Hirshhorn To Unveil Hiroshi Sugimoto-Designed Lobby and Coffee Bar

After two years of design and three months of construction, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will unveil its transformed lobby Friday, Feb. 23, reimagined by acclaimed Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. The new space will also feature the specialty coffee bar Dolcezza Coffee & Gelato at Hirshhorn, the museum's first permanent food and beverage offering, and the only locally owned café on the National Mall.   

In reenvisioning the Hirshhorn's ground floor, Sugimoto and his Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory (NMRL) looked to symbolize what is unique about both the building and the collection, ideally creating a space that functions simultaneously as sculpture, furniture and conceptual art. The artist-made furnishings are inspired by the fundamental shape of the Hirshhorn - the circle - and the ways in which the shape appears in nature, specifically the chaotic roots of a medieval Japanese tree that now form the lobby's central tables.

 

Art and coffee fans can preview the space during special museum hours Feb. 13, 14 and 15, 6:30 p.m.-9 p.m., when the Hirshhorn will be open late to celebrate the opening of both "Brand New: Art and Commodity in the 1980s" and a three-night-only restaging of an iconic  1988 outdoor projection created by artist Krzysztof Wodiczko.

 

Starting Feb. 23, Dolcezza Coffee & Gelato at Hirshhorn will be open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekends, offering an inspiring destination for early-morning coffee and creative collaboration.  

 

The new space will feature:

• Twin glass-top tables crafted from the roots of a 700-year-old Japanese nutmeg tree, discovered by Sugimoto in Japan 15 years ago.
• Dramatic 20-foot metal coffee bar of tin and brushed brass, with tin diamond patterns inspired by innovative fireproofing techniques used in 1930s Tokyo. The menu behind the bar will use a font designed by Sugimoto specifically for Dolcezza.
• Spacious seating with white and brushed-brass benches and chairs. Sugimoto's bench legs feature large blocks of optical glass - the same used in camera lenses - a nod to his celebrated photography career. The chairs are inspired by the helicoid shape of DNA, blending natural and manmade spirals.
• Striking brushed-brass and granite welcome desks, mirroring the original brass of the building's twin entryways.
• Prismatic light sculpture "Your oceanic feeling" (2015) by noted Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, hanging from the ceiling and spanning 12 feet in circumference.
• An open and elevated feel with views down to the National Mall, thanks to the removal of a dark film covering the lobby's 3,300-square-foot windows.
• Free Wi-Fi throughout

Dolcezza Coffee & Gelato at Hirshhorn will offer:

• Seasonal and handcrafted gelato
• Specialty espresso drinks from a Modbar system
• Pour-over and iced coffee
• Gourmet sweet and savory pastries

Call for Exhibit Proposals

Deadline: Sunday, April 1, 2018

 

Artists wishing to be considered for an exhibit in the Howard County Arts Council galleries (located in Ellicott City, Maryland) are invited to submit a general exhibit application. The HCAC Exhibits Committee meets quarterly to review applications and select artists for the exhibit space. Artists, ages 18 and older, working in all media and styles including time-based and installation artists, are encouraged to apply either individually or as a group. The Committee also welcomes proposals from curators and organizations. 

Detailed entry guidelines are available at http://hocoarts.submittable.com/submit/, for pick-up at the Howard County Center for the Arts, or by mail by calling 410-313-2787 or emailing exhibits@hocoarts.org.

 

The next deadline for submissions is Sunday, April 1, 2018.

 

Pam Perna
Community and Web Relations Director
Howard County Arts Council8510 High Ridge Road
Ellicott City, MD 21043 p: 410.313.ARTS
f: 410.313.2790

Opportunity for Solo Shows

Deadline: March 30th, 2018

VisArts invites artists working in all media to apply for 2019 Solo Exhibitions in the Gibbs Street Gallery and Common Ground Gallery.

The Gibbs Street Gallery offers exhibitions that explore the breadth of contemporary art featuring emerging to mid-career artists. Exhibits reflect a wide range of media and experimental approaches that offer the viewer unexpected interactions with art.

The gallery is approximately 1,100 square feet with 16 ft. ceilings. It is on the street level with floor to ceiling windows along one wall. International, national and local artists are welcome to apply. The Common Ground Gallery features exhibitions that reflect the creative pursuits of artists from our community.

The gallery is located on the second floor and is approximately 300 square feet. Artists must live in the Mid-Atlantic region to apply for a solo exhibition in this gallery.

Applicants who have participated in a solo exhibition at VisArts within the past two years are not eligible to apply.

