Last Thursday's Reviews

"[Contemporary] photography no longer bears any resemblance to photography in the past century's sense. If anything, it's a lot closer to the way old-fashioned figurative painting used to be."

Read Jessica's reviews of The Staged Body at Curator's Office, Athena Tacha at Marsha Mateyka and Brandon Morse at Strand on Volta.

And at the WCP, read Jeffry Cudlin's review of Brandon Morse here.

And also at the WCP, Louis Jacobson has three reviews: Christopher Burkett at Kathleen Ewing Gallery, and "Opening on 14th" at Hemphill Fine Arts, and "All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860" at the National Gallery of Art.

Philip Barlow's Top 10 DC Art Shows of 2004

This is the first of about a dozen Top 10 art shows of 2004 that I've received so far. It comes from Philip Barlow, a well-known DC area art collector, board member of several DC art organizations and a knowledgeable member of our visual arts scene. I'll be posting the others during the rest of the week.

Barlow passes that his list is in order and that it was unintentional that he wound up with 10 different galleries in the list.

1. Invisible Things, Dan Treado, Addison/Ripley Gallery, May 15 – June 19

2. Run, Maggie Michael, G Fine Art, September 18 – October 16

3. Evidence, Robin Rose, Numark Gallery, February 27 – April 10

4. Leo Villareal Show, Leo Villareal, Conner Contemporary, May 15 – June 26

5. Concentrics, Craig Dennis, Jae Ko, Kathleen Kucka, Andrea Way, Marsha Mateyka Gallery, June 5 – July 24

6. AM I THE BeST, Carroll Sockwell, Washington Arts Museum (Edison Place Gallery), November 3 – December 17

7. On The Line: machines, maps and memory, Perry Steindel, Sylvie van Helden, Jennifer Swan, Andrew Krieger, Andy Holtin, Katy Uravich, District of Columbia Arts Center, April 30 – May 30

8. These Things Happen, Brandon Morse, Strand on Volta, November 18 – December 18

9. The Out-of-Towners, Laura Amussen, Lily Cox-Richard, Harrison Haynes, George Jenne, Michele Kong, Transformer Gallery, December 13, 2003 - January 17, 2004

10. Thom Flynn, Thom Flynn, Nevin Kelly Gallery, April 21 – May 9

The Sculpture-Stealing Capital of the World

What's going on in Fairfax County? As James W. Bailey points out, in 2004 there were three large sculptures stolen or dumped in Fairfax County!

1. Marc Sijan’s $40,000 "Legs Folded" from the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival. (It was eventually recovered from the apartment of the thief in Fairfax County).

2. Zach Oxman’s sculpture of Robert S. Simon in Reston. (Also recovered from Lake Anne and reinstalled at Lake Anne, Fairfax County).

3. And the PandaMania Panda found dumped in Fairfax County. (Recovered in Fairfax County - In today’s WaPo Metro section there is a picture with a photo caption line of a Fairfax County Police Officer pulling a stolen PandaMania Panda (originally stolen from the corner of Connecticut and Florida Avenues NW) from the Pohick Creek in Lorton.

Top 10 DC Area Art Shows of the Year

I had such an overwhelming response to my call for Artomatic Top 10 artists, that I thought that it may be fun to also have a call for readers' Top 10 DC area art shows.

I will have my top 10 listed soon.

Email me your Top 10 list and I'll post them here. I'd like to restrict the list to the Greater Washington area galleries and museums and other visual arts spaces.

A couple of Florida opportunities for artists

Since I was just there...

Deadline: December 3, 2004
The John S & James L Knight Foundation seeks work for permanent installation at the foundation's Miami headquarters. A total of 26 works will be selected, corresponding to each of the communities where the Knight brothers operated newspapers. For submission guidelines contact: Steven F Greenwald Design.

Deadline: December 3, 2004
The Fifth Annual Florida Outdoor Sculpture Competition, a joint project of Polk Museum of Art and the City of Lakeland, is accepting submissions for a Public Art exhibition in downtown Lakeland. Open to sculptors working in North America. Ten works will be accepted and will receive $1,000 to offset transportation expenses. $3,000 Best of Show. Deadline is December 31, 2004. Non-refundable $15 entry fee.

Artists should submit labeled slides of up to three completed works, with 2-3 views of each work, along with a resume, and one paragraph artist statement. Electronic submissions will be accepted via email or PC compatible CD. Images must be in .jpg format, no larger than 600 pixels wide at 72 dpi; and artist statement should be in plain text, Word, or .pdf format.

Send all materials to: Polk Museum of Art, Att: Outdoor Sculpture Competition, 800 E Palmetto St, Lakeland FL 33801-5529. No incomplete works or project proposals will be considered. All works must be able to be anchored to concrete and maintenance free for the duration of the exhibit. For full prospectus/further details, visit this website or call 863-688-7743 ext. 289.

There's an old Henny Youngman joke that goes like this:

I just flew in from Miami... boy are my arms tired!

Anyway, back in town; came straight from the airport to my opening at Fraser Gallery Georgetown. Thanks to all of you who came down and said hi and also thanks to those who bought some work!

Anyway... a couple of good online links:

One of the reader's of Jesse Cohen's excellent ArtDC reports on one of the art casualties of the baseball move to DC. Read it here.

Jesse, in a separate thread, asks the question: Should blogs follow the rules of journalism? Read all the interesting comments here.

And in today's Post, Michael O'Sullivan has a nice review of Alex Bay's terrific sculptural show currently at our neighbor MOCA. There's a couple of spectacular wall pieces in this show that ought to go directly to one of our area's museums.

Kelly Towles, whose work appeared in quite a few of the Artomatic lists, also opened tonight at David Adamson. This should be a good show to visit. This is the second (that I know of) of quite a few Artomatic artists' exhibitions that are mushrooming all over the city. And last week Jan Sherfy opened at Delila Katzka Fine Art.

JT Kirkland, over at Thinking About Art has a great opportunity for artists to discuss their work through the Ellipse Arts Center's space in Arlington. Read about it here.

I'm flying back to DC tomorrow... hopefully I'll make it in plenty of time for my opening at Canal Square at 6 PM.

See you there!