Contrails...

There were like a dozen contrails in the sky at once this evening on the drive on I-95S -- probably all heading to Dulles...

You gotta see this...

Click here.

Sigh...

Spiderman Naked finds a home

Spiderman Naked
Charcoal, conte and embedded appropriated video. 13x8 inches matted and framed to 26x20 inches
2013 by F. Lennox Campello

Detail of Spiderman Naked

Now in a permanent collection in Miami, Florida!

What's in a name...

This post is truly the result of me finding some slides from 1980 and 1981, which is when I was doing some artwork about identity and labeling and ethnicity, etc. when I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art in Seattle, Washington.

I've been recently trying to digitize my art slides, and to my distress, I've been finding out that some of those slide-holding binders have succumbed to mold and moisture, and those two moist diseases have robbed me of a lot of my own artistic history.

I am sure that the fact that between 1980 and now I've moved about 30 times, including twice to Europe and back, has something to do with it, but it still sucks.



"Las Siete Fridas (The Seven Fridas)"
Pen and Ink Wash, F. Lennox Campello
Univ. of Washington Art School assignment circa 1980-1981
Collection of Seeds for Peace. What hurt the most was the loss of slides documenting a series of pen and ink drawings, such as the above one, that I did on the thematic focus of surnames and what immediate impact is attached to them as soon as people hear them. Most of them, except for the dozen or so Frida pieces such as the one above, were sold at the Pike Place Market in Seattle, which is where I used to sell my art school assignments back then. The last name identity series was anchored around my documented passion for Frida Kahlo, and we must remember that not too many people outside of a certain artistic sphere was familiar with her back then... certainly not too many of my fellow Washington art students knew about her and her work back then. Her last name gave rise to some interesting questions about her... "She was Mexican?" was a common question after I gave her name at a class review or talk... I knew that it was the last name throwing them off... a Mexican whose last name was Kahlo?
Having been raised in two distinct places of immense ethnic and racial diversity (Easternmost Cuba and Brooklyn) I was a little surprised at their surprise. "How can she be Mexican with a German (well, really Austrian... but) last name?" they might as well have asked... some did.
And so, starting in my junior year (I think) I commenced a series of portraits of faces migrating across a spectrum of ethnic, racial, cultural and even fantasy diversity. The Seven Fridas is a good example of that... as we see her as Nordic, Moslem, African, Punk, Native American, Vulcan and Beatle.
Many of the pieces were akin to this one, but the portraits were of either some fellow students, or sometimes borrowed from popular imagery. And they had titles such as "Portraits of Peddrossah" instead of Pedrosa and Rhoddrighez instead of Rodriguez, and "The Seven Stages of Dellauhehrtah" instead of De La Huerta, etc.
As soon as a De La Huerta becomes a  Dellauhehrtah, I discovered, his/her whole ethnicity, and in some cases, his/her race shifts tremendously, regardless of the race, ethnicity or national origin of both the subject and the ones being subjected to my name and visual puzzlement. By the way, to this day, that name/word does not exist in all of the Internets.
Get my drift?
The Kahlo name issue, was of course somewhat kindled by my own last name issue.
"Is that Italian?" is the question that I'm used to getting, except in New England, where it is usually a more blunt "What are you?"

PLAY BY PLAY at Project 4

Project 4 will host Play by Play, a pop-up FLEX focus collaboration developed by guest curator Kayleigh Bryant. The show runs Jan 11 - Feb 1, 2014, with an opening reception Saturday, Jan. 11 from 7-9PM.

This exploration of the darker side of children's playtime features the work of Amy Hughes Braden, Bridget Sue Lambert, Janelle Whisenant, and Mark Williams. The sticky place between childhood innocence and adult realism is examined through different exercises in subverted play.

