A thought to shape the Shape of Things to Come

“It’s also important not to become angry, no matter how difficult life is, because you can lose all hope if you can’t laugh at yourself and at life in general.”

- Stephen Hawking

What Dan Zak did

Over the years, decades really, I've been complaining about the way in which the Washington Post treats its own visual arts backyard. If you go back to the very beginnings of this blog, well over a decade ago, you'll find it hard to see a week's worth of postings where I'm not complaining or bitching about something that the WaPo did, or most often didn't do, about our visual arts scene, galleries and artists.

When I first came to the DMV in the late 1980s (1987-1989) it was as a young Lieutenant in the Navy, and in those years I spent most of my summers sailing in the Arctic off the then Soviet mainland at the top of the world, I started reading the WaPo regularly. Back then, the WaPo had a daily section titled The Arts, which covered art galleries, museums, regional visual artists, etc., in addition to all the other genres of the arts.

I left the area for a few years, and lived in Scotland, and then in Sonoma, CA. I returned to the DC area in late 1993, and by then the precipitous decline in the WaPo's coverage of its city's visual art scene was just beginning.

I then began writing about the DMV visual arts scene for a lot of local, regional and national magazines, in the process becoming deeply immersed in the scene itself. In those latter years of the 1990s, the WaPo's Arts Editor was a nice, kind man named John Pancake. I developed a professional relationship with him, and every once in a while we'd meet for coffee and discuss the area's visual arts. It was he who once described deciding to open an art gallery as a "heroic undertaking."

In those years the paper still had multiple columns covering the visual arts, which included the usual Wednesday Galleries column, then authored by Ferdinand Protzman, as well as other ad hoc gallery and museum reviews by Paul Richards. It also included a weekly Wednesday column titled Arts Beat, then authored by Michael O'Sullivan, who as I recall held the title of Assistant Arts Editor. Arts Beat reflected the interests of its author, and essentially augmented the paper's coverage of the DC area visual arts scene.

By the end of the 90s, things began to unravel.

Almost against the will of the WaPo's leadership (as related to me back then by one of the editors of the WaPo Online), the newspaper went on a major expansion of its online presence and also an associated expansion of its printed paper coverage. This included the visual arts, and I was hired, along with Jessica Dawson and others, as freelancers to cover gallery shows for the paper's online site (I wonder where all those reviews are now - have they ever been archived and preserved by the WaPo?).

I can't remember exactly when Richards retired, but his retirement (to Scotland I think) caused all kinds of minor waves for the DC art scene. First, Protzman quit, some say because he was upset that he didn't get "promoted" to Richards' job. Instead, the WaPo began a hiring process and eventually brought Blake Gopnik from his Canadian newspaper to take over as the paper's chief art critic (my titling).

Protzman's departure also brought a need for a regular freelancer to do the Galleries column, and several of those of us who were doing online reviews about Galleries were interviewed. I declined the position once we got deep into it - at the time, as some of you may recall, I was also part of the Fraser Gallery, and didn't think that being a gallery co-owner and a regular Wednesday critic for the paper would pass the smell test with some; but the real victims would be the gallery's artists, as clearly they could never get at WaPo reviews.

Around 2000, Dawson (who had been writing art reviews for the Washington City Paper) was then hired as the freelancer to cover galleries and subsequently Gopnik was hired to cover all the visual arts. 

A few years later Pancake retired, and by the mid 2000s the Wednesday coverage shrunk significantly when Arts Beat was demoted to a twice-monthly column, refocused to cover all the arts, and then eventually terminated. Most of the damage to the visual arts coverage was started by then Style Section editor Eugene Robinson.

It was Robinson who began the process to let Blake Gopnik get away with only reviewing (with one or two very rare exceptions) museums, thus having the nation's only art critic too good to review his city's artists and art galleries. On July 6, 2006, Steve Reiss (the Style section's Asst. Editor) stated online: "As for Blake Gopnik, he is a prolific writer and I find it hard to argue that we should be giving up reviews of major museum shows so he can write more about galleries that have a much smaller audience."

When Robinson left, under the new editor Deborah Heard, the coverage got even worse, with Galleries being reduced to twice a month. That added up to around 25 columns a year to review the thousand or so gallery shows that the DC area gallery art scene had to offer in those days.

A few years ago, when Dawson quit the WaPo (2011) to go to work for the Hirshhorn and in the interim, the WaPo experimented with using a couple more freelancers, but both experiments ended badly from both sides. Eventually they hired Mark Jenkins, who is their current Galleries critic, and who (in my opinion) is the best from all the names mentioned here so far.

