Redding takes issue with Gopnik review

Robert "Rob" Redding Jr. is an artist, author, radio host and journalist and he:

...has won an Associated Press award for Internet news and has won numerous awards for his radio show. He has won an ADDY award for his nationally syndicated show. He has has also been called "one of the most respected names in the media" (Upscale magazine), "one of the most intellectual and intriguing radio talk show hosts since Tavis Smiley" (Radio Facts) and a "rising star" and one of the "100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America" (Talkers magazine).

He also has an issue with last Sunday's review by Washington Post Chief Art critic Blake Gopnik titled National Gallery exhibit challenges traditional view of Rothko's black paintings.

Redding writes that "As an artist and journalist, I was horrified when I read the recent review by Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik. Gopnik wrote a review of Mark Rothko's rehung black-dominated artworks at the National Gallery of Art."

Later he explains that "... As a black journalist, I find it disturbing that Gopnik decides to needlessly inject race into his art review. Gopnik points out the race of the 'notably dark' guards after he says that race should be considered when viewing Rothko's works."

Read Redding's case here.

Is the review racist or insensitive? Comments welcome.

Update: Philippa P.B. Hughes has an interesting viewpoint here.

If you wear a Che Guevara T-Shirt


Unless it is like the one on the left, you are wearing the image of a man whose own racist writing and actions are full of negative, racist remarks about Mexicans and Blacks, and Native Americans.

A killing psychopath whose image has been re-invented over the decades so that now he's viewed by a large, ignorant segment of the population as some sort of positive icon.

By the way, "Comemierda" is an almost unique Cuban insult...

The Negro is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized, and intelligent.
-- Che Guevara

Mexicans are a band of illiterate Indians.
-- Che Guevara

Inform yourself!

You want the image of a real Cuban hero for your T-Shirt? How about Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet?

Shocker

I'm putting all my tax stuff in order for my accountant and I was a little shocked to find out that 2009 was my best year ever as far as sales of my own work.

The art fairs really did the trick, as my work seems to really do two key things to succeed at an art fair: (a) doesn't take a lot of expensive wall space, and (b) sells really well, and (c) I'm usually one of two or three artists doing drawings at any fair.

And 2010 started really nicely already; in fact, I'm having the best year in every aspect of my life so far!

Life's good...

Fierce Sonia at The Art League Gallery

During her tenure as a figure model for The Art League School, Fierce Sonia quietly acquired a top-notch visual arts education. Motivated by the artwork she saw, she became eager to create her own work. She cabled her camera to her TV and released the shutter with an infrared remote. Sonia used herself as her own model, learning more about composition and technique based on what she saw on the screen.

Her figurative photography has evolved to a new and exciting place. The focus is on process. In Sonia’s latest series “Paper Dolls,” the same images reoccur with confident changes to the surface. Her work is no longer straight photography. With the integration of painting and collage into her images, Sonia’s work has reached a new level.

The black and white images of herself are often printed on paper that has been painted white, which creates a rich texture. Each piece is created in a unique way. Previous prints may be collaged to create depth. Multiple runs of the same print may be made on the same piece. More painting, layering might be necessary to create the desired effect. These alterations to the surface blur the identity of the original image, and make the series of work about the medium and the process, and not about the subject matter.

Sonia’s work has been exhibited and won accolades nationally. She is a professional art model and muse for artists and photographers and has worked with nationally and internationally known artists.

“Paper Dolls” will be at The Art League Gallery in Old Town Alexandria from April 8 – May 3, 2010. The Opening Reception and Meet the Artist function is Thursday, April 8, 6:30-8:00 pm. Joe Chiocca, Old Town’s favorite band, will play during the Opening Reception and reunite with special guest singer Kim Kenny. Free and open to the public.

Wanna go to an opening tonight?

Come see Sidney Lawrence’s art at Baked & Wired coffeehouse (1052 Thomas Jefferson St., Georgetown (at the canal, below Barnes & Noble)).

Opening Party: Monday, March 15, 6 – 8 p.m. Exhibition continues through April 30.

Wanna go to an opening this week?

"Coming Home: A Collection of Works by Rosetta DeBerardinis" opens at The Corner Store, 900 South Carolina Avenue, S.E. @ 9th Street near the Eastern Market.

Reception: Friday, March 19th from 6 to 8 pm.

"Coming Home: A Collection of Works by Rosetta DeBerardinis" marks the artist's return to the D.C. market upon the completion of a three-year artistic residency at School 33 Art Center in Baltimore, Maryland. The work demonstrates her expansion from color field painting to abstract expressionism to urbanscapes, monoprints, sculpture and to drawings while retaining her signature energy and strong use of color.

