Sometime tomorrow DC Art News will go over 40,000 visits since I started this BLOG a year ago.

What a great birthday present for anyone who cares about the visual arts in our region!

I want to thank all of you who read this BLOG everyday! Pass the word, and email me with any and all info to help spread the word about our incredible, incandescent art scene from our art galleries, artists and museums!

J.T. Kirkland is a 26-year-old artist and art critic who writes incredibly eloquent thoughts and feelings and observations about art and art shows at Thinking About Art.

Anyway... J.T. has been soliciting artists to write to him and communicate words about their art, which he then posts into his excellent Thinking About Art BLOG.

Please check Thinking About Art and see some of the artists who have so far responded and (if you are an artist) add to the dialogue.

Art Events for This Week

On Thursday is the opening of the major Ana Mendieta Retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Curated by the Hirshhorn's Deputy Director, Olga Viso, this exhibition is a comprehensive look at the Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta’s career between 1972 and 1985. Mendieta (b. 1948 – d. U.S., 1985) is celebrated for using her own body to explore issues of gender and identity, and her work has significantly influenced subsequent generations of artists. I met her quite by accident in 1975 and am lucky to have one of her early drawings in my collection. The retrospective will be on until January 2, 2005. I will review it later.

And Friday is the 3rd Friday and thus the 3rd Friday and the five Canal Square Galleries in Georgetown have their new shows. Openings are from 6-9 PM and are catered by the Sea Catch Restaurant, also located in the Canal Square. We will have the DC debut of Bay Area painter Douglas Malone, Best of Show winner of the 2003 Georgetown International Fine Arts Competition. Many of the artists will be present in the five galleries. We will also have plenty of our famous Sangria. Free and open to the public.

And there are two major art events over the weekend. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Art Baltimore takes place at the Baltimore Convention Center's Exhibit Hall E (Entrance from Pratt Street). Over 150 national, regional and emerging artists from 38 states and Canada will be exhibiting and selling a unique mix of original works of art and gallery quality crafts. See participating artists here.

And Saturday and Sunday is the Bethesda Row Arts Festival in Bethesda. 170 national and area artists and fine crafters will be selling their work on the streets around Bethesda Row. I will be in booth 31E, come and say hi.

If I missed any art events this week, please email me.

DC Art News reader Keith Peoples, in reference to the Goya posting, notes that the National Library of Medicine currently has thirteen prints by Francisco Goya on display.

Two of the works are first editions created by Goya, while the others are "restrikes" printed by others using Goya's original plates.

This exhibition, on display through October 29, 2004, is curated by Belle Waring of the Prints and Photographs Collection of the History of Medicine Division.

The National Library of Medicine is located at 8600 Rockville Pike in Bethesda, MD and is near the Medical Center stop on Metro's Red Line. The Library's hours are 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday. The exhibition is inside the History of Medicine Reading Room. For more information, call: 301 496-6308.

The "Funky Furniture" controversy made it to the "Countdown with Keith Olberman" TV show at MSNBC last night. It was the third highest ranked story of the night!

New Masters' Painting Discovered!

A previously unknown work by the painter usually considered to be the true father of modern art, Don Francisco de Goya y Lucientes has been discovered in Malaga, Spain by a local art restorer.

Read the story here - thanks AJ.

We are lucky to have many Goyas in Washington, DC at the NGA.

Tip for Photography Collectors

One of the best ways to acquire terrific deals in contemporary photography is through the Photo Review Benefit Auction.

The Photo Review Benefit Auction is now on-line here. You can preview the work and submit absentee bids.

A special preview will be held in New York City at the Sarah Morthland Gallery, from Tuesday-Thursday, October 12-14, 11 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

A preview at the University of the Arts, Dorrance-Hamilton Building, Broad and Pine Streets, in Philadelphia, will be held on Friday, November 5 from 11 - 5 PM, and on Saturday, November 6 from 11 - 6 PM.

