WaPo site down

The WaPo website that takes the questions for Steve Reiss is down.

I suppose that you can try to email Mr. Reiss the questions here: reisss@washpost.com

URGENT!

Today, at noon, Steve Reiss, Asst. editor of the Style section of the Washington Post takes questions about arts coverage in the Washington Post.

This is an opportunity for those of us who have been concerned for years about the Style section dismal coverage of the visual arts, especially since the Galleries column went to a twice a month schedule, to ask Mr. Reiss as to why the Post does not cover the local visual arts to the same level as local theatre, music, performance, etc.

You can submit questions here. Please be intelligent and respectful.

Here is my question to Mr. Reiss:

By the time that one adds up commercial art galleries, non-profit art galleries, alternative art spaces, embassy galleries, and cultural art center galleries, there are over 100 new art shows every month in the Greater Washington, DC area, making it one of the largest and most active visual art scenes in the nation.

And yet the Style section has diminished its already dismal gallery art coverage to a twice a month schedule by Jessica Dawson. And the Post's Chief Art Critic (Blake Gopnik) focuses exclusively on museum shows, and does not review local art galleries. By comparison, his colleages at the NY Times and LA Times (for example) review both museums and their cities' local galleries. The Arts Beat column also focuses on arts news events and rarely on local galleries.

What can the Style section do to improve local gallery coverage, say to the same (or even 50%) of the level as local theatre coverage (which is covered in Style on a nearly daily basis)?

Devlin show in the news

Our current Andrew Devlin exhibition in Georgetown has received a couple of nice mentions in the press. Eliza Findlay writes here for The Connection newspapers, while Beverly Crawford writes here for the Times Community newspapers.

See the exhibition online here.

Wanna go to an opening?

Heather Levy opens at Cafe Luna tomorrow. The reception for Levy is from 7-9PM.

Cafe Luna is located @ 1633 P St., NW Washington, DC (202) 387-7400. The show runs until Aug. 6th, 2005

Inspiration

This next five city travel that I have commencing next Sunday will give me an opportunity to catch up on reading; with half a dozen flights involved, I can knock off at least six or seven books.

And I think that I will re-read one of my favorite books of all time: Gunter Grass' "The Flounder."

This will be my third or fourth reading of this fascinating book, which is sort of a macabre, dark re-telling of the story of the talking fish who grants wishes. It all begins in the Germanic Stone Age, when the magical, talking fish is caught by a fisherman at the very spot where millennia later Grass's home town, Danzig, will arise.

Like the fish, the fisherman is now immortal, and down through the ages they move together, as the fish teaches the fisherman art, and breaks him away from the power and dominance of Teutonic women. He then blends German history, cooking recipes and a healthy dose of darkness into a fascinating story, where at the end, so tired of the mess men have made of the world, the fish allows itself to be captured by three Socialist East German women, who promptly put him on public trial for offenses to womanhood.

This book, everytime that I read it, inspires artwork from me. Below is "Sieglinde Huntscha and The Flounder," circa 2000. About 5 x 20 inches, and somewhere in a private collection in Cleveland.

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund

Deadline: September 30, 2005

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund welcomes applications from visual artists aged 40 years or older, who live within 150 miles of Washington, D.C. and can demonstrate that they have the potential to benefit as artists from a grant.

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund does not, however, accept applications from filmmakers, video artists, and performance artists. In December 2004 the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund awarded three grants, one of $20,000 and two of $15,000 each.

The deadline for applications is September 30, 2005. Application forms may be downloaded from the fund's web site: www.baderfund.org or may be requested by sending an email to grants@baderfund.org or by calling 202-288-4608.

Short (Busy) Week

I've got a hell of tight week for the next few days, as I am flying North to New England on Sunday afternoon and will be away for the next two weeks on a five city swing.

Bad timing for this trip, as I have some really fierce reasons to be home, but such is destiny.

In addition to my normal workload, because Catriona is in Scotland shooting (photos not deer), this week I have to deinstall the current Bethesda Painting Awards show, which ends tomorrow. The show did surprisingly well, with quite a few sales, especially multiple sales by transplanted New Yorker John Aquilino, who actually has a solo opening this coming Sunday at Strathmore. Then on Thursday I have to install the next Bethesda show, which is our annual Summer Group Show (opening is this coming Friday from 6-9PM).

I also got to prepare everything for the opening by the way...

Somewhere in there I got fit in meeting one of the major art collectors in the area, and give him a tour of Seven, as he's specifically interested in discovering some new work by our area artists, and I also have a deadline for the Crier newspapers, as well as a catalog intro essay deadline for an artist in New Orleans (the artist who won the huge Frida Kahlo exhibit that I juried for Art.com), picking up the fair Catriona from the airport as she returns from Scotland, and then deliver and install a ton of Tim Tate's recent sales.

And yet... one makes time for what's really important.