The artists in Play by Play dig into the malaise, mediocrity, sexuality, and violence implied by commonplace toys and imagery of childhood by re-appropriating these objects within complex juxtapositions of adult ideals. Braden's paintings of children and families offer a stark glimpse into the transitional moment straddling childhood and adulthood. Lambert's staged doll and dollhouse photography exposes the sexual and sexist implications of such toys. Whisenant's mutant stuffed-animal creatures question the cycle of childhood materiality. Williams' toy soldiers mock the implied oversimplification of war as a child's play.

FLEX is a group of artists and curators who come together to produce a series of exciting temporary exhibitions. Focusing on projects that do not rely on a stationary base of operations, FLEX is able to adapt to different locations to engage a variety of audiences and contexts. FLEX's loose framework provides a platform for an ever-changing cast of independent curators and artists to test the boundaries of visual expression and probe new ways of connecting with the viewer. As an open model, FLEX allows exhibitions to be dynamic and adapt to the spaces they inhabit. Mobile gallery spaces, outdoor projection units, site-specific installations, drawing machines, and 3D Printing are some of the tactics employed.  The curator, Kayleigh Bryant is a young Washington, DC-based curator, arts professional and freelance arts critic for outlets including Examiner.com, CBS Local DC Online and Brightest Young Things.com.

Getting ready to haul the Xmas tree home!

Lessons learned at AU

American University was locked down on Wednesday night when a person with a gun was spotted on campus at the same time that faculty member Alida Anderson and her class of future teachers were undertaking their final presentations for the semester. Alida’s course was taking place ...

Read the WaPo story here... 

AU now has the opportunity to do a full scrub on this issue and gather some great lessons learned from this event... one clear one is that something easy and simple has to be developed and placed in each classroom to allow the class to lock the doors from the inside... but in any event, I am very proud of my wife!

Obama selfie...

Notice how I'm not saying anything about the Obama selfie with that Danish lady at the Mandela funeral?

Cough, cough.... Heh, heh... Very Clintonian....  

Havana in ruins... 55 years and counting...

Almost every picture I’ve ever seen of Cuba’s capital shows the city in ruins. Una Noche, the 2012 gut punch of a film directed by Lucy Mulloy, captures in nearly every shot the savage decay of what was once the Western Hemisphere’s most beautiful city.

 Read this sad report at http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/once-great-city-havana

I shudder at this...

I cannot believe that my President shook hands with a murdering, racist dictator who has been brutalizing his people and enslaving a whole nation for almost 55 years... sigh.

 Three years ago Princeton professor Cornel West, actress Ruby Dee and director Melvin Van Peebles and 60 other African-American artists and leaders issued a public statement (titled "Acting on Our Conscience") that criticized the Castro dictatorship for its "increased violations of civil and human rights for those black activists in Cuba who dare raise their voices against the island’s racial system." 

People in the US are just not aware of Cuba's bloody racial history and the way that Afro-Cubans (who make up 35% of the Cuban population) have been and continue to be brutalized. POTUS should have been advised about what to do if this came up: what President Carter did decades ago when faced with the same situation and a different Castro: Ignore him.

General Grevious in the snow

General Grevious in the Snow

Opportunity for sculptors

The Capitol Hill Alphabet Animal Project will commission ten artists to produce sculptures that will be permanently installed on selected street posts in DC. 

These are paid commissions, and the project is working with a historian, will have a launch event, as well as produce a book. 

Funding for this phase is from the DDOT and the DC Humanities Council. 

More details here: https://sites.google.com/site/alphabetanimalsdc/home

Part II of "Miami Bound"

On the flight over to Miami to participate at the Context Art Miami art fair during Art Basel Miami Beach week, I began the first of two postings discussing why visual art establishments and arts organizations of all sorts should and must participate in the visual art world's largest art party. You can read the first part here.

As I return home, having had a terrific fair, this second part is being written on the flight home.

The first part used The Art League as an example of a visual arts entity (and a great one at that) that should participate in art fairs. I noted that they have several thousand members and run a very successful and important program at their space inside the Torpedo Factory and assorted classrooms all over the area.

So the issue is, how does The Art League (again, you can fill in any of multiple DMV area membership-based art organizations) pick or select the 3-5 artists to take to an art fair?

