Hirshhorn’s Sam Gilliam Exhibition

Over the decades that I have lived in the DMV (an acronym that I invented), one constant of the DMV's museum art scene (with the exception of the beautiful American University art museum and most recently the Phillips Collection) has been the immense apathy that art museums located in the capital region show to their area artists.

Once, while a guest at the old Kojo Nmandi radio show on NPR (WAMU), i noted that it was "easier for a DC area museum curator to take a cab to Dulles to catch a flight to Berlin to visit some emerging artists' studios in Berlin (or London, Madrid, wherever) than to catch a cab to Adams Morgan to visit a DC area emerging artist studio."

Years of communicating this frustration to "new" museum curators and directors as the wonder in and out of their positions at the Hirshhorn, the old Corcoran, various Smithsonian museums, all area University museums, etc. have yielded zero response -- since 1992 or so, the only museum director who ever met with me to discuss why their museum ignored local artists was Olga Viso when she ran the Hirshhorn decades ago.

And it takes an artist of the stature of Sam Gilliam, whose career was almost extinguished by apathy just a decade or so ago... until "rediscovered" by New York and other forces and placed where this great artist always deserved to be - at the top - the "break" into a local museum with an exhibition which should have happened years and years ago.

Hirshhorn: Thank you for exhibiting Sam Gilliam and shame on you that it took outside forces to make this happen.

Hirshhorn’s Sam Gilliam Exhibition Will Spotlight His Decades-Long Investigation Into Abstraction

“Sam Gilliam: Full Circle” Will Debut New Paintings, May 25–Sept. 4

This spring, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will present an exhibition by pioneering abstractionist artist Sam Gilliam. Between May 25 and Sept. 4, “Sam Gilliam: Full Circle” will pair a series of circular paintings (or tondos) created in 2021 with “Rail” (1977), a landmark painting in the Hirshhorn’s permanent collection. Filling the museum’s second-floor inner-circle gallery, Gilliam’s first solo exhibition at the Hirshhorn will reflect the breadth of his multilayered practice and mark the first exhibition in Gilliam’s chosen hometown of Washington, D.C., since 2007. “Full Circle” is organized by Evelyn C. Hankins, the Hirshhorn’s head curator.

In the 60 years since moving to Washington, Gilliam has produced a prolific body of abstraction across media through which he has continually pursued new avenues of artistic expression. He initially rose to prominence in the late 1960s making large, color-stained manipulated, unstretched canvases. Gilliam continues to experiment with staining, soaking and pouring pigments, elaborating on the process-oriented tradition of Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and other Washington Color School artists. In 1972, Gilliam represented the United States at the 36th Venice Biennale, and returned in 2017 with “Yves Klein Blue,” a draped work that welcomed visitors to the Venice Giardini. Gilliam’s approach focuses keenly on the cornerstones of abstraction—form, color and material—from which he creates artworks that reflect his career-long engagement with art history and the improvisatory ethos of jazz.

“The Hirshhorn’s institutional support for Sam Gilliam began with the acquisition of his landmark painting “Rail” within a year of its creation,” said Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu. “The museum has since championed his practice by presenting this and other major works in exhibitions. “Full Circle” shows Gilliam’s most recent works in recognition of his indefatigable vision, presented in his chosen hometown on the National Mall at the national museum of modern art.”

“I am greatly looking forward to premiering this new body of work,” Gilliam said. “The tondo series introduced in this show encapsulate many of the ideas that I have been developing throughout my career. Just as importantly, they reflect my current thinking about color, materials, and space. These spaces determined by color and texture are limitless.”

Sam Gilliam’s most recent engagement with the Hirshhorn reflects his tireless propulsion of the through lines of abstraction. His tondos expand the body of beveled-edge abstract paintings that Gilliam first pioneered in the 1960s. Ranging in size from 3 to 5 feet in diameter, each tondo begins with a beveled wood panel, which the artist loads with layers of dense, vibrant pigments, their aggregate effect heightened through the addition of thickening agents, sawdust, shimmering metal fragments, wood scraps and other studio debris. Using a stiff metal rake along with more traditional tools, Gilliam then abrades, smears and scrapes the coarse surfaces to reveal a constellation of textures and colors below.

The series will be shown alongside “Rail” (1977), a stellar “Black” painting by Gilliam in the Hirshhorn’s collection work that marks some of the artist’s earliest experiments with pronounced materiality. With its immense scale of more than 15 feet in length, stained underpinning, pieced canvas structure and deep tones, “Rail” offers a resonant counterpoint to the artist’s recent tondos.

Prices soar for Washington Color School artists

From Jean Efron Art Consultants:

A group of loosely affiliated artists working in Washington, DC in the 1960s and 1970s, known as The Washington Color School primarily because of their use of pure color as the subject matter of their paintings, has received heightened attention in the art market, both nationally and internationally.

A major characteristic of Color School paintings is the use of unprimed canvas on which diluted pigment was applied, sometimes by pouring, permitting the pigment to do strange and wonderful things as it soaked into the canvas and spread into adjoining colors or the bare canvas. Perhaps one of the most creative applications of this technique was adopted by Sam Gilliam in his early paintings by folding the canvas after pigment had been applied and while it was still wet. By folding and unfolding the pigment stained canvas Gilliam created a group of stunningly beautiful paintings having unexpected forms of deep and shimmering colors.

Recently, one of these stained and folded paintings sold at Sotheby's in London for over $1.2 million, setting a world-wide auction record for the artist. Washington, DC art consultant, Jean Efron, who consigned the painting to Sotheby's on behalf of the sellers, said, “We are seeing very strong demand for Sam Gilliam's early work. The stained and folded canvases, in particular, have attracted a lot of attention because they are recognized as representing a singular original development in the history of American art. I think it is very appropriate that a Sam Gilliam painting that achieved a record auction price was owned by a Washington, DC collector.” Jean Efron Art Consultants recently facilitated the private sale of another important early Sam Gilliam artwork that had been in an owner’s collection for more than four decades.

Gilliam’s early work (1967 through 1973) is the subject of a major exhibition at the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Switzerland. According to Efron, "Sam has always been recognized as a major creative force in American Art. I have always considered him one of the most creative artists I have known. The Basel exhibition is the most recent demonstration of that recognition. However, only recently, has that recognition migrated into the art market pushing up prices for his work, in some cases dramatically.                           

