Affordable Art Fair: Final Report

Read it here.

Wanna go to a Germantown, MD opening?

Richard Vosseller's "Failure Is An Option" has an opening reception on June 21, 5:30 - 7:30 at the Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Maryland.

Emerging Artists

Having just returned from NYC, one of the side effects of the art fair phenomenon is the fact that through them many regional emerging artists are exposed to savvy art audiences in places like New York. Case in point is Norfolk's Sheila Giolitti, and last weekend was her first exposure to New York's art audiences and she sold about a dozen oil paintings!

Who are your notable emerging artist(s) in your town and area?

Go here, sign in (it's free) and give us a link to their website. Then maybe later we'll do a poll and see who emerges as the top 2-3 emerging artists around the nation to keep an eye on...

Richard Edson

Annie Adjchavanich returns to the DC area to present Richard Edson photographs from the series "Beyond the Valley of the Micro Bops."

Preview the show here.

The opening is Thursday, June 19, 8 - 11pm and the exhibition goes through June 29, 2008.

Jackie's Backroom Gallery
8081 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD

Artomatic to close tomorrow

Washington, DC's Artomatic 2008 comes to a close Sunday, June 15 at 10 pm. If you've already been, go again. There's so much to see and do. I've made the rounds half a few times and each time I discover new art, great music and performances. Make sure you drop a few bucks in the Artomatic donation boxes to help with expenses.

Also, there's a Glass Art Tour of Artomatic, on Sunday, June 15 at 2pm. By popular demand, one more tour on the last day of Artomatic! Please meet in the lobby of Artomatic between 1:45pm-2pm for a guided glass tour of Artomatic. Join Washington Glass School artists Cheryl Derricotte, Sean Hennessey and others as they lead you directly to all the great glass on exhibit this year. You will then ride up together to the 11th floor to begin and walk down to the 4th floor so comfortable shoes are suggested. The tour will depart the lobby at 2pm and concludes by 3:30pm.

Derivative Composition

A while back I was honored to be one of three jurors for VSA's "Derivative Composition" juried exhibition at the Kennedy Center.

The Derivative Composition exhibition at the Kennedy Center will be installed this coming Monday. I’m told that it is one of the most ambitious and interesting exhibitions that VSA has produced to date.

The opening is scheduled for Thursday, June 26, beginning at 5 pm. Several of the artists (which come from all over the country) will be attending. In addition, they will host two exclusive performances:

Mark Wittig, from Oklahoma, will present the performance component of his installation, To Have Straights. The performance will emphasize the potential of the physical act as a learning tool.

The Skin, by artist Emily Eifler, will awaken and walk among guests. The textural, full body costume serves to represent a visual boundary that recalls a different, invisible boundary: disability

Steinhauer on the Affordable Art Fair

Artinfo.com's Jill Steinhauer reports on the Affordable Art Fair here.

The Affordable Art Fair New York is one of the least pretentious places to see high-quality international contemporary art in the city. The annual fair, now in its seventh edition, runs June 12–15 at the Altman Building and adjoining Metropolitan Pavilion, and with general admission priced at only $17, it’s cheaper than a trip to MoMA or the Guggenheim.

An affordable art fair may sound amateurish to some, and the art on view here does range in quality, but the gallerists I spoke with yesterday had almost entirely positive things to say about the event, whose self-proclaimed mission is “to serve every kind of art enthusiast.” “This fair is much better than the Affordable Art Fairs in Australia,” said first-timer Peter Gant of Carlton, Australia–based Peter Gant Fine Art.

Read the whole article here. From the reports that I gathered yesterday, almost all galleries were selling well.