Once again I am going to make the very important point that the "good" art fairs are nearly always tightly juried. There are many other art fairs where one just pays and anyone and everyone can go - those usually suck and unfortunately by now some DMV galleries and many DMV solo artists have discovered this (along with good Cuban food) during this last week in Miami.

And thus I noted that for Miami/NYC fairs I am thinking (in no particular order) about Art Miami, Context, Aqua, Pulse, NADA, Affordable Art Fair(s), Scope, Miami Project, Untitled, Frieze... some of these are very, very hard (some nearly impossible) to get into, but they're listed nonetheless, because there is a "food chain" of art fairs, and the bottom-feeders usually spell disaster for the participants. For example, we've applied many times to Pulse and have always been rejected. There were almost 30 art fairs in the Greater Miami area last week!

For this, The Art League would need to establish a process to pre-jury its membership to 3-5 artists and apply with those artists to an art fair. I would start with The Affordable Art Fair in New York this coming Spring. They are close by and they are a "proven" fair. Later, for Miami, I would start with either Aqua or Context.

The Art League then would need to canvas their membership and find out who's interested in being juried for possible selection for further jurying into an art fair. Everything that I'm going to discuss below has to be clearly explained in the prospectus for this process, so that each applying artist knows exactly what this would involve.

I suspect that a large number of artists would find this attractive, and perhaps a small jurying fee ($10?) could be applied to subsidize the art fair costs (I would budget anywhere from $12-20K, depending on booth size).

 I would make this jurying process independent from the Art League itself - just like they do for their monthly juried shows, and have interested artists bring their work in to be juried by an independent juror.

That juror has to be a very special juror - in fact 99.9998% of your standard-issue visual art juror (art professors, art critics, art writers, art center directors, artists, collectors, art symbiots, etc.) would guarantee a disaster to this process. There are probably less than a dozen people in the entire DMV who are qualified to jury this process, I kid thee not and I know them all.

This is a critical point, so I'm going to repeat it: The DMV the jury pool for this process is very limited and its members are only those gallerists who have successfully participated in multiple art fairs. In fact I can't think of anyone better to jury this part than me!

Whatever you do, DO NOT use an art fair director as a juror! They are usually interested in what would make the fair look good (usually from an unsellable trendy perspective) , rather than understand the delicate balance of good art, finances and peripheral issues that come to play into this process.

The juror would pick 3-5 artists and 2-3 alternates. This is because some art fair processes do have the option to accept an application while at the same time rejecting some of the artists in that application.

So now we have a group of artists, culled from applying Art League members, ready and willing to participate in an art fair.

The actual application process is easy, so I'm not getting into that - be aware that deadlines are usually months before the actual fairs.

If accepted, the next step is transporting the artwork to the art fair, and then returning the unsold artwork back to the owners. For this, the Art League has various options.

One option would be to hire a transport company. There are dozens and dozens of specialized carriers that do this and they pick up and transport the art to your booth at the fair, and at the end pick it up from your booth and transport it back. This is the easiest and the most expensive. From here to NYC and back I would budget $1200-$2000 depending on volume. Packaging also becomes an issue here.

Another option is to rent a truck or van and schlep the work to and from the fair yourself. This is what I usually do for New York and Miami.

A third option is to have each artist (or teamed artists) bring their own work in their own cars, vans, etc.

In this example, I would offer each accepted artist the choice to also come to the fair, and help hang and help to sell their own work. This should be an option, not a requirement, as some artists would rather spend a week in Baghdad than a long weekend in an art fair dealing with art collectors; but some artists do like doing that. In any event, just "being" and seeing what goes on at an art fair is a spectacular learning opportunity for anyone involved in the visual arts.

The Art League has the luxury of having a very skilled "front desk" team that is already well-versed in the arcane art of selling artwork - so they could and should also come to the fair to handle questions and sales, etc.DO NOT send your executive director or curator to handle sales - that would be a disaster!

We're getting dangerously close to having a lot of people crowding the booth, so let's please keep the number of people hanging around the booth at all times to less than three; the artists can "float" in and out.

