Art Exhibits at Brookside Gardens: Linda DeCamp

As we've done over the years, visited Brookside Gardens on Monday night to see their amazing Garden of Lights display - and even though it was rainy and drizzly and cold, the place was packed! If you haven't been, it is one of the great outdoor marvels of the DMV and it only happens once a year!

While at the visitor center, I checked out the artwork on exhibit there... Brookside Gardens supports and promotes all the arts with show opportunities and by working with individual artists, groups of artists, and public sector agencies including the Montgomery County Arts Council and the Public Arts Trust.


Brookside Gardens Art Exhibit Calendar is fully booked through 2017. Applications for 2018 will be accepted beginning Jan. 1, 2016 Questions? Contact ArtatBrookside@aol.com

Art Exhibit Application and Exhibition Guidelines


Anyway, while checking out the work, several paintings by artist Linda DeCamp stood out to me because of their freshness and painterly handling of the texture of the oil paints. If anyone knows the artist, please have her drop me a line, as I may have a client for one of her works (I know someone who collects beach paintings).

Curator's Office reopens in new space

Andrea Pollan's Curator's Office is back!

Curator's Office is excited to announce the gallery venue, Curator's Office @ Edgewood Studios, at 703 Edgewood Street NE, Washington, DC. To launch this venue officially, Curator's Office is presenting an exhibition of noted artist Jeff Spaulding's sculptural work entitled Vintage. This warehouse building has a rich artist studio history in the city and has been the working space of some of the finest artists in the greater Washington, DC area including Siemon Allen, Kristina Bilonick, Kendall Buster, Patrick Craig, Tara Donovan, Ian Jehle, Patrice Kehoe, Patrick McDonough, Ledelle Moe, Jefferson Pinder, W.C. Richardson, and Yuriko Yamaguchi among numerous others. Jeff Spaulding, one of the original artists in this building, has had his studio here for almost 30 years.

Jeff Spaulding
Partial Installation View: Walker, Gate, & Riker
asphalt on wood, charcoal, variable dimensions.

The gallery space is in the studio building located above Mess Hall. A gray metal door with signage is the entrance to the studio building as you drive down Edgewood Street. It is located on your right. There is street parking on weekends. The closest Metro station is Rhode Island Ave - Brentwood Station on the Red Line. This artist studio building can be cold in January. Please dress warmly. 

On the same paper pad!

Don't you find it interesting how all these artists all worked these drawings on the same type of paper? Cough, cough... The "finds" one "finds" on Ebay!

See them all here.

Kahlo...

Dali...

Pollock...

Botero...

New Alma Selimovic

DeviD is Alma Selimovic's latest piece and it is inspired by Michelangelo's David as you might notice.

Alma has a plan to make a series of androgynous sculptures that are inspired by famous paintings and or sculptures. 

DeviD is 27" tall and will stand on a thick slab of glass. It will be in New York next year at one of the fairs during Armory week... unless one of you wants to add it to your collection now!

DeviD by Alma Selimovic

DeviD by Alma Selimovic

Xmas loot

Wait till you guys see some of the crazy socks that I got for 2015 Xmas...

A Christmas Eve story

Those of you who know me... know that I am not a what would be described as an overly religious person; that's not a disclaimer, but a fact.

I went to a Catholic elementary school (Our Lady of Loretto in Brooklyn), but my family was also not religious at all.

For 2015, we wanted to get Anderson an outdoor basketball hoop. As there are dozens of them around our neighborhood, we asked our neighbors if anyone wanted to pass one on, and one of our generous neighbors did.

"We actually inherited the hoop from another neighbor," they said, "And our kids have moved on."

As the hoop was going to be a Christmas present from Santa, and in order to sneak it into our yard at the last possible minute, last night, around 8PM, I trekked to their house, about a quarter of a mile away, preparing to drag the hoop over to our house.

I vastly under estimated the weight of the hoop (pole, base and backboard), which has small wheels at the front of its base to allow for relocation movement, but clearly not designed to be dragged by one man for that long of a distance.

About five minutes into the ordeal, and already soaked in sweat and breathing heavily, as I passed one of the light poles on the street heading to our street, I was startled by my own shadow.

My shadow, stooped over and carrying the heavy basketball hoop, with the backboard on my shoulders and the pole dragging behind me, startled me because it looked exactly like a man carrying a cross.

"I wonder what any neighbor who sees this from their house would think," I thought. In the dark of the night, with just some peripheral light from the light poles, it would be easy to confuse me with some zealous penitent carrying a cross.