Efron's firm, Jean Efron Art Consultants, has recently represented a number of clients selling paintings by Sam Gilliam. However, she says, "Sam Gilliam is not the only artist identified with the Washington Color School whose paintings are attracting a lot of attention in the art market. We are seeing strong demand for paintings by Alma Thomas, whose work has dramatically increased in value in the past two or three years as has some of the work of Anne Truitt. And, of course, the work of Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland always have enthusiastic buyers.” Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Thomas Downing and Gene Davis are perhaps most closely associated with the Color School. Sam Gilliam’s early work, and some of the work of Alma Thomas and Paul Reed, as well as the work of Leon Berkowitz, Thomas Mehring and Anne Truitt are also considered by some to be included with The Washington Color School designation. According to Efron, “It is not unusual to see exceptional examples of works by Gilliam, Alma Thomas, Louis, and Noland being offered and sold for seven figure prices.”

About Jean Efron Art Consultants LLC: Jean Efron Art Consultants LLC is a Washington, DC, based art advisory firm that provides comprehensive fine art services. Since 1973, the firm has provided collection development and management services to both private and public clients including many of Washington, DC’s most discerning law firms, developers, associations and corporations.

Rockne Krebs and Sam Gilliam Opens July 19

The exhibition includes never before displayed items provided by architect Steven Spurlock, who worked with my good friend Sam Gilliam for more than 20 years.

For many artists, making the transition from gallery to public art is about growing awareness of their work, and larger paychecks. For D.C. arts legends Rockne Krebs and Sam Gilliam, public artworks were not only an important component of how they made a living, but a compelling motivator in their artistic development. 

Rockne Krebs (1938-2011) was a sculpture wunderkind, whose early success was compounded by timely experiments with technology. Krebs career started with plexiglass and aluminum sculptures that exploded the viewer’s sense of their own location, and in 1968 Paul Richard wrote in the Washington Post that Krebs early work, “exhibits an intensity and restraint that is rare indeed.” In 1973 Krebs began to create “Sculpture without object” – primarily works made with lasers. His first experiments (in DC) turned into city wide installations across the country, and globe. This exhibition features public artworks built and unbuilt; proposals never funded, and proposals and documentation of works that came into being. 

Sam Gilliam (1933 – ) is a DC artistic legend who became famous for his color-washed canvases removed from the stretcher. In 1971, Paul Richard in the Washington Post wrote that Gilliam’s swooping canvases, hung from walls and ceilings, “have the look of revolution, old conventions overturned, the past abandoned.” Gilliam’s early success opened the door to public art commissions, and a DC gallery owner connected Gilliam with architect Steven Spurlock to help the artist with his first proposal preparation. Over the next twenty years, as he independently rose to leadership as an architect, Spurlock continued to assist Gilliam, and the exhibition includes the architect’s never-before-displayed drawings, plans, and photographs. 

Curator Mollie Berger wrote, “The objective is to represent the planning and design of public art projects, both built and unbuilt, by two artists who used vastly different materials, but seem to be concerned with similar elements of space, color and presence… Gilliam’s brightly colored, interlocking shapes offer a counterpoint to the gray steel and stone that surround them. Krebs’s penetrating light displays surpass the physical space itself and reach for the sun and stars that inspired the artist.” 

The exhibit will feed archival materials into the recently created Jefferson Place Gallery Archive, www.JeffersonPlaceGallery.com, documenting DC’s first artist cooperative gallery, and the work of thirty DC artists who worked through the gallery (including Krebs and Gilliam.) 

The exhibition will be on display in the Washington Studio School’s Gallery, at 2129 S Street, NW Washington, DC 20008, from July 19 to August 3rd, 2018. 

An opening celebration and gallery talk are to be scheduled. 

A catalog, including essay by John Anderson (Washington City Paper, reSculpture), is being produced for the exhibition.

The project is funded through a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts to project director Robert Bettmann, and produced through partnerships with the non-profits Day Eight and The Washington Studio School.

The mission of Day Eight is to empower individuals and communities to participate in the arts through the production, publication, and promotion of creative projects. For more information, visit dayeight.org.

Sam Gilliam, David Kordansky and the gem...

The WaPo's Geoff Edgers checked in over the weekend with a really good (and exceptionally rare) WaPo article on a DMV artist, although as the most causal observer of the planet's visual arts scene would note, Sam Gilliam in not a "local" artist in the pejorative way that some (not me) like to apply that label.


People in the arts love labels!


Sam Gilliam never did, and will never do... and that's a major reason why I admire the DMV's most famous artist.


Sam previous descent into "oblivion" may have been grossly exaggerated, and he certainly never traded art for detergent -- as once claimed in this article (On the other hand, I once traded art for clams when I used to sell my art school assignments at the Pike Place Market in Seattle), but Sam did, apparently trade artwork for dental work.


I currently trade artwork for my laundry services and my laundry guy (who happens to be one of the biggest DMV art collectors, if not the biggest, in the region), has a lot of my work.


But Sam Gilliam's work certainly never rose to the commodity price level that an artist of his stature should command.


If you doubt that, then check what his work goes for in the secondary market, where as late as 2016 you can pick up a signed and numbered litho for $350 (this one went for $140! and this "photoprint" sold for $20 bucks six years ago!), or a bit earlier an original double sided painting for $1,400!


Check out recent past secondary market sales here.


But enough about these small things... there's another gem in this article about Gilliam.


That gem of information is something that I have been hollering about for years... here it is:

Then David Kordansky called. The Los Angeles gallerist was one more person who felt that Gilliam needed more attention. 

When they met in 2012, Kordansky found Gilliam’s work being shown in the District, New Mexico and what he calls “decentralized markets outside the art market essentially.” 

“It needed to be brought to the curators. It needed to be seen at the international art fairs..." Kordansky says.

The bolded words are the gem... bolding is mine, and Kordansky hit the nail right on the head.


Read the whole article here, and pay homage to this great master.


PS - My own secondary market record at the same auction house makes Sam's look great... cough, cough... and they misspelled my name!

Sam Gilliam

Lots has been written recently about the well-deserved "revival" in interest in the works of my good friend Sam Gilliam, and no one deserves it more than this hard-working artist (never identify Sam as a "DC artist" or he may kick your ass.

Anyway - Gilliam's work has enjoyed not only a "rediscovery" in recent years (a lot of it associated with his increased exposure via art fairs), but also finally a significant increase in price; after all, art is a commodity.

It wasn't that long ago that one could show up at a local auction house and find an original Gilliam for a few hundred bucks. For example, the below work, identified at the auction site as:

Sam Gilliam (American b. 1933) Untitled (Abstract): A Double-Sided Work The first, signed Sam Gilliam and dated 68 twice l.r.; and the second Sam Gilliam and dated 68 l.r. Mixed media on paper; apparently in good condition. Framed.* Sight size: 17-1/2 x 23 in (44.5 x 52.4 cm) 

Sold for $1400 in 2011!!!

