New shows open at the Katzen

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM at the KATZEN ARTS CENTER, led by the amazing super powers of Jack Rasmussen continues to outshine a lot of other DMV museums... Check out the new shows below:

Opening Reception: April 6, 6-9PM 

• Forward Press: 21st Century Printmaking
• Squire Broel
• Testament of the Spirit: Paintings by Eduardo Carrillo 
• Kenneth Victor Young: Continuum 
• Peripheral Visions (MFA Studio Art First Year Exhibition)

Read more about their Spring exhibitions here.

Trawick Prize Deadline April 8

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is inviting regional artists to submit work to the annual Trawick Prize!

This juried art competition awards $14,000 in prizes to four selected winners. The deadline for submissions is Monday April 8, 2019. Up to eight selected finalists will be chosen to display their work at Bethesda’s Gallery B in September 2019.

The competition will be juried by Jonathan Monaghan, Assistant Professor of Digital Art & Studio Art Advisor, Catholic University, and the 2015 Trawick Prize Best In Show Winner; Foon Sham, Professor of Sculpture, University of Maryland, and Sue Wrbican, Associate Professor of Photography & Director of Photography Program, George Mason University.

Submission requirements:

• Artists must be 18 years of age or older
• Residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C.
• All original 2-D and 3-D fine art including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video will be accepted.
• Artwork must have been completed within the last two years and must be available for the duration of the exhibition.
• Selected artists must deliver their artwork to the exhibit site in Bethesda, MD.
• Each artist must submit five images, an application and a non-refundable entry fee of $25

The Best in Show will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A “young” artist whose birth date is after April 8, 1989 may also be awarded $1,000.

Apply here.

Bethesda Row Arts Festival

Each October, 190 leading artists nationwide turn Bethesda Row’s Arts and Entertainment District into an outdoor art gallery, featuring juried fine arts and fine crafts. “Art Fair Sourcebook” has recognized the Bethesda Row Arts Festival (BRAF) as one of the top 30 Fine Art Shows in the United States, attracting 45,000 art patrons over the two-day event.

Bethesda Row, just outside of Washington, DC, features more than 50 fine shops, upscale galleries and unique restaurants with outdoor seating. A few short blocks from the Metro, and on the Capital Crescent Trail, the area is accessible to the entire region by subway, bus, car and bike. 

Details and application here.

I've done this show several times over the years and I'm thinking of doing it again and doing some artist interviews and vlogging live - more later.

CHAW's 50 States Project

Tomorrow will be the official launch of the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop's groundbreaking, artist-led mobile artist residency program, The 50 States Project.

Beginning Fall 2019, painter Kate Fleming and photographer Tom Woodruff will spend a year traveling in a small camper van to all 50 states, exploring regional similarities and differences through art. This national project will concurrently serve as a mobile classroom for students at CHAW in a new Social Justice youth arts program. 

Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW) is excited to announce the launch of The 50 States Project, a groundbreaking mobile artist residency. Beginning Fall 2019, painter Kate Fleming and photographer Tom Woodruff will spend a year traveling in a small camper van to all 50 states, exploring regional similarities and differences through art.  This national, artist-led project will concurrently serve as a mobile classroom for students at CHAW in a new Social Justice youth arts program, striving to raise critical consciousness, build community, and motivate students to promote social change through artistic means. For more information, please visit www.the50statesproject.com

Near Toyota Dealership by Kate Fleming

“Meaningful conversation is largely absent amid the intense division and discord found across the American landscape today,” says Amy Moore, CHAW’s Executive Director. “CHAW believes artists are uniquely situated to contribute by capturing and interpreting the ideals of our nation. Alongside the residency, CHAW’s new youth Social Justice program will allow students to explore how art has been used as a means to record history, shape culture, cultivate imagination, and harness individual and social transformation.”

As they travel to all 50 states, artists Kate and Tom will conduct their own individual research, producing works of visual art engaging with a particular theme or research question of their choosing. The artists will anchor their trip with stops at arts organizations across the country, engaging with at least one formal arts community in each state. Upon returning to DC in the fall of 2020, the artists will present their research through an exhibition, public programs, and an exhibit catalogue which will be shared with the communities they will have visited.

“By physically immersing ourselves in other American cultures during both an election year and a census year, we will learn and share the stories of our fellow Americans,” says artist Kate Fleming. “The artworks we create along the way will act as a vehicle through which others can experience and develop empathy for these people and places.”

About the artists:

Kate Fleming is a painter, printmaker, muralist, and installation artist based in her hometown of Arlington, Virginia. She has shown her work throughout the DC area and across the U.S. at galleries and mural festivals including POW! WOW! DC; Site:Brooklyn in New York; and Flatbed Press in Austin. Kate was artist-in-residence at CHAW in the Spring of 2018 and she has also completed residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, Virginia and Penland School of Craft in Bakersville, NC. Additionally, Kate has worked as a set designer with CHAW’s resident theater company, Taffety Punk, whom she met during her residency at CHAW. Kate conducted an artistic survey of biodiversity in North Carolina in 2017 with fellow artist Kristen Orr, painting her way across the state on an intensive seven-day road trip.

Tom Woodruff is a photojournalism graduate student at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication, with an expected completion date of May 2019. He has undertaken multiple long-term photographic studies of place, including photo essays on tourism and the National Mall, gentrification of DC’s Massachusetts Avenue, and perseverance of community in the small coal mining town of Hemlock, Ohio. Tom works to develop trust with the communities he photographs through his working philosophy of empathy, rather than of exploitation. In 2019, Tom was a finalist for the Reinke Grant for Visual Storytelling. Kate and Tom spent six months traveling around Australia in 2016, living and traveling in a camper van for two months of the trip. In 2017, the pair presented their Australian artworks in a two-person collaborative exhibition at Falls Church Arts in Falls Church, Virginia.

Art Blossoms

New “Art Blossoms” exhibit at the Torpedo Factory Artists @ Mosaic Gallery coincides with the arrival of the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin.

Cherry Blossoms by Min Enghauser

Nothing signifies the arrival of spring quite like the blooming of the cherry blossom trees in Washington, D.C. 

Now, a new exhibit at the Torpedo Factory Artists @ Mosaic Gallery in Fairfax, Va., offers its own interpretation of the splendor of nature in a show titled “Art Blossoms”, featuring 13 juried artists from the highly-acclaimed Torpedo Factory Art Center. The artists represent a variety of mediums, including painting, printmaking, photography, and 3D media.

The Torpedo Factory Artists @ Mosaic is a popup gallery sponsored by the Torpedo Factory Artists’ Association, and is located in the upscale Mosaic District shopping area in Fairfax, Va.

“Art Blossoms”, March 20 – April 8, Torpedo Factory Artists @ Mosaic, 2905 District Avenue, #105, Fairfax, Virginia. Open Wednesday thru Sunday 11 – 7.

In addition to what’s going on at the gallery in connection with the cherry blossoms’ arrival, there will be various events throughout the Mosaic District, including art demonstrations by Torpedo Factory artists, and numerous other activities sponsored by the Mosaic District.

At the MCI

Mexican Cultural Institute 2829 16th Street Northwest Washington, DC 20009 (View on map)

On the return of stolen Cuban artwork

A decade ago I discussed this issue - read it here.

There are a lot of museums in Europe, mostly France, and a lot of collectors in Europe and Asia, and several major auction houses that are nervously looking to what happens in Cuba once its brutal dictatorship finally ends.

They are nervous because worldwide courts have consistently recognized the right of original owners to the return of artwork which has been looted by governments and dictatorships, confiscated, sold and re-sold.