Website: https://visarts.submittable.com/submit/98811/call-for-solo-exhibition-2019

Wanna go to a triple opening tomorrow

Artists & Makers Studios Presents
Be Still with Sheryl Massaro & Coriolana Simon
The Dress as Icon with Alexandra Michaels
Revisioning the Flip Doll: Exploring Our Connections curated by Erika Cleveland

Artists & Makers Studios on Parklawn in Rockville is proud to present three gallery exhibits for the month of February along with artists’ open studios. “Be Still” with Sheryl Massaro and Coriolana Simon explores the still life through their painting and photography. “The Dress as Icon” with Alexandra Michaels takes on the universal

symbol for women with mixed media paintings that contain within them an aspect of female experiences. 

“Revisioning the Flip Doll: Exploring Our Connections” with Erika Cleveland, juried artists, and flip dolls created by women at the N. Street Homeless shelter as part of an ongoing series of workshops - re-imagines the flip doll to show commonalities despite differences, and to explore all the ways in which people are united. 

Words out Loud in the Compass Atelier, from 7-8pm with Philip Wexler, Roger Bradbury and Jason Gebhardt will be followed by an open mic. Resident artists’ open studios will round out the evening for visitors at Parklawn.

Be Still with Sheryl Massaro & Coriolana Simon
The Dress as Icon with Alexandra Michaels
Revisioning the Flip Doll: Exploring Our Connections
Opening Reception
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Friday, February 2nd, 2018
Artists & Makers Studios
11810 Parklawn Dr., Suite 210
Rockville, MD 20852

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards

Deadline to Apply: April 6, 2018

 

Best in Show will be awarded $10,000 & all finalists featured at Gallery B in Sept. 2018

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards is a visual art prize produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District that honors artists from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The annual juried competition awards $14,000 in prize monies to selected artists and features the work of the finalists in a group exhibition.

The 2018 competition will be juried by Christopher Bedford, Valerie Fletcher and Michael Jones McKean. 

Artists must be 18 years of age or older and permanent, full-time residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. The selected artwork will be on exhibit in June 2018 at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda, MD.

To apply, please visit http://www.bethesda.org/bethesda/trawick-application

New art space about to debut in the DMV

The WaPo does something that it seldom does: discuss a vibrant new (about to open soon) art space in the District!

The idea is to provide studio space to about 40 serious working artists, and in doing so create a community of artists and a destination for curators, collectors and visiting artists. They have even found an honest-to-goodness industrial space to house it: a two-story brick building in Eckington between the Rhode Island and NoMa Metro stops, not far from Catholic University and Union Market and abutting the Branch trail. The Phillips Collection, Halcyon, Studio Visit, Hamiltonian and the Washington Project for the Arts have also signed on as partners.

Read the cool piece by Tara Bahrampour right here!

And after you read it, pleeeeeazzze comment on the story, so that the WaPo editors see that there are readers (they multiply each comment by 1500 readers - don't ask me where they got that formula).

Hirshhorn To Restage Krzysztof Wodiczko Projection

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has announced the restaging of "Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.," an iconic large-scale, outdoor projection by acclaimed American artist Krzysztof Wodiczko (b. 1943, Warsaw), on view Feb. 13-15, 6:30-9 p.m. for the first time since its original three-night display 30 years ago. The work coincides with "Brand New: Art and Commodity in the 1980s," a new exhibition exploring the collision of art and marketing in the 1980s opening Feb. 14. The comprehensive group show will also include Wodiczko's renowned "Homeless Vehicle No. 5." (1988-89), a device designed to provide homeless individuals - who were growing in numbers at the end of the decade - with some form of autonomy, containing shelter, a sink and storage.

After viewing the projection, visitors can explore "Brand New" during special late hours Feb. 13-15, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., and join Wodiczko and the Guerrilla Girls for a public artist talk on "Brand New" and the art of the '80s, Feb. 13. On Feb. 14, the museum will host a wide-ranging conversation on monuments, art and the First Amendment, in partnership with the bipartisan Philadelphia-based National Constitution Center, Gallery Guides will also be on the National Mall and in the museum's lobby all three nights to answer questions and host conversations about the work.

The celebrated three-story-tall installation, commissioned by the Hirshhorn and created specifically for its uniquely curved architecture, debuted in 1988 as part of the museum's "WORKS" program, which ran from 1987 to 1993 and featured a series of temporary, site-specific exhibitions by artists such as Sol Lewitt, Ann Hamilton, Matt Mullican and Alfredo Jaar installed throughout the museum's grounds and plaza. Wodiczko's work, "Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.," referenced widespread '80s debates around the 1988 Presidential election's political rhetoric, reproductive rights and the death penalty, by alluding to the power of mass media to convey ideologies at a time when cable TV was changing the media paradigm.

