New Art BLOG

Warren Craghead has a new BLOG called Drawer. Visit often!

Trawick Prize

This coming Friday is the deadline for artists to submit slides to the Trawick Prize. This is the third annual prize competition that awards $14,000 in prize monies to four selected artists.

Deadline for slide submission is Friday, April 8, 2005 and up to fifteen artists will be invited to display their work from September 6, 2005 – September 30, 2005 in downtown Bethesda at Creative Partners Gallery.

The competition will be juried by Olga Viso, the Deputy Director at the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Andrea Pollan, an independent curator, fine arts appraiser and art consultant and Dr. Thom Collins, Executive Director of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, MD.

The Trawick Prize was established by the generosity of local small business owner Carol Trawick. Ms. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 20 years in downtown Bethesda. She is the Chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. and Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District.

The Trawick Prize is separate and different from the Bethesda Painting Awards (also sponsored through the generosity of Ms. Trawick; the deadline for the Bethesda Painting Awards has already passed). But Ms. Trawick now ponies up $20,000 of her own money to award to area artists (the competition is open to DC, MD and VA artists); this is especially commendable because she's a small business owner who has stepped forward and put her money where her mouth is (in her community), while other area business giants have ignored repeated requests to help add to the prize monies. By the way, we contribute $1,000 for a Young Artist's Award.

Wouldn't it be nice if our area's business giants like... Giant Supermarkets, or AOL or Lockheed Martin each threw in a measly (to them) $20,000 to this pot of money so generously started by a small local business?

That would mean a local art prize of $80,000! That would certainly change an artist's day, presence and stature, uh?

Forward this link to major area business giants and maybe we can shame them into participating in what Ms. Trawick has seeded.

The application for the prize is online here.

Sock to the Jaw

And yet another person (in this case Sarah Corteau) challenges Blake Gopnik's treatment of a historical subject. She opens with:

In his March 26 Style review of the National Gallery of Art's Gilbert Stuart exhibition, Blake Gopnik used pop psychology to interpret the artist's portraits.

Stuart's life was indeed rich with drama. Until his death, Stuart teetered on bankruptcy -- as likely an explanation for his prolific production as ego or desire for celebrity. But Mr. Gopnik never mentioned this fact, instead choosing to put Stuart on the shrink's couch.

Read the piece here.

Wanna Go to a Gallery Closing Reception Today?

Curated by Margaret Boozer and Claire Huschle, "Existing to Remain" at DCAC closes today with a gallery talk at 3PM when you can join the artists and curators for the Gallery talk and Closing Reception.

In "Existing to Remain," four artists use ceramics and other materials as a point of departure to study transformation in the artistic process. The title refers to designations on architectural drawings denoting what is to be destroyed and what will remain during renovation. Kate Hardy examines the slippery delineation between Art and Craft in public collections. Rebecca Murtaugh considers frequency, time, and permanence. Claire Sherwood looks closely at notions of the feminine in the transformation of materials like coal and cement. Dina Weston studies aggregation and biography in an installation that uses existing architecture.

DCAC is located at 2438 18th Street, NW in Washington and can be reached at 202/462-7833.

Thanks G.P.!

Click on the Van Gogh Google and prepare to die laughing!

My day has been made and soon I will head out to the Arlington Arts Center for their opening tonite.

See ya there!

DCist Review

DCist has a review of the new William Christenberry show at Hemphill by Seth Thomas Pietras; the first of what I hope are many more visual art reviews by DCist.

Faces of the Fallen

Michael O'Sullivan writes some intelligent viewpoints about the Faces of the Fallen exhibition that makes up for the unexcusable pulpit-preaching piece earlier written by Philip Kennicott.

I do find this quote puzzling:

Vivienne Lassman, a former gallery owner and freelance curator who helped to install the final works, put it as bluntly as possible: "This is not an art exhibition."

She's wrong.

This is an art exhibition.

The debate as to the quality of the portraiture could apply to any group show in the history of art; what clouds this issue is that politics got involved in the mix, and because neither the pro nor the anti-war sides were allowed to kidnap this project (the Honorary Chairs for the exhibition include Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA), Senator John McCain (AZ), Senator John Warner (VA), Congressman John Dingell (MI), and Congressman John McHugh (NY) among others), the sore losers on both extremist sides are whining. The show, as it stands right now (and as O'Sullivan points out), is is largely nonpartisan and agenda-free.

There are some really amateurish, inept portraits, and there are also some superbly well done portraits; but let's not mix words: it is an art exhibition, and a powerfully memorable one at that.

Plus, and as O'Sullivan points out:

After all, you don't go to a showing of the AIDS quilt, or "This Is New York," the open-to-all-comers traveling exhibition of photographs of 9/11 and its aftermath, and critique the sewing technique of the quilters or the tonal qualities of the mostly amateur shutterbugs' prints.

I think that it is an impressive, emotional and memorable art project and send my thanks to every participating artist and the organizers for creating such a memorable event.

I also think that the artists who were rejected by the curator for trying to inject a political mix into the project have a solid and deep set of opinions that should be expressed, and I certainly hope that they unite and find a venue to show their anti-war or pro-war or political viewpoint portraits. If and when that happens, that will be good for the dialogue created by an important art exhibition, and their exhibition will also be art.