-traditional space to explore a variety of social, political, and aesthetic issues. Installations will open on Wednesday and remain on view through the following Sunday for all museum hours. Performances will take place on Saturdays, from 10 am to 5 pm unless otherwise noted. The first seven weeks of the series coincide with the Corcoran's Free Summer Saturdays promotion, which run from May 26 - September 1, 2012. 

See the full Take it to the Bridge schedule below and more information online here and at wpadc.org

Tomorrow: Chat with Lionell...

Join us on Tuesday, August 14th to chat with D.C. Commission on the Arts
and Humanities' Executive Director, Lionell Thomas. 

Do you have a question about upcoming programs?
Log on and ask.  

Do you have a question about a funding application?
Log on and ask.

Have questions about deadlines, calls to artists,
or just want to be heard?
Log on and be heard.

LIVE DIRECTOR CHAT

www.dcarts.dc.gov

Tuesday, August 14th, 2012

2PM - 3PM

George Bellows at the NAG

June 10–October 8, 2012 at the National Gallery of Art

When George Bellows died at the age of forty-two in 1925, he was hailed as one of the greatest artists America had yet produced. In 2012, the National Gallery of Art will present the first comprehensive exhibition of Bellows' career in more than three decades. George Bellows will include some 130 paintings, drawings, and lithographs. Bellows is arguably the most important figure in the generation of artists who negotiated the transition from the Victorian to the modern era in American culture. This exhibition will provide the most complete account of his achievements to date and will introduce Bellows to new generations. The accompanying catalogue will document and define Bellows' unique place in the history of American art and in the annals of modernism.

The exhibition will begin with Bellows' renowned paintings of tenement children, boxers, and the urban landscape of New York. These iconic images of the modern city were made during an extraordinary period of creativity for the artist, from shortly after his arrival from Columbus, Ohio, in 1904, up to the Armory Show in 1913, and remain his best-known works. They include Forty-Two Kids, 1907 (Corcoran Gallery of Art), New York, 1911 (National Gallery of Art), Stag at Sharkey's, 1909 (Cleveland Museum of Art), and Snow Dumpers, 1911 (Columbus Museum of Art).

Complementing the earlier signature masterpieces will be groupings that bring to light other crucial, yet less familiar aspects of Bellows' prodigious achievement, including his Maine seascapes, sporting scenes (polo and tennis), World War I subjects, family portraits, and Woodstock, NY, subjects. Drawings and lithographs will illuminate Bellows' working methods and the relationships between his various media. The show will end with paintings from 1924, the year before his sudden death from peritonitis. These last works, including Dempsey and Firpo (Whitney Museum of American Art) and The White Horse (Worcester Art Museum), will prompt visitors to contemplate the artist Bellows might have become had he lived into the 1960s like his great contemporary, Edward Hopper.

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Congrats! ... And an NBC gaffe?

Congrats to the US Women's B-ball team on their fifth consecutive Olympic gold!

Gaffe to NBC talking head Mary Carillo, who when referring to US basketball superstar Diana Taurasi, brings us the fact that "she's Italian, even though her parents are from Argentina..."

Come again?

Now, if you've ever been to Argentina, then you know that this huge nation is very diverse, almost as much as the US, when it comes to its European ancestry, and also that Argentines of Italian ancestry make up the largest historical block of immigrants to Argentina, so a slight majority of Argentines are of Italian ancestry, which reflects powerfully on the Italianate accent of their Spanish language. Case in point: if we look at the last names of the 15 players in the strong Argentine Olympic team we see that out of the 12 players, five have Italian surnames, five have Spanish and two have German... that's pretty much the Argentine demographic make-up plus a lot of Welsh in the city of Trelew, Argentina (founded in 1886 by Welsh settlers) and a lot of Scots in Patagonia.

And to trip over the fact that the daughter of Argentines, now in the US, is now Italian (again) instead of... what? See how difficult and silly this Latino label is?

Those of you who know me well, and those of you who know me through my writing, know that one of my pet peeves is the usage of "labels" to box people and art, or art and people, into easily distinguishable categories.

One such label is the American invention of the Hispanic (now apparently not a PC term because technically it includes two European nationalities) or Latino label to pass for ethnicity and often and always wrongly for race.

What does that mean in art? And what does it mean to "Latino" artists? Does it mean anything?