Not anymore! Check out a "local" history of Sam's prices via a local DC area auction house here.

Gilliam at the Corcoran

I can't wait to see what Jonathan Binstock has done with the Sam Gilliam Retrospective at the Corcoran.

Mark your calendars, as that exhibit opens Oct. 15 and runs through Jan. 22 of 2006, and it is (incredibly enough) Gilliam's first retrospective.

As Binstock wrote his doctoral dissertation on Gilliam, if anyone is qualified to organize a retrospective for Sam, it is Jonathan.

And kudos to the Corcoran for looking in its own backyard.

Other area residents who are worthy of a show and/or a retrospective (in my opinion) include Manon Cleary, Joe Shannon and our own John Winslow.

Like Gilliam, they have created great, lasting art in the District for decades and decades, and (like Gilliam) have been generally ignored by our "national" museums.

Post to hire another "Galleries" art critic

I have been informed that the Washington Post has decided to hire a second freelance writer to augment Jessica Dawson's "Galleries" reviews.

Since the Arts Editor (John Pancake) is still out of the country on a teaching sabbatical, and will not return until mid January (and maybe because the Post has received some many complaints from all of us), the newspaper is curently looking to hire a freelance art critic to replace Dixon and augment Dawson at "Galleries."

The Washington Post has assigned the task of finding a replacement to its Chief Art Critic, Blake Gopnik.

I'm glad that they're looking to hire a second voice and I am holding my fingers crossed that it will be someone who actually knows something about DC area artists and galleries and who can name more than five galleries and more than half a dozen artists.

In fact, free to Mr. Gopnik and the Post, I have devised a clever test in order for Gopnik and/or the Post staff to test a prospective applicant's knowledge of the DC art scene, since (as we all know), Mr. Gopnik has so far succesfully avoided writing about our artists and galleries.

Here's the test:

1. Signal 66 is/was a:
(a) TV show
(b) Gridlocked highway
(c) DC art gallery
(d) All of the above

2. What DC artist was included in a recent Whitney Biennial?
(a) Sam Gilliam
(b) Lou Stovall
(c) Chan Chao
(d) Maggie Michael

3. Which of these is not a real DC area art venue?
(a) Fusebox
(b) Flashpoint
(c) Transformer
(d) Multicoupler

4. Which of these DC area gallery owners are artists as well?
(a) Norm Parish
(b) Alla Rogers
(c) Elyse Harrison
(d) All of the above

5. What DC area artist was included in a recent Venice Biennale?
(a) Sam Gilliam
(b) Muriel Hasbun
(c) Kelly Towles
(d) Jason Gubbiotti

6. What DC area artist has been featured in the Hirshhorn recently?
(a) Chan Chao
(b) Muriel Hasbun
(c) Dan Steinhilber
(d) Sam Gilliam

7. What happens on the first Friday of each month?
(a) WaPo employees get paid
(b) Dupont Circle art galleries have their extended hours
(c) Corcoran has free pizza for all of its unpaid docents
(d) None of the above

8. What is Art-O-Matic?
(a) A computer virus that erases all the images in your hard drive
(b) A new British painting robot
(c) A huge, open art show roughly held every couple of years.
(d) An Irish racing horse

9. Which of these embassies also have associated art galleries?
(a) Mexico
(b) Italy
(c) Ukraine
(d) All of the above

10. What was the last piece of art that you purchased?
(a) A painting
(b) A print
(c) A photograph
(d) I have not purchased any real art recently, only a video

11. Which of these DC area art venues is a museum?
(a) Museum of Contemporary Art
(b) Museum of Modern ARF
(c) Artists' Museum
(d) None of the above

12. Name one DC area artist who's ever had a retrospective exhibition at the Hirshhorn.
(a) Ana Mendieta
(b) Carlos Alfonzo
(c) Fernando Botero
(d) Please...

13. Name a reason why Sam Gilliam has never had a major DC area museum retrospective.
(a) He refuses them
(b) Who is Sam Gilliam?
(c) He has had many
(d) He lives in Washington, DC

14. John Currin is to Big Tits as Gene Davis is to __________?
(a) Angela Davis
(b) Spanish Tapas
(c) Stripes
(d) Menudo

15. Which of these former DC area artists became really well-known soon after they moved away from DC?
(a) Joyce Tenneson
(b) Tara Donovan
(c) Martin Puryear
(d) All of the above

16. Name the single and only black artist who's ever had a retrospective at the National Gallery of Art.
(a) Jacob Lawrence
(b) Wilfredo Lam
(c) Romare Bearden
(d) Sam Gilliam

17. What is the Torpedo Factory?
(a) A sandwich shop in Adams Morgan
(b) A building full of artists and galleries in Old Town Alexandria
(c) A super secret building in the Navy Yard
(d) A chic clothing shop in Georgetown

18. Roy Lichtenstein is to comic books as Clark is to ___________?
(a) Construction
(b) Candy bars
(c) Strip joints
(d) George Washington

Hey! That was kind of fun! If any of you have any more questions that we can add to our questionnaire, please email them to me.

Saturday: Gilliam at the Katzen

On Saturday, April 2, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, is the opening reception for "Close to Trees", a site specific installation by Sam Gilliam on the entire third floor of the American University Museum at the Katzen Center.

"Sam Gilliam first took his paintings off their stretchers in 1965, using the liberated canvases to transform gallery walls into three-dimensional abstractions. He has continued to experiment with the practice of painting and the line between painting and sculpture. For this exhibition, Gilliam will transform the 8,000 square foot space of the third floor of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center into an exciting and colorful work of art."

April 2 to August 14, 2011.

Gilliam also broke my heart when he declined to be included in my 100 Washington, DC Artists book (in spite of a joint press front that included several artists who tried to convince Sam to join in the project). Anyway, do not miss this opening and exhibition of work by the DMV's leading artist and a true innovator.

Tomorrow: Gilliam at the Katzen

On Saturday, April 2, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, is the opening reception for "Close to Trees", a site specific installation by Sam Gilliam on the entire third floor of the American University Museum at the Katzen Center.

"Sam Gilliam first took his paintings off their stretchers in 1965, using the liberated canvases to transform gallery walls into three-dimensional abstractions. He has continued to experiment with the practice of painting and the line between painting and sculpture. For this exhibition, Gilliam will transform the 8,000 square foot space of the third floor of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center into an exciting and colorful work of art."

April 2 to August 14, 2011.

