Gallery visits

Yesterday I dropped by the Art League Gallery in Alexandria to look at their Student Show, and then to the Target Gallery to see their crop of new Torpedo Factory artists, and finally Factory Photoworks (now re-named Multiple Exposures) to see their current membership show.

Later that night, Cyndi Spain, Arts Editor for DCist, and I visited most of the Dupont Circle Galleries, which were having their extended First Friday hours; several terrific surprises there!

More on both later today.

The Usual WaPo Bashing

Today's Style section has a large and bright article by WaPo fashion critic Robin Givhan.

It's one of nearly 100 fashion reviews a year that Givhan produces for the Style section. Usually brightly accompanied by a color image of some gaunt, sour faced woman, wearing funny-looking clothes and walking oddly.

And yet, this same Style section, in the world's second most powerful newspaper, deems it acceptable to only offer their readers about 25 gallery review columns a year. That's from a potential pool of around 1,000 visual art gallery exhibitions that occur per year in the Greater Washington, DC region.

If you don't get it, you don't get it.

I sincerely hope that the new Style editor gets it. Her name is Deborah Heard, and her email is heardd@washpost.com.

And the Rare WaPo Praise

An editor who does get it for the most part, is Joyce Jones, who is the editor of the Weekend section of the WaPo.

In fact, I submit that Weekend now offers a much better view of the area art scene than Style. And Michael O'Sullivan certainly is the only WaPo art critic who is actively involved and an integral and knowledgeable part of our area's art scene. By the way, read his excellent take on "Modigliani: Beyond the Myth" at the Phillips here.

Although... Weekend... ehr... could be better. I mean, they do capsule mini reviews for theater, and for movies; why not visual art shows?

Why not?

First Fridays

Tonight is the Dupont Circle Gallery Crawl, with extended hours from 6-8PM.

See ya there!

Donation Well Worth It!

MAP’s annual free hung benefit exhibition and auction returns. It is titled "Out of Order" (OOD) and it is open to all area artists, who are invited to hang one piece of artwork during a 24-hour installation period. Artwork will be available for sale (50%/50% split with MAP) in a silent auction during the gala.

Exhibition Dates: April 6-8, 2005

Hanging Dates: 9 am, April 6 through 9 am, April 7, 2005.

Gala Event and Party: Friday April 8, 8 pm-1am at Maryland Art Place (party time or what! At 8 Market Place, Suite 100 in Baltimore)

Visit www.mdartplace.org for more information about tickets and information for exhibiting artists.

Gossage on the Cover

Denise Wolff points out that the current issue of Photo-Eye, in addition to her superb interview with Chan Chao, also features a cover by DC area photographer John Gossage, and there's a nice "About the Cover" piece by Jim Stone here.

It discusses Gossage's new book Berlin in the Time of the Wall.

The Thursday Reviews

The WCP's Louis Jacobson reviews our current Mary Lang show in Georgetown and makes some excellent points on Lang's tranquil photography.

Over at the Gazette, Dr. Claudia Rousseau delivers a superb review of Metro Clay at the Rockville Arts Place, and lauds Margaret Boozer, whose show at Strand on Volta last year was one of my Top Ten Shows of the Year. Dr. Rousseau writes:

Among the 57 pieces by 13 artists who live and work in the metro area (hence the exhibit title "Metro Clay"), Boozer's work is probably the most dynamic. "Out of the Fire" is set into a large wooden box frame hanging on the central wall of the gallery, its dark brown color easily dominating the space. The piece is part of a larger series of clay wall works entitled "Land/Marks." These show the results of a working process that deals as directly as possible with the medium's essential nature. Boozer begins by spreading mounds of clay on the floor, then stomping, tearing, carving and otherwise pounding it. Buckets of slip are then splashed onto the broken surface. Thus set into motion, the natural processes inherent in clay take over. As the medium dries, it warps and cracks, taking on the appearance of earth as geologic material.

It is a fascinating idea, with unforeseeable outcomes. When the artist moves these pieces from the floor to the wall, they project the process they record, emphasizing the idea of the persistence of the earth and a sense of memory. There is, as Boozer herself has said, a visceral appeal to these works, connecting directly to the viewer's own identification with clay as earth.

For the exhibit, Boozer has launched another of these works in the gallery space. "In Process Porcelain Landscape" is a thick slab of creamy white porcelain clay, carved and manipulated, and set on a low base. Over it, the artist has poured slip of the same medium that collects in a pool on top and drips onto the floor. It is cool and moist to the touch at this writing, but by the end of the exhibit, will have changed into a craggy moonscape of dried clay.

Over at the WaPo, Jessica Dawson has an excellent review of Mexican Report at the Cultural Institute of Mexico. Miss Dawson prefers the video artists, but also makes an excellent point on the issue of the adjective "Mexican." This is sort of the same arguement that I have been making for years now about art and ethnicity, specifically the so-called "Hispanic" ethnicity, which I submit is a cultural and not an ethnic or racial term.

In her penultimate paragraph, it's apparent that Dawson has missed the memo that painting is hot again when she slams the "predominantly retrograde cache of paintings and drawings [that] hangs at Meridian International Center" and states that their the "predictable and anachronistic work that results is particularly forgettable."

Overall an excellent review of a show that I still have to go see and is in my "must see" list.

Bravo Dawson!

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By the way, tonight The Cultural Institute of Mexico will hold a roundtable discussion on trends in contemporary Mexican art starting at 6:30. Participants include exhibition curator Santiago Espinosa de los Monteros, art critic Anthony Harvey, Hirshhorn programs manager Milena Kalinovska and Curator's Office director Andrea Pollan. The Cultural Institute of Mexico is at 2829 16th St. NW, in DC. I wish I could make it tonight, but I have karate class on Thursdays!

The deadline for the inaugural Bethesda Painting Awards is rapidly approaching, and painters from the DC, Maryland and Virginia region have until Friday, March 11, 2005 to submit their applications. With $14,000 in cash prizes, this is one of the largest painting awards in the country, thanks to the incredible generosity of Ms. Carol Trawick, who also sponsors The Trawick Prize (that deadline is April 8, 2005).

Once the jurors have selected the finalists, we will exhibit them in our Bethesda gallery, where the final four will be awarded $14,000 in cash prizes based on the actual work. $10,000 will be awarded to the top prize winner, $2,000 to the second place winner, $1,000 to the third place winner. Additionally, a "Young Artist" award of $1,000 (artists born after March 11, 1975) will also be given.