What is a constant over all these years and memories, is the miserly coverage of DMV artists and galleries by the world's second most influential newspaper.

And then this past weekend, WaPo writer Dan Zak showed us a brilliant glint of what this coverage could be, if the WaPo "got it."

Zak's The Polaroids of the Cowboy Poet is perhaps the best article that I have ever read on an artist.

Chris Earnshaw is an odd and brilliant and sloppy man who vibrates with great joy and grand melancholy. For decades he has ambled through bandstands, major motion pictures and demolition sites, searching for prestige and permanence, all while being ignored on the gray streets of a humdrum capital.

This work has Pulitzer written all over it, but more importantly, this article is exactly the sort of coverage of the DMV visual artists and galleries, that we've always clamored from the WaPo to do 2-3 times a year - as they do when some celebrity visits the city.

Dan Zak: Well Done! You've not only delivered a brilliant article, but also shown the WaPo and Washington, DC, and the DMV visual arts scene, how it is done.

At NOVA-Annandale’s Verizon Gallery

In celebration of 50 years in education, opportunities, and student success, Northern Virginia Community College has arranged a diverse art show at NOVA-Annandale’s Verizon Gallery in the Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center, featuring the work of NOVA art faculty and emeriti.


Dr. Erin Devine, assistant professor and director of the New Gallery for Contemporary Art co-curated the show with Schlesinger Center Exhibition Director Mary Welch Higgins.


“While curating and organizing this show with my colleagues, I learned quite a bit about the beginnings of NOVA from some of the emeriti artists like Michael Platt and Rebecca Kamen," Higgins said. “As I started looking at the work I noticed that, through multiple generations, it reflects the strength of the art department at NOVA and the different art classes the College offers.”

 

Twenty-six current NOVA faculty and emeriti contributed to the show, displaying a diverse collection of thought-provoking pieces that successfully highlight each artists’ creativity and love for exploring different art mediums. The NOVA 50th Anniversary Art Exhibition will be on display in the Verizon Gallery from Jan. 5 to Feb. 7 with an artists’ reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Jan. 28.

 

The Verizon Gallery is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and often on weekends when events are scheduled. For more information about the art show, please see the press release on NOVA’s website.

Akemi Maegawa's "Plurality"

DMV area uber artist Akemi Maegawa has a three-month solo show (titled "Plurality") coming up at UMUC. "From hundreds of works I have made over the last 10 years, 23 artworks were selected and curated for this solo show," she notes.

Opening Reception will take place on February 7th. If you can come to the opening, please RSVP through their website. 

Here is link to the info.

Cuba in Jail

For TBT: "Isla Prision (Prison Island)", c. 1978, charcoal on paper, done while a student at the University of Washington School of Art, where I studied art from 1977-1981.

"Isla Prision (Prison Island)"By F. Lennox Campello
c. 1978, Charcoal on paper
In a private collection in New Jersey

Asshole of the Week: Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association has banned high school students from chanting certain words and phrases at basketball games, and none of them are remotely close to being hurtful or inappropriate.

The generation of the easily offended strikes again! Details here.

Wanna go to an opening this Friday?

Wash: New Paintings by Greg Minah
January 15 - February 14, 2016

Opening Reception: Friday, January 15th, 7-9 P.M.
(Please RSVP at the Facebook Event Page and feel free to share and invite others!)

VisArts
Gibbs Street Gallery
155 Gibbs Street, Rockville, MD  20850
www.visartsatrockville.org 

Artist residency by the sea

It's time to apply for the Goetemann Artist Residency. Selected Artists

will spend a month in a beautiful harbor-front live-work space In The Rocky Neck Artists Colony, Gloucester, Ma.

Click here for more information

"Wake effect" - more empirical data

If you don't know what the art fair "wake effect" is, then read this.

Latest wake effect is the sale of the below piece to a Philadelphia collector who saw it at Context Art Miami last December and then followed up with the gallery a few days ago and purchased it.

"Portnoy's Complaint" (From the Written on the Body Series) 
by F. Lennox Campello
Charcoal and Conte on Paper
2014. 11x13 inches. Matted and framed to 16x20 inches
In a private collection in Philadelphia, PA

The Batman Brooding

The Batman Brooding (Version II)
By F. Lennox Campello
c. 2015, Charcoal on Paper, 12x36 inches

 

The Batman Brooding (Version II)
By F. Lennox Campello
c. 2015, Charcoal on Paper, 36x36 inches

Superhombre Flying Naked

This piece went to Miami for Context Art Miami last December and now lives in Canada.