Gilliam also broke my heart when he declined to be included in my 100 Washington, DC Artists book (in spite of a joint press front that included several artists who tried to convince Sam to join in the project). Anyway, do not miss this opening and exhibition of work by the DMV's leading artist and a true innovator.

Sam Gilliam Finally Takes Off

From Bloomberg:

In the late 1960s, the American artist Sam Gilliam started to make “drape paintings,” wherein he would cover canvases with paint and hang them from the wall without stretchers. The paintings became sculpture, and the paint itself—acrylic pigment mixed with resin—a type of construction material.

 Much like the output of his contemporaries (Gilliam came a few years after Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, and Kenneth Noland), his work falls in the Color Field genre of painting, an abstract, postwar movement that turned canvases into flat picture planes. But unlike those same contemporaries, Gilliam has been almost entirely neglected by the art market until fairly recently. This April, his work achieved its highest auction result ever, when a 1969 painting with a high estimate of $60,000 sold for $197,000 at Swann Auctions in New York. In contrast, Frankenthaler’s auction record is $2.8 million; Noland’s auction record is $2.1 million; and Louis’s is just under $3 million, or approximately 1,400 percent more than Gilliam's best.

"In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists", presently on view at the Kreeger Museum through February 26th has been getting a lot of attention in the scant art press around the DMV.

In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists, is an exhibition derived from a monoprint project initiated by DC artist Sam Gilliam.

Gilliam "invited 19 established and respected painters, sculptors, printmakers, digital media and installation artists working in different styles, to join him in creating several print portfolios. Each made a set of five monoprints, one of which was chosen for the show by Sam Gilliam, Judy A. Greenberg, Director of The Kreeger Museum, Marsha Mateyka of the Marsha Mateyka Gallery and Claudia Rousseau, art critic and art historian."

As stated by Rousseau, “Creating a group portfolio and exhibiting together express the ideas of unity and identity that are underlying motives of the project, and which are vital to sustaining a thriving artistic community.”

Millennium Arts Salon is the exclusive sponsor of this major exhibition at the Kreeger

As far as coverage, most recently, TV Station WETA - DC in their "Around Town" segment, highlighted a film clip about the show. The clip features commentary by Corcoran School of Art Professor Janis Goodman, and artist Bill Dunlap (both of whom are in my 100 Washington, DC Artists book).

The show was also reviewed earlier in the WaPo by Kriston Capps. Read that review here

Mel Hardy, Chairman of Millennium Arts Salon has written a response commentary on the article by Kriston Capps, so read Capps' review first before you read the below response:

Kriston: Yours is a remarkable recitation of context for what you observed as the production of this sampling of a body of works of art created at GMU. What you could not have observed was the origination of vision of a major artist in Sam Gilliam, and its interplay under the sponsorship of a local arts-advocacy and arts-community building organization in Millennium Arts Salon, the fiscal convener of the exhibition.

Your attribution of the "patronage" of Kandinsky and Klee is a wonderful gift from you as an established art critic to each of the "In Unison" artists hanging at the Kreeger. It is lost on no one that Judy Greenberg's willingness to accept this exhibition represents a major advance in the careers of many of the artists.

In this, perhaps you may have missed the point with your focus on "looking back" to the restrictions imposed on innovation and creativity by our local Washington artists, by a less-than-assertive Washington cultural infrastructure. Your highlighting the preponderance of African American artists in the exhibition dismisses completely the sponsor's and project team's structured framework for persons across the spectrum of cultural, ethnic, aesthetic, experience, gender, and age identities to experiment with artistic and aesthetic dialogue whilst in the process of creation of works.

You could not have known Sondra Arkin's frustration with running her typical encaustics through a press only to work with the master printmakers to innovate in finding process to present her beautiful details. You could not have known the truly vanguard applications of tools by Akili Ron Anderson in the creation of his works, and for which each of the five "small paintings" he created are tour de force works of art.

To what many observers of this important exhibition, perhaps like yourself, might immediately attach to recent historical reference, "looking back" in your
parlance, you may miss the prospective references to our national need for modeling how Americans, regardless of station, cultural, or ethnic identity, can find ways to interact in the spirit of innovation, in the finding of new ways to re-calibrate our national dialogue for building a sense a national identity, an American culture.

The project team was lead by: Sam Gilliam in identifying the artists who would inspire a new Washington signature in collaborative creativity; Juanita Hardy of Millennium Arts Salon who initiated and funded the enterprise; Helen Frederick and Susan Goldman who "mastered" the printmaking and counseled many of the artists in innovation; Claudia Rousseau, who provided art historical and critical context; and Judy Greenberg, who housed this new vision of the American experiment with American inter-culturalism.

Of course, none of this is possible without the creatives themselves, and we are all grateful that the artists would lend themselves to this highly managed strategy. It is refreshing to read your review of the exhibition, Kriston, as your "backward looking" perspective provides that essential balance that fuels those of us in the creative classes to look forward to our leadership in the better America that is to come.

Review <-> Renew

REVIEW < - > RENEW: AN EXHIBITION IN CELEBRATION OF THE 25th ANNIVERSARY OF VISARTS

 

On View OCTOBER 28 – DECEMBER 29, 2012

 

25th Anniversary Celebration (tickets required)

Saturday, October 27 from 7:30 – 10:30 p.m.

(VIP Reception at 5:30 with Curators' Tour)

 

Public Opening Reception (free)

Friday, November 9 from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

 

Manon Cleary, Big J, 1977. Oil on canvas.

 Twenty five years ago Judy Greenberg and Jack Rasmussen teamed up to bring the highest quality contemporary art found in the Washington Metro region to galleries and resident artist studios located behind a strip mall in Rockville, Maryland.  Rockville Arts Place (RAP) was born. Visitors encountered compelling exhibitions that reflected the vibrant community of artists living and working in the area. Offering arts education, studio and exhibition spaces, RAP became an important addition to the cultural climate of the Rockville community.

Now renamed VisArts and housed in a glass walled building on three floors in Rockville Town Square, the tradition of excellence in the arts continues. VisArts presents Review <-> Renew co-curated by Judy A. Greenberg (Director of the Kreeger Museum) and Jack Rasmussen (Director and Curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center) in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of VisArts. This group exhibition brings together the renowned artists who brought critical regional success to the fledgling organization, Rockville Arts Place (RAP). The artists selected for the exhibition all exhibited at RAP while Greenberg was President of the Board and Rasmussen was Executive Director.

