DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities FY 2005 grant applications now available online.

The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities announces that the FY 2005 grant applications are now available online. To obtain a copy, you may download them from their website. Hard copies of the applications will be available after April 15, 2004 and will only be mailed out upon request by calling (202) 724-5613.

Tyler Green, Washington's first art BLOGger, has an excellent idea for the Whitney Biennial. Read it here first.

His idea to send the Whitney Biennial on the road is an interesting idea that deserves a hard look by the new Whitney director Adam Weinberg.

The idea of traveling art shows is nothing new, but the idea of America's best known group show hitting the road is a novel way not only to expose what the leading lights of today's curating cadre see as the "state of the arts" in America, but also to get a reaction about what the "rest of us" outside New York City think about their choices.

Is there art (and opinions) outside of NYC, LA, SF and DC? Let's find out!

I disagree that the Biennial would become stronger by culling it to a dozen artists. True that a Biennial of 108 artists spans a wider range of art, artists and visual offerings - but that's precisely the great challenge of a good group show! It doesn't dilute it - it just offers more to see, discuss and form an opinion about.

This is even more important since today's Biennials - especially this one - are the 19th century's salons with a new name.

The name has changed, but the gist is the same... a select a chosen few – back then the academicians, and now the "hot" curators - pick who and what they feel represents the best of what is "good" in art. But the more the better, maybe not for the Biennial, but for art itself.

Today’s Biennial is supposed to take a "pulse" of the art state of the nation, our nation, and then the complaining begins. Not everyone is happy with a group show, any group show (I’ve curated many, many of them). But especially if it's one with the power and pull of what the Whitney has managed to accomplish all of these years.

And a lot of times (back in the 19th century and also now) the curators are wrong, off-base, out of tune, nearsighted and not in touch with the front battle lines of art. And sometimes they are dead on! But wouldn't it be fun, and good for American art, to find out what Seattle thinks about the show, as opposed to what San Diego thinks?

A salon, I mean Biennial, with 15 or 20 different cities in the schedule, and those cities' regional critics giving their opinions, and making people interested in art again, and maybe making true art stars of a local boy picked for the show.... but wait, Mmmm... Not too many artists outside of New York, or LA, or SF, or wherever the curator is from, are seldom included in this "pulse of American art" of a show.

Hey! That could be another benefit of a traveling Biennial!

Imagine curators, or critics, or artists, or dealers from Columbus, or Boise, or Phoenix or Detroit adding to the mix by bringing forth "their" local artists, who may have never otherwise come to the attention of a Whitney curator.

Then the Whitney Biennial may truly, one day become an American salon, I mean Biennial. And perhaps finally accomplish what it has been failing to do all these years: Survey New American art and perhaps upset a whole nation instead of a few high brow critics in a few cities – and this would all be good for art!

Sometime this week, DCARTNEWS will receive its 10,000th page view! This proves the tremendous amount of interest on the visual arts and issues revolving around the visual arts in our area.

Why the mainstream media doesn't get it has been the subject of much of my verbosity for the last few months...

Just received the Corcoran's extended show schedule. Next year includes the 2005 Biennial, which is being curated now by Dr. Jonathan Binstock. He is the Corcoran's Curator for Contemporary Art.

The Biennial used to be the only Biennial left in the country which was all about painting. This made it stand out; however, Binstock's predecessor was one of those who seemed to agree with the "painting is dead" crowd and "expanded" the Biennial to include everything else that goes for art these days. In my opinion, that vastly diluted the uniqueness of the Biennial.

Anyway, Binstock has already established a reputation as a curator who actually goes to gallery openings and visits artists' studios, etc. This is a great improvement over his predecessor.

He included one area artist in the last Corcoran Biennial (and the first that he curated), and we all certainly hope that he continues to expand on that. One of the biggest complaints that gallerists and area artists have, is the fact that historically a lot of our area museum curators have ignored their own back garden, something I discussed on air the last time I was a guest at the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU.

Who would have thought that a painting exhibition by a DC area art professor would have out-controversied Damien Hirst when they both exhibited concurrently at Dartmouth University?

Read the story published in The Dartmouth here.

The controversy was started by this article written by a student guest columnist to The Dartmouth.

Another student then responded with this letter.

And this letter, also published in The Dartmouth, from the exhibition's curator, responding to the debate caused by the above two, can be read here.

A few postings ago, I was sort of kidding when I talked about Thomas Kinkade having an art show outside his kitschy mall stores and in a real art gallery or museum.

I'll be goddamned if "the painter of light" proved my joke posting right... read it and weep.

Kinkade's paintings are to be on exhibition at the Grand Central Art Center, California State University at Fullerton (CSUF) and that city's main art gallery.

Grand Central - CSUF's funky facility in Santa Ana's Artists Village - has "steadily built a reputation for hosting cutting-edge exhibits of outsider, noncommercial art. And the Main Art Gallery has showcased student and faculty work for years." And Richard Chang from The Orange County Register further writes:

"Mike McGee, CSUF gallery director and professor.... explained that the Kinkade show is being curated by Jeffrey Vallance, an internationally respected curator (and "cultural provocateur," McGee said) known for placing popular phenomena in a contemporary art context....

Vallance's plan is to create a life-size Kinkade chapel and fill it with the artist's Christian art. He also aims to build a Kinkade living room, dining room, bedroom and Bridge of Faith. Kinkade knickknacks will abound.

"There's no financial motivation for us to do this," McGee said. "It's for the sake of stirring things up, creating dialogue."

The scary part is that.... it will probably work, and whoever painted all those big-eyed kid paintings for Sears when I was a kid, or the dogs playing pool, or Elvis-on-velvet, better start contacting Vallance, as I think this may be the next big trend in art.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight....

C'mon Blake.... go to California and review this show for us... please!!!

Thanks to ArtsJournal.com...

Since the economy is booming, the art market is apparently very hot. The secondary art market that is!

A while back I had a rant about wealthy DC area people and their art collecting habits.... from my viewpoint (and generalizing).

Another case in point. Our recent Three Cuban Female Photographers show was a spectacular success. It received a couple of nice reviews in the press; it was one of our most visited shows ever, and it sold well.

All but one of the sales was to someone not from around here... New York, Great Britain, etc. Sales to private collectors and museums alike.

With the exception of one very sharp collector, and although the show was very heavily-attended by locals, only one photo was sold locally.

The price ranges were $600 to $1500, which for contemporary photography, by photographers in museum collections worldwide, is more than a fair price.