Superhombre Flying Naked
36x36 inches - Charcoal on Paper
c. 2015 by F. Lennox Campello
In a private collection in Montreal, Canada

The Pope on Art

 For Pope Francis, "a work of art is the strongest evidence that incarnation is possible." It is an idea expressed in his book "La Mia Idea Di Arte" (My Idea of Art), co-written with Italian journalist Tiziana Lupi.

Details here. 

Bethesda Art Walk is today

The first Bethesda Art Walk of 2016 will be held today Friday, Jan. 8, 2016. Stop by one of these local art spaces for new creative works in art + design.

Consider It Done
7806 Old Georgetown Road

Gallery B
7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E

The Lost Herd
4800 Auburn Avenue

Studio B
7475 Wisconsin Avenue, Lower Level

Union Hardware
7800 Wisconsin Avenue

Waverly Street Gallery
4600 East-West Highway

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this mutant, trying the old rip off scheme:

From: Kenneth Jackson (kjackson1111@outlook.com)
Sent: Thu 1/07/16 5:53 AM
Hi there,
I'm an art lover/collector and I'm collecting a few pieces to design the living room and stairway in my new house.I came across your artworks and I find them captivating. I would love to have some of your pieces. Let me know the pieces you have available including their sizes,materials and prices so I can make an order. You can also send me some pictures.
Thanks,
Kenneth.

Wanna do some hands-on silkscreen printmaking?

January’s 2nd Thursday Art Night at
the Torpedo Factory Art Center

Thursday, January 14
6 – 9 pm

January 6, 2016 – Alexandria, Va. – The Torpedo Factory Art Center’s first 2^nd Thursday Art Night of 2016, on Thursday, January 14, 6–9 pm, features live music, gallery openings, and an opportunity to experiment with printmaking.

 

·        6 – 9 pm: 

·        Four hands-on silkscreen stations will be located throughout the building to allow visitors to create a one-of-a-kind four-color print. Find the final station in the Alexandria Archaeology Museum (studio 327).

 

·        6 – 7 pm; 8 – 8:45 pm:

·        Cat Janice performs her original jazzy/alternative rock songs throughout the evening. 

 

·        7 pm:

·        Visitors are encouraged to bring in items to photocopy and experiment with Xerography in Target Gallery’s (studio 2) current exhibition, Printed Matter.

 

·        7:30 pm:

·        The Art League Gallery (studio 21) hosts openings for Muted, featuring works focused on subtlety, and the Solo Preview 2016, which offers a glimpse of the nine artists who will have solo shows this year. 

On the first anniversary

One year ago my father died... here's my eulogy from a year ago:

"Hoy se ha caido otro roble en la selva del amargo exilio" is how I always thought that my father's eulogy would begin once he died.

"Today another oak falls in the jungle of bitter exile," began the eulogy for the man whose bloodlines my children and I carry on.

Florencio Campello Alonso died today at age 90 in Miami, the heart of the bitter Cuban Diaspora. Like many Cubans of his generation, he was the son of European immigrants to Cuba. His Galician parents left the scraggy mountains of northern Spain's ancient Celtic kingdom and in the first decade of the 1900s migrated to the new nation of Cuba upon its liberation from Spain.

Galicians have always been uneasy subjects of the Spanish crown, stubbornly hanging on to their ancient Celtic traditions, to their own language and to their bagpipes, so it is no historical surprise that they left their mountain homelands en-masse and headed to the new tropical paradise of Cuba, free from the heavy hand of the Spanish monarchy.

And thus it was never a surprise to me that my father was both a fighter against heavy-handed rulers, a lover of freedom, and one who was never afraid to re-start a life for the better, even if it involved discarding the old.

My father could have been one of the privileged few who currently rule atop the food chain of Cuba's Workers' Paradise. But instead of accepting the benefits of oppression, this most valiant of men chose the harsh path of right over wrong.

And he paid for it dearly (he spent years in Concentration Camps), but when he died, his soul was clean.

In his youth, my dad worked the brutal hours of the son of an immigrant who was slowly building a small financial empire in eastern Cuba. My father was pulled from school as soon as he learned to read and write, and like his two other brothers and eight sisters, he was expected to work and contribute to building a familial empire.

And he did, as my mother relates the stories of my father's childhood in the fields of eastern Cuba, a blond creole in a land of jingoist natives... he trying to out-Cuban the "real Cubans"... how he organized a labor union of the exploited Haitians who worked almost as slaves at the Los Canos Sugar Mill, how he joined a group of bearded rebels in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra in the fight against a tyrant, how he ran for the leadership of the Sugar Workers' Union and beat the Communists to the post, and how he spent years in a Castro Concentration Camp, jailed for the crime of refusing to join the Party, because he believed in Democracy and not Communism.

