And further to my post below, what goes for shocking in New York or London is certainly different from what is still considered shocking around Washington, DC.

We're getting a lot of flak from our neighbors and some of the public in Bethesda about Scott Hutchison's large female nude paintings currently on exhibition. Especially this one which is five and half feet tall.

John Rockwell, writing in the New York Times, says that "for centuries new art has offended, challenging the purely pleasurable" and also that "in the end all art must seek to disturb and provoke" and ends with "great art is always shocking."

So because Seward Johnson takes Impressionist paintings and makes sculptures from them, his work is crap. But when the Chapman Brothers take Goya's war etchings and make sculptures out of them, their work may be great - because it's shocking.

I initially thought that they were both crap, but now I get it.

Opportunities for Visual Artists:

Deadline: January 15, 2004. Open Exhibition Competition for a show at the Target Gallery in the Torpedo Factory Art Center. Open to all individual artists and groups in all media in North America. Jurors: Annie Adjchavanich, Executive Director, Washington Project for the Arts/Corcoran; B.J. Adams, noted fiber artist; James and Jenna Blalock, Washington area collectors of fine art and craft. Deadline for Porposals: January 15, 2004. Show dates: October 20-November 28, 2004. Fee: $35 for 20 images (slides or JPEG CD) and proposal. For appliocation, contact targetgallery@torpedofactory.org, 703/838-4565 x 4, or send SASE to Open 2004, Target Gallery
105 N. Union Street, Alexandria, VA 22314

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Deadline: December 15, 2003. The Humanities Fine Arts Gallery of the University of Minnesota Morris has a call for exhibition proposals for 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 academic years. Send 10 to 20 slides of recent work, artist's statement, resume, and SASE to be considered for solo or group show. No prospectus and better still: no entry fee. Deadline for Submissions is December 15th, 2003. Send proposal to:

Michael Eble
Division of the Humanities
University of Minnesota Morris
Morris MN 56367

Email questions to meble@mrs.umn.edu

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Deadline February 2, 2004. Ivyside International Juried Exhibition at Penn State Altoona. Open to all visual artists in all media. Entries must have been completed within the last two years. Artists will be selected from slides, CD Rom, or VHS/DVD by a faculty committee. Up to six artists will be awarded annually with a gallery exhibition in one of two gallery spaces (each approximately 13' x 25') at the Community Arts Center at Penn State Altoona. There is no entry fee.

Send:
1. CV - One copy, no more than 2 pages.

2. Artist statement - One copy, no more than 1 page.

3. Slides - A maximum of 12 (24 for three dimensional work) slides may be submitted for review. Clearly label slides with, name, title, date, medium, size (h x w x d) and an indication of top of image. Submit in a plastic slide sheet, in order, with a SASE. Artists are entitled to enter a maximum of 12 slides for review. Two-dimensional work one slide/work may be submitted for consideration. For three-dimensional work two slides per entry are allowed. Provide one copy of a slide list on 1 8 ½ x 11 sheet.

4. Or CD Rom: A maximum of 12 (24 for three dimensional work) jpeg or tiff images may be submitted for review. Submit on a CDR IBM compatible disc in order. Title each image on the disc. Provide one copy of an image list on one 8½ x 11 sheet. Submit with SASE.

5. Or DVD/VHS: A maximum of 10 minutes will be viewed by the gallery committee. Your tape or DVD may be a compilation tape, but one full length piece must be present. Submit with SASE.

Accepted artists will be notified May 1, 2004 and then artwork may be hand-delivered or shipped prepaid to Ivyside Juried Exhibition, Penn State Altoona. Within reason, Penn StateAltoona will return ship, via UPS ground. Each exhibition will have labels, a poster, postcard, gallery reception, and simple checklist.

Ivyside Juried Art Competition
Penn State Altoona, Community Arts Center
3000 Ivyside Park
Altoona, Pennsylvania 16601

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Deadline: December 12, 2003. District of Columbia Art Center 8th Annual Exhibition Raffle. An annual opportunity to win a six-week show in the DCAC gallery. Tickets are only $50 each for DCAC members and $100 for non-members. Note that a year's membership to DCAC costs as little as $30 making it possible to become a new member and enter the raffle for only $80. DCAC also encourages artists to join together with other artists and share the price of a ticket.