I struggled on, my shoulders really aching now, and my sweat pouring from my brow, and my baseball cap being crushed into my eyes by the backboard, so that I had to stop and take my glasses off, and re-adjust the red Nats cap..

As I stopped and lost the momentum, and I was on a slight uphill, it became really hard to get the hoop going again.

"What I need now is a Simon to help me," I thought. The "Simon" being Simon of Cyrene, of course... the man who according to the Bible helped The Christ to carry the cross.

Almost immediately a tall, gangly, dark-haired young man stepped out of the shadows, his hair full of tight black curls.

"Sir," he said, "Can I help you carry that?"

"Thank you!" I almost shouted as he put his shoulder to the backboard and together we trudged along; the task a lot easier now.

"I really appreciate it," I told him as we carried the hoop side by side. "This is for my son," I explained. "Do you live around here?"

He told me that he was a visitor, and was visiting his girlfriend, who lived in our neighborhood.

We carried the hoop to our cul-de-sac, placed it in the right spot, and shook hands.

"Thank you a million times," I said to him. "My name is Lenny, Merry Christmas."

"My name is Simon," he responded as he walked away into the shadows..."Merry Christmas."

I walked back into my house, soaked in sweat and breathing heavily, and then, and only then, it dawned on me.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas All of Youse!


The Giving Season, by David FeBland, Oil on Canvas, 2007

Ann Telnaes: Asshole of the Week

It has been a while since DC ART NEWS has selected an Asshole of the Week, many asshole-less weeks in fact! Not for lack of assholes, but for lack of such an egregious act (like these orifices) that catches my eye or ears.


Editorial cartoonist (and a terrific artist) Ann Telnaes easily earns the orifice award this week, for depicting one of the current Presidential candidate's grade-school daughters as "dancing monkeys for their appearance in a presidential campaign ad."

The animated cartoon featured a Santa Claus-costumed Cruz winding a music box as two leashed monkeys danced in elf costumes. The monkeys represent Cruz's daugthers Caroline, 7, and Catherine, 4.

On Tuesday evening, a note from WaPo editor Fred Hiatt appeared on the WaPo's website reading:

"It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree."

And the WaPo's Callum Borchers nails it when he notes that this Telnaes' blunder is a gift to the fiery Texan; read that here.


On the other hand, the Telnaes' visual assholity once again underscores my point of the immense power of the visual arts. This is what happens when a spectacularly talented artist, as Telnaes is (evidence here) fucks it up (as all of us do once in a while).


Cartoon here.

Give an art set for Xmas

AC Moore has really good art sets starting at $9.99 - no better way to get a young mind interested in art!


And here's a $10 coupon.


Give art at Xmas - or an art-creation kickstart!

The curious case of Anatol Zukerman and Charles Krause Reporting LLC v. United States Postal Service

From my good friend DC gallerist Charles Krause comes the below guest piece (reproduced with his permission from his newsletter), detailing the curious case of artist Anatol Zukerman and a customized US stamp.

Personally, I find it very curious that the Zukerman stamp was denied for being "political", while clearly other political stamps (such as stamps for Cruz, Bush, Sanders, etc.) noted below are OK... and this does raise a curious question about this particular Zukerman stamp.

I do have an answer to Charles' question: "Are zazzle and the Postal Service in bed with the Republicans?."

I don't think so.

My answer is based in the fact that there's a gazillion Democratic junk on that site as well, including a lot of both "pro" and "against" Clinton crap.... and even one very funny anti Cuban-American candidate Ted Cruz button (image to the right, cough, cough)... and a truckload (almost 1,400 pages of items!) of both pro/against, but plenty of nasty, sometimes funny, anti-Trump stuff.

And based on that empirical evidence, and loads of other imagery from the site, it is clear to me that zazzle.com is not in bed with the Republicans, but it is an equal opportunity bedmate to both parties and the nuts who make up both parties' extremes.

I see absolutely no zazzle lean to the right or the left: Dems and Repubs are equally applauded and/or pissed on... there's no case here for any political lean.

Where Zukerman and Krause do have case, is why zazzle.com declined to print the stamp.

It may be a "visual" issue (and thus another reaffirmation of the power of the representational visual arts). Both the Cruz, and the Sanders, and the Bush stamps discussed in Charles' newsletter (and seen below less Bernie's) are just mostly words on a stamp, while Zukerman's stamp is a powerful visual reference (in addition to words).

Should this make a difference in the "too political" classification? I don't think so, and this is where the suit may have some legs. And thus it is curious that zazzle.com did what they did. It is also wrong and I hope that the courts rule for Zukerman and Krause.