There is strength in numbers in many other aspects: transporting artwork, hanging it, packing it, splitting costs of hotel rooms, etc.

Before you book a hotel room anywhere in the major US cities (especially NYC) always check www.bedbugregistry.com. Again, I kid thee not. Pick a hotel that is walking distance from the fair or public transportation to the fair.

The elephant in the room here is cost(s), but again there is strength in numbers.

Art fairs often offer discounted prices to non-profits; Honfleur Gallery in Anacostia often participates in The Affordable Art Fair in NYC and takes advantage of this special pricing. WPA participates (and has great success) at (e)merge and Hamiltonian is always somewhere in Miami.

Art fair prices are different depending on the fair. You can see the booth prices for the next Affordable Art Fair New York here. As you can see, you can actually get a booth for as low as $4600.

I'm my head I have this concept of having the selected Art League artists have a "financial stake" in this process by having them contribute some funds towards the art fair fees. Nothing works like putting your money where your mouth is. But then again, as a large organization, perhaps a more artist-friendly model would be for the Art League to cover all the art fair costs from a combination of jury entry fees and their own budget.

Of course, the Art League would also keep their usual commission on sales, so this also has a money-making angle for them.

What are the art fair costs? There are direct costs and associated costs.

Direct costs are:
(a) Cost of the basic booth
(b) Cost of additional booth stuff (extra walls, extra lights, storage)
(c) Some fairs have a "shared" advertising cost (AAFNYC doesn't)

Associated Costs are:
(a) Cost of required insurance (Art League would be able to use their current insurer or buy insurance directly from the art fair)
(b) Cost of transportation of the art. If using own vehicle, then also cost of parking it
(c) Cost of Art League staff at the fair (bus to NYC and shared hotel room and per diem for food)
(d) Cost of the juror to select the artists

Funding sources for all these costs are:
(a) Art League budget
(b) Nominal jurying fee for applying artists
(c) Commission on sales at the fair (this, of course, is putting the cart ahead of the horse)

Commercial galleries take huge chances at art fairs. My very first art fair all around cost was about $8,000 almost a decade ago - all that was charged on the gallery's credit card and we held our breath while at the fair. We sold about $30,000 worth of art, and thus after commissions to the artists we cleared $15,000 and paid off the credit card and then had $6,000 to put towards the next art fair fee.

I can count on one hand the number of times that we sold that much in any gallery art show in the DMV; and I've had a gallery here of one sort or another since 1996.

What's in it for the artists?

Usually a lot more than for the gallery. I will repeat this: more often than not, an artist reaps more good things out of an art fair than the gallery does.

These things include:
(a) Exposure to more art collectors, curators, press, etc. in a few days than in years of exhibiting art around the DMV. You will see more people in 4-5 days than in five years at a gallery in the DMV.
(b) Exposure to other galleries who may be interested in your work. I have multiple examples of this - Just ask DMV area artist Judith Peck what has happened to her career once she started showing at art fairs.
(c) A significantly higher chance of getting critical press.
(d) A significantly higher chance of getting your work noticed by both freelance and museum curators. The chance of getting your work noticed by a DMV museum curator is probably higher than the chance of winning the lottery. Most DMV area museum curators (AU's Jack Rasmussen being the brilliant exception) would rather take a cab to Dulles to fly to Miami to see emerging artists' works at fairs than taking a cab to see a gallery show in Georgetown.
(e) Being part of the art fair "wake effect" --- Read about that here.
(f) A much better chance to getting invited to participate in other shows such as university shows, themed-shows, group shows, etc. Ask Virginia artist Sheila Giolitti about that.

I hope that I've made my point, and I hope that some visual art groups and organizations are reading this.

