New one on me

"Art day trading" is what I am going to call this curious happenstance.

Gallerist tells me of selling a work of art to a collector during a preview of a show. Buyer pays around $30,000 for the piece and then says to the gallerist something along the lines of: "keep it for sale during the show and see if someone buys it for $40,000 by the end of the exhibition."

Never seen this before

We went gallery hopping around Philly's Old City section and the streets were packed with people, performers and artists. All the galleries were packed.

In fact, the opening at Wexler Gallery was so crowded last night, that the owners at one point had to regulate traffic flow into the gallery as people came in and out.

I've never seen a gallery so packed for three solid hours and when they finally closed the doors there were still tons of people outside.

I'll have a video of the openings and the artwork later...

Art for Obama

On Friday, May 23, 6:30-9 PM, Duality Contemporary Art, a new gallery located in Arlington, Virginia, near the Shirlington area, is hosting an "Art for Obama Benefit Reception."

Art for sale is priced from $100 to $800 and there's a silent auction as well. Work by: Deborah Coburn, graffiti artist Tim Conlon, Joy Every, John Gascot, Dirk Herrman, Elizabeth Grusin-Howe, Lucy Herrman, Beverly Ryan, Nancy Sausser, Langley Spurlock, Paula Wachsstock, Angelika Wamsler, and more.

Details here

Healing Arts Gallery Grand Opening

DC's Smith Farm will be hosting the grand opening of its new Healing Arts Gallery on Friday, May 9th from 5:30-8PM.

The Gallery is a first-of-its-kind exhibition space in the US, innovatively designed to provide each visitor with a unique experience of how the arts can enhance wellbeing.

Smith Farm Center, a renowned leader in combining art with health and healing, has leveraged its decade of experience at the forefront of this emerging field to design and construct the facility in the heart of the U Street historic art district in Washington, DC.

The Gallery, recently featured at the Museum of Modern Art’s (MOMA’s) “Value and Importance of Art in Health Care” Conference, is supported by the DC Commission on Arts and the Humanities for its groundbreaking approach. The public is invited to attend the grand opening events.

It’s also a “green” gallery – and I believe it may be the first in the nation. Whenever possible, Smith Farm has chosen to incorporate environmentally sensitive choices into the rehabilitation process. These choices include: compact flourescent lights throughout the space, No-voc paint, a donated, reclaimed brazilian cherry wood floor, low-water flow toilet and energy efficient HVAC system. The Gallery has a "green roof" and two living walls of plants that actually oxygenate the facility. The Gallery’s tenant is a store that focuses on green products.

Details here.

A note from J.W. Mahoney

Corrections from J.W. Mahoney on “Report from Washington, D.C.” Art in America, May 2008

It's always lucky whenever the DC arts community gets any major art magazine coverage, and, with only a few exceptions, noted below, I stand by the edit of the text of this article. My image selection for the piece, however, was largely ignored by the editors. There are images I consider redundant by some Color School artists – the art world knows all these people by now – and, without any disrespect implied to the artists themselves, any images by artists unmentioned in the text were selected by my editors. The piece looks good, but it's not as I designed it to look.

Some textual corrections: Philippa Hughes' name is spelled that way. The gallery representing Tom Downing's estate is the Addison-Ripley Gallery, even as Leigh Conner has often featured Tom's work. And Michael O'Sullivan is noted as "the only DC art critic to be taken seriously by local artists," when the original text was, specifically, "the only Washington Post art critic to be," etc. And the original piece was longer, and included more artists, from Jae Ko to Borf, to Yoko Ono.

What's important is that our arts community continue to wake up to two significant conditions: first, that we're radically, originally, rich aesthetically, however slim or quixotic the validation feels from our greater social community and its media - and its museums. Second, that we have to validate (or keep validating) ourselves and each other first, before and whether or not an art world of 2008 or 2009 ever does.

J.W. Mahoney

First Fridays Everywhere!

There's a seriously cool exhibition of paintings by Matthew Kucynski in a show titled "You're apocalypse!" going on right now at Philly's Pentimenti Gallery. The show goes on through May 31, 2008 and the reception for the artist is tonight, May 2 from 6-8PM as part of Philly's great First Friday openings.

And of course Damien Hirst, Tim Tate and others open (In)Between at Wexler Gallery; there's already buzz in Philly about this exhibition and this morning a clip of it was in the local CBS news. I'll be there tonight. Details on all the Philly area gallery openings here.

DC also has their First Friday gallery openings going on for the galleries around Dupont Circle. Also generally from 6-8PM. Details on DC openings here. Check out Washington Printmakers Gallery, they have "Tasting the Ghost," new prints by Heather Self through May 25. Their First Friday Reception is from 5 - 8 p.m., and the Artist's Reception is Sunday, May 4th, 1-4 p.m. with an Artist Talk from 2-3 p.m. Also look for Katya Kronick's paintings at Studio Gallery also opening tonight. A few minutes from Studio, drop by and see Anna U. Davis' solo at Hillyer Art Space.

Tonight is First Fridays in Fell's Point in Baltimore too! Check out DBK5's "Foundations of Style Writing" (Curated by Adam Stab) opening tonight.

Michael Platt

H&F Fine Arts in Maryland opens a solo exhibition of new work by artist Michael Platt. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, May 3 from 5:00–8:00pm; on Saturday, May 24, there will be a reading by poets Carol Beane and Maya James, and storyteller, Ken Ford at 5:30pm followed by a gallery talk with Michael Platt at 7:00pm.

"Lost and Found centers on work made in collaboration with poet and Howard University professor Carol Beane. The historical and contemporary traumas of American slavery and Hurricane Katrina are the implied backdrop for a stunning installation in which a New Orleans-style shotgun house is surrounded by prints of female figures on translucent polycloth. Whether fugitives from slavery or disaster, the figures are displaced, lost, fearful, and yearning. The obscured shotgun house, representing home, is seen but not accessible, telegraphing futility and despair while suggesting the possibility of hope, celebration, reflection, and return."

A 2007 recipient of the prestigious Franz and Virginia Bader Fund Grant, Platt has exhibited nationally and internationally. His work is held in many private and museum collections including the Corcoran Museum, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and the Library of Congress.