Shauna Lee Lange on Honfleur

By Shauna Lee Lange

Southeast DC's Honfleur Gallery celebrated their one year anniversary with an exhibition of fine art and culture last weekend.

The show featured work by artists such as Alison Spain, Jonathan French, Justin Couch, Seneca Wells, Renee Woodward, Jonathan Royce, and Darren Smith. Some of the artists are members of the ARCH Artist in Residence Program and they all expressed their thanks to the gallery staff for their hard work in bringing to light new cultural beginnings and in helping to make the gallery a success.

The celebration featured a fine buffet table, thoughtful door prizes, open artists studios, and an energetic electric spark in tune with a wonderful jazz trio. Support for the Gallery seems to span age, race, artistic interest, and status. One of the ways we like to measure the health of a gallery is in the culture of open reception to children and youth. The anniversary celebration welcomed a young teen enjoying blackberries, an older teen wearing a "Make Music Not War" t-shirt, and a young man sitting patiently on black leather couches with his guardian.

When children are welcomed to explore art, and not kept at arms length from art gallery openings, it makes our world all the richer. Honfleur Gallery invites you to come in and meet the work of artists who are exploring photography, oils, woodworking, stitched canvas, and collage mosaics.

Happy Anniversary, Honfleur - may we be with you at year 5, 10, 25, and 50!

Early Look

I've been retained by the Longview Gallery of Washington, DC to curate an exhibition for them focused on student work.

The exhibition hopes to deliver a survey of the best artwork by undergraduate art students working in accredited art school programs in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia and Virginia.

I will curate the exhibition from both a submission process as well as visits to schools and studios. All selections and invitations will be made at my discretion.

Through this process, the exhibition also hopes to educate the selected students on the process of participating in a commercial gallery art exhibition, including advance preparations, presentation and delivery of artwork, opening receptions, dealing with the press, etc.

Calendar

May 5, 2008 - Deadline for receipt of entries to me

May 10, 2008 - Invited Artists Notified

June 5, 2008 - Deadline for Delivery of Art to Gallery

June 7, 2008 - Opening Reception

July 5, 2008 - Exhibition Closes

July 6, 2008 - Pick-up of Unsold Work


This exhibition is open to all art students 18 years and older who are enrolled in an accredited undergraduate art school program in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia. At my discretion, the exhibition may also include a piece by the selected students' art professor. All work selected must be for sale and framed and presented professionally to conservation standards. Open to all two and three dimensional media. The size of the submitted artwork cannot exceed 40 inches in any one direction (excluding frames).

There are no fees or charges associated with this exhibition and process. Accepted artists are responsible for any costs associated with delivery and return of unsold work. All preliminary judging will be done from digital entries.

A formal opening and reception for the accepted artists will be held on Saturday, 7 June 2008 from 6-8 p.m. at the Longview Gallery. The gallery is located at 1302 9th street, NW, Washington, DC 20001, Tel: 202.232.4788.

All the details and prospectus can be downloaded here. Art professors desiring to contact me to set up a school visit should contact me directly via email: lenny@lennycampello.com.

Wanna go to a DC opening tomorrow?

DC's Aaron Gallery has been around for a long time, but recently its direction has been taken over by a new generation of Cabadas, and the two Cabada sisters have already made a huge improvement not only in the way that the gallery looks, but also in completely making a whole new start for the gallery.

Look for this gallery to begin adding its contribution to the capital region's artistic dialogue.

And it may start this Friday, with the opening of a new exhibition by Chilean artistJoan Belmar and and talented DC area glass artist Kari Minnick. Join the gallery and artists on Friday, February 1st for an opening reception at 1717 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington DC at 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Contact info@aarongallerydc.com for further details.

Vanity galleries

A vanity gallery is an art gallery that "rents" its space to artists in order for the artist to have a show. Thus, the main driver in having a show at a vanity gallery is not necessarily the quality of the artwork, but the artist's ability to pay the gallery to host his/her artwork.

New York is crawling with vanity galleries, and the vast majority of European galleries are vanity galleries. In the US however, vanity galleries are often looked down upon by everyone, since they are essentially a "rental" gallery. A knowledgeable art critic or curator knows which galleries in his/her town are vanity galleries, and often ignore them, much like book critics ignore most self-published writers, who use "vanity publishers."

An interesting fact, at least here in Washington, is the fact that I have seen "reputable" galleries which sometimes cross the line and become "charge the artist" galleries or vanity galleries once in a while, as the mighty dollar (or lack thereof) calls.

Sometimes, when I was part of Fraser Gallery, we'd get a phone call from an embassy, or from the agent of a Hollywood actor who's also a "painter" or "photographer," or from an individual "artist," and they'll ask us how much would we charge to host a show by their "artist."

When we'd inform them that we do not rent the gallery for artists to have shows, they'd thank us and hang up. Then a few months later I'd see that "Hollywood artist" or "embassy artist" exhibiting in one of the area's "reputable" art galleries, and immediately recognize that - at least for that month - that gallery is making ends meet by renting the space to someone.

While I understand that most galleries are labors of love, and often run by the skin of one's teeth, I still find it somewhat distasteful, and dishonest - to appear (on the surface) to be a gallery that shows work based on merit, while at the same time showing work based on an artist, or a corporation's ability to pay.

And it's not just commercial art spaces. Several years ago, the WCP profiled a then a local non-profit, which inadvertently admitted charging a multinational corporation a hefty fee to put up an art show at the "reputable" non-profit art spaces.

One can even make the case that even some museums sometimes cross the line and become "vanity museums."

A few years ago I was astounded when a Culture Minister from one of the embassies in DC told me that they had finished a deal with a local museum to host the first ever retrospective of one of that country's artists for a fee of four million dollars! To him, it was "business as usual," while to me it was distasteful and dishonest and left a bad taste in my mouth about that museum for the longest time.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: March 28, 2008 (postmark date)

Ragan Cole-Cunningham, Director of Exhibitions and Education at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia (CAC), is the Virginia Art Education Association’s (VAEA) 2006 Art Educator of the Year/Museum Division is the juror for the 2008 Arts Council @ Grace Competition.

Last year’s winners were: Linda Hesh (1st place), Kathryn Cornelius (2nd place) and Charles Westerman (3rd place).

The exhibition is June 21–August 1, 2008 and has awards of $2000.

To download the 2008 entry form click here.

Opportunity for Artists

Established by the United States Department of State in 1964, the Art In Embassies Program is a global museum that exhibits original works of art by U.S. citizens in the public rooms of approximately 180 American diplomatic residences worldwide.

To submit images to its staff for consideration in upcoming exhibitions please email .jpg or .gif images of your works no larger than 50k in size, to: artinembassies@state.gov.

Lucelia Artist Award winners

Are you curious about how the Lucelia Artist Award winners were selected? Join Sidra Stitch, former executive director of the Lucelia Artist Award and guest curator of the current exhibition, as she discusses each of the artists featured in Celebrating the Lucelia Artist Award, 2001--2006 and current issues in contemporary art.

McEvoy Auditorium — Lower Level Saturday, February 2, 3 p.m. Questions can be directed to (202) 633-1000 or saamprograms@si.edu.