Wodiczko was at the forefront of a new interest in public art, and his work, including "Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.," reflects an increased political awareness in the art of the period, spurred by forces such as the rise of homelessness, the AIDS epidemic and the polarization of U.S. politics. Using recognizable imagery - body parts, figures, guns and money - Wodiczko's large-scale projections are open to interpretation by the communities who experience them, and in the political and social climate where they are installed. His large iconic images borrow from film and advertisements of the day, which used oversized pictures to elicit an emotional reaction in the viewer, and by projecting on monuments and other public institutions, he raised awareness around contemporary social issues.

 

"The 30-year-old projection appears to me today strangely familiar and at once unbearably relevant," Wodiczko said. "I wrote in 1988 that, more than ever before, the meaning of our monuments depends on our active role in turning them into sites of memory and critical evaluation of history as well as places of public discourse and action. It remains vitally true."

"We are honored to present Wodiczko's 'Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.' nearly 30 years after it premiered to Washington audiences," said Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu. "This projection is a significant public artwork from the 1980s. It exemplifies themes explored in 'Brand New,' and highlights the reaction of artists to the seismic shifts in economy, politics and technology that transformed the decade."

The Sustainable Clothed Body: Embroidery on Garments For Mending & Embellishment

Tuesdays, February 6 – 27
6:30 – 9:00 pm, American University Museum

Join all kinds of creative kindred spirits for a new class at the Alper Initiative for Washington Art: The Sustainable Clothed Body: Embroidery on Garments For Mending & Embellishment.

The super-talented artist Kate Kretz teaches clothing embroidery and embellishment on Tuesday evenings in the Alper Space. Cost is $200 for the 4-week class. Materials are provided.

Registration and more information online: www.tinyurl.com/AUMtix

You can find Kate Kretz's amazing artwork at katekretz.com 

Methods of Inquiry: Fields of Discovery Artist Talk

McLean Project for the Arts will host an artist talk featuring the artists behind our current exhibition, Methods of Inquiry: Fields of Discovery. Presenting artists will discuss the processes and concepts behind their respective work. This talk is FREE and open to the public.

 

WHAT:          Methods of Inquiry Artist Talk

Methods of Inquiry: Fields of Discovery features six artists whose work is influenced  by science. Exhibited together, the works of these six artists offer views from multiple angles of the wonder found in the natural world, both inner and outer, and the processes human beings employ in order to gain a greater understanding of them

 

WHO:             Methods of Inquiry artists Michele Banks, Atsuko Chirikjian, Spencer Dormitzer, Leslie Holt, Susan Main, and Mark Robarge

 

WHEN:           Saturday, February 10, 2018
3:00 – 4:30 pm 

 

WHERE:         MPA@ChainBridge Bullock | Hitt Gallery
1446 Chain Bridge Road, McLean (in the Chain Bridge Corner Shopping Center)

 

HOW:             Admission is free. RSVP: http://bit.ly/2E3oLoz

Coriana Simon at Artists & Makers

Release of DC Cultural Plan Working Draft for Public Review

The DC Office of Planning (OP) is excited to release the DC Cultural Plan working draft for public review. The Plan was led by OP in consultation with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) and the DC Office of Cable Television, Film, Music and Entertainment (OCTFME).

Culture is important to the District of Columbia. It embraces who we are; reflects our diversity; and brings us together. Culture is also an important part of our economy, where it accounts for an estimated $30 billion in annual spending and 112,370 jobs.

The Cultural Plan's recommendations strengthen arts, humanities, culture and heritage in neighborhoods across the city by increasing cultural participation, expanding capacity building, stimulating cultural production and informing decision-making. The Plan lays out a vision and recommendations on how the government and its partners can build upon, strengthen and invest in the people, places, communities and ideas that define culture within the nation's capital.

Check out the working draft of the DC Cultural Plan here. 

Comments on the draft will be accepted through February 28th, 2018 via email at DCculturalplan@dc.gov.  

Plae adult sketchbook

Plae is "the innovative, customizable, fashion-forward shoe brand that encourages children and now adults alike to never stop playing. In the light-hearted spirit of fulling its mission, the brand recently launched a sketchbook coloring contest, giving doodlers, scribblers, colorers and sketchers the chance to let their creativity soar."

In collaboration with Swedish artist, Mikael Selin, the contest invites users to download the vibrant adult sketchbook on their website, color them to their heart's desire and submit their masterpieces by 1/29/2018. 

Prizes for the lucky winner include a limited first edition Mulberry Plae shoes (the first ever Plae adult shoe offering), a Boosted Board, a custom Mission Bike, and $250 Plae gift card. 

You can find more info and contest details here.

Sam Gilliam

Lots has been written recently about the well-deserved "revival" in interest in the works of my good friend Sam Gilliam, and no one deserves it more than this hard-working artist (never identify Sam as a "DC artist" or he may kick your ass.

