Alligators (and a giant bunny)

I am super busy this week, with some deliveries and installations to take care of, as well as a massive amount of deadlines and work that has all come down to this week, as I have an unplanned trip to California next week.

More later... there are loads of terrific shows around town that needs some good mention and discussion.

Meanwhile, Michelle Banks sent me the below, which brought a smile to my face this morning:

Artists erect giant pink bunny on mountain

An enormous pink bunny has been erected on an Italian mountainside where it will stay for the next 20 years.

The 200-foot-long toy rabbit lies on the side of the 5,000 foot high Colletto Fava mountain in northern Italy's Piedmont region.

Viennese art group Gelatin designed the giant soft toy and say it was "knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool".

Group member Wolfgang Gantner said: "It's supposed to make you feel small, like Gulliver. You walk around it and you can't help but smile."

And Gelatin members say the bunny is not just for walking around - they are expecting hikers to climb its 20 foot sides and relax on its belly.

The giant rabbit is expected to remain on the mountain side until 2025.

New Arts Newspaper

There's a new (at least new to me) arts-focused monthly. It's the Scout Newspaper, and they're looking for submissions.

Details here.

Arts on Foot

Today is the Arts on Foot festival around the Penn Quarter.

Arts on Foot will feature visual and performing artists at multiple venues between 4th and 14th Streets, Pennsylvania Avenue and L Street.

New this year are a preview of the 2006 Capital Fringe Festival, participation at the Canadian Embassy of the DC Shorts Film Festival, sculptor Robert Cole’s street exhibit at Gallery Place, and Woolly Mammoth’s new theatre, which people may take tours of during Arts on Foot.

Edison Place Gallery with an exhibit organized by the YWCA has also joined the list of participants. And the juried Art Market is more than fifty percent larger than last year’s market with many well-known names exhibiting and selling their artwork as part of the festival.

Along with all of the day's scheduled events, 22 area restaurants will be offering "Samplings" of their cuisine at modest prices on F Street between 8th and 9th and celebrated chefs from a number of these and other restaurants will demonstrate their cooking skills.

Details, schedules and directions here.

See ya there!

I went to the opening of "Mirrors: Contemporary Mexican Artists in the United States," last Wednesday at The Cultural Institute of Mexico, and it was packed.

The exhibition, curated by my good friend Santiago Espinoza de los Monteros was absolutely terrific, and if I have time, I will return to it and write more extensively about it.

My top pick for the group was the astonishing work by San Diego artist Marianela de la Hoz, who displayed a set of tiny tempera miniatures that were absolutely breathtaking in detail, composition and intelligent titles that became doors into the psyche of the painting.

"Hoy estuve tejiendo con el estambre de tus ojos"
Egg tempera on board
3.9 x 1.9 in. c.2003

And on Friday...

Numark Gallery has the opening of its fall season with The Empire of Sighs, a group exhibition curated by Andrea Pollan. The Empire of Sighs brings together nine artists: Laura Carton, Sarah Hobbs, Kyung Jeon, Michael Kalmbach, Takehito Koganezawa, Michele Kong, Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz, Roxy Paine and Julianne Swartz. These artists conjure a mood of delicate neurosis, awash with fantasy, obsessiveness, hallucinatory allusions, erotic illicitness, childhood fears, solitude, ethereality, and hints at forces unseen. The reception is from 6:30-8PM and the show will be up through October 29.

In Georgetown, the five Canal Square galleries will host their usual third Friday openings from 6-9PM. We will host the American solo debut of Lithuanian artist Zygimantas Augustinas, whose work we've been showing since he was an art student in Vilnius in 1997, and whose career skyrocketed in Europe when he was one of the prizewinners in the prestigious BP Portrait Prize Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The openings are catered by the Sea Catch Restaurant and go from 6-9PM.

Moved Man by Augustinas
At the Arlington Arts Center, the Fall Solo Exhibitions series open with a reception from 6-9PM, featuring six one-person shows, each in its own gallery. If you're there, don't miss the amazing video paintings by Scott Hutchison and the glass work of Allegra Marquart.

Wanna go to an opening tonight?

"Mirrors: Contemporary Mexican Artists in the United States," opens tonight at 7:00 pm at The Cultural Institute of Mexico.

Details here.

And also opening tonight is That's Not How I Remember It... at Salve Regina Gallery at CUA. This is an exhibition exploring how our identities shape and are shaped by memories. Opening from 6-9PM. The exhibition includes work by:

Beverly Ress
Candace Keegan
Elizabeth Jernigan
John Figura
Judy Jashinsky
Karen J. Topping
Lori Spencer
Matthew Liddle

Salve Regina Gallery is located on the campus of Catholic University, 620 Michigan Ave, NE. Washington DC, 20064 or take Metro’s Red line to the Brookland/CUA. Details here.

WSC Fundraiser

The Washington Sculpture Center is being kicked out of their building in order to build the new baseball stadium.

In order to help raise funds to pay for relocation and set-up expenses at their new site, they are hosting a Sculpture Soiree and Silent Auction on September 22, 2005.

View details and RSVP here.