In the Kaplan Gallery, paintings by Lisa Brotman, Manon Cleary, Sam Gilliam, Tom Green, Margarida Kendall Hull, and Joe Shannon are on display. Early and more recent works by the artists are exhibited alongside Paul Feinberg’s photographs of the artists early and late in their careers. The paintings and photographs are accompanied by interviews with the artists conducted by Feinberg.  

In the Common Ground Gallery, Review <-> Renew features more outstanding artists important to the history of VisArts. Margaret Boozer, Robert Devers, Tim Tate, and Mindy Weisel, working in glass and clay, have received wide acclaim for their exquisite sense of material and rich, potent forms. They continue to push the boundaries of ceramic and glass traditions with astonishing intelligence.

Review <-> Renew offers a brilliant sample of the artists who helped shape the history of VisArts and the region’s artistic excellence. Their work has found its way into important collections, museums and exhibitions around the world. Rasmussen’s and Greenberg’s choice of artists and art, past and present, embodies the idea that the practice of making art, particularly art of the highest quality, is a process of patient accumulations and provocations over time. The resilience of VisArts as a non-profit art center is due in large part to its long list of exhibiting and resident artists. This celebratory exhibition acknowledges the past and looks forward with renewed vigor and relevance.

 

Review <-> Renew  will be on view in the Kaplan Gallery and Common Ground Gallery at VisArts from Sunday, October 28 – Saturday, December 29. The public is invited to attend a free Opening Reception on Friday, November 9 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. VisArts is located three blocks from the Rockville Metro station at 155 Gibbs Street, Rockville, MD. Gallery Hours are Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please visit www.visartscenter.org,or call 301-315-8200. Admission is always free.

 

 ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Manon Cleary (b. 1942 – d. 2012) Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Manon Cleary earned her MFA from Temple University, spending her first year in Rome, Italy. There, she studied the work of old masters, an experience to which she credited her becoming a figurative artist. In 1970, she moved to Washington, D.C., and began a teaching career at the University of the District of Columbia. Her work has been displayed internationally and is in permanent collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, and National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Manon’s work has been exhibited at the Osuna Gallery, Washington, D.C., Addison/Ripley Fine Art, Washington, D.C., Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, Maryland, Jackson-Iolas Gallery, New York, New York, J. Rosenthal Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, and Grand Palais in Paris, France.

Sam Gilliam (b. 1933) Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Gilliam earned his MA in painting at the University of Louisville before moving north to Washington, D.C. Absorbing the innovations of the Washington Color School, Gilliam quickly moved beyond it, following his own original and radical impulse to take over the exhibition space and not confine his painting to the picture plane. His work is in important collections across the United States, and he has had major retrospectives at Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, and the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas.  Gilliam’s work is included in public collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary, and Tate, London, England.

Tom Green (b. 1942 – d. 2012) After receiving a BA and MFA from the University of Maryland, Green moved to Washington and became a hugely influential artist and teacher. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, including Whitney Biennial, New York, New York, and 19 Americans at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia, and in the Washington, D.C. region, at the Kreeger Museum, the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and The Corcoran Gallery of Art. He received two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award, and residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Green’s work is in public collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Lisa Montag Brotman (b. 1947) After graduating with a BFA from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Brotman moved to Washington, D. C. where she attended the Corcoran College of Art + Design and earned an MFA from the George Washington University. Brotman has received two Individual Artist Awards in the Visual Arts from the Maryland State Arts Council. Her work has been exhibited in Europe and the United States, including the Washington, D.C. area, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Saint Mary’s College of Maryland, The George Washington University, Longwood University, Washington Project for the Arts, Rockville Arts Place, School 33 Art Center, Arlington Arts Center, and Gallery Neptune. Brotman’s work has been exhibited in five solo shows at Gallery K, London, England and in a mid-career retrospective at the Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, Maryland.

Margarida Kendall Hull (b. 1935) Born in Lisbon, Portugal, Kendall Hull attended the University of Lisbon/College of History and Philosophy. After moving to Washington, D.C., she graduated from the Corcoran School of Art + Design in 1973 and earned her MFA in 1982 from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. Her paintings of alternative realities were shown regularly in Washington, D.C., by the Osuna Gallery and Gallery K. For the past ten years she has been represented by Galereia de Sao Mamede in Lisbon, Portugal. Kendall Hull’s work has been in museum exhibitions at Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal, and the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Her works are in numerous public and private collections in the United States and Portugal.

Joe Shannon (b. 1933) Born in Puerto Rico, raised in Washington, D.C., Joe Shannon studied art at the Corcoran School of Art, but he was largely self taught. Looking at masterworks, lots of practice and self-criticism revealed his direction. Shannon worked for the Smithsonian for 26 years as an exhibition designer and curator. He has organized world class exhibitions, and written articles in major art magazines and newspapers, and juried many shows. Shannon teaches currently at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore; he lectures, and has taught at other universities. His work has been shown in galleries and museums around the world and is in many important collections, private and public, including Corcoran Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn, and Brooklyn Museums.

Paul Feinberg (b. 1942) Paul Feinberg’s stories and photo essays of Washington life have been appearing in the Washingtonian Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and numerous national publications for over 30 years. Focusing on portraits of city life and personal relationships, his stories have included everything from “Days and Nights by the Bus Station” to “Mothers and Daughters.” “Best Friends,” his Washingtonian piece on long term friendships, was expanded nationally into his book Friends. Feinberg has had solo shows at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, the Washington Arts Museum, Washington Project for the Arts, the Picker Gallery at Colgate University, and University of the District of Columbia. He has been a part of group shows at Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington Project for the Arts, Studio Gallery, Tartt Gallery, Kathleen Ewing Gallery, Jack Rasmussen Gallery, Osuna Gallery, and Arlington Arts Center.

Margaret Boozer (b. 1966) Born in Anniston, Alabama, Margaret Boozer lives and works in the Washington, DC metro area. She received a BFA in sculpture from Auburn University and an MFA in ceramics from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Her work is included in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Museum of the City of New York, The US Department of State, The Wilson Building Public Art collection and in many private collections. Boozer taught for ten years at the Corcoran College of Art and Design before founding Red Dirt Studio in Mt. Rainier, Maryland where she directs a ceramics and sculpture seminar. Recent projects include a commissioned installation at the US Embassy in Djibouti and writing a chapter for  U. S. Geologic Survey’s Soil and Culture. Recent exhibitions include Swept Away: Dust, Ashes and Dirt at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.

Robert Devers (b. 1960) Born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, Devers received a BFA in Ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He maintains a studio in Mt. Rainier, Maryland and has taught at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C. since 1988. Devers is also the Visual Arts Coordinator of the Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival. His work has been exhibited in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College, Claremont, California, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. Devers work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, the International Monetary Fund, the Museo Artistico Industriale “Manuel Cargaliero” in Vietri sul Mare, Italy and Museo Manuel Cargaliero, Castelo Branco, Portugal, as well as numerous private collections.

