The Art of Investing in Art

(Thanks AJ). According to this article, yearly art sales are now reaching an estimated $10 billion in the United States alone, and "While money invested in the stock market's S&P 500 Index -- a conservative bet on Wall Street's top 500 companies -- has earned an annualized 11 percent return over the past decade, that same money sunk into the contemporary art market would have produced a whopping 29 percent return."

That's impressive, but I want to know where the figures to determine these claims come from? Secondary art market sales? Examining the IRS returns of all art galleries in the US? Reviewing all the appraisals of artwork done over the past decade?

And I got my answers to those questions; not from the article but from doing a bit of digging on the web.

This all comes from a team of Wall Street analysts behind Fernwood Art Investments, a new firm with offices in Boston, New York, and Miami (I can understand New York and Miami, but Boston?).

According to their website Fernwood Art Investments is a

"...research and investment company focused on the art economy. We are the first independent firm to develop a comprehensive suite of art-focused investment research, advice, financial products and services for sophisticated investors and collectors. Our work generates new ways to participate in the art market and, in the process, brings significant new capital to the art economy.

In short, Fernwood is employing rigorous portfolio management techniques traditionally applied to equities, bonds and commodities, in combination with academic and art trade expertise, to derive investable art insight. We invite you to explore our vision of art investing."

Anyway, their website has some pretty impressive, if Wall Streetish sounding documentation and references and studies and words that show me that these guys seem to know what they are talking about.

And yet "investing" in art is such a fungible science (at best). I mean, basic investment means buy low sell high. Or to be safe, buy a steady, safe investment and keep it for a loooooong time and then sell it.

In art, to me that means something akin to buying a Cindy Sherman set of photos 20 years ago (and sell them now!), or a Jack Vettriano painting in 1989 (when I was offered one for 300 pounds) and selling them now for a couple of million... you get my point? The buy "low" is done at the early point in an artist's career, when more often than not, he or she is under the "radar" of most people that I imagine as "investing in art."

And the "safe art guys" are the masters, and they are already pricey, so only investors with bucks could buy a Picasso, or Van Gogh, or Renoir, etc. Buy one one, keep it for 20-30 years and it is certain to increase in price (less the 10% auction house commission).

And this is where it gets intriguing.... because, maybe... and just maybe... if a firm like Fernwood could gather a dozen rich investors, and acquire a Picasso oil with their funds, and then hold it for them, and when the time was right, sell it at a good profit... then this could work!

But the hard work for Fernwood will be to identify the up and coming emerging artists about to make it big, and buying their artwork early on, and holding onto it while it increases in price. That's a formidable task.

My tip to them? If anyone from Fernwood is reading this: Buy Tim Tate.

James W. Bailey's Top Five DC Shows of 2004

Leave it to James W. Bailey to take a simple listing of the top visual art shows from our region and end up with several thousand words on the subject.

Bailey’s had quite a good year in 2004 himself, with several national level group exhibitions, plus his premiere Washington, D.C. area solo exhibition, "The Death of Film," which opened in August of 2004 at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Bailey’s "Rough Edge Photography" will also be featured in two solo exhibitions in 2005: "Stealing Dead Souls," which opens in January at the Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Maryland, and, "Burnversions," which opens in August in Reston, Virginia. Bailey will also be curating a found photography exhibition, "i found your photo," that will open in November of 2005 in Reston, Virginia.

Bailey won three major national art awards in 2004: An Honorable Mention Prize for "Circle Theatre – New Orleans" at the 3rd Bethesda International Photography Competition, awarded by William F. Stapp, the first Curator of Photography for the National Portrait Gallery; The Albert J. Turbessi Award at the 47th Chautauqua National Exhibition of Art for "Woman at the Tomb," awarded by Dr. Donald Kuspit, considered as one of America’s leading art critics and art historians; The Juror’s Choice Award at the Peninsula Fine Art Center Biennial 2004 for "Angel of Death," awarded by curator for the High Museum of Art, Carrie Przybilla.

Here's his Top Five List:

2004 – The Year a Small Army of Mississippi Rebel(lious) Artists Invaded Washington, D.C.

For the last couple of years I have enjoyed some success (well, some might say so!) as a critically acclaimed experimental photographer who has been exhibited across the country, internationally, as well as right here in the Washington, D.C. area. As a native son of Mississippi, I have been proud and honored to represent my home state with my art.

