List free on Ebay

Got any artwork taking up space and looking for a new owner? For the next two days you can list for free on Ebay.

Ebay is pretty much bottom feeders only when it comes to art acquisition, but hey! what have you got to lose other than your time?

5 x 5 Curators selected

First of all, congrats to my good friend and ubercurator Laura Roulet; now the release from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities:

Mayor Vincent C. Gray and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) have identified the five curators chosen to complete 25 ground-breaking public art installations, totaling $500,000 in grants, for the 5x5 Public Art Project presented with the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The installations will be unveiled and showcased during the Festival's Centennial Celebration, March 20 - April 27, 2012. 5x5 is the new temporary art project that will result in 25 public art exhibitions and be installed concurrently throughout the District of Columbia to activate and enliven publicly accessible spaces and add an ephemeral layer of creativity and artistic expression to neighborhoods across the District. The Festival's Centennial Celebration commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the gift of trees from Tokyo to Washington, DC and will showcase unprecedented arts and culture. The groundbreaking 5x5 Public Art Project offers a unique cultural experience for over one million people expected to take part in the nation's greatest springtime celebration.

A five-member selection committee carefully chose five curators from more than 90 submissions. All media and art forms were considered, including, but not limited to visual art, performance, light, digital, projection, and event-based work.

"We considered submissions from curators locally, nationally and worldwide and, ultimately, these five curators demonstrated an impressive body of work," said Lionell Thomas, Executive Director for the DC Commission on The Arts and Humanities.

The five selected curators named below must select five artists each to create five bodies of public work. These five curators will lead the 5x5 implementation process and will manage and oversee each artist's concept, budget and schedules. The installations can be of any duration, but they can not exceed four months.

Amy Lipton; New York, NY: Amy Lipton is the east coast curator and co-director of ecoartspace, a bi-coastal non-profit organization that creates opportunities for addressing environmental issues through the arts since 1999. She has curated numerous exhibitions for museums, galleries, sculpture parks and environmental centers, and has written for books and publications. She organizes and participates on panel discussions and lectures frequently on art and the environment. Amy's 5x5 project is titled "BiodiverCITY." She has chosen five artists whose works address biodiversity both in scientific and cultural terms.

Justine Topfer; San Francisco, CA: Justine Topfer of Out Of The Box Projects is an international curator and writer based in San Francisco with a particular interest in public art. For six years she has been working collaboratively in Australia and internationally with a broad spectrum of contemporary artists, art organizations, institutes of higher education. Justine's project name for 5x5 is "Betwixt & Between," a reference used to denote a liminal state; one which we pass through oblivious, as we rush toward the next thing. Justine asked her group of selected international artists to create five public interventions which breathe new life into the ordinary, reinvigorating the fabric of the urban environment.

Richard Hollinshead; Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK: Richard Hollinshead is Director of Grit & Pearl, an artist, designer and curator, and holds a BA, MA and PhD by Practice with a specialism in contemporary projects for heritage landscapes. Richard's 5x5 project is titled "Magnificent Distance." It is based around Washington DC's best known epithets, City of Magnificent Distances, drawing inspiration from exploration of the rich territory that exists between that ideal and "reflect the character and identity of the city [Washington DC.]"

Laura Roulet; Washington, DC: As 5x5's sole local curator, Laura Roulet is an independent curator and writer, specializing in contemporary and Latin American art. She has organized exhibitions in Puerto Rico at El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, la Galería Nacional, and in Washington, DC at the Art Museum of the Americas, the Mexican Cultural Institute, Edison Place Gallery, Hillyer Art Space, Project 4, Fusebox, and the DC Art Center. Laura's 5x5 exhibition is titled "Activate => Participate," and has chosento work almost entirely with local artists to create communal, multi-sensory experiences for diverse audiences. All fall under the conceptual umbrella of "relational aesthetics," where a temporary community is formed through the shared experience of an ephemeral art event.

Steve Rowell; Culver City, CA: Curator Steve Rowell is an artist, curator, and researcher working in and between Los Angeles and Washington, DC. His spatial practice involves the overlapping aspects and perceptions of technology, culture, and infrastructure on, beneath, and above the landscape - contextualizing the built and the natural environment, appropriating the methods and tools of the geographer and cartographer. Steve's 5x5 project is called "Suspension of Disbelief," selecting five artists who will investigate the fringes of the monumental core: airspaces, zones of exclusion, perimeters, liminal landscapes, waterways, shorelines, perceived non-places, and lesser-known or overlooked (sometimes even conspicuously absent) memorials, around the National Mall and along the federal periphery.

Congrats to all the curators and I'm looking forward to the results...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Home Cooking

Home cooking

Since tonight is Nochebuena, and per request,I've been preparing the classic Nochebuena Cuban feast for the night.

The fare for tonight:

Cuban Roasted Pork
Mariquitas with Mojo Sauce for Dipping
Sweet Corn Tamales
Broiled Yucca with Garlic Mojo
Broiled Ňame with Olive Oil
Moros y Cristianos (Rice and Black Bean Soup)
Cuban Nochebuena Salad

And from our family to all: a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Terrific 2012 to all!

