Faith Flanagan organizes MUSE, which is a monthly art salon at DCAC. Each session is an opportunity to talk about contemporary art at a monthly get-together. Each salon features a discussion with a member of the local arts community, followed by a chance for audience members to show slides or samples of their work.

The next MUSE is December 7, 2003 at 7:30 P.M. when the guest will be Anne Corbett, Executive Director, Cultural Development Corporation. A new MUSE will be organized the first Sunday of each following month. For more info email Faith at salon@dcartscenter.org.

Can't wait to see this: In 1946 Salvador Dalí did a cartoon for Walt Disney titled “Destino." It was never finished until recently, when computer-generated images finished the last few frames. Read the entire story and see some clips from the cartoon at NPR.

Also lots of good images from the cartoon here.

The former Art Editor for the British newspaper The Guardian discusses how and why a newspaper should have a high commitment to supporting the arts.

The interesting point in this article by Ian Mayes is that fact that he discloses that between the Guardian and the Observer (owned and run by The Guardian), they employ about 60 art critics backed by a similar number of editors and subeditors!

And they made a deliberate effort to provide arts coverage in spite of the fact that "...the commitment is not simply or primarily a commercial one. In terms of revenue for the paper, many areas of the arts would not pay for the coverage."

I would guess that our own Post, which has a daily circulation of around 600,000 printed papers, and gets around two million hits a day for its website, and owns several other newspapers, is probably about twice the size of the Guardian newspapers.

Does anyone want to count the number of Post critics and see if they employ or use more or less than the Guardian?

Linda Hales takes a look at the Freer Gallery's "Mr. Whistler's Galleries: Avant-Garde in Victorian London," which opened a few days ago. This is a "different" show in the sense that the Freer has attempted to re-create two famous Whistler London shows -- "Arrangement in White and Yellow" (1883) and "Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey" (1884) -- to show how Whistler revolutionalized the then standard rules of displaying art and set a new style for exhibiting artwork in gallery shows that is still in use to this day.

Some people think that Whistler's unorthodox use of acrid colors was perhaps due to the fact that he may have been partially color blind.

Artists looking for studio space should contact The Blue Elephant Art Center. They are a cooperative artist studio/gallery in Frederick, MD featuring over 3000 sq. ft. of gallery spaces and 10 studio spaces. Two full studios and one shared studio are available now.

Cost is $200 a month for the full studio and $100 for the shared studio, all utilities included. Studios are roomy and have large windows. Group and solo shows at the Blue Elephant are available for all members. Currently on exhibit is a Blue Elephant group show. Please send contact information (name, address, phone, email), some images of your work and one page statement of work and artist intent to Brian Slagle, Blue Elephant, 4a W. 5th St., Frederick, MD 21701 or call him at 301-663-7809. Email address is blueelephantart@aol.com.

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Deadline: Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Touchstone Gallery on 7th Street is having a call for artists for its 6th Annual juried competition. The show will be curated by my good friend Joe Shannon, easily one of the best painters in our area. Joe, who is a retired curator from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and currently teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He is also a reviewer for Art in America and writes art related stories for The Washington Times and sometimes also for the Post.

Prospectus can be downloaded from the gallery website, or send a SASE to Touchstone Gallery, 406 7th St., NW, Washington, DC 20004. For further information contact Camille Mosely-Pasley, Director, Touchstone Gallery, 202-347-2787, or info@touchstonegallery.com.

Last night was opening night for the four Canal Square Galleries in Georgetown. It was pretty good, with around three hundred people showing up over the three hour period.

Parish Gallery had a particularly interesting photography show, which featured some very arousing photographs by Alex Downs. It's rare to see an erotic photography show in Washington, and Downs manages to capture several highly sensual photographs of women while also investigating SM imagery.

We have a show of new figurative assemblages by Katie Dell Kaufman, who teaches at the Corcoran.

No matter how hard I try, I just don't get this guy and I now I am puzzled as well as to why the chief art critic of the New York Times Michael "Dia" Kimmelman, suddenly likes him so much.

Kimmelman writes that "Mr. Currin is among other things a latter-day Jeff Koons, trafficking in lowdown humor, heartless kitsch and ironic smut, while offering up dollops of finesse, beauty and brains. The combination is disorienting and, at its best, thrilling."

I'm disoriented by the review! Not in a million years would I have speculated that the same critical mind that loves the minimalist nothingness of most Dia:Beacon artists, would also find John Currin "thrilling."

If you like Currin - do you also like Lisa Yuskavage?

Live and learn.