I currently live in Northern Virginia and my wide range of artistic activities keeps me in constant contact with many independent visual artists, as well as with a large number of arts professionals who work with some of the most important museums, art centers and art galleries in the country.

Wherever I travel to exhibit my photography, my Mississippi background seems to quickly become the subject of intense conversation. Art knowledgeable people outside the South are fascinated by Mississippi; yet, the question I get asked most often lately by non-Southern art elites goes something like this: "How did an open-minded liberal white artist like you ever manage to develop in such a backward state that is on the bottom of every list that is so steeped in racist attitudes with such a hate filled history and populated with so many ignorant conservative Republican Christians?"

Of course, the art sensitive people who ask the above question are usually far too sophisticated to use such crude and direct language (the way we routinely do in the South!) so I’m forced to try and translate their unspoken thoughts... but I’m sure you get the point.

The negative stereotypes about the people of Mississippi are incredibly pervasive in the cosmopolitan world of high art. Many educated arts professionals that I deal with in the Washington, D.C. area seem to operate under this absurd media induced stereotype that the average white Mississippian is a dangerous gun-toting NRA member NASCAR-fan racist redneck Republican who drives around in a beat-up pick-up truck with Rebel Flag bumper stickers plastered all over his vehicle cruising the back roads of the state looking for liberal democrats to beat up.

Many people in the rarified heights of the art world don’t know, and don’t really want to know, anything about the real Mississippi. That’s a shame because this place called Mississippi, with a population less than 3 million, has produced more creative people than any other place in the United States of America.

But despite the condescending comments mouthed by those art snobs who soar in the thin air of high altitude art with the rest of the enlightened and seasoned cultural elite, the meaningful cultural legacy of the grounded dynamic multi-cultural vibrancy of artist heritage of Mississippi will be around long after these people have passed into historic obscurity and, indeed, long after the United States of America even ceases to be united. And no matter what happens in this world, no matter how bad things get, the creative energy of artistic Mississippians will continue to be one of the major forces of passion, hope and love of life that will inspire the world to be a better place.

Black or white, race doesn't matter, artists from Mississippi have a deep love for the world and have longed shared their talents (talents born from a reality that many of the elites in the world of high art will never understand) in a genuine effort to make the ordinary genuine person who lives in every neighborhood in America, and in every neighborhood of every country in the world for that matter, laugh or think or smile or cry.

This is what being a passionate liberal Mississippi artist and proud conservative Southern person is all about for me.

If you don’t get it, you never will... I guess it’s just a Southern thing.

There were 4 deceased Mississippi artists who have had a profound artistic impact on the world who were exhibited and/or noted in a major way in Washington, D. C. in 2004.

There was also a 5th living Mississippi artist/photographer who may have had (some are saying he did!) a certain impact in the D.C. area as well; I will let someone else comment on that fella’s contributions, if any, when that glorious day arrives:

1. Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee - "Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio: Community Architecture" at the National Building Museum.

"A true architect practices all three professions simultaneously. The role of an architect/ artist/ teacher is to challenge the status quo and help others see what the possibilities can be." – Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee

Only in the South could a white man get away with insisting that he be referred to as Sambo!

Sambo worked in architectural practice for many years prior to founding the Rural Studio. In 1977, immediately after completing his internship, he founded Mockbee Goodman Architects with friend and classmate Thomas Goodman. The firm quickly built a regional reputation for utilizing local materials in its exceptional designs, winning more than 25 state and regional awards in four years.

Architect Samuel Mockbee was convinced that "everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul" and that architects should lead in procuring social and environmental change. But he believed they had lost their moral compass. The profession needed reform, he believed, and education was the place to start. "If architecture is going to nudge, cajole, and inspire a community to challenge the status quo into making responsible changes, it will take the subversive leadership of academics and practitioners who keep reminding students of the profession’s responsibilities," he said. He wanted to get students away from the academic classroom into what he called the classroom of the community.

Architecture students enrolled in the Rural Studio actually live in and become a part of the community in which they are working. This "context based learning" format teaches them critical architecture skills with an eye towards social responsibility. It is said that to his students, Mockbee presented architecture as a principle that must be committed to environmental, social, political and aesthetic issues.

Samuel Mockbee was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in 2000 shortly before he died at the age of 57. He was post-humously awarded the 2004 AIA Gold Medal by the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects.

I considered Sambo to be a friend, an inspiration, a humanitarian and a consummate artist.

2. Walter Inglis Anderson – "Walter Inglis Anderson: Everything I See is New and Strange" at the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries Building.