Greater Reston Arts Center, Blackrock Center for the Arts, Touchstone, Gallery West, Art League, Washington Project for the Arts, Maryland Art Place, Multiple Exposures, Gallery 10, Washington Sculptors Group, VizArts, Artomatic, Waverly Street Gallery, DC Arts Center, DCCAH, Target Gallery, Torpedo Factory, Workhouse Arts Center, Art Gallery of Potomac, Rockville Art League, The Artists' Undertaking, Glen Echo... I'm looking at you.

ABMB: It's all over!

This is what the DMV airports need: a little Cuban in them!

The ABMB art fairs are over and done with, and as usual, some galleries did great, most did OK and some lost their pants.

At Context Art Miami the crowds were phenomenal all week, and we ended up doing really well, with multiple sales by Simon Monk, Audrey Wilson, Dulce Pinzon and yours truly.

Art fairs are always more than just about sales, and Context once again proved that! Pinzon, Monk and I have been invited to participate in a Superhero show being organized by a major Los Angeles gallery. Additionally, we are working a major double commission for Simon Monk by the studios currently filming the new Superman and Batman movies. Furthermore, we made a good connection with Telemundo's local Spanish-language TV station to do a segment with Dulce Pinzon. As if all that is not all good stuff, a local major collector has given a West coast University the green light to select one of my video works for the university's permanent collection (more on that when it develops further).

Other DMV artists at Context seemed to do well too: Mark Jenkins sold out all his sculptures, and Tim Tate had sales and his California gallery is still working a major multiple deal even as pack-out was taking place.

I also heard from some dealers at Aqua Art Miami: Virginia's Mayer Fine Arts reported their "best art fair ever." That included a whooping sale of 14 different pieces by different artists to a major California collector.

Now heading back to the DMV to do all the paperwork, pay all the taxes, and re-group for Art Wynwood in a couple of months!

A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

"A Democracy of Images [...] it's the story of photography itself."

"The 'democracy' of "A Democracy of Images" also can be read as an allusion to America itself, suggesting that the show is, in some ways, a portrait of our nation formed by looking at it from many angles."

"Like many Americans, several of the artists in "Democracy" were not born here. Robert Frank came from Switzerland, Ana Mendieta, from Cuba. Muriel Hasbun, the daughter of a Frenchwoman with a Polish-Jewish background and a Palestinian Christian father, was born in El Salvador and now teaches at the Corcoran.

This melting pot is, of course, quintessentially American. And the outsider's eye often helps an artist see things that those born here might miss. One of the show's sub-themes is photography as a tool of political commentary." [...]

Read the WaPo review here.

Miami report

Although as usual I'm always stuck at whatever art fair that I'm doing, and seldom have the chance to explore other art fairs, DMVers in Miami for the fairs, as well as fellow dealers are always reporting to me.

I'm at Context Art Miami, which so far has been doing very well for us. We have DMV artists Ric Garcia and Audrey Wilson (and my own brilliant work, of course). Wilson, who will have her first solo show coming up in DC soon (more on that later) has been especially doing well, both in sales and commissions, as well as curatorial attention. The key here is that DC collectors need to buy Audrey Wilson now, as soon as she has that first solo show.

Also at Context are DMV artists Tim Tate, showing with California's Seager Gray Gallery and Mark Jenkins, showing with LA's Fabien Castanier Gallery.

Context is easily the best art fair that I have ever been to - the level of artwork is right up there with the top of the art fairs food chain. There is powerful diversity at Context - both in artwork as well as geographic distribution of the galleries. It's clear to me that this art fair made a powerful debut last year and now has made an even more powerful statement in its second year.

Scope had a great opening night on Monday with strong sales on their previews, but just like Untitled, they are now facing the same challenges as Untitled because Ocean drive in Miami Beach is down to one lane because of constructions. Also the hike between the two was tough (either across the beach or all the way back to Ocean Drive). Scope's VIPs had free rides from Fiats, which was a good coup as they could get rides around; I hear that the Fiat Pop was a delightful car.

DC's Project 4 is showing at Scope. Also at Scope you can find DMV artist JT Kirkland with New York's Blank Space. I am also told that Miami's Emerson Dorsch Gallery in Untitled has an arresting video program that is that highlight of that fair. Victoria Fu's "Belle Captive II" video has been getting rave reviews from some key video collectors that reported to me.

