Ads

I don't ever recall seeing a TV ad for a museum exhibition in Washington, DC. Perhaps it is because our region is such a magnet for tourists, and a lot of the foor traffic that visits our museums are, uh, visitors to the area -- that museums feel that there's no need for TV ads.

But just saw some new TV ads here in Colorado:

The Denver Art Museum wants to spread the word about the upcoming opening of its Frederic C. Hamilton Building. The major expansion was designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind and has been under construction for more than four years.

The ads, designed by the Integer Group Denver, urge consumers to check out the new $90.5 million building, as well as what's inside.

Read the Denver Post story here.

Congrats!

To Argentine-born artist and DC area resident Mirta Kupferminc, who has been distinguished with the Silver Medal at the 12th International Biennal Print and Drawing Exhibition, R.O.C. in Taipei.

The International Jury selected Mirta´s print entitled “Thirty thousands and one” from about 4,000 artworks received from the whole world. The selected work was done by the artist in remembrance of the 30,000 disappeared people during the military dictatorship that happened thirty years ago in Argentina.

Littleton

I'm in Littleton, Colorado, surrounded by beautiful rocks, great trails and mountain lions. "If you come across a lion while hiking," said the six foot tall hotel front desk lady, "Just look big and stare at it; whatever you do, do not try to run away."

Look big, stare at it.

Right.

Airborne today and heading to Denver and then Seattle on Friday... more later.

Stolen sculpture

A few days ago, one of the local radio stations had a story about how thieves are stealing railroad tracks and other metal objects and then sell it as scrap metal. They do this because the price of most metals has skyrocketed in the last few years.

Sometime between July 7 - 13, 2006, artist Judith Richelieu had a bronze sculpture stolen from an exhibition held at the second floor of the Atrium at 1650 Tysons Blvd.

The bronze was called Fallen Flower, 1994. It is 15 x 20 x 21, and since the price of metal is so high, I wonder if sculptors everywhere ought to be warned that there have been thefts in other parts of the country of railroad tracks, plaques, and maybe now a work of art.

I'll have an image of the stolen sculpture as soon as I get it later today.

Tapedude in the WaPo

Adriane Quinlan has a really good article on DC's own tapedude Mark Jenkins.

Read a rare profile of a DC area artist (now achieving fame all over the place by the way) here.

More murals bite the dust

Apparently the Ariel Rios Building murals are not the only ones in extremis.

According to this story by Diane Haithman in the Left Coast Times:

"On Thursday, attorneys representing artist Kent Twitchell filed a claim against the U.S. Department of Labor in connection with Twitchell's large-scale mural "Ed Ruscha Monument" — a six-story portrait of fellow artist Ruscha on a building owned by the federal agency — being painted over in early June. Twitchell said he received no notice, as required by law, that the paint-over would take place.

Within the past few days, two more downtown murals, Frank Romero's "Going to the Olympics" and Willie Herrón's "Luchas del Mundo" (Struggles of the World) were partly covered with mud-colored paint, an apparent error by a Caltrans work crew cleaning up graffiti.

A Caltrans spokeswoman described the covering as a mistake and said plans are in place to remove the paint next week. Because of a protective coating, she said, the removal process will not affect the artwork."

Read the entire article here.

However, Bill Lasarow at LAMurals.org states that the partial painting-over of Frank Romero’s celebratory "Going to the Olympics" mural was done "in order to save it from graffiti taggers" - not on purpose to destroy it, and that in fact the covering up was apparently scheduled and part of the process and Romero is going to work on the mural some more!