New DC art Blog

Samantha Wolov, whose work is one of the more noticeable photographic entries in Seven (she takes photos of her friends having sex), has a new Blog: Nekkid with a Camera.

I love that title!

Visit Sam often. Her Blog is here and her website is here.

Openings This Week

The Art League’s American Landscape show is now global!

Last year in honor of the Art League’s 50th Anniversary, the annual American Landscape Show expanded to include both American and international landscapes. As their artists and visitors travel internationally, the show was a resounding success and will, from now on, be known as the International Landscape Show.

This All-Media Membership Show will be juried by Timothy App, an award-winning and well-respected abstract painter. The show opens August 3rd and runs through Sept. 5th. The opening reception and awards ceremony is this coming Sunday from 2-4PM.

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Washington Printmakers Gallery presents the National Small Works 2005 exhibition featuring works from 23 artists nationwide.

The show runs from August 2 - 28, 2005, with an opening reception and awards presentation this coming Friday, August 5 from 5 to 8 pm. A gallery talk with the artists is next week, Thursday, August 11 from 12 to 1 pm. The juror for the show was Krystyna Wasserman, Curator of Book Arts at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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Conner Contemporary has Academy 2005 opening on August 5 from 6-8PM and running through August 27.

The exhibition, this year being curated by Jamie L. Smith, takes the pulse of new work being created by recent graduates and students from our area's art schools. It is one of my favorite shows of the year and it is now in its fifth year.

Go see some art this week!

Talking Done

Just back from the curator's talk at Seven. A nicely sized crowd showed up, which was a little surprising to me, since usually it has been my experience that these curator talks only attract the artists involved. Thanks to all the DC Art News readers who came by and said howdy.

Bailey has a nice photo storyline of the talk here.

He also managed to fall in love in the subway on the way to Seven and on the way back! The two photos below are courtesy of Bailey:

Me outside Warehouse discussing Seven

Me discussing Tim Tate's work
And the below photo courtesy of Mark Cameron Boyd:


Alessandra Torres discusses her installation
After the talk Alessandra and her family took me out to dinner to Lauriol, where I had some excellent Cuban food.

And Bailey also managed to whip out a monster letter to the Washington Post editors taking Jessica Dawson on for her dismissal of Seven.

It's OK; it's her right as a critic.

And yet, a bad review is better than no review at all. Jessica's expected dismissal of the show has nonetheless resulted in one major sale to an important DC collector.

In addition to Jessica's and John Blee's review, there are three separate other reviews being written right now, and hopefully they will be published soon; let's see what some other observers think.

Curator's Talk

What: Curator's Talk on Seven, an exhibition of 67 WPA/C artists.

When: Today at 2PM.

Where: The seven spaces that make up the Warehouse Theatre and Galleries complex. Located at 1021 7th Street, NW, across from the new Washington Convention Center. We'll start at the top gallery on the third floor.

See ya there!

Mid Year Report

As much as I bitch about lack of dedicated art buyers and collectors in the DC area (especially considering the huge amount of wealth in our region), I was surprised to find out when the fair Catriona recently told me that so far this is our best year ever, and that we've already sold more artwork by the end of July than all of last year.

But I am still amazed at the large percentage of non-Washingtonians buying art from us: New York, LA, Floridians, Irish and Brits!

Why?

Waste newsprint space on this?

Directory Assistance

Let me start by saying that the first thing that I usually read when I open my copy of the City Paper is Chris Shott's most excellent "Show & Tell" column. It is usually witty and interesting, and in fact I have contributed to some of them in the past.

But at the risk of pissing off Chris, I think that this week's Directory Assistance (scroll down) piece in "Show & Tell" is much ado about nothing.

Taking one artist's complaint about the WPA/C's Artist's Directory creating a "tiered membership", with more "services going to those who pay for them," is giving an audience to a complaint that is simply economically ridiculous!

It costs $70 to get into the Artist's Directory. In my opinion, that is an excellent adverstising and marketing opportunity for the buck. To expect that your $45 annual WPA/C membership will also cover the cost of printing and distributing the book is immensely naive.

And those directories move!

We sell them (they also get stolen quite often) at our galleries (we turn all proceeds over to the WPA/C) and they sell well, and in the past visiting Sotheby's personnel have acquired them as reference materials. And I know of several artists who have had their exposure in the book create further opportunities (including myself).

Chris writes that "members who failed to come up with the extra cash for the forthcoming 2006 edition of the WPA\C artist directory are missing out on more than just seeing their names, contact info, and sample works in print," referencing the fact that the WPA/C’s latest exhibition, titled "Turning the Page: Artists Selected From the 2006 WPA\C Artist Directory," only looked at those artists who had purchased a page in the book.

So?

The WPA/C also maintains a slide registry. Many of the WPA/C past exhibitions have have their birth in this registry. And yet a lot of member artists do not have any slides in it.

My point is that inclusion in the slide registry and inclusion in the Artist's Directory is open to all artist members; it costs an additional $70 to get into the directory, but that's an economic non-debatable issue.

The alternative would be to raise the annual fee to $115 a year and open the directory to everyone. Were this to happen I suspect that a wail of complaints (more than one solitary voice) would be raised, from artists who do not wish to add the additional expense just to be in the book.

And on a final point, Chris writes:

Yet paying for a page in the directory doesn’t exactly grant you a great shot at showing your work at "Turning the Page." The series, presently curated by WPA\C Project Manager Ingrid Nuss and summer intern Ding Ren, will showcase only nine artists out of about 375 who paid for a listing, or 2.4 percent.

Well, that's what happens when one has a curated show - it is after all a "selection process."

All inclusive shows abound in our area, such as Wall Mountables and Artomatic.

And guess what? A lonely artist voice here and there also routinely complain about those shows, usually the small financial cost associated with them, or requirement to help with gallery sitting, etc.

The WPA/C has had some valid hiccups in the past, but in this case though, this squeaky wheel shouldn't have received any WCP grease.