Tim Tate (b. 1960) A Washington, D.C. native, who has been working with glass as a sculptural medium for the past 25 years, Tim Tate is Co-Founder of the Washington Glass School in Mt. Rainier, Maryland. Tate’s work is in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the Smithsonian's American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery and the Mint Museum. He was awarded the title of “Rising Star of the 21st Century” from the Museum of American Glass and was also the recipient of the 2009 Virginia Groot Foundation award for sculpture. His work has been shown at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Fuller Museum, the Asheville Art Museum and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. He is a 2012 Fulbright Scholar recipient and was Artist-In-Residence at the Institute for International Glass Research (IIRG) in the UK.

Mindy Weisel (b. 1947) Born in Bergen-Belsen, the only daughter of Auschwitz survivors, Weisel grew up in New York and Los Angeles. She began painting at age 14, studied at California State University and received a BFA from George Washington University in 1977. An acclaimed abstract artist, working in paint and glass, Weisel has had numerous international commissions and exhibitions. Her pieces are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Hirshhorn Museum, National Museum of American Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, The Israel Museum, and the United States House of Representatives.

John Anderson on Washingtonian magazine article on DC galleries

I had my say here a few days ago on the recent article in Washingtonian magazine on DC art galleries.  Below is what former DMV art critic, artist, art historian, and curator John Anderson adds to my observations:

I’m going to argue your point about the halcyon days, Lenny, and say it was during the 1970s..There were about 120 galleries in DC (not DMV) at one point, and GREAT coverage in the Post and Star. (I can’t recall if Washington Daily News was still active, or the Virginia Morning Sun; the area had 4 dailies going into the 1960s, though). Hopps was absorbing DC artist works into the NCFA (now SAAM). Slade made the Corcoran healthy (and did so without breaking anyone’s nose). The Phillips was actively exhibiting local artists. The WPA opened and had three floors of crazy going on. The Hirshhorn opened. The NEA supported several area artists. There were the women’s artists conferences. The Bicentennial. Artists fighting for rights on The Hill. Rockne was shooting his lasers everywhere. The Art Now (1974) scandal. Yuri Schwebler’s Sundial. Exciting times! I won’t disagree that the 80s, 90s, 00s were all interesting, exciting, or brimming with potential. But I think the 70s was peak awesome in DC art history, and it was predicated by a scene that was growing in the 1950s and 1960s (something Andrew Hudson recognized in an exhibition he curated for the Edmonton Art Gallery in 1970, and something another curator in Baltimore recognized for a similar exhibition at the BMA: both opening in 1970, I believe).

It’s unclear from Bourland’s historical synopsis if he deemed the 70s as the hay-day, since he folds the 50s-60s Color School (WCS) in with Protetch, Moyens, Henri, etc... However, the omission of the Jefferson Place Gallery (JPG) struck me as interesting. I mean, if he’s going to mention WCS, he may as well credit the gallery that, at one time, supported Noland, Davis, Downing, and Mehring (the latter of which exhibited at the JPG at least through 1971). If he is going to mention Gilliam, again he may as well mention the JPG since Gilliam showed there from 65-74. In fact, every artist Bourland mentioned had some connection to JPG, whether being represented by or, in the case of Louis, eschewing invitation to do so.

The mention of “hard-edged abstraction of the Washington Color School anchored by Louis and Gilliam” also made me laugh. I mean, those are the two guys who are least hard edge (minus Gilliam’s first stripes). Come to think of it, Noland’s targets weren’t all that hard-edged, and Mehring’s best work—his dappled all-overs—also defied hard edges. The three who were most consistently hard edge were Downing, Davis, and most especially Truitt! Can’t get much harder-edged than the side of a rectangular prism.

There are other issues with his historical truncation, which make me wonder if it was just slap-dash editing, or some concession to word count. For instance, why was Bill Christenberry lumped in with the Color School guys? His stuff seems charged by memory, place, nostalgia, and time. In other words: content... which is something that isn’t present in a lot of the WCS stuff (although, Paul Richard will argue that Noland was doing targets because he was driving around L’Enfant’s traffic circles in his cabs way too much… and I really like that read!). When I think of Christenberry I think of photographs that follow in the footsteps of Walker Evans (at times, literally), his haunting Klan stuff, and ink drawings of pear trees. Maybe his assemblages of license plates and tin roofs were informed by WCS, but I think such a connection is a big stretch.

Also, Walter Hopps’ Washington Gallery of Modern Art? Hopps was the fourth director (5th if you count the hot minute Eleanor McPeck held down the fort between Breeskin’s resignation and Nordland’s appointment), and held the post for a smidgen over a year. Yes, he was doing great things. Great big expensive things. It’s partly why the Corcoran bought the property: WGMA couldn’t afford it any longer. Fortunately the Corcoran  had the sense to let Hopps continue doing interesting things there through late 68 and into 69. But, while Hopps may have had the most interesting tenure as director, WGMA was doing interesting things from its founding… back in the days when Alice Denney and Julian Eisenstein took their bar napkin sketch for a museum in 1960 and turned it into a museum showing a Franz Kline memorial retrospective in 1962. And then the Popular Image show, and Pop Festival months later. And, were it not for the Stern Family Foundation, everything that came before, during, and after Hopps wouldn’t have been possible: where’s Leni Stern’s credit?

What I think Bourland’s piece misses isn’t so much how a whimpering boom of three new galleries in the area can possibly excite the scene. Yes. It’s good they’re here. Quite possibly it creates an opportunity for a few area artists to show their stuff. Maybe, if those galleries are lucky, DC collectors will buy from them, too! And, while art is certainly a commodity, it is also one of the humanities. Art galleries are places that can ground us, give us insight into worlds unfamiliar to us, and spark meaningful changes in perception and opinion in the people who visit them. And that can lead to profound actual change in Washington. Were it not for the Jefferson Place Gallery, and the lectures and openings that John Brademus attended, perhaps he wouldn’t have been as successful whipping votes to make the NEA happen. Unfortunately, such touchy-feely things don’t pay the bills. But in a town experiencing such rapid change, having more galleries is a way to reconnect people to a variety of ideas in non-literary ways. Hopefully these three galleries, those that preceded them, and those that come to follow, will inspire.

And, God-willing, they all sell some stuff to go over a bunch of couches so that they can keep the lights on.

