Art Basel Miami 2003 will take place next month in Miami Beach. Although there are no Washington area galleries (in no small part due to the huge cost of exhibiting) in the list of exhibiting galleries, it's noteworthy to point out that Washington's Fusebox Gallery will be participating in Art Positions, where many other galleries have the opportunity to exhibit art in renovated ships' containers transformed into mobile exhibition spaces on the beach.

This is hard work from a very hard working gallery, and Fusebox, already one of our best galleries, will hopefully get some well-deserved attention for the Washington area artists that they represent from the Miami media (and our own).

Thanks to Arts Journal: The Society for the Appreciation of the Female Nude (SAFN) in praise of the traditional female nude in art has established a new art prize in Britain: The Venus Prize.

It will be presented annually to an artist who "expresses the beauty of a woman wholly at ease with her own body while communicating a female sensuality openly but non-provocatively".

Ulla Plougmand-Turner, a self-taught Danish-born artist, will be the first recipient of the award, being presented by the Marquess of Bath in London tonite.

The Society for the Arts in Healthcare is a non-profit organization, advocating on a national and international level for the integration of the arts into healthcare settings. Their 2004 Annual Conference will be held April 21-24 in Alexandria, Virginia with site visits and events throughout the Washington, DC area. Among the keynote speakers will be Lawrence Rinder, Curator of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum.

Reminder: The Washington Convention Center will unveil its art collection to the public today - Monday, November 10, from 6:00 - 8:00 pm. They will introduce the largest public art collection in Washington, DC. Over 120 works of art, sculpture, paintings, photography, graphics and mixed media. They spent around four million dollars, of which half was allocated to DC area artists.

Location: 801 Mount Vernon Place, NW, Washington, DC. Please use Mount Vernon Place entrance. The Washington Convention Center is accessible by the Mount Vernon Place/7th Street - Convention Center or Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro Stations. Parking is limited in the surrounding areas. R.S.V.P. 202-249-3449.

Today's Sunday Arts section in the Washington Post brings unexpected and rare multiple pieces on the visual arts.

There's an eye-catching and attractive large piece by Jessica Dawson on Joseph Cornell's art boxes with the unfortunate headline of Art's Box Launch. The piece is actually on the very interesting book "Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay . . . Eterniday," which comes with the DVD set The Magical Worlds of Joseph Cornell.

Not related to the book, but interesting nonetheless, is this international mail art exhibition about Cornell being held in California.

Paul Richard, who retired as the chief art for the Post a while back and is now a contract writer for the Post, has an excellent piece on Frank Bruno's painting exhibition at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. This is another exhibition that I would love to have read a second review by Richard's replacement, Blake Gopnik, in order to read Blake's perspective on Bruno's work. And as the Arts Editor of the New York Times points out, it's healthy for critics to disagree and Rockwell has the courage to write: "I trust my own subjective taste."

The bold is added for anyone who thinks that art critics (or any critic) are objective - especially for art editors and the critics themselves.

And the Post's music critic, Richard Harrington, as he does sometimes, used his print space to do a terrific review of "Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive - Photographs by Dick Waterman " at Georgetown's Govinda Gallery, which as Harrington points out, for many years "has been has long been at the forefront of music-related exhibitions."

The Post once tried to demote Harrington, (who is a very good writer in my opinion) allegedly (according to Harrington) because he was too old to write about contemporary music. According to the City Paper, after six months of "searching" for a qualified replacement, then they allegedly tried to replace Harrington with another Post writer whose previous experience had been in the business section of the paper.

And finally, reader William Woodhouse scolds Blake in a Letter to the Arts Editor, for "being misled" about the importance of Toledo in El Greco's Spain as described in Gopnik's review of El Greco now drawing huge crowds to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In his review Blake anchors much of El Greco's unusual success with his odd realism upon the fact that El Greco was working in the "in the safe isolation of a provincial Spanish town" and essentially the locals didn't know any better. But William Woodhouse corrects Gopnik's perception of Toledo by pointing out that "it is a mistake, however, to characterize the ambiance of 16th-century Toledo as "the safe isolation of a provincial Spanish town" vs. the court of Philip II in Madrid."

It sort of puts a big hole in the review's central theory.

No slack in these leagues.

In Blake's defense, most people in the US and Britain get a very one-sided, British-centric view of European history and events. When I lived in Spain in the early 80's, it was very interesting to read the Spanish version of the wars with England, and Spain's place in European history. I even recall reading that more people were put to the torch, quartered and hung in England during Elizabeth's reign, than in the entire 500-year run of the Inquisition.

It could be a case of the Spanish trying to demonize their (then) arch enemies, much like the English have tried to demonize Philip II, who's usually presented in history as the "bad guy" of Europe.

A while back I read Henry Kamen's Philip of Spain and it certainly became an engrossing educational adventure for me, and I highly recommend it.

Last night Kate and I went gallery hopping to the Dupont Circle galleries first Friday extended hours.

Found out that Troyer Gallery now shares its space with a new gallery, Irvine Contemporary Art, which was having its grand opening last night. Troyer Gallery is now in the small room in the rear and according to them, the gallery has "modified its space and direction," with an "increased focus on fine art ceramics."

The new gallery sharing Troyer's space is focused on what they describe as "contemporary art with an international view" and so far represent the work of six artists, while also exhibiting and keeping an inventory of work by twenty other well-known artists.

Kathleen Ewing, which is easily Washington's top photography gallery, has recently renovated its spaces and doubled in size. Ewing is expanding the gallery's focus past photography and they now have on display the paintings of Bethesda artist Michael Gross, who they now represent.

The current show is the artist's first solo show and it has done exceedingly well, as there were quite a few red dots on his paintings.

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The December issue of Art News magazine will have a city focus on Washington, DC.

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