And because of that stubbornness, in the 1960s he was offered the bitter pill of exile, and this brave man decided to choose family... and left his birth place, and thus became another immigrant within two familial generations and brought his wife and child to another new land.

And it is to him that I owe the greatest gift that a father can give a son: the opportunity to grow in freedom in the greatest nation in the history of this planet.

It is because of my father's courage that I was raised in this country and not in a land bloodied by brutality and oppression.

It is because of my father's teachings that I was raised with the conviction that freedom is not free and never to be taken for granted; after all, he fought for freedom and then Castro, the man who inspired the fight, ended up being a worse dictator, eventually destroying all notions of freedom for all of his people.

It is because of my father that I was taught that every citizen owes his nation some form of service, and that's the main reason that I signed (at age 17) to serve in the US Navy.

It is because of my father that I despise anyone who hides behind the mask of victimism to excuse failures and shortcomings.

When our family arrived in New York in the 1960s, my father began to work in a factory three days after he landed at the airport; my mother (who came from a privileged Cuban family and had never worked a day in her life) found a job as a seamstress five days later. That pattern was repeated for decades as they worked their way in a new nation.

"We thought we'd be back within a few years," was the answer given to me when I once asked the question about leaving their birthplace. When that didn't materialize, they became fierce Americans in the "United States of Americans" sense... these were the "America None Better!" set of immigrants, and in my Dad's case, you better be ready to fight if you dissed the USA.

"Americans"!

Always a fighter he was... and always for the right reasons.

Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation because we recognize its singular and unique greatness; perhaps it is because our forebears had the same chance at greatness and blew it.

And my Dad loved this nation even more than he once loved Cuba... perhaps it is the genetic disposition of the serial immigrant. After all, his father had left his own ancient Celtic lands and kin for a new land... which he learned to love dearly.

My father always wanted to make sure that I knew that I was an "Americano" and not another forced-on label.

"Labels," he'd say, "are just a way to separate people."

By labels he meant "Hispanic" or "Latino" or anything with a "-" between two ethnic words.

I also remember as a kid in New York, when he bought a huge Hi-Fi record player-color-TV console... that thing was huge. He bought it "lay-away" and he'd pay $10 a week to the store and him and I would walk all the way from our house on Sackman Street to the store on Pitkin Avenue to make the payments every Saturday - he never missed a single payment, and that taught me a lesson.

It was soon playing my Dad's favorite music, which oddly enough was Mexican music (Cuban music was a close second)... and he knew all the words to every charro song.

Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna...
Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna...Me he de comer esa tunaMe he de comer esa tuna.... aunque me espine la mano.

That Jorge Negrete song... being shouted often on weekends at the top of his lungs from our apartment in a mostly Italian neighborhood in East New York in Brooklyn must have raised some eyebrows.

My dad and I watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon on that TV set... we also watched loads of Mets games... and in 1969 and 1972 went to Shea Stadium to see the Mets win in '69 and lose in '72. He really loved baseball and he really loved those Mets!

When I joined the Navy at age 17, my first duty station was USS SARATOGA, which at the time was stationed in Mayport in Florida, so my Dad decided to migrate south to Florida and moved to Miami... just to be close to me.

He and my mother spent the next 40 years in the same apartment while I was stationed all over the world.

When I visited him today in Miami, he looked good and freshly shaven... this is a good thing, as my father was a freak about hygiene... and that's a common "creole" trait.

The Hospice nurse almost teared up when I told her that my parents have been married for 60 years.

I looked at this old "gallego"... his skin as white as paper, his eyes as blue as the sky, and his head (once full of blond hair) as bald and shiny as the old Cuban sing song ("Mira la Luna, mira al Sol... mira la calva de ese.....") and I saw the generations of Neanderthals, Denisovans and Gallego Homo Sapiens that led to my bloodlines... the generations of fighters, of strugglers, and of tough guys who didn't take no for an answer and who made a better place for others. 

And I felt at peace and grateful.

And as my father died tonight, after an extubation,  all that I can think to say to him is "Thank you for your courage... from me, and from my children... and soon from their children. You opened a whole new world for them."

I love you Dad... Un Abrazo Fuerte! Thank you for your gifts to me and my children and it is no coincidence that you died on El Dia de Los Reyes.

The curious case of 2015

2015 was somewhat of a brutal year in some aspects... I am told that it is called a "Saturn Return."

It started with my father dying unexpectedly after visiting the hospital in Florida for stitches and subsequently contracting MRSA. That same January my mother in law also died - also from contracting MRSA during a routine Bethesda hospital stay. In one month Anderson lost two of his grandparents.