The auction will take place on Saturday, November 8 at 7 PM at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Among the work featured are rare vintage prints by Francis Frith, Milton Greene, Philippe Halsman, Lewis Hine, Eadweard Muybridge, August Sander, Lou Stoumen, Josef Sudek, and Weegee, as well as Barbara Morgan's famous image of Martha Graham: Letter to the World (The Kick).

Among the contemporary photo stars whose work will go on the block are Shelby Lee Adams, Elinor Carucci, Lois Greenfield, Michael Kenna, Cindy Sherman, Jock Sturges, Jerry N. Uelsmann, Alex Webb, and William Wegman. In addition, a broad range of 19th-century photographs are up for bid.

The annual auction is free of charge. A fully illustrated catalogue is available for $12 from The Photo Review, 140 East Richardson Avenue, Suite 301, Langhorne, PA 19047-2824.

Last Friday we had our best opening night ever, in the fourth solo show at Fraser Bethesda by New York painter David FeBland.

FeBland's last solo immediately preceeding this show, at Galerie Barbara von Stechow in Germany, sold out; another bit of evidence of how hot painting is in Europe.

You can view the show online here.

Want to ask Charles Saatchi a question?

To coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Saatchi gallery, the advertising genius turned art collector, Charles Saatchi has agreed to answer The Art Newspaper’s questions as well as your own in their January 2005 issue. Email a question to Saatchi here.

Deadline for questions is December 6, 2004.

Jacqueline Trescott in the Washington Post: The DC City Museum will close its exhibit galleries to the general public next spring.

Tomorrow, Sunday October 10, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. is the Bethesda Artists' Market, with 25-35 area artists (some are coming from as far north as New York now) selling their artwork.

The market is on Bethesda Plaza, right outside and around the Fraser Gallery Bethesda, one and a half blocks north of the Bethesda Metro stop on the Red Line.

See you there!

"Funky Furniture" Controversy making worldwide news

The "Funky Furniture" controversy, first discussed here a few days ago, and subsequently in the Washington Post has made worldwide news and even the BBC has picked up the story!

One of the show's curators (Chad Alan) told me yesterday that a protest outside the City Museum was being organized for next week - I will let you know as soon as details are available.

This is a PERFECT opportunity for an area exhibition venue to step up and offer up space to host this exhibition. It is sort of a replay of the "Mapplethorpe at the Corcoran" controversy of the past. Except that this time, of course, it is the perfect opportunity for the Corcoran to step up to the plate and offer up its empty ground floor space (the empty space to the right when you first enter the museum) to host "Funky Furniture."

The exhibit is designed to look like a "living room," and so it would be a perfect fit into that Corcoran ground floor empty space.

And you can't buy publicity like this controversy has generated. So the ball is in the Corcoran's court, I think.

The Post's "Geek" art critic Michael O'Sullivan reviews Dan Flavin at the NGA.

The Washington Posts's Jacqueline Trescott today has a story on the "Funky Furniture Controversy" at the DC City Museum that was first posted here and by Jesse Cohen at ArtDC and discussed on the air yesterday at the Kojo Nmandi show.

I am told that the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities is actively looking for a place to hold the exhibit and may have an alternative space lined up!

The Vampire Keeps on Rising

(Thanks AJ).

This article in the Christian Science Monitor discusses an exhibition opening at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles titled "The Undiscovered Country."

The show examines the role of representational painting in a post-photographic world by looking at 65 works by 23 painters from the United States and abroad over the past four decades.

"This is not the straightforward landscape and formal portrait that dominated art for so many centuries. Instead, it's a concentrated effort by artists to come to terms with a world suffused with real-world imagery - and find a new role for realistic painting within it."

This all simply means that for years a lot of influential people in the art world have been trying and insisting on denigrating painting, especially representational painting - but in the end, as it has happened several times in the vicious circle, painting refuses to die and suddenly it is back in vogue and trendy curators are scampering all over the place to find the painters they've been ignoring for so many years.

