At the Warehouse in DC

The Last Next is an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Washington-based artist Kristin Holder at DC's Warehouse Gallery. Works from 2002 until the present will be included in the exhibition, including a site-specific wall drawing. In recent years Holder has been the recipient of the Second Place Award at the Trawick Prize, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, and a one-year fellowship from the British Academy in Rome. Her work is included in several public and private collections.

The exhibition will be on view at Warehouse (­third floor) from October 11 through October 28, 2007. The opening reception will take place on October 13 from 7:00-10:00 p.m. Additionally Holder created a wall piece on the original 100 year old wall on the 3rd floor of the space.

The second show at Warehouse, opening on the same night is "RISD DC/Baltimore Biennial 2007," an exhibition of art and design work featuring local alumni from The Rhode Island School of Design. The show features recent work by RISD alumni who graduated between 1950-2006, and who now live and work in the Washington Metropolitan area.

Joy to the World

These days, when Three Dog Night's Joy to the World is played by some hotel band it is usually preceded by the drummer announcing: "and now something for the former hippies in the crowd..."

Wrong!

Below is Chuck Negron and Three Dog Night, a group that dominated the charts and the radio waves for a while and sold 50 million records by 1975 and 90 million records sold to date...

Click and listen.

Reading levels

Who is offering art writing to an intelligent reading level?

Three years ago I ran some art bloggers and art critics' writing to an evaluation tool that deciphered to what reader level they were writing to (was that sentence-ending "to" a dangling preposition?).

Read that three-year-old report here... tomorrow I will re-run it with the same authors and some new ones.

Wanna open a rent free gallery in Mass?

I couldn't resist this news release:

John Olson, a business owner in downtown Lynn, has a space available on the first floor of his building in Central Square Lynn that he is offering to artists who may want to run a temporary co-op in the space.

The space is currently unfinished; unpainted sheetrock walls and cement floor, but has large windows on the street level, high ceilings (21 ft.) and a large amount of interior wall and floor space (2100 sq. ft.), and could support a substantial amount of work.

He is looking for a group, who, in exchange for the free use of the space, would be willing to man the space and keep it open at least four weekdays, one weekend day, and one or two evenings. He is offering the space in exchange for a 25% commission to cover his utility costs, but is willing to negotiate.

John's ultimate goal is to rent this space, so there is no set time frame on this offer.

For more information, contact John Olson directly at jolson@columbiainsuranceagency.net.

Hirshhorn Looking for new boss

Email from the Hirshhonistas:

I am pleased to announce the formation of an eight-member committee to assist in the search for a new director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The search is being conducted by the Office of the Under Secretary for Art.

The members of the search committee, in alphabetical order, are:

• Neal Benezra — director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art since 2002. He previously served as deputy director and curator of modern and contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Previously, he spent eight years at HMSG, where he was assistant director for art and public programs and chief curator.

• Constance Caplan — art collector and trustee of HMSG. She also serves on the board of the John Hopkins University College of Medicine and has served as the chair of the board of trustees of the Baltimore Museum of Art.

• Ann Hamilton — the first artist to serve as a trustee of HMSG. She is an award-winning visual artist who specializes in installation work and has participated in more than 60 solo and group exhibitions. She is a professor of art at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

• J. Tomilson Hill — collector of modern and contemporary art and chairman of the board of trustees of HMSG. He is vice chairman of The Blackstone Group in New York.

• Susan Lake — collections manager and chief conservator at HMSG, where she has worked for more than 25 years.

• Mitchell P. Rales — collector and vice chair of the board of trustees of HMSG. He is the founder and director of The Glenstone Foundation. He also is founder, director and chairman of the executive committee of Danaher Corporation, headquartered in Washington, D.C.

• Ned Rifkin — Under Secretary for Art at the Smithsonian since 2002.

• John W. Smith — director of the Archives of American Art since 2006. He was formerly assistant director for collections, exhibitions and research at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh from 2000 to 2006.

The new director will succeed Olga Viso, who is scheduled to leave at the end of the year to become director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Sincerely,

Cristián Samper
Acting Secretary

I have some thoughts on who should be hired to run the Hirshhorn... more on that later.

Anderson on Roth

John James Anderson has a really insightful interview with the Corcoran's Paul Roth (the Corcoran's Curator of Photography and Media Arts).

Read it here.

Rand on Timmers

I've been meaning to link to this really interesting interview by DCist Kelly Rand with DC sculptor Erwin Timmers, who is slowly but surely becoming the DC area's leader of the "green art" movement.

Read the interview here.