All throughout that month I had a broken wing, and in February I went through rotator cuff surgery. The recovery was brutal, and as a result, I spent most of the first half of 2015 unable to do any artwork!

The gallery participated in several fairs in 2015. We did both the Spring and Fall versions of The Affordable Art Fair in New York. We also, for the first time, participated in the Texas Contemporary Art Fair in Houston, Texas and SOFA Chicago. In December, as we've been doing for about a decade now, we went to the big dance and did Context Art Miami for the third year in a row.

In June I went to Miami to rescue my 94 year-old-mother from the harpies "taking care of her" and then placed her back in her own apartment, under the care of loving hands. I am happy to report that she's healthy and happy!

In September I tore the MCL in my left knee (the operation awaits to 2016), and in November I got more bad medical news - all awaiting resolution in 2016.

But things can always be worse... right?

The curiosity of 2015 is that because of all of the above, my artwork production was the lowest that it has been in the last three decades - by far the lowest in terms of number of works created.

And yet, 2015 saw the largest number of sales of my own work... ever! And it also recorded the most significant price jump ever! The basic law of supply and demand seems to have made a presence in 2015; that's ECON 101.

Only problem: I'd rather do a thousand new works of art a year than a dozen; that's ARTBRAIN 101.

In 2015 I also added a collector from that sketchy "Top Art Collectors of the World" list; I think I now have work in five or six of those collections.

The piece that he acquired (at the 2015 Context fair) was a rather large (for me anyway) drawing. It was 36x36 inches. The day that he bought it last December, was rainy, and I double wrapped it and had it ready to walk out the fair's door.

"Can I pick it up outside tomorrow morning?", he asked. "I don't want to take it out in this rainy weather."

The next morning, as pre-arranged, I got there a little early and he called me on my cell. "I'm just a few minutes away," he noted. I responded that I'd wait for him outside the fair tent.

Once outside, he called again. He reported that traffic was bad (duh!), but that he was just a block away. "I'm in the black Jaguar SUV," he advised.

A few minutes later he pulled over and I helped him load the work into his SUV. "I didn't know that Jaguar made an SUV," I noted.

"They don't," he answered.

Cough, cough...

Opportunities: GoggleWorks (not Google) Center for the Arts 2016 Juried Exhibition

Entry Deadline: FEBRUARY 29, 2016

The GoggleWorks Center for the Arts is a community art and cultural resource center for Berks County, Central and Southeastern Pennsylvania, and is the largest, most comprehensive interactive arts center of its kind in the country. The center is open daily, 11am-7pm, free of charge. The mission of GoggleWorks is "to nurture the arts, foster creativity, promote education and enrich the community." Free parking is available in the GoggleWorks parking lot, accessible from Second, Third or Walnut Streets. For more information, call the GoggleWorks at 610-374-4600 or visit www.goggleworks.org. 201 Washington St., Reading, PA, 19601 | GPS Address: 140 N. 3^rd St., Reading, PA, 19601. 

GoggleWorks Center for the Arts 2016 Juried Exhibition

Click here for more information and to complete the 2016 application. 

Entry Deadline: FEBRUARY 29, 2016. Exhibit Dates: April 30 - June 5, 2016 Opening Reception: April 29, 2016 5:30-7:30pm    ELIGIBILITY: Open to all professional artists, ages 18 and up, who design and produce their own original work. Work must have been created within the last three years and may not have been previously shown at GoggleWorks. All work MUST BE FOR SALE. All media welcomed. Video artists must supply their own equipment. AWARDS: There will be a juror's Grand Prize Award for best in show. This award winner will be featured in a solo show at GoggleWorks in 2017. There will be cash prizes awarded for first, second and third place. JUROR:  Lydia Panas' photographs have been exhibited widely in the US and internationally. Her work has garnered many prestigious awards, been featured in periodicals such as the New York Times Magazine, Photo District News and Popular Photog­raphy and is held in numerous public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego among others. She has degrees from Boston College, School of Visual Arts and New York University/ In­ternational Center of Photography.  Panas is the recipient of a Whitney Museum Independent Study Fellowship. Her first monograph "The Mark of Abel" (Kehrer Verlag), was named a Photo District News Book of 2012, as well as a best coffee table book by the Daily Beast.

Opening this week

One of the DMV's hardest working galleries, Adah Rose has a very special Vernissage on Saturday January 9.

My good bud J.T. Kirkland, and Brian Williams... 



Special musical guest James Wolf, violinist of The Orchid... join them for a super chouette evening of art, music and hipness.



The gallery, which represents DMV artists all over the nation at the top art fairs in the circuit, will be having this show at 1469 Studios - details here.

Opportunities for veterans