Roberto Rodriguez and the Cuban Jewish All Stars

The Jewish Music Festival is featuring a very special act this year:  

Roberto Rodriguez is a true innovator whose artistic vision synthesizes Cuban and Jewish music into an entirely new creation that breathes joy and melancholy. Born in Havana and raised in Miami, the percussionist and composer’s groundbreaking music explores his cross-cultural roots and influences, melding his native Cuban music with contemporary genres of world, Sephardic, pop, jazz, electronic and classical music.

 Details here.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 8, 2012

A national juried exhibition of emerging artists, ages 16-25, with disabilities. Sustaining / Creating asks emerging artists to showcase work that illuminates innovative viewpoints on sustainability and contemporary creativity. Beyond its scientific definition, sustainability references notions of responsibility and stewardship of our natural world in all facets of human interaction–from the environmental to the cultural. Sustainability indicates the capacity to endure.

Submitted artwork should illustrate these thematic ideas, which may be achieved through broad, abstracted references or detailed personal creations. Your submission might also reflect your experience of living with a disability and its role in shaping or transforming your art.

This exhibition is presented by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ VSA & Accessibility Office and Volkswagen Group of America, Inc.

Details here

The Scream

The frenzy around the imminent auction on May 2 of Edvard Munch’s The Scream at Sotheby’s in New York is reaching a peak here in Europe, where predictions abound that it will break the record price paid for a work of art at auction: $106.5 millions two years ago for Pablo Picasso’s “Nude green leaves and bust.”

Read the story here.

You knew this was coming...

 Minnesotan Dan Lacey is most famous for his paintings of celebrities and politicians with pancakes on their heads (or with pancake breasts, or pancake eyeglasses, or pancake anything else). But a wad of money, not a stack of pancakes, is the centerpiece of his latest work: A portrait of Mitt Romney, mostly naked and in the process of getting nakeder. The 8-by-10-inch acrylic painting, which Lacey recently completed over the course of four hours in the passenger seat of a PT Cruiser while he and his wife ran errands, is currently up for auction on eBay

Read the whole story here.

Not the first time that taking the clothes off a politician is a fun thing for an artist to do... eight years ago Kayti Didricksen's nude portrait of President Bush became the most downloaded image in the internets and my own Obama Agonistes now sits in a private collection in Miami Beach.

About to hit the DMV

A couple of busloads of art collectors from all over the US is about to fly to DC (next week) and do some guided (not by me) studio and gallery visits.

One thing in common? A copy of "100 Artists of Washington, DC."

More later...

Celebrity Sighting

Actress Lucy Liu came by my booth at the Affordable Art Fair earlier today. She was with an assistant and they asked for a card.

Later the assistant returned (a really nice lady) and bought one of my drawings.

Saturday at AAFNYC

The constant crowds continue as the good weather stays in NYC and based on what I saw today, it looked like many galleries were moving artwork.

Jeannette Herrera continues to have a brilliant NYC debut as today she sold another four paintings! Also closed the deal and sold Judith Peck's largest piece in the show... and also sold two of my pieces, including the very cool second version of "Eve Sees Her Face for the First Time" - a digital-embedded piece.