Announcing DC Artist Exchange (DCax)

Artomatic, in collaboration with several DC-based arts and cultural organizations, has announced the DC Artist Exchange (#DCax). 

 

This kick-off series includes five Panel Discussions on artist space in the city and four Swap Meets. Swap meets provide a forum for the exchange of creative services or materials and the opportunity for community networking. 

 

Best of all, events are FREE to attend. 

 

Come to one session or the whole series. The series kicks off this Saturday, July 20th and runs through the summer season.

View the schedule and sign up today

Becoming a Collector: How to Know What You LIke and Where to Find It

Thursday, July 25, 7pm in the Emerson Gallery at McLean Project for the Arts

MPA Exhibitions Director, Nancy Sausser, will give a talk about collecting art and how to get started.

Free, but reservations are required. Email info@mpaart.org to reserve your spot.

McLean Project for the Arts is located at 1234 Ingleside Avenue in McLean VA

For more information visit www.mpaart.org or call 703-790-1953

2013 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize

Congratulations to Corcoran College of Art and Design faculty member Gabriela Bulisova, who was awarded the 2013 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize on Saturday, July 13.

A faculty member in both the Photography and New Media Photojournalism degree programs, Bulisova was awarded the $25,000 prize for her multimedia project, "Time Zone."

The project - a collection of photographs and 12-minute video - focuses on 39-year-old Washington resident Lashawna Etheridge-Bey's effort to recreate a life after 18 years in prison. "Time Zone" features interviews with Etheridge-Bey, her mother, children and friend.

Gabriela Bulisova is a documentary photographer from the former Czechoslovakia, based in Washington, D.C. She travels to marginalized places such as Chernobyl, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria to give voice to those who have been silenced.

View images from "Time Zone" here. View the video here.

Amazon to Start Selling Fine Art On Line

Reports from the Art Newspaper and the Wall Street Journal say Amazon is making plans to sell fine art online. The reports say the company is working with galleries around the U.S.—perhaps more than 100—to act as an online art market and collect a commission on the sales.

Amazon tried this once before in 2001, but in partnership with Sotheby's. It was very successful, so much in fact that Sotheby's decided to go on their own, broke their contract with Amazon (and paid them a ton of money to do so) and was selling about a million dollars a day at one point.

Ebay noticed this and tried to start doing the same thing via a short-lived venture titled Ebay Premiere; they failed miserably.

Then Ebay started courting Sotheby's and the fools decided to partner up with Ebay and the whole entire thing tanked in record time, forever poisoning the well for online fine art auctions.

The formula for selling fine art online demands a legitimizing name (such as Sotheby's or Christie's or MoMA or such a recognizable "art name") - it fails miserably anytime anyone else tries it.

Woman as Color, Light and Form

Galerie Myrtis located at 2224 North Charles Street in Baltimore has an upcoming exhibition titled Woman as Color, Light and Form that has caught my eye.   The Opening Reception will be held Saturday, July 27, 2013, from 6:00pm – 9:00pm.  The reception is free and open to the public. An Artists’ Talk will take place on Sunday, August 11, 2013 from 2:00 – 4:00 pm and is part of the Tea with Myrtis series of art salons. Fee:  $20 includes tea sampling and sweet and savory treats.  

In challenging the notion of the feminine archetype, artists embrace and reach beyond the boundaries of the female form to express the essence of a woman, figuratively, conceptually and metaphorically. 

As Color, alluring imagery stretches the imagination and explores a woman’s sexual and intellectual power through aggressive gestures and symbolic references to the feminine life-giving force. As Light, provocative photographs portray a woman’s physical strength and ubiquitous presence in nature. As Form, moving two and three dimensional objects, emblematic of the ethereal qualities of a woman, reveal the complexities, convictions and intuitiveness of the feminine expressed as the divine; a ritualistic-based video serves as testimony to one woman’s personal journey of renewal, and others speak to healing, identity, memory and transformation in tableaus that embody a woman’s unbridled spirit.

The sixteen participating artists express their artistic voices through installations, paintings, photography, prints, and videos.




Artists:  Sondra Arkin, Maya Freelon Asante, David Carlson, Phylicia Ghee, Michael Gross, Nora Howell, Ada Pinkston, Edwin Remsburg (that's his powerful image Diapotheque Series 9/22 to the left), Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Rachael Rotenberg, Amy Sherald, Mary Walker, and Sigrid Vollerthun along with Sondheim Semi-finalists: A. Moon and Adejoke Tugbiyele

Washington Studio School Annual Students Juried Show

The Washington Studio School 

is pleased to announce 

the Opening Reception of the Annual Students Juried Show 2013 

Friday, July 19th

From 6-8pm

"The work selected for this year's Juried Student Exhibition displays the progression of learning and skill-building that occurs at the Washington Studio School. The focus on drawing and understanding dynamic spatial relationships is evident in student's artwork of all skill levels.  

From figure drawing studies to sculpture, to drawings, paintings and collage that explore abstraction, to paintings in which one can detect a developing individual aesthetic and intuitive process, we can clearly see evidence of growth and the positive results of a highly focused and directed school environment. This exhibition is a showcase of some of the most dynamic student artwork as well as a wonderful insight into the Washington Studio School teaching approach." 

 Milena Spasic, Juror

How the NSA Cracked the Kryptos Sculpture Code

It took more than eight years for a CIA analyst and a California computer scientist to crack three of the four coded messages on the CIA’s famed Kryptos sculpture in the late ’90s.

Little did either of them know that a small group of cryptanalysts inside the NSA had beat them to it, and deciphered the same three sections of Kryptos years earlier — and they did it in less than a month, according to new documents obtained from the NSA.

Details here.