The return of the censored artsy underwear

The more things change...

David Woodward, a Queen's University fine arts student, planned to display 10 pairs of underwear at a university donor appreciation event. But when he arrived, the Toronto Star reports school officials quickly told him to get rid of them before the event at the Kingston, Ontario, school began.

This is so old news in some many ways... sometime in the mid 1990s there was a Washington DC area artist, I can't recall her name, whose work consisted of exactly the same thematic idea, but in this case her own underwear (sexy, feminine things...) and of course it was censored. I recall this because I wrote a long article for the historic KOAN Magazine about it.

More than a decade later... the more they stay the same.

New record for rugs... cough, cough

 New record!

"A Persian carpet decorated with swirling vines and vibrant flowers that was stored for decades by the Corcoran Gallery of Art sold Wednesday for more than $30 million. That sum, fetched at a Sotheby’s sale, shattered the previous record for rugs sold at auction. But it won’t help the struggling Washington gallery overcome its financial woes because the money must be used for future acquisitions, not to help the bottom line."

Read the article in the WaPo here. If the Corc needs some ideas as to how to spen the $30M... they know my number...

Opening at the Katzen June 15...

The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center spotlights the art of its hometown with five of its six new summer exhibitions featuring works by Washington, D.C. artists. Exhibitions open Saturday, June 15, with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. and close Sunday, August 11.

The museum has a reputation for showing Washington art, something director and curator Jack Rasmussen initiated when the museum opened in 2005.

“Museums were not showing Washington art except on very rare occasions,” Rasmussen said in a recent interview with American magazine. “It’s important to have local artists on your side. They support you, they talk to their friends, the friends come, and all this makes it possible to have a scene in which people want to participate.”

Washington Art Matters: 1940s–1980s tells the story of art made here during five crucial decades. As such, this is the first major effort by a museum to present a comprehensive history, representing those times with works by some 80 artists. The exhibition is based on Washington Art Matters: Art Life in the Capital 1940-1990, a book published by the Washington Artists Museum and co-authored by Jean Lawlor Cohen, Benjamin Forgey, Sidney Lawrence and Elizabeth Tebow.

Tim Tate: Sleep Walker features video installations by Tim Tate, Washington’s best known contemporary glass artist, as well as collaborations with Pete Duvall and Richard Schellengberg. Videos are probably the closest medium we have to experiencing the inexplicable quality of the dream in our waking lives. Rich in symbol, metaphor, movement and mystery, videos—like dreams—enable us to participate in another reality, and, through that participation, to be transformed. Hidden within is the latent content which will give the viewer an understanding of what is happening in the mind of a dreamer.

Raya Bodnarchuk: Form spotlights sculptures by Raya Bodnarchuk, a major artist and influential mentor in Washington for 40 years. Her sculpted animals and people are beautifully and carefully observed, the mature work of a master of many different media. Bodnarchuk trained at the Rhode Island School of Art and Design and the Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art.

Nan Montgomery: Opposite and Alternate consists of recent oil paintings by Washington, D.C., artist Nan Montgomery. Throughout her career, Montgomery’s basic signature has been the use of color as communication, the interest in the painted surface and a minimalist aesthetic.  Large fields of color are painted with many color overlays using a small brush.

Kitty Klaidman: Beneath the Surface highlights recent mixed media paintings by Washington, D.C., artist Kitty Klaidman. In these paintings, richly colored acrylic pigment is applied on wood panels covered with molding paste than has been incised with organic patterns. They are then highly glazed. The over-all effect is to make explicit the subtle rhythms and tensions in seemingly static natural settings.

Chester Arnold: Accumulations and Dispersals showcases large-scale, ecologically relevant oil paintings by San Francisco Bay area figurative artist, Chester Arnold. It is the great pageant of life on earth, as seen and remembered by an individual, mixed with dreaming narrative and fictional riff that speaks of the accumulated travails of an individual and an era. The voice and vision, although sparked with critical observation, is orchestrated with an overwhelming love of visual experience. As evidence of an artistic ambition and moral commitment to the human experiment, these paintings celebrate living and art-making and accumulating in a most visible and accessible way.

And the winner is...

If you read this, then you know that I am a little shocked but not surprised that the boss of one of the jurors won the Bethesda Painting Award.

I know that the subordinate recused herself when discussing her boss, but you know how it looks no matter what... I'm actually beginning to think that it wasn't her fault that her boss applied to the prize while she was the juror, nor that two other co-workers also made it to the finals.

Bethesda Painting Awards Winners

Best in Show ($10,000): Barry Nemett - Stevenson, MD
Second Place ($2,000): Christine Gray - Alexandria, VA
Third Place ($1,000): Hedieh Ilchi - Rockville, MD
 
Congratulations to all the 2013 Finalists!

Joan Belmar – Takoma Park, MD Dennis Farber – Lutherville, MD Christine Gray – Alexandria, VA Hedieh Ilchi – Rockville, MD Barry Nemett - Stevenson, MD Cara Ober - Baltimore, MD Erin Raedeke - Gaithersburg, MD Bill Schmidt - Baltimore, MD

Grammar Police on the prowl

No, not Kriston "Il Capo" Capps (who's instead Hirshhorning), but the other grammar police... see what I mean hear here... cough, cough.

The Batman in The Batcave... brooding over Robin

Newest piece... heading to Glenn Aber Contemporary Art in NY for the Hamptons art fairs... the work has a 6.5 minute loop of appropriated vintage Batman TV show video focusing on The Batman's relationship with The Boy Wonder.





The Batman in The Batcave (Brooding Over Robin)
Charcoal, conte and Embedded Appropriated Video. Circa 2013
Framed to 30x40 inches.

Update: Thanks to FedEex, this piece arrived to the gallery with a large footprint on the box (packed by FedEx) and busted glass and frame, so it couldn't be exhibited at the fair by my NY dealer... luckily, when I got it back from him, all that it needed was reframing... so it is safe.

New doors for the Library of Congress

In case you haven't noticed, all new doors on the east side of the Library of Congress Adams Building have been installed, with the new west side doors going in sometime in the next month. 

This is the culmination of a project that began 9 years ago where the Washington Glass School was tasked with replacing the doors in this most iconic of DC buildings. 

The project has been ignored by the DC area media (what else is new?) but the doors were fortunate enough to receive a fantastic 4-page spread in American Craft Magazine, discussing a one-in-a-lifetime project that represents not only some of the best of what the DMV art scene has to offer, but also the perfect balance of craft and architecture.

Read the article here.