Tickets may be purchased at DCAC during gallery and theater hours of Wed-Thurs 2-7 PM; Fri- Sat 2-10 PM. Tickets will also be available at the December 7th's MUSE, hosted by Faith Flanagan.

For more information, please call (202)- 462-7833.

Lots of good stuff happening around the DMV's visual art scene:

Tonite is the Bethesda Art Walk from 6-10 PM.

The Art Museum of the Americas will be hosting “An Architect of Surrealism,” an exhibition of paintings by Roberto Matta, one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. The exhibition includes work ranging from a drawing from the late 1940’s to a pair of etchings from 1985, as well as four paintings and a dozen gouache, etching and lithograph works.

Ten of the pieces have been loaned by Walker Fine Art of San Diego, while the rest of the pieces are from the Art Museum of the Americas' permanent collection. This exhibit will open on Wednesday, November 19 at 6:00 PM with a reception at the Art Museum of the Americas (201 18th Street, NW), and will continue through March 7, 2004.

The third edition of the Guerrilla Film Fest (GFF3) will be held at the Carnegie Institution in DC on Saturday November 22, 2003. The program for GFF3 consists of 8 award-winning short films. You can get program details here or email John Hanshaw for info.

In conjunction with the ongoing citywide arts festival, "Blues and Dreams: Celebrating the African American Experience in Washington, DC," the The District of Columbia Arts Center gallery has an opening tonite from 7-9 PM. It's a four artist group show which includes work by painter Shinique Smith, performance videos by Jefferson Pinder, lightbox-mounted, quasi-documentary photographs by Djakarta Jacobs, and Nekisha Durrett's photographs - confrontational portraits of proud, young African American lesbians.

In reference to my frustration with the Post's galleries' coverage, photographer Jim Steele adds that he'd "hate to think [that] the lack of coverage by the Post implies a lack of respect for local artists, but I suspect this is a large part of the problem."

In the Post today, Style's Friday focus is movies, and appropriately enough, there are four movie reviews in the section. There is also one theater review and three different music reviews by three different writers. Nothing "extra" on the visual arts, of course.

Over in the Weekend section, Michael O'Sullivan reviews Jim Sanborn's great show at the Corcoran and at Numark Gallery. This show was earlier reviewed by Blake Gopnik on October 31.

As it happens almost every Friday, Weekend movie critics manage to review the same movies that the Style section critic reviews.

So three of the movies reviewed in Style are also reviewed, by different critics in Weekend. This is a great way to see how critics can differ - not just in movies but in any genre of the arts. So while Stephen Hunter says that Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World "suffers from what might be called colonitis," and generally dislikes the movie, his fellow critic Desson Howe offers that the movie is not only a "masterful performance" but also that "[the movie] isn't just a fabulous seagoing spectacle. It's one for the ages."

Guess which critic will end up quoted in those one line mini-quotes that movies use in their advertising?

As I've noted at least twice before, wouldn't it be great if once in a while the Post would send Blake Gopnik and Paul Richard to review the same gallery or museum show, and publish it the same day, to give us readers two different perspectives on one show?

This happens (not by planned assignment, but just because the Style section editor and the Weekend editor are different editors and do not "synchronize" who and what will be reviewed) very frequently with movies and theatre. It also happens on a rare ocassion (like today), when O'Sullivan reviews a show that either has already been reviewed, or is later reviewed by either Dawson (if it's a gallery show) or Gopnik (if it is a museum show).

But what this practice of multiple movie and theatre reviews does prove, is that the (sometimes offered) excuse that the reason that the Post does not review more galleries is due to lack of print space is an invalid reason not to expand galleries coverage to the same level as theater, music, and fashion.

