By now we're used to it

Only Blake Gopnik, the intelligent and erudite Chief Art Critic of the Washington Post could get away with writing an introduction to the Spring Arts Preview for the Greater DC area for a Washington, DC newspaper and then tell his readers that "If you've decided it's finally time to come to terms with current creativity, this summer is the time to do it and Europe's the place."

If you read Gopnik's writing over the years, it is easy to detect that he has a special personal antipathy (amongst many) towards two subjects: painting, and especially portraiture.

He's also embarked on what seems like a critical personal crusade against the National Portrait Gallery, and in writing about the coming "Portraits of Sandra Day O'Connor," opening in late March at the National Portrait Gallery, he not only tells us that he will do his best to miss this coming show, but also labels the work of two of the portrait artists in the show that he will apprently never see, as "insipid" and "toadying made flesh."

Gopnikmeister strikes again. Read him here.

On the positive side, the WaPo's listing of visual art shows had for the last few years degenerated into a listing of museum shows, and almost excluded area galleries from the mix. A while back Gopnik told me that he was trying to include more and more galleries in the preview listings, and he has delivered on that promise, as the local exhibition calendar is jam packed with good exhibitions, both museums and galleries, to catch this spring.

A well done to Gopnik for this refreshing and important change!

Save this page and refer to it often.

PS - Gopnik also has a really good article on the Corcoran and its new direction in which we find out all about the future that Greenhalgh is planning (and also that he skipped a traveling Frida Kahlo show over the coming "Modernism" exhibition - AAAARGH!). Read it here.

Mathematics

Much has been written about the rather newish phenomenom of art fairs as the new salons of the 21st century, as magnets where galleries congregate and collectors and curators and the illuminati go to see and buy art. Furthermore, anecdotal figures from the major fairs seem to confirm that a lot of artwork is being sold by some galleries at the fairs. My own experience with them confirms this fact.

Soon the District will have its own taste of its first major "art fair" with the upcoming artDC, and we will see if the model works in the Greater Washington area, which historically has a certain degree of apathy when it comes to actually buying art.

And yet... an idea that I have been mulling in my head for years now keeps bugging me.

Stick with me here.

There's another "world" out there of fine art fairs that, because of the curious high brow attitude of the "high art" cabal, never really gets any attention from the art media, etc.

These are the outdoor art fairs that some of us know well, and many of us think we know well even though they've actually never been to any of the good ones. I am talking about the outdoor art festivals that get ranked as the top ones by Sunshine Artist magazine, fairs such as the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver, or the Ann Arbor Arts Festival (actually four separate art fairs that draw over half a million visitors), and of course, the Coconut Grove Arts Festival in Miami, which will attract about 150,000 visitors next weekend in Miami.

Immediately the clueless sap esso tutto who have never been to one of these will think and imagine what they visualize as an outdoor art market: dried flowers, teddy bears and watercolors of barns. Don't get me wrong, there are thousands and thousands of these type "art" fairs around as well - but those are NOT the ones that I am talking about.

I am talking about the cream of the Sunshine Artist Top 200 list. These are shows where only original art, not reproductions, are allowed, and photography has very severe rules (must be done by the photographer, limited editions only, signed, archival processes only, etc.). These shows are highly competitive to get in (they're juried), and usually offer quite a lot of money in prizes for the artists. The jurors vary from museum curators (people like Terrie Sultan, Jonathan Binstock, and other local museum curators have in the past juried some of them).

I guess I'm saying that there's some curatorial legitimacy to them as well, for the elitista amongst you.

But the destination to which I am driving here is attendance.

Hundreds of thousands.

Locally in our area, there are only two good ones of these fine arts outdoor festivals: The Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival attracts around 80,000 people, and the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival, which is still growing, but already attracts around 40,000 people to the two-day event.

Consider the median income in either Bethesda or Reston, and what you get out of it is a lot of disposable income.

Art price tags at these two local fairs range from $200 to $20,000. So there's a somewhat comparable universe of prices to the DC area gallery market, as an example.

And I submit that a lot of the people who attend one of these outdoor fine art festivals do not have the "formation," as a Communist would say, to dare set foot in a white cube gallery.

If Mohammed won't come to the gallery, then bring the gallery to Mohammed.

So here's the issue that has been brewing in my head:

All of these huge and highly successful outdoor arts festivals (as far as I know) only allow individual artists to sell their work at the fairs. Why doesn't an enterprising fair organizer go one step further and add a whole new angle to the arts festival and set aside a whole section for independent commercial fine arts galleries?

Because the entry price point is a substantial fraction of what it costs to sign up for a gallery art fair like Art Basel Miami, or Scope, or even AAF, the financial mathematics of this idea make sense to both sides of the equation.

For fair organizers, they could offer the gallery a basic price tag of $1500 for the weekend, which would include a 10 feet by 20 feet double tent and display equipment. Or, and this is a big or, the organizer, in order to attract the art galleries, could offer them zero entry fee and instead a 10% commission on all sales. This may get a little sticky in the monitoring of sales and unreported sales by art dealers who lack ethics and scruples, so a flat fee is probably the best and easiest idea.

