Massacre
Later today I am going to delete from the DC Art News BLOGroll all those listed bloggers who haven't posted stuff in months.
Why BLOGrollem if no blogging takes place?
At least my deletions will be because of lack of activity rather than pettyness.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Elephant Dung
We've all been bored to death with all the attention that some American museums have been getting online due to a variety of unethical lapses, deaccessioning of artwork, construction or deconstruction, parking lots, etc.
Yawn...
And over in that odd amalgamation of countries and peoples known as Great Britain, they're having their own issues (pronounced the BBC-way or eesssssius), with the Tate spending well over a million dollars (£705,000) in acquiring Christopher Ofili's work The Upper Room, which is partly made by using a few dozen dollops of elephant dung.
It's not the elephant doody that is the issue, but that at "...the heart of the affair is the fact that, when The Upper Room was purchased from him for £705,000 earlier this year, Ofili was himself a Tate trustee. This, critics say, represents a major conflict of interest. It also seems to contradict official Tate guidelines, which say: "Even the perception of a conflict of interest in relation to a board member can be extremely damaging to the body's reputation."
Read the story in The Independent here.
About ten years ago, something somewhat similar (in my opinion) on a much lesser scale, happened here in DC as a result of a very generous donation left in the will of DC area artist Gene Davis to the then-named National Museum of American Art (now called the Smithsonian American Art Museum).
Read that story, published in 1995 in the WaPo, here.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Openings on 1st Friday
There's a ton of openings tomorrow, being first Friday and all...
Over in Georgetown, Addison/Ripley Fine Art has Wolf Kahn opening with a reception for Kahn from 6-8PM.
Also in Georgetown, Govinda Gallery has photographs by Mark Selinger in an exhibition titled "In My Stairwell." The opening reception is from 6-9PM.
And still in Georgetown, two of the Canal Square galleries are having openings from 6-8PM.
On the second floor of the Square, the Anne C. Fisher Gallery hosts a reception in honor of their well-received, current exhibition, South American Holiday. This lively exhibition by several South American artists is a feast for the eyes! It includes mixed media collages by Joan Belmar, paintings in acrylic on canvas and acrylic on paper by Patricia Secco, and monoprints, hanging paper constructions and the video Zapatos Blancos by artist Helga Thomson.
Under the Anne C. Fisher Gallery, our neighbor Parish Gallery opens a new group show with work by Floyd Coleman, Victor Ekpuk, Ron Flemmings, Liani Foster, Naza McFarren, Roberto Morassi, Deanna Schwartzberg, Stephanie Parish Taylor, and Yvette Watson.
On 7th Street, Zenith Gallery has the DC debut of Drew Ernst in an exhibition titled "Connected." The reception is Friday from 6-9PM and Ernst has an artist's talk on Saturday, December 3rd starting at 2PM.
Around Dupont Circle, Irvine Contemporary has Sean Foley: Rubes, Scuttlebutt & Loggerheads through December 31. The gallery will be part of the 1st Friday extended hours from 6-8PM, but the actual opening for Foley is December 9, from 6-8PM. Nearby neighbor Washington Printmakers has prints by Jenny Freestone, who teaches at the Corcoran. In addition to the extended hours from 6-8PM tomorrow, a formal opening for Freestone will be held Thursday, December 8, from 6-8 pm (and earlier there's aGallery Talk/Brown Bag Lunch on Thursday, December 8, 12-1 pm).
Most of the other Dupont Circle area galleries will also have extended hours from 6-8PM. Go see (and buy) some artwork!
The Quilts as Stamps
Remember the superb Quilts of Gee's Bend exhibition at the Corcoran? (If you don't then click here).
Well they are soon to be USPS Stamps!
Stats
Warning: Own horn tooting coming next...
November stats show that DC Art News received over 22,000 visits and nearly 26,000 page views during the 30 days of November, as readership has more than doubled since the beginning of 2005. And MyBlog stats show that in the last week alone, DC Art News sent over 2,000 visitors to other sites through a link offered here.
Still a drop in the bucket, but always growing!
And it still cracks me up how several of our fellow online art bloggers now hide their daily stats (which were once visible) under passwords in order to hide our/their relative insignificance in the overall massive world of information dissemination.
Insecurity is a difficult thing to conquer; let's all keep growing.
Pot Calling the Kettle Black
In an interesting and well-crafted review of "The Art of Richard Tuttle" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the WaPo's Chief Art Critic writes (italics mine):
"Hilton Kramer, then a famously conservative critic at the New York Times, took the show as the perfect occasion to release some of his trademark bile. He called the exhibition "irredeemable," "pathetic," "a bore and a waste."Mmm... a review of the Pot's last couple of years' worth of art reviews may reveal a few violations of the Kettle's trademarks.
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