Read the piece below:

Last week, a team of lawyers from the highly regarded Washington law firm of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans and Figel, working pro bono, filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Anatol Zukerman, an artist whose oil pastel drawings are often deadlier than the guns he abhors, and my gallery, which has represented Anatol and his work since 2013. 

The complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief asks the Court to find

"the Defendant USPS has, both directly and through its agent, unlawfully engaged in both content and viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution."  The case has been filed as Civil Action No. 15-2131, Anatol Zukerman and Charles Krause Reporting LLC v. United States Postal Service.

As many of you reading this know, I've long believed that Art can be a catalyst for social and political change. Like many others, I've also been convinced for some time that the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, permitting corporations, unions and individuals to donate unlimited sums of money to political campaigns, would sooner or later undermine faith in our elected officials and compromise our democratic system.

And that, it seems to me, is what's already begun to happen: corporations and the super-rich are investing in start-up candidates for Congress and the Presidency, the way Silicon Valley invests in start-up tech companies. It doesn't matter if they drop $10 or $20 million on a couple of start-ups who fail to deliver (Jeb Bush, for example, or Martin O'Malley) because all the donor class needs is one of their candidates to make it to the White House and they've hit the jackpot.  The pay-off is huge for all of them.

For the rest of us? Not so much, or not at all, which is why the Republican base is in rebellion, why Bernie Sanders is doing so much better than expected and why the Supreme Court's ruling in the Koch Brothers' Citizens United case is so dangerous.

Everyone knows that investors, whether Republican or Democrat, expect a return on their investment. And what more and more Americans are beginning to realize is that as long as our elected officials are dependent on the 1 percent to pay for their campaigns, the 99 per cent will get screwed, one way or another.

Just like income inequality, middle class voters especially sense there's a growing disconnect between their needs and their elected officials' willingness to help them. It doesn't seem to matter which party they vote for. Many of them don't know what to do about it or who's to blame. 

That's why Citizens United will be a major focus of The 1 Percent Exhibit: Visualizing IncomeInequality in America, my next exhibit, opening in February. And why, last April, I encouraged Anatol Zukerman to have his Citizens United drawing, which had been exhibited in my gallery in 2013, printed as a postage stamp.

Having worked one summer as a researcher-writer for Chief Justice Warren Burger and having studied Constitutional Law with one of the great teachers of all time, Professor Henry Abraham at the University of Pennsylvania,  I want to believe that, if enough evidence accumulates and enough pressure builds, the Court itself will one day recognize its mistake and reconsider Citizens United, as it has on rare occasions with other decisions before.

But I recognize that day, if it ever comes, is a long

way off. Meanwhile, we've got to do what we can now to keep our politicians honest (or, at least somewhat honest) and the One Percenters in check.  I never thought the 40 stamps Anatol ordered would be more than a band aid, a clever way to interest more collectors in his wonderfully provocative drawings and call attention to an issue we both felt strongly about. 

On the other hand, it never occurred to either one of us that zazzle.com, one of three companies the Postal Service partners with to print "custom" postage stamps, would reject the order on the grounds that our Citizens United stamp was "too political."

After all, zazzle.com had plastered the Cruz for President 2016 stamps it had printed all over its website last April. Since then, it has printed Bush-Texas 2016 and even a Sanders 2016 stamp. How is it possible that those stamps were acceptable if ours was not? 

ARE ZAZZLE AND THE POSTAL SERVICE

IN BED WITH THE REPUBLICANS?

 

Zazzle.com's summary rejection of our stamp --coupled with the Cruz for President stamps,  T- shirts, pins and nasty anti-Clinton bumper stickers we saw on  the zazzle.com website the day Anatol's design was submitted, accepted and then rejected a couple of hours later---immediately raised questions in my mind about zazzle's political neutrality.

While it does print caps and bumper stickers and pins for Democratic Party candidates, Zazzle's website leaves the distinct impression that it's a Republican party vendor, not a US Government vendor free of partisan politics, as one might expect.

Since our suit was filed, zazzle.com has removed all traces of its Cruz for President and Texas-Bush stamps from its website. But it still has plenty of nasty anti-Hillary bumper stickers...

Which raises a number of questions:

• Does the Postal Service monitor these private sector vendors  to ensure they are, and remain, non-partisan?
• What other political stamps has zazzle.com rejected?
• If printing four or five different "Cruz for President" and "Texas for Bush 2016" stamps is okay, why is a stamp saying "Democracy is Not for Sale" not okay?
• What criteria does zazzle use? Are they its own or is this, in effect, outsourced government censorship?
• Did the judges (or censors) decide "Democracy is Not for Sale" is not a true statement? Will they argue that Anatol was being facetious by placing it next to his drawing? 
• Will they try to shift the focus from their own apparent failure to properly oversee zazzle.com's custom stamp operation by suggesting our proposed stamp presented an unfair and inaccurate representation of the Citizens United decision?