For the gallery it would offer them an opportunity to expose their artwork to possibly thousands of new potential collectors, exposing most of them, for the first time, to an art gallery.

It's all in the numbers.

No art gallery that I know gets 80,000 visitors a year, much less in a weekend. Would any of them turn down an opportunity, for a reasonable amount of money (much, much less than it costs them to advertise in an art magazine that will only reach a few hundred people in their local area), to expose themselves to a few hundred thousand people?

You do the math: 1% of 1% of 80,000 people is 8 new sales over a weekend. Not even to mention the possible future sales of new people who become exposed to the gallery at the festival, and start attending openings: new blood collectors.

I would do it.

Now let's see some enterprising art fair organizer run with this.

Changes

As some of you know, I've had some significant changes, both professional and personal, since I sort of moved from the DC area... sort of.

Because of the move and other things, I no longer own a gallery, and for the first time in ten years, I have a little more time in my hands to do other things.

Like... looking for a gallery space in Philadelphia!

Now that I finally sold my house in Potomac, which was costing me around $5,000 a month in mortgage and utilities for an empty house, I've been slowly but surely exploring the city little by little, although the recent tundra like weather has certainly put an end to that. Nonetheless I will continue to look at areas of the city where art galleries have already establish a presence, and continue to chat with gallery owners and local art bloggers so as to learn more and more about Philly's art scene and locations, etc.

So far I am leaning towards the area around North Second Street where Pentimenti Gallery and others are located. In fact there's a really nice space almost next to Pentimenti that's looking real good.

Another interesting development that has happened to me professionally since I moved, is the fact that I have been retained (initially by one and now by a second) ubercollector to "acquire" work for their collections.

This sounds like a lot of fun, having a five figure budget a month to acquire artwork for others, and in a way it is. However, as I settle down to the nuts and bolts of doing this properly, I'm finding out that I am being a helluva lot more careful with other people's money than I would be with my own.

I think that as I settle down and do this more and more, it may be easier, and certainly all of my acquitisions for them have so far been met with great enthusiasm and acceptance, but nonetheless I am still "involving" them a lot in the decision(s), which I think that (in at least one case) is the rigth thing to do, but in the other case, the collector may really want me to go solo in the decision process, which is a lot more pressurized for me.

Then there's the whole issue of "my artists," as I intend to soon re-surface as a private dealer (website coming soon!) while I continue to search for a gallery space. There's a fine ethical line there, as one of my predecessors was in fact "fired" for pushing too many of the artists that the dealer represented. The trick is to balance ethics and business, which a reputable art dealer needs to do anyway.

Enough for now; heading to the Poconos this weekend for a little fun in the snow.

Around the Mid-A Reviewsphere

DC

Jeffry Cudlin in the WCP reviews "Seen" at Transformer Gallery.

Also in the WCP, Anne Marston has an interesting profile of photographer Susie J. Horgan and her show at Govinda Gallery.

And lastly for the WCP, Kriston Capps does Jenna McCracken’s carving up cuts of preserved pottery at Dupont Circle’s Meat Market Gallery.

In the WaPo, Michael O'Sullivan also reviews "Punk Love" at Govinda Gallery. Susie J. Horgan, the photographer, was also online yesterday at the WaPo answering questions - read the transcripts here and has a nice photo gallery of her photographs here; score one for the WaPo... more please!

Baltimore

Deborah McLeod in the Baltimore City Paper checks in with an intelligent review of Winter: Jarrett Min Davis / Courtney Jordan at the Creative Alliance.

The Sun's Glenn McNatt (himself a photographer) reviews the DC area's Amy Lamb's exhibition at the Steven Scott Gallery in Owings Mills.

DC's Thiking About Art visits Baltimore and reviews "Between the Lines" at Maryland Art Place.

Philadelphia

In the Philadelphia City Paper, Mary Wilson reviews "Emerging Artists Series: Christopher Hartshorne and Hiro Sakaguchi," at the Woodmere Art Museum.

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Edward J. Sozanski reviews Daniel Garber at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Also in the Inquirer, Edith Newhall reviews "Rocks-n-Glocks" by Ron Ribant and Veleta Vancza at Bambi, and she also reviews the photographs of Serge J-F Levy at at Gallery 339.

In the Philadelphia Weekly, uberblogger Roberta Fallon reviews "Locally Localized Gravity" at the ICA.

In artblog, Libby Rosof reviews Amy S. Kauffman's installation at the Painted Bride.

Who Knew?

Grandma's painting was expected to fetch a few thousand bucks at auction. Instead it sold for $600,000 dollhairs. Read the story here.

Congrats!

To Mid Atlantic Art News DC area contributor Shauna Turnbull, whose marriage now gives her the cool new name of Shauna Lee Lange.

Congratulations

To Transformer Gallery in DC and DC artist Kelly Towles, who just received a joint $20,000 grant from Greater Washington Creative Communities Initiative and The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.

The $20K is to support "The Grate Project," which is "a series of murals painted on roll-down security gates. Towles will hold block parties to engage community residents in painting each piece."