Create an e-annoyance: go to jail

For the SOB who has recently kidnapped my email address and is now sending mass emails out to everyone (including me): annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. Last January 5, 2006, President Bush signed into law a new prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

So starting January 5, 2006, it's apparently actually illegal to flame someone under a false name in a blog's comments or any other place.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else."

For some bastard to kidnap my email address and then send out mass emailings is annoying not only to me but also to everyone who gets it as if from me. I'm gonna find you buddy, and then I'm gonna take the new law into my own hands and kick your ass.

Read the story here.

Two New Caravaggios Discovered!

I just finished reading Jonathan Harr's superb The Lost Painting.

The book is the story, told by Harr masterfully as an art detective story of sorts, of the discovery of Caravaggio's The Taking of the Christ in a Jesuit residence in Ireland.

I strongly recommend it if:
(a) you like a detective story,
(b) want to learn a little about Caravaggio's life and
(c) want to learn a lot about restoring a painting.

Also note how even great masters can make an error when dealing with the figure. Look at the painting and then observe how the arm of Judas, as it hugs Christ and is partially covered by the metal-clad arm of the Roman guard, is way too short as the foreshortening has been completely screwed up by Caravaggio. Maybe that's why he's looking so intently at the scene (Caravaggio is the man holding the light in the extreme right of the painting).

But now (thanks AJ), the BBC tells us that: "Art historians have spoken of their shock and delight after two paintings discovered in a French church were found to be by old master Caravaggio. Pilgrimage of Our Lord to Emmaus and Saint Thomas Putting his Finger on Christ's Wound have hung in the town of Loches for nearly two centuries."

Read the story here.

More secrets

Looks like PostSecret is starting to break out nationally.

There is a piece on it in Newsweek magazine this week and a crew from ABC World New Tonight is today taping a segment that I think will be airing tonight in the next few days.

Yep... that's me

For all those of you who have emailed me asking... yes that's me on TV yapping about DC area art events on "ArtsMedia News" on MHz TV.

Parsons on Erickson and Pavlovic

Adrian Parsons takes a good look at the closing shows for Fusebox and Fraser Georgetown.

Read the reviews here.

Washington Sculptors Group

The Washington Sculptors Group is one of the most active and talent-loaded artists' organizations in our area.

I have been hearing good things and need to take a trip to Pepco’s Edison Gallery to see the Washington Sculptors Group and WPA/C's Sculpture Unbound Show.

But before I forget, I also wanted to mention (so that everyone can get this on their schedules) about Sculpture Now: 2006, an exhibition of the Washington Sculptors Group, juried by by my good friend and ubercurator Sarah Tanguy.

The exhibition opens on Feb. 6 and runs through May 5, 2006, but the opening eception is Thursday February 16, 2006 from 6:00-8:30 pm, with a juror's talk at 7:30 pm, on that same night. The exhibit will be at:

Washington Square
1050 Connecticut Avenue NW
(at "L" Street)
Washington, DC 20036
(Red line to Farragut North)
8:30am to 9:00pm, Monday through Saturday

Tanguy said about this exhibit:

"...the 42 selected works offer insights into the Washington Sculptors Group’s current interests as well as a spectrum of approaches, materials, and themes. From figurative stone studies, mixed media installations, to abstract steel compositions, the exhibition explores science and math, and to a larger extent nature, the self and culture."

Wanna go to an opening tomorrow?

The Arlington Arts Center's "Deja Vu: A New View" opens tomorrow with a reception for all 81 artists from 6-9PM.

The exhibition is a "robust exhibition of artworks created in the last three years by 81 artists who exhibited at the Arlington Arts Center before its expansion and renovation. This large and wide-ranging invitational show brings together works in sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, fine craft, photographs, prints, installation and video, offering a unique overview of the new works of many artists who are now familiar to the public. Some of the artists included are Foon Sham, Rebecca Kamen, Pat Goslee, Patrick Craig, Erik Sandberg, and Marc Robarge."

The exhibition runs through March 18, 2006.