We should only be so lucky.

I would love the opportunity to depose the Koch Brothers, asking them why they created Citizens United in the first place; how much they paid the lawyers who won the case for them; and how much more money they've been able to pump into their political machine as a result of the Citizens United decision.

I'd also like to ask them, since they purport to be libertarians, whether they think the Postal Service and zazzle.com did the right thing by refusing to print our stamp.

Critique led by visual artist Cory Oberndorfer

Thursday, January 14, 7-9:30pm

 

Greater Reston Arts Center invites interested artists to bring 1-2 recent artworks to the gallery for a group discussion and critique.  Each critique will be run by a guest artist or curator and the GRACE Education Director. GRACE will provide light refreshments and beverages. All participants must be willing to discuss their artwork and the artwork of others. Space is very limited. Ages 18 and up. Registration #402645.

 

Register by contacting the gallery at (703) 471-9242 or info@restonarts.org

 

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this:

From:

Adam Vinter (am.casey@comcast.net)

Greetings,

I will like to make a purchase to my store in Finland. I will be making payment by means of my credit card. I will like to know if there is any special discount. Lastly regarding shipment, my picker will come for the pickup after payment. Kindly get back to me at adamgreatlife1@aol.com

I hope to hear from you soon

Warmest Regards.
Adam Vinter

Artist Talk: Hannah Spector

Saturday, December 19, 3pm at Transformer

Join Transformer this Saturday for an artist talk with Hannah Spector as she discusses her new body of work in We Lost Our Teeth For A Second Time.

Transformer's 13th Annual DC Artist Solo Exhibition presents the work of Hannah Spector in her first solo exhibition.

Featuring a new body of collage and mixed-media installation that examines shape and color in relation to myth, We Lost Our Teeth For A Second Time plays upon a lyrical interpretation of man's mythical understanding of consciousness through symbols and shadows. Through an investigation of seemingly irrelevant shape and form, Spector aims to choreograph color and shape, exploring the dichotomy of form and sensation.

t r a n s f o r m e r | 1404 P St NW  Washington  DC  20005 | 202.483.1102 | transformerdc.org

 

Percent-for-Art Programs

If you've taken my "Bootcamp for Artists" 8-hour seminar, then you know that I've been preaching this for almost two decades now... but just in case you didn't believe me...

These ordinances, called percent-for-art programs, are seeking to use public spaces to bring art into the consciousness of a wider public by requiring a fee, usually some percentage of the project cost, on large scale development projects in order to fund and install public art.  That percentage usually ranges from 0.5% to 2%, with most programs (ironically) adopting 1% allocation.  As such, percent-for-art programs have been popping up all over the country, although the details may vary from area to area.  For example, the City of Los Angeles’ 1% for arts program, has developers pay an amount equal to 1% of the construction value of a large-scale project to fund public art at the construction site.

Check Nicolita Martinez article here.

Brentwood Arts Exchange is hiring a full-time Assistant Director!

The Brentwood Arts Exchange is seeking candidates for a full-time Assistant Director.

Qualified candidates should have a diverse skill set, including a strong understanding of contemporary art; familiarity with arts marketing; understanding of community-focused arts education programming, excellent written and oral communication skills; knowledge of art handling best practices; proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite; proficiency with Adobe Creative Cloud applications;  and knowledge of graphic design principles.

Complete job description and application are available here.

Hurry!!! Application closes 1/26/16.

Press mention

The very talented Elissa Farrow-Savos gets a nice mention in Esther Nash's report on ABMB week:

Showcased at context art fair, the Piece is called totem pile by Elissa Savos art work is a narration of inner worlds revealed. They are about the moments in life we are not sure we should share, and feelings that we are not quite sure we should feel, about our bodies, our families, our choices. 

Read the whole report here.

Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship

APPLICATION FOR 2016-2018 NOW OPEN

The 9th annual open call for the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship is now open. Advancing the professional development of emerging visual artists, the two-year program serves as a steppingstone for the next generation of contemporary artists in Washington, DC. What will you receive as a Hamiltonian Fellow? -  Solo and group exhibitions in Hamiltonian Gallery -  Mentorship from established artists and art professionals   -  Exhibition support and peer critiques -  Access to professional development lectures and career resources  -  Annual $1,000 stipend   -  Gallery representation through Hamiltonian Gallery  -  Community engagement and outreach opportunities   Apply Today! We have taken our application process online! Visit www.hamiltonianartists.org/apply for all information on application guidelines, fellowship requirements, the selection process, as well as our submission form.   Deadline: Tuesday, March 1, 2016 COB

HAMILTONIAN ARTISTS INC. is a 501 (c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing professional development opportunities to innovative visual artists early in their careers. We offer a competitive two-year fellowship program to artists who have finished their academic training and are looking to transition into a professional art career. Artists working in all media are encouraged to apply. We also run a Professional Development Speaker Series that is free and open to the public.