Not too mention some art critics who have made a career and name by pushing the "painting is dead" slogan.

I call this "Contemporary Realism." That is: realism with a bite.

And (shameless plug coming) if you want to see an artist whose works have been called "the leading edge of the new urban realists" by the New York Times, come see David FeBland's fourth solo with us at Fraser Bethesda. Opening reception is tonight from 6-9 PM as part of the Bethesda Art Walk.

As promised, here I will post all the different websites and shows that I discussed on the air at the Kojo Nmandi Show, together with Jeffry Cudlin, the talented young new art critic from the Washington City Paper and Dr. Claudia Rousseau, the highly respected art critic from the Gazette Newspapers. The audio from the show is here.

We started the show by discussing the "Funky Furniture Controversy" that I discussed here a while back.

Rather than re-hash what we talked about, the best thing to do is to review what Art.DC posted yesterday. This posting by Jesse Cohen tells the story from the horse's mouth. Please read it.

I then gave Kojo's listening audience the scoop on the fact that the same woman who is sponsoring the Trawick Prize for Contemporary Art has been so disappointed by the hired curators disdain for painting that she is in the process of deciding to institutionalize an annual art prize of $10,000 just for area painters (DC, VA and MD).

I then reviewed the main pockets of gallery concentrations in the area and the specific times when they host openings and extended hours. I explained that it is free, and that artists are usually present, many are catered, etc.

• First Fridays – Dupont Circle Galleries
• Second Fridays – Bethesda Art Walk
• Second Thursdays – Alexandria, VA
• Third Thursdays – Downtown area galleries
• Third Fridays – Georgetown's Canal Square galleries

I also announced that there’s a new Art-O-Matic being planned – It will be from November 12 to December 5, 2004. It will be at 800 3rd St, NE (3rd and H St.). Over 1,000 artists participated in the last Art-O-Matic. Open to all artists; more details at Art-O-Matic's website. This is great news for Washington, DC art lovers.

We then discussed some important new museum shows opening soon:

• Ana Mendieta Retrospective opens next week at the Hirshhorn Museum. First major retrospective of Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta. She was a "Peter Pan" child sent away from Cuba by her parents to be raised in the US away from the brutality of Communism and was raised in foster homes in Midwest. She then died a spectacular death by "falling" from the 34th floor of her home in NYC. I gave well deserved kudos to Olga Viso, who curated this show.

• Dan Flavin Retrospective at the National Gallery of Art. Now until Jan 9. The whole issue of conservation was extensively discussed. The curator of the exhibition essentially says: "when the flourescent lights go out - that's it!"

• I gave props to Jonathan Binstock and Stacey Schmidt (curators of the 48th Corcoran Biennial) for looking in their own backyard. Selected area artists for the 48th Corcoran Biennial have been announced and (for a change) they include James Huckenpahler (represented locally by Fusebox Gallery, Colby Caldwell (represented locally by Hemphill Fine Arts), and Baltimore-based photographer John Lehr. Last Thursday I had posted all the selected artists here.

I also discussed some important gallery shows opening soon:
• FuseBox: A group drawing show from Nov 6 – Dec 18 including drawings by Terence Gower, Jason Gubbiotti, Ulrike Heydenreich, Cynthia Lin, Joan Linder, and Nicola Lopez. Drawing, like paintings is suddenly the “hot” genre in the art scene. Next year they will have a solo by Ian Whitmore, a very talented young area-based painter.

• Conner Contemporary has Erik Sandberg opening on Nov 19 through Dec 23. One of the most talented local young painters and one of my all-time favorites.

• Kathleen Ewing has Bruce McKeig’s pinhole photography of urban parks. October 22 – Nov 27.

• There’s a new gallery in Georgetown’s Canal Square: Anne C. Fisher Gallery and next Oct. 15 they have the works of Phyllis Elizabeth Wright.

• Tranformer Gallery continues to have an unique exhibition program. Jayme McLLellan and Victoria Reis have been doing a great job. Currently they have an exhibition of text based multimedia work by three Texas artists. Until Oct. 16.