If you want to hear my opinion on the subject then start by penciling in October 11, 2012, where starting at 5PM I will be presenting a lecture titled "On Identity in the Arts: What Does It Mean to be Latino?" at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, MD.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: August 31, 2012

 

The Howard County Center for the Arts is seeking proposals from artists for Art Maryland 2012, a biennial multi-media juried exhibit. The juror for Art Maryland 2012 is my good bud Philippa Hughes, Founder and Chief Contrarian of The Pink Line Project. A minimum of $1,000 will be awarded by the juror. The exhibit will be on view from October 26 – December 14, 2012 with a reception and remarks by Ms. Hughes on October 26 from 6-8pm.

Entry is open to all artists 18 years or older, residing in Maryland or within a 100-mile radius of Ellicott City, MD. Artists may submit digital images of up to three works completed in the last two years and not exhibited previously in the HCCA galleries. All work must fit through a standard doorway measuring 54” x 80” and fit appropriately in the HCCA galleries. The Center’s two galleries total over 2000 square feet, with 9 ½ foot high walls, professional track lighting and hardwood floors. There is a $25 Art Maryland entry fee. The fee is waived for current Howard County Arts Council members.

Art Maryland 2012 is the eighteenth multi-media statewide juried exhibit sponsored by the Howard County Arts Council. The exhibit began in 1984 as Maryland’s Best, an annual show running through 1989 and open to all Maryland artists. In 1990, when the show became a biennial, its name was changed to Art Maryland. Since the Baltimore Museum of Art ended its Maryland biennial exhibits in the early 1990s, Art Maryland has been a premier juried showcase for artists in the region. In 2000, Art Maryland expanded to include Delaware and Southeastern Pennsylvania in addition to Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

For more information or to download a prospectus, visit www.hocoarts.org/exhibits.php

 

Pam Perna
Community and Web Relations Assistant
Howard County Arts Council
8510 High Ridge Road
Ellicott City, MD 21043
p: 410.313.ARTS
f: 410.313.2790

Mayor's Arts Awards

On Identity

Those of you who know me well, and those of you who know me through my writing, know that one of my pet peeves is the usage of "labels" to box people and art, or art and people, into easily distinguishable categories.

One such label is the American invention of the Hispanic (now apparently not a PC term because technically it includes two European nationalities) or Latino label to pass for ethnicity and often and always wrongly for race.

What does that mean in art? And what does it mean to "Latino" artists? Does it mean anything?

If you want to hear my opinion on the subject then start by penciling in October 11, 2012, where starting at 5PM I will be presenting a lecture titled "On Identity in the Arts: What Does It Mean to be Latino?" at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, MD.

More details later...

New comic book watercolor trompe l'oeil

This image shows the new piece, including the watercolor testing and mixing on the same paper, trying to match the comic book colors of the original. In this piece I changed the dialogue box to reflect a contemporary reality that the Dark Knight would probably have to face in Gotham... I also changed the color of the exclamation point to match the letters of BA-ROOM's colors, as in the actual comic it had erroneously been printed in the reddish color of the smoke clouds.

"Ba-Room! Batman and the Suicide Bomber" 2x5 inches. Watercolor on Paper, c.2012

A new series starts with this...

This December I'm curating an exhibition focused on Superheros and Super villains in room 116 at the Aqua Art Fair in Miami Beach.

As such, in addition to my "Naked Superheros" series, which has been well-documented in this blog and which past pieces hang in many US and European and Latin American collections, I've decided to start sort of a mixed media trompe l'oeil set of works that isolate interesting panels from existing comic books and refocuses the dialogue to make them slightly more interesting (at least to me). 

Below are the steps for the pieces... in the first phase, the panel has been done in charcoal; in the second phase, watercolors have been added to bring it closer to a comic book look -- it's important to me that they retain a "artsy" look and are not just a mirror replica of the original comic -- as a "true" trompe l'oeil would.

This is phase one of "The Caped Crusaders Discover International Terrorism," in this phase it is charcoal on paper, 3x2 inches. 

This is the whole piece of paper, showing the watercolor mixing marks on the top of the piece, searching for the right mix to achieve a close call to the comic book's original colors

And here's the finished piece, "The Caped Crusaders Discover International Terrorism," watercolor and charcoal on paper, 3x2 inches.

Future pieces in this series will have altered text in the dialogue bubbles and also embedded electronic mini LCD screens that run continuous dialogue between the characters. 

Cornelius to Wed

Washington Project for the Arts and Corcoran Gallery of Art
Announce Save the Date, by Kathryn Cornelius
Performance part of Take It to the Bridge, a series of installations and performances in the Corcoran’s Performance Bridge from July 18 – September 15

Washington, D.C. (August 6, 2012) – Washington Project for the Arts and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design are pleased to announce Save the Date, a performance by Kathryn Cornelius, taking place on Saturday, August 11, from 10am to 5pm.

