Alexandria Call for Public Art
Deadline: October 1, 2009, 4 pm (EDT)
Budget: $300,000
Eligibility: Open to all artists or design groups. No geographic requirements.
Description The City of Alexandria, Virginia seeks to commission public art for the new Charles Houston Recreation Center. The process will be managed by the Office of the Arts, a division of the Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities, with the Alexandria Commission for the Arts Public Art Committee. The City will conduct the search for qualified applicants through a Request for Qualifications (RFQ).
The art will be paid for by private donations.
The purpose of the project is to honor and memorialize Charles Houston and to recognize the historical importance of the former Parker-Gray High School, Alexandria’s first African-American high school.
Charles Hamilton Houston was a nationally-known civil rights leader and NAACP attorney who fought for equality in public education. He became involved with Alexandria when, in 1941, a group of concerned citizens began to petition for a new school and eventually appealed to the NAACP for assistance. Houston took on this challenge and used his knowledge and influence to aid the community in their fight. Their efforts were successful and a new Parker-Gray High School was built in 1950. When Charles Houston passed away one month before the school was dedicated, the community requested that the former Parker-Gray School be renamed the Charles Houston Elementary School in recognition of his important contribution. Years later, the school was demolished and a recreation facility was built that retained the Houston name. This building was later razed to make room for the new, state-of-the-art Charles Houston Recreation Center which opened in February of 2009. When plans for the new facility began, the community indicated their interest in seeking an appropriate way to not only memorialize Houston and his contributions to Alexandria but to also find a way to preserve the history of the Parker-Gray schools. The project's overarching theme is Education and Civil Rights.
Process: Three finalists will be invited to submit proposals. Each will receive a $2,000 honorarium.
Anticipated Award Date: May 2010
Anticipated Installation Date: April 2011
Web Site: http://alexandriava.gov/arts - click on Charles Houston Public Art Project.
Artists or design teams interested in applying to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) are encouraged to register with the City of Alexandria's e-procure system located online here. All inquires regarding the RFQ should be directed to Dominic Lackey at the City of Alexandria Procurement Department.
Questions may be sent by fax to 703.838.6493 or by email to dominic.lackey@alexandriava.gov.
Please reference the solicitation number and title on the fax or email. For general question related to the solicitation, you may call Dominic at 703.838.4946, extension 600.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Forthcoming Frida Kahlo book denounced as fake
A collection of Frida Kahlo oil paintings, diaries and archival material that is the subject of a book to be published by Princeton Architectural Press on 1 November has been denounced by scholars as a cache of fakes. Finding Frida Kahlo includes reproductions of paintings, drawings and handwritten letters, diaries, notes, trinkets and other ephemera attributed to the artist. They belong to Carlos Noyola and Leticia Fernández, a couple who own the antique store La Buhardilla Antiquarios in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The publisher describes it as “an astonishing lost archive of one of the twentieth century's most revered artists...full of ardent desires, seething fury, and outrageous humor”.Read the story in AN here and check out the book here.
According to an interview in the forthcoming book, and to emails from Noyola to The Art Newspaper, the couple acquired the items incrementally from 2004-07 from a lawyer who in turn had acquired them from a woodcarver who allegedly received them from the artist. Noyola tells The Art Newspaper he has more than 1,200 Kahlo items in all.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Hitler Watercolors Hit the Auction Block
A series of three paintings by Adolf Hitler will be sold on September 5 at Nuremberg’s Weidler auction house. Bidding for the three signed watercolors, made in 1910 and 1911, will begin at €3,000 ($4,270).Read all about it at AFP here and see the watercolors here.
When actors bite write
"Actress Claire Forlani is accused of wielding a pen that is indeed mightier than the sword ... and killing the reputation of an art dealer in the process.
The former "CSI NY" star is being sued for allegedly crushing the "fragile and intangible" reputation of art dealer Paul Rusconi in a mass email she sent out to a bunch of her friends."
Read the TMZ story here.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Artists' Websites: Grant Silverstein
If my memory serves me right, the second or third show that we ever did back in our first gallery in Georgetown was the amazing work of Grant Silverstein.
We sold a lot of Grant's gorgeous etchings (they are priced as low as $35) and we thought naively, "hey! this gallery business is gonna be easy!"
This self-taught artist is a throwback to the masters of printmaking who toiled along and discovered, step by step, the secrets of the printing press. His meticulous etchings have the look and feel of the 15th century but the resonance and dialogue of the 21st.
See his works here and his prices are a great deal for the money.
The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund
Deadline: September 15, 2009
The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund welcomes applications from visual artists aged 40 years or older, who live within 150 miles of Washington, D.C. and can demonstrate that they have the potential to benefit as artists from a grant.
The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund does not, however, accept applications from filmmakers, video artists, and performance artists.
The deadline for applications is September 15, 2009. Application forms may be downloaded from the fund's web site: www.baderfund.org or may be requested by sending an email to grants@baderfund.org or by sending a request to:
Bader Fund
5505 Connecticut Avenue, NW #268
Washington, D.C. 20015
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Opportunity for Artists
Columbia Journal is an arts and literature annual publication that is edited, designed, and produced, entirely by graduate students at Columbia University. The Journal was founded in 1977 and has published work from such writers and artists as Raymond Carver, Jorge Luis Borges, Lorrie Moore, Louise Gillick, Phillip Gourevitch, Noam Chomsky, Kara Walker, Wayne Koestenbaum,and many others.
They are currently extending an open call for the arts section of their next issue
Please find a sample below:
"How do you create a warning system to prevent an accidental unearthing of 200 million pounds of radioactive nuclear waste? A simple sign, some chain link and a military post might work today. But what about 10,000 years from now? In 2002 the U.S. Department of Energy brought together engineers, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists and asked them this question. What type of warning system can be put in place so people, 370 generations from now, won't open the glowing door?
What they came up with is hardly inspiring: a large earthen mound with a salt core and two identical Dr. Strangelove-esque control rooms with a warning message written in the six official languages of the U.N. and Navajo. Construction of this Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is scheduled to begin in less than three years.
What if an artist designed the system?
Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art is asking artists, architects, cartoonists, computer engineers, graphic designers, scientists-and anyone else up for the challenge- just that question.
Design a warning sign or create a work, a system, that speaks to the nuclear gravesite issue. Graphic novelists might translate the project and solution into story panels.
Architects may offer a blueprint for the facility itself. The artistic focus may be as narrow as an image on a sign, or as broad as a full-scale vision of the future. The Journal is encouraging maximum interpretation and creativity.
Further Information: www.columbiajournal.org or email to columbia.journal.arts@gmail.com