• Friday, Oct. 8 is the Bethesda Art Walk – 19 Bethesda art galleries and art venues.

Kojo then asked each of us to mention our favorite area artists. I rambled on about Manon Cleary (represented locally by Addison Ripley) and Tim Tate (represented locally by us). Later on I added Erik Sandberg (represented by Conner Contemporary).

There was also a very spirited discussion between Jeffry Cudlin and Dr. Claudia Rousseau about abstract and representational art in the context of contemporary art. Get the audio of the show here.

Welcome to all the new readers who are discovering DC Art News for the first time thanks to the great link from my appearance on the Kojo Nmandi Show earlier today discussing Washington area art and artists.

I have a special opening to attend tonight, but I promise that as soon as I get home I will post here all the links and events mentioned on the air. You can also listen to the show again on the internet by visiting the Kojo Nmandi Show archives. They will soon have the audio of the show online.

The WAMU telephone operators told me that the phones were buzzing and a lot of people waited a long time but were unable to ask their questions. Please feel free to email them to me, and I will try ot answer them.

Later today I'll be on the Kojo Nmandi Show discussing Washington area visual arts and artists. Tune in to WAMU 88.5 FM around 1 PM.

If you have any questions or art issues, you can call Kojo during the show at (800) 433-8850 or you can email me questions to kojo@wamu.org.

After the show I will post here all the websites and information that we discuss on the air.

Everytime that I start thinking that I am too harsh on the Post, they do something to prove to me that they (the corporate they or editorial they who makes decisions as to what is to be covered by their writers) haven't got the foggiest sense of what place they hold in the cultural tapestry of our city and how they manage to mismanage it when it comes to the visual arts.

Read this waste of printspace and weep with me for a newspaper that has some of the smallest art coverage of any major daily in the US and yet devotes the time and effort and space to cover mass produced garbage and use the word "art" in describing it.

Perhaps if more people knew that they could buy original art by emerging artists at the same prices as the "wall decor," they would not waste their time and money buying expensive posters.

"... a growing trend of consumers who buy art -- known in the industry as "wall decor" -- that is made and marketed to coordinate with prevailing trends in home furnishings...

... "People are absolutely buying more art. In the last two or three years, our art sales have doubled," said Becky Weber, Crate & Barrel's accessories buyer, who declined to give specific sales figures.

None of this is lost on artists -- whose royalties are tied to sales -- as they create images of quaint Parisian cafes, jammin' jazz combos, monochrome geometrics and ye olde hunting scenes."

Makes my head hurt.

Elsewhere in the Post, Jessica Dawson, who generally is supposed to review Washington area galleries (I think), treks to Annapolis to review Louise Nevelson: Selections From the Farnsworth Art Museum at the Mitchell Gallery, St. John's College.

I now eagerly await for the Annapolis Capital to send their art critic to DC to review one of our shows.

Oh wait...

City Museum Censors "Funky Furniture" Show.

Area artists Chad Alan and Maggie O'Neill have been organizing an interesting exhibition for the City Museum of Washington, DC titled "Funky Furniture."

Several area artists are involved and have been working for the last few months for this exhibition. I have been made aware by several people of a developing controversy now rapidly revolving around this show.

I am told that entries for the show were brought in over this past weekend, and when viewed a couple of days ago, there were at least six adjudged by the museum management to be "not acceptable" because of sexual and/or offensive content. One of the objectionable ones was an end table with "The bitch set me up" carved with on the surface with a razor blade.

The entire show has been removed from the main floor, and some may be allowed in smaller spaces elsewhere, but the offending six will not appear.

There are apparently ongoing negotiations with the museum management, but this has the smell of art censorship.

In a paradoxical way, this brewing controversy could be exactly what the museum needs to increase its visibility and maybe even get some people to visit it.

Look for Washington Post and Washington City Paper stories in the next few days, but you read it here first.