CONTACT:   1353 U Street, NW Washington, DC  20009 202.332.1116 www.hamiltonianartists.org www.hamiltoniangallery.com

Celebs and other art symbiots at Miami

This year's Art Miami and Context Art Miami fairs were visited by prominent attendees, including actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who was the first to see both fairs in a private tour prior to the opening, and actor/artist Adrien Brody attended the closing on Sunday. 

Many other notable celebrities, collectors and art advisors filled in the week, including Elle Macpherson; Troy Garity (Jane Fonda's son); Jorge and Darlene Pérez; Canadian business mogul and "Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary and his wife Linda; basketball star Alonzo Mourning; fashion magnate Tommy Hilfiger; Stephen and Kara Ross; George Collins (former CEO of T. Rowe Price); Edgardo Defortuna; TV producer Larry W. Jones; Jessica Goldman Srebnick and Scott Srebnick; Richard Perlman and Ellen Hanson; Chris and Jane LaGuardia; Sandy Gross; Hilary and Wilbur Ross; owner of Philadelphia Eagles, Jeffrey Lurie; President & CEO of Miami Dolphins Tom Garfinkel; Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak and wife Nili Priel; U.S. Ambassador Earle Mack; Ahmet Kobasiuk (Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul); Harry Cooper (curator and head of modern art at the National Gallery of Art); The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery assistant curator of prints and drawings Asma Naeem; Don Bacigalupi, Founding President for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (Chicago) and Former President and member of the board of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; collectors Lizbeth and George Krupp (Boston); David Mirvish (Toronto); Howard and Mary Frank (Miami and Southampton); Maxine and Stuart Frankel (Michigan); Paul and Paula Wittmann (Palm Beach); Andrew and Stacey Kroll; collectors Robert and Dede Moss; basketball player David Lee; philanthropists Jeff and Yolanda Berkowitz; artist Carole Feuerman; Derek Harte; entrepreneur and philanthropist Mark Ein; andart advisor Kim Heirston. Artists present included Bernie Taupin and wife his Heather; Apex; Alexis Diaz; Gino Miles; Gary Lang and Ruth Pastine; John Henry; Doug Argue; Dana Louise Kirkpatrick; and Robert Sagerman. Notable guests at the VIP Preview included board members, artists, major collectors, business leaders, curators and directors such as: Merrill Lynch Wealth Management's Market Executive Josh Moody and Managing Director Andres de Corral; Christie's International Real Estate's CEO Dan Conn, Senior Vice President Rick Moeser, and Founding Member and Advisory Board member Jeff Hyland; Debi and Jeffrey Wechsler; Martin and Audrey Gruss; Bruce Makowsky; Marvin Ross Friedman and Adrienne Bon Haes; Ed Shumsky and Sue Kronick; Michel Witmer; art advisor Kim Heirston; Pérez Art Museum Miami's new Director Franklin Sirmans and Deputy Director for External Affairs Leann Standish; Bechtler Museum's (Charlotte, NC) Andreas Bechtler; Steve Schwarzman; Jerry Powers; Jane Wooldridge and Stetson Glines; developer Tony Cho; and stylist Elysze Held, along with many museum donors and young contemporaries from Pérez Art Museum Miami, Guggenheim Museum of Art, CORE Club, Cooper Hewitt Design, Bass Museum of Art; Frost Art Museum, ICA Miami, St. Louis Art Museum and Wolfsonian, among many others.

The Alper Initiative is ready to accept proposals

 
The Alper Initiative for Washington Art promotes an understanding and appreciation of the art and artists of the Washington Metropolitan Area. They provide and staff a dedicated space located within the gorgeous American University Museum, to present exhibitions, programs, and resources for the study and encouragement of our creative community.

The Alper Initiative space will feature five exhibitions per year. 

Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator of the AU Museum, and one the DMV's strongest supporters of area artists, will select a curator (or curators) for each exhibition to develop shows that highlight regional artists. Washington area artists and curators are encouraged to submit exhibition proposals and work for consideration.

You can submit your proposal here. 

I plan to submit a proposal! If you have any ideas, drop me a note.