Anyway - Gilliam's work has enjoyed not only a "rediscovery" in recent years (a lot of it associated with his increased exposure via art fairs), but also finally a significant increase in price; after all, art is a commodity.

It wasn't that long ago that one could show up at a local auction house and find an original Gilliam for a few hundred bucks. For example, the below work, identified at the auction site as:

Sam Gilliam (American b. 1933) Untitled (Abstract): A Double-Sided Work The first, signed Sam Gilliam and dated 68 twice l.r.; and the second Sam Gilliam and dated 68 l.r. Mixed media on paper; apparently in good condition. Framed.* Sight size: 17-1/2 x 23 in (44.5 x 52.4 cm) 

Sold for $1400 in 2011!!!

Not anymore! Check out a "local" history of Sam's prices via a local DC area auction house here.

The the bear turned his attention the other way

Opportunity for Portrait Artists

The International Portrait Competition showcases the finest in portraiture and figurative art today. The competition is open to all artists and the top 20 finalists are required to exhibit their original artwork and be present at The Art of the Portrait conference in Washington, DC, April 19-22, 2018.

Over $100,000 in cash & prizes will be awarded with the Grand Prize Winner receiving $20,000.

Entry Fee.

Details: 850-878-9996 OR http://www.portraitsociety.org/international OR info@portraitsociety.org

Lots of Fridas

Who knew?
Check out this search...

Go to this opening tomorrow

Opening at Adah Rose Gallery
adahrosegallery@gmail.com
www.adahrosegallery.com

"The Evocation of a Moment..a Gesture" - Jessica Drenk

Vernissage Saturday January 20 6:00-8:00 pm.
Live Music by Bud Wilkinson

Tactile and textural, the sculptures of Jessica Drenk highlight the chaos and beauty that can be found in simple materials. Jessica's work is influenced by systems of information and the impulse to develop an encyclopedic understanding of the world. Jessica’s interests in archaeology, paleontology, biology, botany and geology influence not only the shapes and textures of her sculpture, but also lend a visual framework for creating, collecting and classifying her own specimens of the present. The sculptures are both fragile and strong, complex and simple; always elegant and unique. Her materials  are as varied as marble, PVC pipes, toilet paper, books, pencils, wood, coffee filters, and q-tips. 

Jessica was raised in Montana, where she developed an appreciation for the natural world that remains an important inspiration to her artwork today. Jessica was awarded the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.  Her work has been pictured in Sculpture Magazine and she has exhibited in shows at the International Grounds for Sculpture in NJ, Skidmore College, the Albuquerque Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, the Everhart Museum, Yale University and the Brooklyn Public Library. Her work is in many prominent individual and corporate art collections. Jessica has exhibited in numerous solo and duo shows in Washington DC, Dallas, San Francisco, Hawaii, Florida, Massachusetts and Arizona. She has exhibited with the gallery at PULSE Miami, PULSE NY and the Silicon Valley Art Fair. This is her third show with Adah Rose Gallery.

Jessica Drenk received an MFA from the University of Arizona in 2007 and a BA from Pomona College in 2002. She currently lives and works in Florida.

Adah Rose Gallery
3766 Howard Ave
Kensington MD 20895
Thursday-Sunday 12:00-5:30 and always by appointment

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this mutant trying to rip off artists!

From: Gregory Kurstin andrew.brand966@gmail.com

Date: January 18, 2018 at 4:10:16 PM EST

Subject: Urgent Order

Greetings,Hope you will be in the office, I want to know whether you sell ( Patty Makers ).. Email me the available sizes/models you have, or a link to look through. Also want to know the types of payment you accept.Hope to hear back from you soon.

Best Regards,

Gregory Kurstin 

Art Centers looking for directors!

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission is seeking  Directors for two of their Arts Centers, Brentwood Arts Exchange and Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center. A single online application will be used as a pool to fill both positions. Applicants may express their interest in applying to either or both positions in the supplemental question section of the application.

The Directors must be self-motivated, organized and experienced in personnel management, arts program development, fiscal management, community relations, working in a fast-paced, demanding, creative and exciting work environment. He/she will manage a multi-faceted arts center that includes exhibitions, arts classes, youth camps, concerts, film screenings, lectures, festivals, and public events. An ideal candidate will have at least three years' experience in arts management; in an arts facility or for a regional arts program. 

More information is available online at https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/mncppc/jobs/1943796/arts-facility-manager-director-12727-11233-grade-22

Frida Smoking

Updated a little...

"Frida Smoking"

Charcoal and Conte with Embedded Electronics

24x36 inches

"Frida Smoking"

Charcoal and Conte with Embedded Electronics

24x36 inches

"Frida Smoking"

Charcoal and Conte with Embedded Electronics

24x36 inches