Just looking...

Artists and Art Fairs (Part II)

On Tuesday I related how almost a decade ago, the founders and organizer of a European art fair called Art Basel (which of course, takes place in Basel, Switzerland), decided to try an American version of their successful European model and started an art fair in the Miami Beach Convention Center and they called it Art Basel Miami Beach or ABMB for short.

And I told you how that one mega art fair spawned a few satellite art fairs in Miami at the same time and how by now there are over two dozen art fairs going on around the Greater Miami area and art collectors, artists, gallerists, dealers, curators and all the symbiots of the art world descent on America’s coolest hot city in December and art rules the area.

I also pointed out, that if you are a visual artist in 2011 and are not aware of these events, and are not trying to get there (get your artwork there is what I mean), then something really big is missing from your artistic arsenal (unless you’re happy just painting or drawing or photographing or sculpting, etc. and could care less who sees and possibly acquires your work – if that’s the case, then skip the rest of this post and more power to you!).

But, if like some of us, the commodification of your artwork doesn’t bother you, and the fact that when you or your gallery sell one of your pieces, you feel honored and pleased that someone laid out their hard earned cash to simply add one of your creations to their home or collection, then Miami in December should be in your radar.

But how to get there? The fairs are mostly gallery-based – that means that galleries are invited or juried to exhibit; not usually individual artists --- more on that later – but there are some other ways to begin to crack the Miami art fair presence, and today I want to share some of my ideas.

Let’s start with gallery-based artists.

If you are already represented by a gallery, why not discuss Miami with them? The enormous expenses associated with the art fair scene are the main reason that most art galleries do not consider them. And this is a darn good reason, as most galleries are run by the skin of their teeth and the expense associated with doing an art fair are enormous and could wreck an entire financial plan in less than a week.

But, what does it hurt to bring it up to your gallerist? Who knows where that may lead?

I am still shocked at how many art dealers are not even aware of the potential financial and exposure rewards of doing an art fair.

Let me be clear: I don't want to hype this issue as a surefire path to moving artwork. But, this much I know… for roughly the same amount of money that a gallery spends on a full page ad in a national art magazine, you can get a small booth in some of the satellite fairs and the return on their investment has a lot more avenues than taking a chance with an ad.

Gathering information is the key thing… bring the subject up to your dealer, and if they want more info, have them email me… the best thing for art is more art.

How about if you are a cooperative gallery? Why not consider applying to one of the art fairs and spreading the cost of the booth amongst the exhibiting artists? A word of warning: the better fairs are juried and that means that someone gets always rejected. But the same key that allows cooperatives to survive for decades (spread the expenses) should and must be the key to give them a presence at the art fairs!

And many, many co-ops are routinely showing now at art fairs in Miami, NYC, LA, London, Madrid, etc. The fact that they are returning to the fairs means that they’re having a positive experience there.

The look and feel of the fairs is different as well. Many of them are booth fairs – that means that a white cube booth of plain white walls, ready to be drilled and hung with art, is the main model.

Fairs such as the original Art Basel Miami Beach, Pulse, Red Dot, Scope, Art Miami, etc. are on this model. At least one of them (Red Dot) in 2011 allowed individual artists to apply for the first time and had quite a few artists’ booth in their huge tent in Wynwood District, right next to the Scope Art Fair and across the street from Art Miami (these latter two only accept galleries).

There are also hotel fairs. These are fairs that essentially take place in a local hotel, where the room is often emptied out and turned into a temporary gallery by the out of town galleries. The best hotel art fair in the world, according to many, is the Aqua Art Fair, held at the Aqua Hotel in Miami Beach, and having just participated in it, add my name to the list of people who thinks that this is the best hotel art fair on the planet. And at Aqua I saw at least two cooperative galleries…

There are also individual artists-based fairs – after all, with 22-25 art fairs around the area, new models are apt to develop – and they have! The Pool Art Fair is one of these, focusing on unrepresented artists. They had a bit of a drama this year in Miami, as the fair was shut down by Miami police due to "lack of a permit", but this fair has been around for seven years, so I'm sure they'll be back next year with all the right paperwork.

A little Googlin’ of Miami art fairs (or just art fairs in general) will reveal just how many fairs there are and where.

The key thought to leave you with: think art fairs and think Miami, New York, LA, Chicago... and think of a way to get there.

Opportunity for Figurative Artists

Deadline: February 6, 2012

First juried show at established Washington DC gallery located in Georgetown. Theme: You, Me and Everybody Else. Artists are encouraged to consider broad contemporary interpretation of the figure.

Fee: $15 FOR 3 IMAGES. For details and entry form go to UP FRONT page on this website. Juror and curator is artist and writer Lilianne Milgrom. Questions? Email upfront@mocadc.org with a subject line You, Me and Everybody Else