"I am continually arriving from some strange place and everything I see is new and strange." – Walter Inglis Anderson

Southern museum goers and art collectors have known of Walter Anderson for more than 50 years. They were introduced to him in 1948, when Memphians John and Louise Lehman persuaded Louise Bennett Clark, director of what was then the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, to mount the first show ever of Anderson’s work. Art critic Guy Northrop, writing in The Commercial Appeal, instantly declared him a "genius." Memphians saw that genius at work again in 1950, when the Brooks focused on Anderson’s block prints, watercolors, and ink drawings, and again in 1967, when the museum put together a major retrospective.

Southern artists knew of Anderson too. Burton Callicott, painter and instructor at what would become the Memphis College of Art, traveled to Ocean Springs in 1948 for a crash course in pottery under Peter Anderson, the artist’s brother and head of the family’s business, Shearwater Pottery. (Walter’s "gift" to Callicott? A mound of clay, no note attached, one morning at Callicott’s door.) MCA students still camp every summer on Horn Island, Anderson’s Gulf Coast retreat 10 miles offshore from Ocean Springs, and the work they do there is still exhibited at the start of every school year.

Did Anderson have an "uneasy" life? Yes, to judge from Anderson’s difficulties as a breadwinner and also from the history of his sometimes fragile mental health — periodic verbal and physical violence, sudden disappearances, incidents of self-mutilation, cryptic utterances, and near-catatonic states, until Anderson, in a series of hospitalizations, underwent treatment at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield.

But it was Horn Island that, in a sense, saved him.

3. George Edgar Ohr – "The Mad Potter of Biloxi" by Bruce Watson in the February 2004 edition of the Smithsonian Magazine.

"I am the potter who was." – George E. "The Mad Potter of Biloxi" Ohr

Despite his reputation for eccentricity, George Ohr was a hard worker. In the later part of his life, he produced quality art pottery that will be appreciated and remembered for centuries. George cultivated the idea that he was crazy, calling himself "The Mad Potter of Biloxi." He said that he was "unrivaled" or "unequalled" and was, by his own estimation, the "world's greatest potter." His antics, self-promotion, and playful spirit are what people remember, rather than what was more likely the case, a determined artist who sought to create attention to his creative production through his eccentric character.

Ohr's skills exploded when he became an "artist-potter." His claim there were "no two alike" was true. The pinched, folded and twisted clay forms, thinness of the clay wall, fluidity of form, tendril-like handles, and freshness of Ohr's creations illustrate a technical skill that is still unrivaled. One hundred years later, potters marvel at his skill and cannot rightly say exactly how it was done. Critics of the day praised Ohr's glazes, but as his admiration for pure forms executed in clay increased, he left many pieces unglazed in bisque form. He believed only in this state could the form be clearly perceived.

Ohr's serious creations did not find popularity with the public. And because the Victorian art pottery of the day was carefully controlled and decorated, Ohr’s energetic and expressionistic treatment of clay was too wild even for refined tastes. Ohr was passionate about his work and supremely confident in his talent. He wrote to an art critic, "I am making pottery for art’s sake, God’s sake, the future generation, and — by present indications — for my own satisfaction, but when I'm gone my work ... will be prized, honored and cherished." In l899 he packed up eight pieces and sent them to the Smithsonian Institution. One of the pots was inscribed, "I am the Potter Who Was."

4. Eudora Welty – Passionate Observer: Photographs by Eudora Welty at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

"I traveled the entire state of Mississippi taking pictures. I saw so many people who had nothing.. . . But even as people struggled, I was aware at a deep level of the richness of life going on all around me. I felt something about this time so strongly that the image stayed with me always." — Eudora Welty

Welty’s career as a photographer comprised a brief part of a long life, but it complemented her later work as a writer. In the late 1930s, Life magazine published Welty’s photographs. She also had exhibitions of her more artistic photographs in New York in 1936 and 1937. In the early 1940s, Welty’s career as a photographer for the most part ended after she decided to instead concentrate on writing.

The photographs that Welty took while traveling through Mississippi for the WPA didn’t get published until nearly four decades later in the book "One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression." However, Welty’s photographs were never widely exhibited during her lifetime, besides a few limited-edition portfolios. In fact, most people did not even know of her years as a photographer until after her death in 2001.

5.) GUESS WHO?

The above 4 artists from Mississippi have all passed away and gone on to art heaven. Their living spirits collectively exert a tremendous influence on me and my art and my philosophy of life and art.

