Jessica Picks Steven Silberg as the 7th one

Jessica Dawson's Real D.C. series may completely (OK, OK, partially restore) my faith in the WaPo and the local area's visual art scene. Her 7th pick is Steven Silberg and so far she's seven for seven with me in her picks.

Whodda thunk it?

Check out all seven picks so far here. All picks will be invited by me for the next volume of 100 More Washington Artists.

This is funny

Erik Wemple, the editor of TBD.com has some really funny editorial comments for a variety of DC area publications. He also raises a really good question: Why does Washington Hispanic, a Spanish language newspaper, have an English title? This is not only a good question, but also a funny one!

By the way Erik, Fuego means "fire" and Frio means "cold" - it sorta works with what you're doing with the publications, but a better set of words would have been Caliente which means "hot" instead of Fuego. But I am very pedantic about that, and I do like the shortness of the Fuego word and how it aligns with the "F" in Frio. Super funny anyway.

Why does Washington Hispanic have an English name anyway? It doesn't even translate well. The translation would have been (in proper Spanish) El Hispano de Washington. That almost sounds like a person instead of a newspaper.

Come to think of it, in Miami, the New Herald has a Spanish language version. It is called El Nuevo Herald. That even weirder to me. The right name would have been El Nuevo Pregonero.

At the end of the day

Just when you thought the Campello-Capps feud was over and it was safe to go back to the pages of this blog and the City Paper's...

Awright... I'm being melodramatic; the battle of words between Capps and I is almost over, but not before you read this in the WCP. You see, the City Paper has done something unprecedented: they have allowed me to re-write Capps' story so that it is a bit more fair without eliminating Capps' fears about anonymous contributors to the book and other neurotic issues.

So go on and read the piece and if you want to leave a comment there, then try your best to keep them civil and constructive. I know that both Kriston and I do not bruise easily and we can both take constructive criticism and disagreement and hopefully we will all come out of this having learned something positive.

Putting together this first volume was an immense amount of work, and yet I am looking forward to the next couple of volumes and will apply the “lessons learned” from this first volume to all the others.

Shame on Springfield, MA

Art censorship covers all sides of the social spectrum in this great nation. Throw in a nude (or in this case, not even a nude) in most public settings around the US and something is bound to go wrong. Even in the Soviet Socialist State of Massachusetts. From the Legal Satyricon:

Censorship — its not just for rednecks

I often rant about the censorship minded former confederacy — but I must admit that my home state of Massachusetts has its share of censorship monkeys. The censorship monkey of the day — the city of Springfield, MA and Gina E. Beavers, director of the Springfield Arts Initiative for the Springfield Business Improvement District (SBID).

Read the entire post with all the details here.

Congrats!

To Renee Stout, the 2010 winner of the High Museum of Art's David C. Driskell Prize, which recognizes Stout's original and important contribution to African-American art.

Stout's show Renee Stout: The House of Chance and Mischief opens Saturday, September 11, 2010 with a public reception from 6:30 - 8:30PM at Hemphill.

Welcome!

To Dafna Steinberg, who is the new Gallery Director at the Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center. Their next show is an exhibition of works on paper by artist Miriam Mörsel Nathan. The exhibition, curated by Steven Cushner, will be on display from September 15 through December 17, 2010, with an Opening Reception from 6:00 to 8:00 pm on September 14.

Working from pre-World War II photographs, Mörsel Nathan searches for details of family members, most of whom she has known only through photographs and stories. In working with these images, she creates hauntingly beautiful and provocative works. By piecing together fragments of information collected from family documents, notes on photographs and oral histories, Mörsel Nathan’s work reveals an elusive story of personal history and ascribed memory, acknowledging what she does not know about the people in these images.

Mörsel Nathan explains, “Only after completing these pieces was it clear to me that my way of working–making it difficult to see the images–was very much a part of the story. That’s how it is with memory, even an inherited one. It can be hard to retrieve. It is often non-linear. It can be vague or unclear or incomplete or hidden.”

The exhibition includes a series of multi-colored monotypes and screen prints based on a photograph of her aunt Greta; a wedding series of her Uncle Josef’s wedding, complemented by a video chronicling the original images from the wedding; and her version of a pre-war “family album.”

Curator Cushner says, “Miriam Mörsel Nathan has been able to take her particular experience and transform it into a language that speaks to all of us. This is the magic of all good art–to create a bridge that can connect the personal and private, with the universal and communal.”

The three-month exhibition will be accompanied by myriad of special programming, including panel discussions, film screenings, literary, musical and theatrical events. Miriam Mörsel Nathan’s work for the exhibition Memory of a time I did not know… is supported in part by funding from the Montgomery County government and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County.

Airborne

Heading back home today early in the morning... too early.