Weekend also has an army of contract writers that provide mini reviews of dozens of music and theater events (and of course movies) throughout the area, but not a single contract writer to do mini gallery reviews.

Why not?

I don't know, but I would guess that the Weekend editor, Joyce Jones, does not think that offering the same level of coverage to art galleries and art museums as she gives to our wonderful theaters, night clubs, performance venues and cinemas is as important and that her readers are not interested in a gallery art show in Dupont Circle, Georgetown, downtown or Bethesda to the same level as in a play in Olney or a dinner theatre production in Woodbridge, etc.

Today is "Galleries" focus day at the Post's Style section, and Jessica Dawson reviews a library show in Baltimore.

In the "Arts Beat" column, Chris Richards discusses the Convention Center's art collection. For my opinion on that subject, read my Nov. 11 posting.

And just as I predicted yesterday, there are two music reviews in the paper.

This gets to the heart of the matter of my bitching about the Post's gallery coverage. Because Jessica is the only freelance writer that the Post employs to review galleries, and because not only does she review gallery shows, but also sometimes museums, and also embassy shows, and university shows, and alternative spaces shows, and library shows, and because (as she did today) she sometimes includes Baltimore in her geographical area, there just isn't enough coverage in the newspaper on a par with what the Post does for music, theatre, performance and even fashion!

In fact, a quick check online reveals that since April 25, 2002 the Post has published 146 columns on fashion while Dawson has only written 76 in the same time period.

How can the Post justify having several contract writers for all those other art genres but only one for our area galleries?

I believe that they feel that their gallery coverage is appropriate and see no need to expand it to the same degree of coverage that they provide in Style for music, theatre, fashion, etc. I disagree, but I am certainly not objective about the issue.

Why does the Post feel that way?

Simple: Because no one complains except gallery owners. And of course from our perspective the coverage could always be better and to them it is just sourgrapes.

But do the readers care?

I don't know, but the Post obviously thinks that they don't care. This is clear because once in a while, when Jessica is away or on vacation, they just skip the column.

I guess that we should be grateful that the world's second most powerful newspaper allows one freelance writer to write an (almost) weekly column to cover all of our area galleries, plus Baltimore's, plus embassies, and libraries, etc. And also lucky that over in the Weekend section Michael O'Sullivan has been allowed by his editor to expand his column from just covering museums and also include galleries in his coverage.

Thank you guys.

Today's Style section in the Post has the kind of coverage that one wishes the paper would give the visual arts on their "Galleries/Art News focus" day (Thursdays).

Wednesday is "Pop Music" focus day in the Style section, and there are eight separate columns or reviews by seven different writers (plus three different theatre reviews although Tuesdays is "theatre focus day" not today).

So at least for music and theatre, Style has several different critics and writers who provide us with fairly good coverage, offering a widely ranging set of reviews and opinions - dealing with both national level artists and Washington area artists and venues. Many of these Post writers are "contract" writers (freelance), allowing the Post to hire (and fire them) fairly easily I assume, while saving on having to provide 401K's and medical insurance, etc.

Nonetheless, I applaud the Post's interest in helping to cover our area's rich musical and theatrical scene. It certainly deserves the coverage given.

But on Thursdays - "Galleries and Art News focus day" - Why then only one column on "Galleries" by only one contract writer? And the Arts Beat column, which is published twice a month on Thursdays, often covers the entire spectrum of the "arts" - it is not just a visual arts column by far.

It's not fair to Jessica Dawson, who has to spread her single column all over the region, sometimes as far as Baltimore and often to embassies, and it's not fair to the many, many area galleries, who must all compete for the ear of just one Style critic, it's not fair to the many area artists and other good exhibitions which get ignored because of lack of coverage, and most of all, it's not fair to the readers of Style who must all just read only one critical voice and perspective when it comes to our area's art galleries and who often are also unaware of important exhibitions that go uncovered due to lack of print space allowed by Style to the visual arts on "Galleries" day.

In fact, I am willing to bet that tomorrow's paper, on their assigned "Galleries/Art News" focus day, will have more theatre and music reviews than galleries reviews.