Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 31, 2009.

The Chapel Hill Public Arts Office invites artists to apply for the 2009-2010 Juried Exhibitions Series. Original two- and three-dimensional artwork by selected artists will be displayed in Chapel Hill Town Hall and the Chapel Hill Public Library from October, 2009 through December of 2010. There is no application fee. For more information, go to www.chapelhillarts.org .

Later today

Come by later today for my talk on the subject of Frida Kahlo: Her Art & Her Pain; it's from 6:30-8:30PM at The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm Center located at 1632 U St NW in Washington DC, phone 202-483-8600. Free & open to the public.

You can also get an early peek at the subject exhibition itself. Next Friday is the Opening Reception & Awards (from 5:30 – 8:00PM) for the Finding Beauty in a Broken World: In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo.

See ya there!

Art Installation at Tate Modern Leaves 23 Injured

Despite implementing the latest health and safety procedures, the Tate Modern saw 23 people suffer minor injuries from Robert Morris's Bodyspacemotionthings during its special re-creation at the museum this summer.
Participants in the installation were invited to negotiate seesaws, a tightrope, and other obstacles, and in just over a week some of them were left with a cut leg, a rope burn to the hand, bruised ribs, and a bruised shoulder

Details here.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 25, 2009

VisArts at Rockville, MD is seeking works of art that use new media and technology to eliminate psychological or physical boundaries; and, challenge a gallery's role as mediator between artworks and viewers. New media and technology have the power to eliminate conventional, artistic boundaries. Interactive art, for example, encourages viewers to complete the artwork by actively transforming it visually and conceptually. Artwork can be exhibited remotely, with only the concept (rather than the physical object) in a gallery. Likewise, a viewer may experience a work of art even if they are not in the gallery with the object.

Works considered: Artwork with at least one component that uses an electrical and/or battery power source, and created in the past three years. The work does not have to be a physical, gallery object. For more information or to apply, go to www.visartscenter.org and click on the link in the Exhibition menu.

Manon Cleary

My Lunch with Booboo, 2009, pastel on sanded paper by Manon Cleary
One of the District's best-known, most collected and most widely admired artists is the amazing Manon Cleary, and next July 22, at Addison Ripley in Georgetown, from 5-7PM, she has an opening reception for a new exhibition of her latest pastels.

For more than thirty years, Ms. Cleary's often disturbing drawings and paintings have brilliantly represented her personal world in provocative, unflinching and iconic terms. A 2008 exhibit at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts referred to Ms. Cleary as "one of the leading American figurative artists of the past three decades". This exhibit at Addison/Ripley pairs gentle sky "portraits" with pictures of strangely engaging white rats. Each of the works from Rats and Skies, is developed by hand on sanded paper with an unmatched mastery of materials and technique. In addition, the gallery will present earlier work by the artist, including examples from her "Movement Series".

Cleary's ongoing contribution to the art world in Washington is extensive and keeps on going despite severe health issues that have limited her ability to work.

Don't miss this show; I won't.

Airborne

I'm flying back to the East Coast today in order to deliver a talk on the subject of Frida Kahlo: Her Art & Her Pain on Thursday, July 16 from 6:30-8:30PM at The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm Center located at 1632 U St NW in Washington DC, phone 202-483-8600. Free & open to the public.

Then next Friday is the Opening Reception & Awards (from 5:30 – 8:00PM) for the Finding Beauty in a Broken World: In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo.

I selected the following artists for the exhibition: Priscilla Pompa Alvarez, Sally Brucker, Mark Caicedo, Kathryn H. Cook, Veronica Ebert, Elissa Farrow-Savos, Amy Freeman, Tanya Gramatikova, Manuela Holban, Diane Kahlo, Lily Lash, Maria Lupo, Marla McLean, Laura Pallone, Judith Peck, Reginald Pointer, Nancy Pollack, Chrys Roboras, Katya Romero, Janna Stern, Henrik Sundquist, Yayo Tavolara and Helen Zughaib.

See ya there!

140

I chickened out at 140 MPH last night on I-395 about 9:45PM. The little two seater that I got (an Eclipse) is supposed to go up to 160, and as I was all alone in the desert, I punched it and took it to around 140 before I slowed it down.

I drove back from San Diego and I am now in that blast furnace of a town known as Ridgecrest, California.

It is so hot.