Happy New Year's... and on this date:

Rodrigo Llançol de Borja was born on 1 January 1431 in the town of Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia, one of the component realms of the Crown of Aragon, in present-day Spain.

He would become not only one of the most controversial Popes of all time, but also the man who would seed the legend known as the Borgias!

His parents were Jofré Llançol i Escrivá and the Aragonese Isabel de Borja. His family name is written Llançol in Valencian and Lanzol in Spanish.

Rodrigo adopted his mother's family name of Borja in 1455 following the elevation to the papacy of his maternal uncle Alonso de Borja as Calixtus III, the first Spanish-born Pope (and here you thought that until recent times all Popes were Italian!).

Even though for years Rodrigo was a Cardinal and eventually became Pope Alexander VI, he had multiple mistresses, and his children from one of them, Cesar (which was his name and how he signed documents, but known in Italian as Cesare) and Lucrezia, continued his seed and presence in a family destined to become one of western history's most nefarious names.

Via Alexander VI was known for his patronage of the arts, and in his days a new architectural era was initiated in Rome with the coming of Bramante. Raphael, Michelangelo and Pinturicchio all worked for him.[18] He commissioned Pinturicchio to lavishly paint a suite of rooms in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, which are today known as the Borgia Apartment.

In addition to the arts, Alexander VI also encouraged the development of education. In 1495, he issued a papal bull at the request of William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, and King James IV of Scotland, founding King's College, Aberdeen. King's College now forms an integral element of the University of Aberdeen.

Alexander VI, allegedly a marrano according to papal rival Giuliano della Rovere, distinguished himself by his relatively benign treatment of Jews. After the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain, some 9,000 impoverished Iberian Jews arrived at the borders of the Papal States. Alexander welcomed them into Rome, declaring that they were "permitted to lead their life, free from interference from Christians, to continue in their own rites, to gain wealth, and to enjoy many other privileges." He similarly allowed the immigration of Jews expelled from Portugal in 1497 and from Provence in 1498.

New Year's Prayer

While you're hopefully enjoying welcoming 2012 at parties or with your loved ones tonight, please remember Cuban pro-democracy leader Ivonne Malleza Galano, who is currently on a hunger strike in a punishment cell of the infamous maximum security prison of Manto Negro.

Throughout 2011, Malleza, a member of the Ladies in White, has led a series of peaceful protests in Havana parks that have been met with great popular support.

That led the criminal Castro regime to brutally arrest her on November 30th (here's a video of the protest and arrest).

Also arrested (and still in prison) was her husband Ignacio Martinez Moreno and fellow activist Isabel Hayde Alvarez Mosquera.

Consider dedicating your New Year's prayer and wish to Ivonne's release and to the freedom of all the Cubans who have been now brutalized for over five decades.

DC in American Contemporary Art Magazine

The current issue of American Contemporary Art magazine has a focus piece on DC area shows and discusses the recent FALL SOLOS 2011 at the Arlington Arts Center, Percy Martin's solo show at Parish Gallery in Georgetown, and Frederick's version of Art-O-Matic.

Read it online here; starts in page 16.

Congrats!

To my good buds and DMV uberartists Tim Tate & Michael Janis - each one of them has been named as recipients of Fulbright Scholarships. This March, both of them will be heading over to the University Of Sunderland and to the Institute for International Research in Glass (IIRG) in the United Kingdom. Janis is represented locally by Maurine Littleton and Tate by several galleries.

Also congrats to the very talented Jason Horowitz, who just won a Franz and Virginia Bader Fund grant of $15,000 for his impressive photographic works. He is represented locally by Curator's Office.

Postcards from the Edge



I'm in this benefit art show; check it out online here.

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...