Today's Washington Post has a story by Philip Kennicott that somewhat echoes what I discussed briefly in yesterday's posting.

As one looks at this desolate new photo of Mars, taken by the Spirit's Rover at the Mars landing site on Monday, I wonder what the first ever photos of the Red planet will fetch in vintage art auctions in a couple of hundred years (the vintage moonlanding photos already fetching quite a nice price).

I was also struck how the new photo of Mars looks a little like a Richard Misrach, but more brooding and less "landscapy" and "pretty."

Click on the photo above to visit the NASA website. It's a spectacular presentation of the Mars mission. Check out this breathtaking photograph of the Olympos Mons volcano - the largest in the solar system.

NASA is sort of re-inventing photography, as these images are not truly "photographs" but are created after processing thousands of laser altimeter elevation measurements taken by the Mars Global Surveyor. Then a computer back here puts it all together and creates a 3-D image - but this is definately art as the output of machines.

Finally ArtsJournal.com has a visual arts BLOG! It's Artopia - John Perreault's Art Diary.

John Perreault has been writing about art for many years, including art criticism for the Village Voice, ArtNews, Art in America magazines, and others.

He is currently an associate editor and writes regularly for both N. Y. Arts Magazine and American Ceramics; he is also on the editorial advisory board of Sculpture magazine and is a trustee of the Tiffany Foundation. He has also been president of the American Section of the International Association of Art Critics.

Perreault has also written a book for Abrams on the watercolors of Philip Pearlstein and is now editing a three-volume anthology of his collected writings. He has also been a museum curator, an arts administrator, and professor of art history and is thus superbly qualified to offer us a great insight via his BLOG/Art Diary into the visual arts in New York and elsewhere.

Bookmark Artopia - John Perreault's Art Diary and visit often.

The Art League will be having their 37th Annual Patron's Show, and tickets go on sale on January 15.

If you don't know what the Patron's Show is, then let me tell you.

If you are crazy enough to be hanging around Old Town Alexandria about 4 in the morning on January 17 you will notice people forming a long line in the cold outside the Torpedo Factory. They will be waiting for a chance to get original art for their collections - or even starting a collection.

"A line for art?" you must be asking, "who is crazy enough to freeze lining up at Oh-dark-thirty just to buy artwork?"

Hundreds!

They will be lining up for one of the great art deals of the year: the 37th Annual Patron's Show. It's very simple: artists donate original artwork to the Art League, who inspects it, selects it and often frames it.

It is generally good art to suit all tastes, ranging from huge abstracts to delicate pencil drawings. Usually about 600 pieces are donated and hung, salon style in the Art League's gallery on the first floor of the Factory.

Then raffle tickets go up for sale at 10 am on the 17th, and they usually disappear and are sold out within an hour or two, and each ticket is guaranteed a work of art.

The drawing is on Sunday, February 15, and about 1500 people crowd into the main floor of the Torpedo Factory. They bring picnic baskets, wine, beer and all kinds of foods and goodies. It's a really cool time, a unique art scene in the area - far more popular and vociferous than some of the more stuffy art raffles held at other places.

On Sunday, February 15, the tickets are drawn at random, and as they are called, ticket-holders select a piece of art from the work on display on the walls and take it with them. It is without a doubt, the most sought after art ticket in town, and often incredible acquisitions are made. If you are a budding collector, don't miss it!

Washington's own seminal art BLOGger, Tyler Green has a very interesting and eloquent article on artnet.com.

Green makes an interesting (and valid) point about the fact that video art demands, and sometimes steals time from the viewer, as opposed to the viewer deciding how long to look at a painting or print.

It's true! In fact, regardless of the fact that 99% of most of the "video art" that I've seen are essentially rather forgettable artsy home movies, even the worst of them seems to have an invisible ability to keep the viewer plugged in watching. Even in sleepers like most of Tacita Dean's videos, one keeps a vigil, perhaps hoping that something interesting will eventually happen. At the other extreme, in the classical pre-video ancestor of video art (known then as "movies") Un Chien Andalou Buñuel and Dali­ have disconnected scenes that make no sense and yet glue the viewer from beginning to end.

Example: a few years ago I recall seeing a video at a Corcoran exhibition; I think it was a student graduate show. In the video, two girls, wearing large goat masks were butting horns (like mountain goats do) over and over again. Even though it was a repetitive, and after a while boring motion, I recall spending more time than planned just viewing it. This experience has repeated itself many times (before and since) with video art.

Why?

Green gives us his opinions as to why. And they are good observations. I also think that the fact that we are very much a television-obsessed society, and (as Harlan Ellison noted in the 60s), the glass teat is above all adictive; we have no choice! It's on a TV screen or being projected as a movie and thus the mind goes on automatic: one must watch.

For people who love lists, The Guardian's eloquent art critic Adrian Searle picks some of the highlights of the year ahead in art in the UK.

Our own 2004 schedule is already booked and solid, and of all the shows that we have scheduled for Georgetown and for Bethesda, I think that this very young Cuban photographer is going to steal the year. Her name is Cirenaica Moreira, and she has never exhibited in Washington, DC before and her work is absolutely breathtaking in my prejudiced opinion.

My number one in a still non-existent list of my top ten shows for 2004 in the Washington area? Ana Mendieta's retrospective at the Hirshhorn. Watch and see an art star become a mega superstar because of this show.

Art Jobs:

Deadline Jan 12, 2004. Graphic Design Professor. Starts August 19, 2004. Assistant professor. Teach three courses per semester in all levels of graphic design. MFA required. Proficiency in Macintosh systems and other software. For complete application information contact:
Allen Sheets
Minnesota State University
Dept of Art and Design
1104 7th Av S
Moorhead MN 56563
Or call 218-477-2151 or fax 218-477-5039 or visit their website.

Deadline Jan 15, 2004. Photography professor needed to teach 15 student contact hours per week. MFA and teaching experience required. Knowledge in traditional black and white photography, alternative developing processes, use of 4x5 camera, and computer imaging. Send letter of application, resume, 3 letters of reference, brief statement of teaching philosophy, 20 slides each of own and student work, samples of student teaching evaluations, and SASE to:
Jim Leisentritt
Herron School of Art
Indiana University - Purdue University
1701 N Pennsylvania St
Indianapolis IN 46202

Deadline January 15, 2004. Starts August 2004. Assistant professor, tenure track. Primary subject area should be European art, 15th-18th centuries. Also must identify a secondary teaching area. Teach art history survey and upper level undergraduate courses, direct MA theses. PhD preferred. Send letter of application, CV, samples of published materials, 1 page statement of teaching philosophy, sample syllabi, and contact info of 3 references to:
Art Historian - European Art Search
Dept of Art and Art History
California State University
Chico CA 95929
Or call 530-898-5331 or fax 530-898-4171