As I mentioned above, there was also a 5th Mississippi artist, a certain experimental photographer who will remain unnamed, who also exhibited around and made his presence known in the metro Washington, D.C. region during 2004.

I won’t mention his name or comment on his place in the pantheon of great artists because my Mississippi momma and Mississippi grandmothers raised me to be too humble to be so rude! I’ll leave it to the certified art critics, professional art historians and other credentialed art experts to decide what page, if any, this eccentric Mississippi photographer gets to occupy in the official art canon at the end of his life.

What does it mean to be an artist from Mississippi? Simply this: It means being true unto yourself and your vision and trying to do the right thing.

Where am I going?

What am I doing?

I don't know I don't know

Just try to do your very best

Stand up be counted with all the rest

Cos everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

– Mississippi Goddamn by Nina Simone

New Gallery to open in Dupont Circle area

JET Artworks will be opening January 7, 2005 in Elizabeth Roberts' old space at 2108 R St. NW.

The gallery will feature contemporary paintings, photography and sculpture. Their first exhibition is a group show by several of their gallery artists including Conor McGrady (whose work was seen in the 2002 Whitney Biennial), Gregory Euclide, Greg Murr, Michel Tsouris and Ken Bucklew.

DC Art News sends a welcome aboard to JET Artworks!

Bring in the New Year with ArtRomp!

Molly Ruppert announces ArtRomp #17 on December 31 at Warehouse on New Year's Eve 6-9pm. Meet old friends, meet new friends, watch performance and performance art (Performance artists Larkin and Ed at 7 & 8 PM), see art, hear music, see more art. Food, drinks, a picnic in the parking lot. And it's all Free!

Warehouse
1021 7th Street NW
btwn NY Ave and L Street
202 783 3933
www.warehousetheater.com
Metro: Gallery Pl & Mt Vernon Sq.
ArtRomp runs 6-9PM
Warehouse cafe/bar, theaters & music run 9-2am.

I cant wait to read this book

"A Cuban woman who moved to New Orleans in the 1850s and eloped with her American lover, [her name was] Loreta Janeta Velazquez, fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy as the cross-dressing Harry T. Buford.

As Buford, she single-handedly organized an Arkansas regiment; participated in the historic battles of Bull Run, Balls Bluff, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh; romanced men and women; and eventually decided that spying as a woman better suited her Confederate cause than fighting as a man.

In the North, she posed as a double agent and worked to traffic information, drugs, and counterfeit bills to support the Confederate cause. She was even hired by the Yankee secret service to find 'the woman . . . traveling and figuring as a Confederate agent' — Velazquez herself."

This is sort of a Cuban-Southerner-Confederate "Fidelio." I will do some more research on this subject which is sure to become my next series of drawings.

Loreta Janeta Velazquez hereby displaces Cuban Confederate Colonel: The Life of Ambrosio José Gonzales by Antonio Rafael de la Cova and the definitive biography of a Cuban and Confederate rebel; as my next obsessive subject.

Get the book here.

Online statistics are a tremendously valuable tool for anyone trying to do business on the Internet. They can also be seductive and maddening.

For example, our gallery website gets about 525,000 hits a month, but this last October it received a whooping 1,048,825 hits (our first month over one million hits) and 48% of those hits came on October 7, 2004.

I called my ISP to verify that this was correct and not a blip in their stats program, and the stats are correct.

So now I'm going crazy trying to figure out what happened on October 7, 2004 to cause nearly half a million people to come to our gallery website.

And the closest answer that I can come up with, is the fact that on October 7, 2004 I was on the Kojo Nmandi show!

But that fact alone cannot equate to 458,448 hits in one day, and in reviewing the show's audio files, the website is never given out or mentioned. And most of the hits came during hour three of that Internet day, whatever that means. And 36% of the hits that month came directly to the gallery URL, which means that those people knew our website; only about 5% of the hits came through referral from search engines.

Next is for us to review our October sales and see how many Internet sales we had in October.

For Women Photographers

Secondsight's next meeting will be held on Friday, January 28, 2005. The guest speaker will be Connie Imboden.

Secondsight is an organization dedicated to the advancement of women photographers through support, communication and sharing of ideas and opportunities. Secondsight is committed to supporting photographers at every stage of their careers, from students to professionals. Each bi-monthly meeting includes an introductory session, a guest speaker, portfolio sharing and discussion groups. Each photographer will have the opportunity to present their work within a small group of other photographers, ask for constructive criticism, gain knowledge or simply share their artistic vision and techniques.