Some think that "Aqua is struggling," in part because "the young, quirky galleries have mostly been replaced by established galleries and replaced by Art Miami galleries," said to me one collector. There is also some sort of "art project" sign hanging near the entrance to Aqua that is causing some consternation to some galleries, as the sign (which again, is an art project) delivers the "impression that Aqua is where one goes to get cheap art for the office." On the other hand, Norfolk's Mayer Fine Art Gallery is reporting booming sales (she's also exhibiting DC's Victoria Gaitan's gorgeous photography). DC's Morton Fine Arts is also showing at Aqua, and some DMV artists, such as Eric Finzi and Barbara Januszkiewicz, are also there with other galleries.

Texas collector Ardis Bartle noted that "Aqua traditionally brought in an University or college art program and the emerging artists out of that program, and as a collector I would always buy one those pieces, and it gave the University (last year it was Atlanta University) a chance to shine."

"This year," she noted, "they curated two emerging artists who looked like the rest of the show: it was somewhat banal." She added: "Bring back the Universities."

Art Basel apparently has added a lot of new, upcoming artists from all over the world, that there seems to be a new wave of newer artists (Claire Morgan's name was mentioned to me) in addition to all the multimillion dollar blue chip artists.

I went to the grand opening of the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) last night, which could now possibly be the most spectacular museum architectural design on the planet -- the video by Yael Bartana that they were playing on the screen at the opening was breathtakingly beautiful and full of raw power.

PAMM's grand opening was packed to the gills - I mean thousands and thousands of people! Everyone and anyone who is someone in the arts world seemed to be there, as well as thousands of people who had previously probably never set foot in a museum... cough, cough...

I'm a little worried about the PAMM's ability to stand a strong hurricane though... there are a lot of wood floors! I wish them the best of luck - it is a spectacular museum at an even more spectacular location.

At Pulse I hear that "it was too crowded! They need to do something about the bathrooms!" Being too crowded if a good thing most of the time. I hear that Sabrina Gschwandtner's quilts of 16mm film are the true find of Pulse - at least two major collectors passed that info to me.

Art Miami across the way from Context is also very impressive - DC's Connersmith is there (they are also at Context).

Ardis Bartle noted that the Zoom In video halls were impressive, but "it's too hot inside those tents during the day to stay in there long!" Good advice from a very intense collector!

More later!

Miami at Night...

Miami at Night - Grand Opening of The Perez Museum

Miami at Night - Grand Opening of The Perez Museum

Art 2.0: The Art of Collecting Online

Millennium Arts Salon Board Member Sharon Burton directs the Artinista Art Advisory which will present  a panel on the changing climate of purchasing art online coming in early 2014, venue to be announced.

  "Art 2.0: The Art of Collecting Online", will feature Myrtis Bedolla, Founding Director, Galerie Myrtis, Catriona Fraser, Director, The Fraser Gallery, and Victoria Reis, Co-Founder, Transformer, to speak on their experiences and provide guidance to collectors with online art sales and purchases.  

The cost for the presentation including refreshments and materials (including a guide to purchasing art online) is $10 in advance and $15 at the door.  To reserve your space, visit: The Artinista RSVP.  

Artist Talk

Please join the Gateway CDC at the 39th Street Gallery for an artist talk with Pat Goslee on Sunday, Dec 15 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM.  Pat has been Gateway CDC's Artist in Residence for the past 4 months. Please join them to view Pat's work and  hear about her process.

3901 Rhode Island Ave., Brentwood, MD 20722

(second floor, 39th Street entrance)

VIP Night at Context

Sold three drawings of mine at VIP night at Context Art Miami, and we're working an offer for a major double commission for Simon Monk.

And just as we were closing, we sold "And then she invented a machine to make him change," Tempered Glass & Found Objects by Audrey Wilson!

Also saw lots of familiar DC faces walking around as the DMV crowd hits the Wynwood openings.