Bader Fund

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund invites visual artists (excluding filmmakers, video artists, and performance artists) to apply for grants. Artists must be 40 years of age or older, live within 150 miles of Washington, D.C., and demonstrate that they have the potential to benefit as artists from a grant.

Last year three grants were awarded, one for $20,000 and two for $15,000.

Applications must be postmarked no later than September 30, 2005. To obtain a current application form, please visit the Fund's website: www.baderfund.org, or write to the Fund at:

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund
5505 Connecticut Avenue, NW #268
Washington, D.C. 20015

Send email inquiries to grants@baderfund.org.

New DC art Blog

Samantha Wolov, whose work is one of the more noticeable photographic entries in Seven (she takes photos of her friends having sex), has a new Blog: Nekkid with a Camera.

I love that title!

Visit Sam often. Her Blog is here and her website is here.

Openings This Week

The Art League’s American Landscape show is now global!

Last year in honor of the Art League’s 50th Anniversary, the annual American Landscape Show expanded to include both American and international landscapes. As their artists and visitors travel internationally, the show was a resounding success and will, from now on, be known as the International Landscape Show.

This All-Media Membership Show will be juried by Timothy App, an award-winning and well-respected abstract painter. The show opens August 3rd and runs through Sept. 5th. The opening reception and awards ceremony is this coming Sunday from 2-4PM.

---

Washington Printmakers Gallery presents the National Small Works 2005 exhibition featuring works from 23 artists nationwide.

The show runs from August 2 - 28, 2005, with an opening reception and awards presentation this coming Friday, August 5 from 5 to 8 pm. A gallery talk with the artists is next week, Thursday, August 11 from 12 to 1 pm. The juror for the show was Krystyna Wasserman, Curator of Book Arts at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

---

Conner Contemporary has Academy 2005 opening on August 5 from 6-8PM and running through August 27.

The exhibition, this year being curated by Jamie L. Smith, takes the pulse of new work being created by recent graduates and students from our area's art schools. It is one of my favorite shows of the year and it is now in its fifth year.

Go see some art this week!

Talking Done

Just back from the curator's talk at Seven. A nicely sized crowd showed up, which was a little surprising to me, since usually it has been my experience that these curator talks only attract the artists involved. Thanks to all the DC Art News readers who came by and said howdy.

Bailey has a nice photo storyline of the talk here.

He also managed to fall in love in the subway on the way to Seven and on the way back! The two photos below are courtesy of Bailey:

Me outside Warehouse discussing Seven

Me discussing Tim Tate's work
And the below photo courtesy of Mark Cameron Boyd:


Alessandra Torres discusses her installation
After the talk Alessandra and her family took me out to dinner to Lauriol, where I had some excellent Cuban food.

And Bailey also managed to whip out a monster letter to the Washington Post editors taking Jessica Dawson on for her dismissal of Seven.

It's OK; it's her right as a critic.

And yet, a bad review is better than no review at all. Jessica's expected dismissal of the show has nonetheless resulted in one major sale to an important DC collector.

In addition to Jessica's and John Blee's review, there are three separate other reviews being written right now, and hopefully they will be published soon; let's see what some other observers think.

Curator's Talk

What: Curator's Talk on Seven, an exhibition of 67 WPA/C artists.

When: Today at 2PM.

Where: The seven spaces that make up the Warehouse Theatre and Galleries complex. Located at 1021 7th Street, NW, across from the new Washington Convention Center. We'll start at the top gallery on the third floor.

See ya there!

Mid Year Report

As much as I bitch about lack of dedicated art buyers and collectors in the DC area (especially considering the huge amount of wealth in our region), I was surprised to find out when the fair Catriona recently told me that so far this is our best year ever, and that we've already sold more artwork by the end of July than all of last year.

But I am still amazed at the large percentage of non-Washingtonians buying art from us: New York, LA, Floridians, Irish and Brits!

Why?

Waste newsprint space on this?