O'Sullivan on the Collectors Club

"...Which brings me to the second reason invisibility is an important aspect of this show. If some of the artists' names (Eldzier Cortor, Lucille "Malkia" Roberts and others, for example) aren't household names, it may have something to do with the historical (and, to some degree, ongoing) struggle of black artists to be recognized in a museum and gallery culture that is still overwhelmingly white."

The WaPo's Michael O'Sullivan checks in with a timely and refreshing review of "Holding Our Own: Selections From the Collectors Club of Washington, D.C., Inc.," now on exhibit at the Arts Program Gallery of The University of Maryland University College and moving to downtown DC next month to Edison Place Gallery.

Read O'Sullivan's review here.

Congratulations

To DC area artists Joseph Barbaccia and Pat Goslee, whose work has been selected in a very difficult worldwide competition and will be published soon in the book titled "The World's Greatest Erotic Art of Today."

200 artists were selected by a dozen jurors from all over the world as part of a huge competition sponsored by Erotic Signature.

Attainable Art at Nevin Kelly

Review by Katie Tuss

Attainable Art, the current show at the Nevin Kelly Gallery on U Street highlights "a mix of gallery artists and a couple of artists I just met," explained Deputy Gallery Director Julia Morelli.

Nevin Kelly Gallery prides itself on representing both Washington area based artists as well as international artists, mostly from Poland, who may be emerging or in mid-career. Attainable Art is specially priced for the holiday season with all pieces listed at under $1,200 and ready for the taking.

This provides area collectors with an unbeatable opportunity to acquire some of Nevin Kelly's finest for the tightest budgets, as well as the chance to discover new work all month long.

Sondra Arkin, who successfully curated the recent City Hall exhibition, has a number of inviting encaustics included in the show. Both small and large, Arkin’s works use bold pigments, abstract forms and grid structures. Her piece Revelation stands out as tactile and accessible, yet ordered and thoughtful. A variety of warm and cool colors are revealed after scraping away an opaque white ground offering an interesting contrast and contributing to the textural peaks and valleys of the piece.

Time of War Series is a departure from Ellyn Weiss’s cellular monoprints and oil paintings, and a refreshing translation of her signature painting style into etchings. The two pieces Trio Mourning with Bombs and Trio Mourning feature four burdened figures hunched over their expired companions. Marrying the fine lines of etching with subtle collage elements, these pieces are elegant and evocative.

"Cold Outside" by Molly Brose
Local artist Molly Brose makes her Washington gallery debut with a number of graceful watercolors. Brose’s choice of reflective paper allows for little paint absorption, which creates a magical luminosity when dry. This effect, when layered with Brose’s graphite drawings, makes pieces like Cold Outside stand out in content and technique.

Attainable Art is on display through December 31, 2006.

Opportunity for female artists of African ancestry

Deadline: January 5th, 2007

Women artists of African descent are invited to submit their work in oil, watercolor, pastel, graphics, mixed media, photography, sculpture, and fine craft art. Submission deadline is January 5th, 2007. The theme of this exhibition is "Face of Victory: Life and Success of People of African Descent." The exhibition dates are February 7th to 25th, 2007. A prospectus can be downloaded from www.penandbrush.org, or send a SASE to:

WOMEN of AFRICAN DESCENT
The Pen and Brush
16 East 10th St.
New York, NY 10003

Linda Hales Final Design Column at the WaPo

"...a powerful example of how firmly design has worked its way into everyday life and aspirations in our community. I write about them today, in a farewell column, as an expression of design as the most populist and accessible of the arts."

If you think that my constant bitching about how the management of the Washington Post considers "cultural reporting" in the lowest of priorities is exxagerated, then consider that this same WaPo management has declared a shift of resources to "high-priority journalism" and veteran reporter Linda Hales, age 57, was not ready to take the buyout that was offered to her (and many others) and so she has been moved to the Metro copy desk.

It is clear then, that what Hales wrote about - Design criticism - is thus viewed by Post management as "low-priority" journalism, even though design is, as Hales states: "the most populist and accessible of the arts."

This gives you an idea how WaPo management truly and really views art and culture.... as low-priority.

If you don't get it... you don't get it.

Read her last design column here.

Art that cities would love to own

My earlier post on art that "belongs" to cities as "The Gross Clinic" belongs to Philly spawns the opposite train of thought (and an interesting one at that!): Art that cities would love to own!

Here's what New Orleans would love to own.

Eakins: Not the first time?

As we've discussed before, the potential exodus from Philly of Thomas Eakins' "The Gross Clinic" has fired up Philadelphians to an enviable level, and efforts continue to keep the work of art in the city.

The Sixth Square has been keeping up a daily info blitzkrieg on the issue, and this post has a gem:

We’ve always heard talk of earlier attempts to pry The Gross Clinic from its moorings at Jefferson, but we never knew any detail. Then we ran across an old, yellowed clipping.

On March 25, 1976, Adrian Lee of The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin wrote that Jefferson had rejected a $1 million offer for the painting in 1969. But he had a more dramatic number to report. Lee had gotten wind of a new offer: $30 million building in exchange for the painting. After “two stormy, back to back meetings,” in December 1975 and January 1976, Jefferson held a “secret vote.” Sixty eight voted to keep the painting. Only seven voted to sell it.

Who was this would-be buyer? Both times it was no less than Paul Mellon, trustee of the National Galley of Art in Washington, D.C. — the very same institution today teamed up with Crystal Bridges.

Read the entire post here.

Leads me to wonder if there are paintings (or other visual artworks) that are so rooted into a city's psyche and/or history, that they could become that city's own Eakins in the event that they were to be removed and exported to another city?

Hopper's Nighthawks in Chicago? Leonardo's Mona Lisa in Paris? Picasso's Guernica or Velazquez's Las Meninas in Madrid?

Old timers will recall the many years that Picasso's "Guernica" hung in New York City, as Picasso didn't want it to be in a Spanish museum while Franco was alive. When the Generalisimo died (and yes SNL freaks, he's still dead), eventually the masterpiece made its way to Madrid, but not without some angst from New Yorkers.

And in Scotland, a few years ago there was a mini revolution of sorts, as Scottish villagers fought to have the original Pictish standing stones in their villages returned to their fields. Many of the original stones had been removed in order to protect them from the elements and replaced with replicas, while the originals went on display in museums. The villagers then realized that they were losing tourists who wanted to visit the stones, and many villages sued the museums to have the Pictish stones returned to them.

Which leads me to wonder why there has never been an exhibition of Pictish art and sculpture outside of Scotland, and why the National Geographic has never done a single article on Pictish culture - a people who only ruled northern Britain for two thousand years!

Oh oh... I see a new pet peeve brewing...