For more info visit Secondsight's website.

More Questions for our WaPo critic art test

My DC Art Test seems to have raised some interest among some of you.

DC area artist Rosetta DeBerardinis adds the following questions:

1. What is Gallery magazine?
2. Who was DC artist Alma Thomas?
3. What is the group Americans for the Arts?
4. Where is Penn Quarter?
5. Which DC artist is known for his hearts?
6. Which was the first contemporary art museum in America?

While James W. Bailey (as it is to be expected) submits one of the longest questions ever devised for an DC Art SAT:

"If you found yourself being extradited to permanent life-long exile on a remote non-populated island (Navassa Island near Haiti comes to mind) because of a perceived subversive piece of art criticism printed in the Washington Post that severely disturbed the national security interests of the United States, and you could choose to take with you one work of art from any living contemporary artist, or any one work of art from any private or museum collection in the world (including the Mona Lisa from the Louvre), what piece would you choose and why?"

That's an easy one for me. I would take Adam Bradley's lifesize sculpture Please. There's enough knives and hardware in that piece to help half a dozen people survive and even start a small war on that island.

New Gallery in Town

Emma Mae Gallery, founded by Sandra Butler-Truesdale, opened last month in Washington. The new gallery is located at 1515 U Street, NW in Washington, DC. For further information call 202-667-0634 or 202-246-6300

Currently on view there are works by Sandra Butler-Truesdale, John Zaire El-Badr, Afrika Midnight Asha Abney and many others.

Opportunity for artists

Montgomery College Drawing National II

Deadline: January 20, 2005 (snail mail entries)
January 21, 2005 (email entries)

Exhibition dates February 21 - March 11 at Montgomery College in Rockville, MD. Open to artists living in the United States. All drawing media. One to three entries. No entry fee, no commission, return shipping paid for mail-delivered work. No size restrictions. Work must be ready to hang, presented in a professional manner. Insurance.

Approximately 35-40 works will be exhibited. Looking for straight, creative, and unusual approaches to drawing.

Juror: Sarah Stecher, Associate Professor of Art, Montgomery College. 301-251-7649, Email her here.

View and download prospectus here.

Some DC area art jobs

Deadline: January 17, 2005
Job: Assistant Director of the Art Gallery at the University of Maryland.

The Assistant Director works closely with the Director in the overall management and administration of the Gallery's exhibition program, permanent collection, education program, and fundraising.

The successful candidate will fulfill the following requirements: Possess a bachelor's degree. Must have 2-3 years experience in a museum of gallery setting involving exhibitions, handling art objects, and grant writing. Excellent organizational, time management, and oral and written communication skills. Ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks and deadlines. Strong interpersonal skills and an ability to interact with a diverse public. Additionally, the preferred candidate will: Possess a bachelor degree in art, art history, or related fields. Possess a graduate degree. Demonstrate academic training in art history and/or art and understanding of current museum standards.

Salary: Low to mid 30's

For best consideration send a letter of application, resume or curriculum vitae and three names of references by January 17, 2005 to:

Dorit Yaron
Deputy Director
David C. Driskell Center
2108 Tawes Fine Arts Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

---

Job: Assistant Professor in Graphic Design: American University

Deadline: Until filled

Assistant Professor rank. Tenture Track. Beginning Fall 2005. Qualifications: MFA or equivalent terminal degree in the discipline. Teaching and professional experience preferred. The applicant should be knowledgeable of current issues in design, the demands of the professional field and the tools, technologies and resources inherent to the discipline. Expected familiarity with theoretical issues of graphic design as well as its historical background. Ability to contribute to the teaching of interactive and experience design courses a plus.

Responsibilities: Teach courses in graphic design at the undergraduate level, basic through advanced levels; stduent advising, including mentoring women and minority students. Scholarship/Creative work: active professional in the field. University service: serving on Department, College and University Committees. Salary is competitive and dependent on qualifications and experience. Applications will be reviewed beginning January 15, 2005 and continue until the position is filled.

Selected candidate will begin appointment working at facilities located in a brand-new building. Visit www.design.american.edu and www.american.edu for further information on the University and design program. Include letter of application stating teaching philosophy, curriculum vitae, a minimum of 20 slides or disk media with samples of own work and (if available) examples of students' work, and printed writing samples if any.

Salary: Competitive and dependent on qualifications and experience.

