November 10 is the date that the art collection of the new Washington Convention Center is unveiled with a press walk-through. The Center spent $4 million to create the largest public arts program in a U.S. convention center history. The program was overseen by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities with advice from the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery. There are around 85-100 works of art distributed throughout the Center and about 50% of the artists are from the Washington area.
I was always sort of curious as to what in the hell does the National Gallery of Art know about Washington area artists? It's not like their curators are scouring Washington area galleries looking for the latest hot artist.
Anyway, as with most public art, I am willing to bet that there will not be a single nude in the entire collection, as it has become that standard of American public art that nudes (or any stuff that can be remotely "offensive" to anyone) is never part of the collection. Nonetheless there are some very good area artists represented in this collection and I am looking forward to seeing the work in place.
Talking about the DC Arts Commission, the call for nominees for the 19th Annual Mayor's Arts Awards is out. Anyone can nominate a candidate and the deadline for receipt of nominations is November 3, 2003. Nomination forms are here.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
One of the most beautiful gallery spaces in our area is the Mexican Cultural Institute and until November 20, 2003 they have a great group show titled BLANC.
BLANC is comprised of a group of Hispanic/Latino/Latin American/Spaniards artists of various nationalities, ethnicities and different generations, including Carlos Ancalmo (El Salvador), Margarita Cabrera (Mexico), Alejandro Cesarco (Uruguay), Asdrubal Colmenarez (Venezuela), Christian Curiel (Puerto Rico), Gretel Garcia (USA/Cuba), Marcela Gomez (Argentina), Joan Ill (Spain), Berta Kolteniuk (Mexico), Yucef Merhi (Venezuela), Gean Moreno (USA/Colombia), Yoshua Okon (Mexico), El Perro (Spain), Luis Romero (Venezuela), Irene Szabadics (Venezuela), Odalis Valdivieso (Venezuela) and Eugenia Vargas (Chile).
The exhibition, curated by Odalis Valdivieso, has been "structured as an open invitation for this diverse group of artist to create works of an experimental and/or conceptual nature that reflect, respond, interrogate or explore white and its almost endless array of associations."
The works on exhibition ranges from paintings to a most annoying (and successful) piece of net-art by Yucef Merhi that (if you visit the project website) takes you to a blank screen that changes randomly every seven seconds, and each screen contains a different meaning of the word white.
Problem is that it does turn your computer screen to white and I couldn't figure out how to get out of it and had to re-boot the browser to get back to a normal screen... almost like virus art???
Like any group show, the approaches are as diverse in success and interest as the participants themselves. This is a very good exhibition at one of our best contemporary art spaces.
The show will travel to the other Mexican Institutes of Culture in Houston, Los Angeles, and New York.
Plug for our gallery: Dr. Claudia Rousseau teaches art history and also writes art criticism for the Gazette newspapers and before that she lived in Latin America for many years where she was the Chief Art critic for several major Latin American newspapers. She's written a very good review of our current John Winslow show in Bethesda.
DC area photographer Danny Conant is hot! She's recently had a great solo at the Ralls Collection in Georgetown, then a book about her Tibet photographs published and now has a new solo show opening at Touchstone Gallery on November 14, 2003 and a second solo show currently on exhibit at the Mark Palmer Gallery in Kentucky until November 1st.
Danny Conant’s new works are scrolls that are layered pieces comprised of archival digital prints on fabric multicoated with acrylic paint and hung with bamboo pieces. Some of the images are realistic and others are vignettes composited of multiple sites. The photographs are gathered from her many trips to Asia over the last fifteen years. The exhibition runs until December 7. Last year one of her photographs sold for $2600 at Sotheby's.
Just found this great resource for artists. It is Slides.com and they can make slides from digital files! Most museums reviews and art competitions still require slides, but if you are like me, I'm always losing them, but have plenty of digital files around. It's a good resource for an emergency.
And if you need a postcard made in a hurry from your slides or digital files, we use Modern Postcard. Hard to beat their prices and stellar service.
By the way, artists looking for competitions, local opportunities, essays on the arts and the business of art, etc. should be familiar with both Art Deadlines and locally with Malik Lloyd's FIND ART information Bank. FIND ART distributes free weekly announcements to the arts community from clients that either need the services of artists or offer beneficial services to artists. To get on the email distribution for it, send Malik an email to FINDARTinfobank@aol.com.
Oct 25 will be the 112th anniversary of Pablo Picasso 's birth (October 25, 1881 - October 25, 2003), in my opinion the most influential and recognized artist in the history of art. Locally "Picasso: The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier" runs until January 18, 2004 at the National Gallery of Art.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
In art news, the Washington Sculpture Center (WSC) is a newly formed non-profit organization that aims to promote the teaching of sculpture for beginners and advanced students. It is the first public access educational program in the District of Columbia that will offer sculpture classes at all levels, using glass, metal, and stone. The WSC has been formed by Patricia Ghiglino and sculptor Reinaldo Lopez.
Reinaldo is well known in the DC arts community for his contributions in the restoration of the Taft Memorial Bridge Lions. He also made the new bronze lions that guard the main entrance of the Smithsonian National Zoo, the monumental granite sculpture at the entrance of the Patriot Center at George Mason University and many others.
Ms. Ghiglino recently retired from Professional Restoration, Inc.
She was responsible for the restoration of the Smithsonian Castle, Freer Gallery of Art, Fort McHenry, and Jackson Place among many other historic sites. She wants to dedicate her 16,000 sq. ft. warehouse to the teaching of sculpture in the DC area.
Her idea was not only to make the teaching of sculpture more accessible to our community, artists and public in general, but also to provide studio space for a few artists who are willing to teach.
The WSC is located at 1338 Half Street SE Washington DC, a block and a half from the Navy Yard Metro Station (Green Line). The first occupant in the WSC building is the Washington Glass School, formed by glass artists Tim Tate and Erwin Timmers.
The Washington Glass School offers classes in glass fusing, glass casting with and emphasis on sculptural and architectural work combined with many other media.
The Washington Sculpture Center will have a permanent glass flamework studio and is bringing artist Elizabeth Ryland Mears, to teach flamework for all levels. Starting in 2004 we will offer classes in metal arts, glass blowing, bronze casting and stone carving. For more information please contact Patricia Ghiglino, WSC 1338 Half Street SE, Washington DC 20003. Tel: (202)479-6730, fax (202)479-1070, E-mail: WashSculpture@aol.com