Save the Date explores the life cycle of marriage and divorce and the wedding ceremony’s complex mix of private emotion, public spectacle, social expectation, and state power. Over the course of seven hours, Kathryn Cornelius will exchange vows with seven suitors. Each wedding ceremony will be followed by a champagne toast, cupcakes, a first dance and then, finally, the signing of divorce papers. A legal wedding officiant will perform the ceremonies, while the signing of divorce papers will be overseen by a divorce attorney. Ceremonies will begin on the hour, every hour, and run from 10am through 5pm. 

The seven suitors selected to wed the artist include performance artists Eames Armstrong, Holly Bass, and Andrew Bucket, writer and filmmaker Stephen Mack, art collector and physician Dr. Fred Ognibene, research scientist Dr. John Royer, and software engineer Antowne Walters. Cornelius invited proposals through the project website and personally selected six suitors. The seventh suitor was selected by a public vote, through the project’s Facebook page.

Save the Date approaches the topic of marriage, weddings, and divorce with both humor and gravity. This ceremony, and the attendant legal document, has, throughout history and across cultures, separated state-sanctioned and socially approved relationships from those deemed immoral, unacceptable, or simply unthinkable. In the midst of the debate over marriage equality and ever-present concerns over the frequency of divorce, Save the Date invites the viewer to consider the meaning of marriage as a lifetime commitment, a social ritual, a legal institution, and a public declaration of love. 

For more on Save the Date, visit http://savethedatedc.tumblr.com and follow the project on Twitter @SaveTheDateDC.

Kathryn Cornelius is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, video, photography, text, sounds, and sculpture. She is represented by Curator’s Office in Washington, DC. Her work has been exhibited nationally in cities such as New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Baltimore and internationally in Frankfurt, Germany, Herford, Germany, Barcelona, Spain, and Naples, Italy.

Save the Date is part of Take It to the Bridge, a nine-week series of installations and performances taking place through September 15 in the new Performance Bridge located inside the Corcoran’s glass entryway on 17^th Street. The Performance Bridge was first constructed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art as the stage for Holly Bass’s performance Moneymaker, a seven-hour endurance work that took place on February 11, 2012, during the final weekend of the Corcoran’s landmark fall exhibition 30 Americans. For Take it to the Bridge, eleven artists living and working in the DC-Baltimore region will present nine installations and performances, investigating the Bridge’s physical characteristics and pushing the boundaries of this non-traditional space to explore a variety of social, political, and aesthetic issues. Installations will open on Wednesday and remain on view through the following Sunday for all museum hours. Performances will take place on Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. unless otherwise noted. The first seven weeks of the series coincide with the Corcoran's Free Summer Saturdays promotion, which run from May 26 - September 1, 2012. 

In conjunction with the series, WPA and the Corcoran present a public talk with Esa Nickle, Managing Director/ Producer of Performa, on Thursday, August 9 at 7pm. Founded by RoseLee Goldberg in 2004, Performa is the leading organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. Nickle joined the Performa team in May 2005 as the Biennial Coordinator of Performa 05 and has since expanded her role as the line producer of Performa commissions, international tours and special events. During her talk, Nickle will discuss

new directions in performance and Performa’s work from 2005 to 2011. For more information and to register, visit https://getinvolved.corcoran.org/performa.

See the full Take it to the Bridge schedule below and more information online at http://www.corcoran.org/summer/bridge  and wpadc.org

July 18 – July 22: Ubuntu, Maya Freelon Asante
Saturday, July 28, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.: Sleep, Chajana denHarder
August 1 – August 5, all museum hours: Canaries in McMansionland, Jennifer Coster
Thursday, August 9, 7 p.m.: Public Talk with Esa Nickle, Managing Director/Producer of Performa
Friday, August 10: WPA Member meetings with Esa Nickle@WPA
Saturday, August 11, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.: Save the Date, Kathryn Cornelius
Saturday, August 18, 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.): Procedures for Ground Safety Loss, Sarah Levitt
August 22 – August 26, all museum hours: The Airborne Leaflet Campaign, COLON:Y (Chukwuma Agubokwu and Wilmer Wilson IV)
Saturday, September 1, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.: Maid in the USA, Carolina Mayorga
Saturday, September 5 – September 9, all museum hours: Bridging the Light, Annie Albagli
Saturday, September 15, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.: This Space Occupied (by Maida), Maida Withers with composer Steve Hilmy

Olympic Report: Is a gold medal worth this?

Most civilized nations gag when we see images like this, but in the People's Republic, apparently this is part of the path to gold...