DeBerardinis has exhibited at commercial galleries and art venues throughout the Washington metro area, Richmond, Dallas, New York City, Houston, New Jersey, Delaware, Michigan and internationally in Croatia, Madrid, Beijing, India and France. She has shown at the Dallas Women's Museum, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Woman's National Democratic Club, The African-American Museum in Dallas, the City Museum of Varazdin in Croatia and the Yaroslavl Art Museum in Russia. Her work and words have been published in Washington Spaces magazine, the Virginia-Pilot Ledger Star, SoBo Voice, Radar Redux magazine and u-tube, Thinking About Art:The One Word Project, the Hill Rag, Voice of the Hill and in catalogues with comments by art aficionados like Doreen Bolger, Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. A recent work is part of the Art on Call public art project in the Trinidad neighborhood in the District of Columbia.

During the residency, DeBardinis began to meld her ceramics with objects found on the streets of Baltimore and drove the finished sculptures back to DC for exhibition at Zenith Gallery last year. Her responses to Charm City's rawness and grit are reflected in much of her studio work. While there, she temporarily abandoned painting 9 ft. canvases to create work suitable for tiny Baltimore row houses. After downsizing in response to the architectual limits of the city, she began to exhibit surfaces as small as 2 1/2 inches, or the size of trading cards. She found compressing her energy into tiny space took practice and amazing focus and welcomed the challenge.

The former Washington, D.C. and Bethesda art tour guide, Liquitex Artist of the Month and frequent contributor to DC Art News is busy reinventing herself. An artist with academic credits and/or degrees from the following institutions: Vassar College, The University of Baltimore School of Law, Rice University, London School for Social Research and the Fashion Institute of Technology. It is appropriate that Rosetta DeBerardinis begin her artistic revival on Capitol Hill where she resided for more than a decade and maintains close ties with former neighbors and friends.

Don't miss this show!

“Birds in the Park” coming to DC

“Birds in the Park” is a touring public project, which involves the one-day installation of thirty to sixty porcelain birdlike forms on the ground.

Central Park, New York
At first, people usually take them for oddly still pigeons. They are, in a sense, carrier pigeons, as the forms carry images, text, and other documents, which have been printed with cobalt blue and fired into the surface. The message they bear is an exploration of the beautiful and the horrible side by side. The creator, artist Christy Heng explains:

Originating with the shock and dismay I felt as the US government began the war with Iraq, and expanding to consider the phenomenon of war in general, the questions posed by the birds are about the humanness of us all. How we are connected, and also the unthinkable ways in which that bond is disregarded.

More specifically, I’m layering, and in some cases placing side by side, silk-screened images of children playing, love letters, poetry, recipes and prose… with silk-screened newspaper articles and photographs of the lead-up to and beginning of the current Iraq war, as well as other war-related documents, that tend to bring up the question, How can people do that to each other?! Among other things, I'm looking at how the initiation of a war is “sold” to regular people. Also, how discussions about the cold facts of war, weapons capabilities etc. can become detached from the human reality on the other end, creeping into everyday life as something normal, like birds in the park.

This work draws on years of experimentation with silk-screen printing onto clay. I create the silk screens from photographs and documents, and use them to apply the image and text onto wet porcelain. While the clay is still flexible, I form the birds -- each one is different -- and eventually fire them at a very high temperature.

The forms themselves are about a foot and a half each in length. Low to the ground, some are involved in their own search, while many appear to be in conversation with each other.

Although they are made from porcelain, the pieces are actually quite sturdy. They are positioned in such a way that people can wander among them, taking time to look and read.

I set them up in the morning and take them down at night. It’s out of the blue and somewhat fleeting, the better to catch the unsuspecting passerby’s curiosity. An important part of the project is the actual interaction with people, and I as the artist am always present during an installation, to answer questions, listen and converse.

The project began in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where in the spring of 2009 the birds landed in about thirty locations; places like the farmer's market, City Hall, various parks, cafes and libraries. Later, the birds began to fly farther afield, landing along the coast of California, in Central Park, NY, in a sculpture garden in New Orleans, at a University Plaza in Germany, in front of Chartres Cathedral in France, and even migrating so far as the Galapagos islands.

New birds continue to be born, often in response to the places that the birds have been or will be visiting. In addition to personal photography and images and text borrowed from public media, I am collaborating with writer and Vietnam War veteran Tim Origer, English poet Henry Shukman, Venezuelan photographer Maria de Las Casas, and my father Werner Hengst for some of the material that appears on the birds. One landing scheduled for July, 2010 is in Peenemünde, Germany, the site of the V-1 and V-2 rocket development during WWII; my grandfather was working there as a scientist then, and photographs of the lab town before and after its bombing, as well as quotes from Germans during that time, are making their way into some of the silkscreened images on the birds now.

The flight pattern continues to develop, and the project is expected to continue through fall 2010.

Now the birds are coming to DC! the schedule is:
Thursday, March 18th, on the center of the Mall at 9th street.
Friday, March 19th, Dupont Circle.
Sunday, March 21st, Upper Senate Park, by the Capitol.

Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
For pictures and location information, visit her website here. Past updates about the birds' travels can be found at www.birdsinthepark.blogspot.com.