In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists

Next week the Kreeger Museum will open In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists, an exhibition derived from a monoprint project initiated by DC artist Sam Gilliam.

Gilliam "invited 19 established and respected painters, sculptors, printmakers, digital media and installation artists working in different styles, to join him in creating several print portfolios. Each made a set of five monoprints, one of which was chosen for the show by Sam Gilliam, Judy A. Greenberg, Director of The Kreeger Museum, Marsha Mateyka of the Marsha Mateyka Gallery and Claudia Rousseau, art critic and art historian."

As stated by Rousseau, “Creating a group portfolio and exhibiting together express the ideas of unity and identity that are underlying motives of the project, and which are vital to sustaining a thriving artistic community.”

The exhibition will be on view at The Kreeger Museum from January 15 – February 26, 2011. The invited artists are:

▪ bk.iamART.Adams
▪ Akili Ron Anderson
▪ Sondra N. Arkin
▪ Paula Crawford
▪ Sheila Crider
▪ Edgar Endress
▪ Helen Frederick
▪ Claudia Aziza Gibson-Hunter
▪ Sam Gilliam
▪ Susan Goldman
▪ Tom Green
▪ Martha Jackson-Jarvis
▪ Walter Kravitz
▪ Gina Marie Lewis
▪ EJ Montgomery
▪ Michael Platt
▪ Carol A. Beane
▪ Al Smith
▪ Renée Stout
▪ Joyce Wellman
▪ Yuriko Yamaguchi

Millennium Arts Salon is the exclusive sponsor of this major exhibition at the Kreeger. Several well-known names in the list, plus quite a few that are new to me; I'm really looking forward to seeing this exhibition.

Art advice for the White House tenants

Life has an interesting way of forcing us to sometimes either reversing what we once thought were final positions, and other times life offers us a chance of defending both sides of a position.

I have been generally against the segregation of artists by race (black, white, Asian or native American) or by ethnicity (Hispanic, Semitic, etc.), and yet sometimes a void or need is so egregious that the solution is very clear and may cross lines that we may have thought as cast in concrete.

When we all discovered a couple of years ago that 66% of all the artwork by black American artists currently in the White House art collection had been acquired by the Bushes, depending on what side of the political aisle you stand, this fact may either raise an eyebrow from right wing nuts or some sort of conspiracy theory from left wing nuts.

But when we also discovered the fact that only three works (out of an estimated 375 pieces) were by black Americans, both sides of the aisle should find that surprising... and maybe in need of attention by the Obamas.

A little recap and an update: In 2007 I reacted in my usual self-righteous, irate manner to having American artist Jacob Lawrence described as a great African-American artist, rather than just a great artist. And then the Washington City Paper in the process of policing that whole issue, came up with an interesting fact.

Jacob Lawrence, pen and ink, circa 1980 by F. Lennox Campello
In an Private Collection
According to the City Paper, Betty Monkman, the curator of the White House, revealed that, "while Lawrence’s painting isn’t the sole piece by a black artist in the executive mansion, it’s close to it — there are only two others."

That's now three out of "an estimated 375 total in the White House’s art collection."

Geez.

That implies that Simmie Knox's portrait of President Clinton is not considered part of the White House’s art collection, which doesn't make sense. Knox is a DC area artist by the way, and a brilliant painter.

So let's take off the first century and a half of the White House's art acquisition process. During that time we can safely assume that they probably just focused on American artists from one of the four races, and somewhat let me reverse my stand on segregating artists by race, rather than just artistic merit, and let me take the uncomfortable side of trying to again ask the question, "Why aren't there more works by black artists in the White House art collection?"

Even if one ignores skin color, and just looks at the art and artistic achievement, there are plenty of great American artists, who happen to be black, whom I think would make a great update to the White House collection.

Some art greats, by artistic default, I would think, would have to be Black, or Asian, or Native American, not just Caucasian artists of all ethnicities - after all, all four races of mankind create art and all four and their many mixtures, live in America.

Back in the 1980's, Jacob Lawrence was awarded the National Medal of Arts from President George Bush The First. Why did it take 27 years for one of his paintings to become part of the White House's permanent collection?

The City Paper research identified the other two paintings: "Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City (1885), which hangs in the Green Room, its home since 1996, and an 1892 painting by one “Bannister” (possibly Ed Bannister) acquired in 2006 and which was then undergoing conservation.

So two of the three have been acquired by the Bushes, and before 1996 there wasn't a single work of art by any black artist in the President's home, in spite of the fact that artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, Martin Puryear, Alma Thomas, and others are all just great American artists, period, and have even broken the National Gallery of Art code, and should all probably have been acquired by the White House years, and years, and years ago.

Makes my head hurt.

And let's agree, as Jonathan Melber notes in the HuffPost, that the White House's collection is not exactly, ah... contemporary.

But let's say that a traditional acquisition focus on painting were to remain, and thus we would immediately unfortunately eliminate a lot of good contemporary choices. After all, the White House is not an art museum, and the case could be made that it sort of "feels" that it should be an art collection where all things somewhat say "America" in a variety of traditional visual ways, and I submit that for that goal, painting is still first among equals. That still leaves Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, Alma Thomas and others I am sure.

So if the Obamas were to continue what President Bush started, and expand the White House's collection to be more representative of American artists and the American people, I would suggest that (in addition to perhaps more Lawrence), Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, Martin Puryear, and Alma Thomas would be a good start.

And, if as Malber suggests, the Obamas should expand the White House collection to more than just paintings, then in addition to some Lawrence collages, I would suggest work by other blue chip artists such as Kara Walker, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons (who is not only a brilliantly accomplished artist, but also happens to be both Hispanic and Black) and Lorna Simpson.

But I don't know if the Obamas personally collect art, and even though I am one myself, I don't really buy the idea of a staff White House art adviser.

If the Obamas are like most people, they probably don't "really" collect art with a focus or intensity to say, the Podestas in DC or the Rubells in Miami (either one of whom, by the way, would make excellent unpaid volunteer art advisers to the White House, if having an adviser was the choice made to change the visual arts acquisition status quo).

So... since the odds are that they would be beginning collectors, then I would suggest the same thing that I do to all beginning collectors: start looking first at emerging artists, which generally can be acquired for much less money than a well-established artist from the upper crust of the rarified artmosphere. Do this until you establish your tastes, desires and somewhat of a focus, and then, if your financial status allows it, begin expanding into the big museum-level names.

And if the Obamas listen to Malber's excellent point of looking locally (as Clinton did in selecting Simmie Knox to do his Presidential portrait), then I would add one of the terrific works by Rikk Freeman to the White House.