Send materials along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope for their return, and three letters of recommendation to:

Graphic Design Search Committee
Department of Art
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington DC 20016-8004

Top 10 DCist Posts of 2004

DCist was one of the best things that happened to our area's cyberspace information grid (how's that for a new acronym? the CIG!). Anyway, they have their Top 10 DCist Posts of 2004 and were kind enough to have a few nice words about DC Art News.

Read their list here.

(Thanks AJ!) A tried and true formula for achieving and becoming temporarily notarious includes a healthy dose of anti-government political art. If the idiots in government (in this case the Swiss) bite and do any sort of censoring, the artist is guaranteed overnight exposure!

"No one paid much heed last year when the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn stopped showing his work in Switzerland to protest a right-wing populist's entry into the government. Now, in a new exhibition in Paris, a biting critique of Swiss democracy, Mr. Hirschhorn has provoked stormy scenes in the Swiss Parliament that have turned him into his country's most talked about artist overnight."

Read the latest case in the NYT here. If you don't have a NYT password, get one: it's free! (or useAJ's).

Even the Swiss! Geez!

Faith Flanagan's Top Ten DC area exhibitions of 2004

Faith Flanagan is a local art fan, collector in the rough, and sometime guerilla curator. Here's her top DC area shows of the year:

Calder/Miro, The Phillips Collection
Douglas Gordon (with emphasis on 24 hour Psycho), Hirshhorn
Jason Gubbiotti and Ian Whitmore, Fusebox
Jenny Holzer, Xenon for DC, Curator's Office
Avish Khebrehzadeh, Conner Contemporary Art
Sally Mann, Last Measure, Hemphill Fine Arts
Ana Mendieta, Hirshhorn
Maggie Michael, Run, G Fine Art
Brandon Morse, These Things Happen, Strand on Volta
Esther Hidalgo - Lara Oliveira - Katherine Radke - Christopher Saah - Dylan
Scholinski, THE EXERCISES--E1: Contemplating Process, Transformer Gallery

Addendums -- (aka TG Awards):
Best After-Party: WPA/C Auction 2004, Black Cat
Best (sort of borrowed) Fundraising Idea: Anonymous One, Flashpoint
Best Non-exhibition art event: Opening of 1515 14th Street, NW
Best Place to look, as an emerging collector, for a great emerging artist (without really trying): Academy, Conner Contemporary Art, August

Liz Smith, gossip columnist for the New York Post writes about Chirstmas, PC and Blake Gopnik.

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.

Holiday Teaser

I'll have a really interesting bit of information to post tomorrow; make sure you check in!

At the risk of having the ACLU sue me: Feliz Navidad!

O'Sullivan on Towles

Michael O'Sullivan reviews Kelly Towles' current exhibition at David Adamson and declares being a fan of Towles' work.

This is one of the reasons that I like O'Sullivan's writing. When was it the last time that you read a WaPo art critic declaring that they were a "fan" of anybody's work?

Other than O'Sullivan (this and in other past reviews), never. It is as if declaring that one actually likes the work being reviewed, with just a little bit of passion or enjoyment, is verbotten in the how-to handbook of modern art criticism.

Bravo O'Sullivan.

Top 10 Shows of 2004

With the large number of commercial fine art galleries, embassy galleries, non-profit galleries, artists cooperative galleries, alternative art venues and museums that we have in our Greater Washington, DC area, the task of selecting a list of top anything is not a trivial task.

To make matters worse, everytime that I've done this in the past, and after I see someone else's list, I always go "crap! I forgot about that show!"

Nonetheless, here's my top ten visual arts show of the year for our region, sans our shows of course. I was tempted, as 2004 allowed us to bring to the DC region some brilliant work by world-class Cuban artists like Sandra Ramos, Cirenaica Moreira, Marta Maria Perez Bravo and Aimee Garcia Marrero (all of whom were in Art Basel Miami Beach) as well as a spectacular second sold out show by Tim Tate, who enjoyed what can best be described as a record-setting 2004.

My Top 10 (in no particular order)

Ana Mendieta at the Hirshhorn

Sally Mann at the Corcoran

Chan Chao at Numark Gallery.

Bruno Perillo at Irvine Contemporary Art

Ian Whitmore at Fusebox

The Quilts of Gee's Bend at the Corcoran

Margaret Boozer at Strand on Volta

"In 2Words: Numbers" at Target Gallery.

Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya at the National Gallery.

Dan Flavin at the National Gallery of Art.