A huge Freeman painting would do wonders for the White House collection and also do wonders for Freeman. Not only would it add a presence and feel to the collection that is missing right now and which is an integral part of American history, but it would also set a new, fresh change of venue of how artwork has been acquired in the past, and the kind of artists that get acquired.

Change.

RIP Sam Gilliam

 Just heard the sad news that the great artist Sam Gilliam has died.

Last week I wrote about Sam's first ever major museum show in DC area. My feelings here.

Newhall on Sam Gilliam and "Post Painterly Abstraction"

The Inky's Edith Newhall reviews "Post Painterly Abstraction" at Locks Gallery, and also DC's Sam Gilliam at Sande Webster Gallery.

Read her review here.

The Shaping of Color Field

by Rosetta DeBerardinis

I departed the island of Baltimore last week to attend the preview of “Color as Field: American Painting 1950-1975,” the new exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

After some lovely pastries and Dean and DeLuca coffee poured from boxes we ventured upstairs to its third floor gallery. Once you emerge from the elevator you become captivated by the large scale chroma-stained canvases which are so imposing that you feel child-like staring up at them. Signage on the walls with names we have all heard or seem before like: Frankenthaler, Louis, Olitski, Motherwell, Gottelib, Davis and Gilliam. But, this is not a block-buster exhibit for the masses intended to draw record numbers of crowds; it is a significant documentation of 39 works by the early pioneers of American art.

Due to limited government funding for museums and art institutions, there is now greater reliance upon garnering private donors to underwrite exhibits. This exhibit is organized by the American Federation of the Arts, the Henry Luce Foundation, Gene Davis Memorial Fund, Golden Artists Colors and several individual donors, and few of the works are from the Smithsonian’s own collection.

But, if this exhibit is an example of what can be done without the government, I say ‘thank-you’ now we can really have first-class art shows which are thought-provoking, scholarly and challenging. No, there is no audio-guide with snippets of history or narrative story-telling. This show is intended for those well-versed in the subject-matter, so if you are not, I suggest that you dust off an art history book or Google ‘ColorField’ to ensure that you won’t miss the importance of this historical exhibit.

And, if you negate the importance of the abstract expressionist and chant along with the masses “even my child could do this” then you need to purchase the easy reading color-illustrated exhibition catalogue, written by its guest curator Karen Willkin, a specialist in 20th century modernism.

The post-war Color Field painters abandoned the gestural strokes, the all-over painting and pouring inaugurated by Jackson Pollock and the abstract expressionists, and instead concentrated on color, spatial ambiguity and process. Their aim was to unify a colorful abstract image or shape on a large surface. This 1950s movement was more about color than form; however, both movements sought to reveal the unknown -not to report just on the visible.

Artist Helen Frankenthaler led the way by applying thinned oil pigment to stain the unprimed canvas. After visiting her studio in New York City in 1953, artists Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis (both then teaching in the District of Columbia) returned there to experiment with their newly found technique.

My favorite painting in the show is Frankenthaler’s large scale, ‘Off the White Square’ done in 1973 because it exemplifies the new power and presence of acrylic pigment -- which had just become available when she began using ten years earlier.

And, as they say "the rest is history," because America now had its second artistic movement, the Color Field school, which included Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, Walter Darby Bannard, Jack Bush, Gene Davis, Friedel Dzubus, Sam Francis, Jules Olitski and later Larry Poons, Frank Stella, Ronald Davis and Sam Gilliam. These are artists who elected to concentrate on pure contrasting hues of color rather than light versus dark. In the words of Frank Stella “what you see is what you see.” However the significance of this exhibit extends beyond what the viewer sees on these colorful canvases. It is a historical event documenting the difference, similarity and distinction between abstract expressionism and color field painting along with the progression of American art.

The exhibition is in three-parts: an introduction to the origins of Color Field painting, its pioneers, and its later practitioners who pushed its further. It begins with Rothko, and the Abstract Expressionists, then to Frankenthaler’s departure from Pollock and the color field artists who followed with a new abstract form based on expanses of radiant unmodulated hues by staining, painting and spraying. And it concludes with the later generation often linked to the influential art critic Clement Greenberg, who curated the 1964 exhibit “Post Painterly Abstraction” and is credited along with art historian Michael Fried for defining and establishing the framework for interpreting the art form known as field of color, later coined "Color Field."

This exhibition is the first major examination of color field painting, and the District of Columbia is the only East Coast city to host this landmark exhibition. After its debut there it will make its final stop at the First Center of Visual Arts in Nashville, Tenn. in June.

On exhibit thru May 26th, 2008 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Eighth and F Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily (202) 633-1000\ (202) 633-7970 (recorded museum information).

Just noticed

Yesterday I was strolling Little Junes through the quad at American University and we stopped to look at the "Seurat" elephant sculpture by Sam Gilliam which is one of the "Party Animals" public art projects that the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities did a few years ago. As you may recall, artists painted a couple of hundred donkeys and elephant statues which are now all over the city.

The Gilliam elephant is right in front of the School of History building at AU and the poor beast is falling apart. I don't know if this is happening to any of the other "party animals" sculptures (or the similar panda project), but the elephant is riddled with surface cracks, as it appears that the elements have won the battle with the finishing element of the fabrication and the sculpture is cracking all over the place.

A Connie Slack panda across the quad seems to be in good shape, although if I remember right, the "party animals" preceded the pandas. But now I wonder if any other of these outdoor pieces are showing the effects of the DMV's severe weather extremes.

Congrats

To our very own contributor, Rosetta DeBerardinis, who relocated to Baltimore last week to accept an Artist Studio Residency with School 33 Art Center located on Federal Hill. She will continue to exhibit in the Washington metro area and extend her coverage for Mid-Atlantic Art News to include an even more expanded coverage of Baltimore.

Rosetta also has been selected by Sam Gilliam and Marie Lewis to exhibit her work in Contemporary Color - Contemporary Artists in the Color School Legacy at Montpelier Arts Center, opening April 17th-May 5th. A Conversation with Sam Gilliam, will be held on April 22 at 2 p.m. followed by a reception on May 5th from 3-5 pm.

Twist and Shout, her two-person show with sculptor, Guy Barnard, at Visual Art Studio in Richmond, VA, opens April 6th through May 25th.

She is also contributing to the Lotta Art, School 33’s annual benefit held on Saturday, April 21st with cocktail buffets, open studios, and a lottery-style drawing for art donated by 100 artists.

And Rosetta’s work is currently on exhibit at Design Within Reach in Bethesda, MD, (301) 215-7200 and at the Millennium Arts Salon in DC, 202-319-2077.