Claire Watkins

The current "Interface" exhibition in our Bethesda gallery has really been drawing a diverse and constant flow of visitors, including several schools who have come in groups to see the show.

And Claire Watkins amazing magnetism-based kinetic sculptures have really been drawing the "oohs" and "aaahs" from nearly everyone. Watkins is a recent graduate of VCU's highly acclaimed postgraduate sculptural program, ranked number one in the nation (I am told).

The hypnotizing sculpture of the rotating magnet, hanging from a plastic, clear bracket and attracting a set of ever moving, dancing needles has clearly become the star attraction of the exhibit.

To me, the interesting thing about this sculpture is the fact that it will never be the same once de-installed and re-installed in whatever collector's home it ends up in (it's still available for sale by the way). When the sculpture sells, Watkins will have to go to the collector's home and install the work in a chosen area.

I suspect this will be a placement chosen by both artist and buyer, and brings some interesting questions to the whole classification of the piece. For example, a smart thing for the collector to do, is the video the whole installation event, as I found it fascinating to see Watkins weave the installation of the sculpture in the gallery's corner space. It would be particularly interesting to see her re-create that, in a different space (someone's home) once the piece sells.



On the gallery’s main wall, her other three sculptural arrangements hang: two triptychs and a diptych. They are ink and acrylic etchings on a copper plate, floating away from the wall, projected from a plastic armature that hides a small motor. The hidden motor rotates a small magnet, and this magnet, in turn, causes pins and iron filings to dance and move on the surface of the etchings.

And the interesting thing that I've noticed over the days since she installed the pieces, is that the metal filings, pins and other metallic objects that dance and move on the surface of the etchings... ah... move! So it seems that the movement is not only driven by the rotating magnet behind it, but also by the ever changing magnetic fields of the Earth itself.

What does this mean? It means that these sculptures are never, ever quite the same at any given second; they're always evolving and changing and moving. One day the filings have climbed atop pins and radiate outwards; a few days later a lonely pin has drifted away from the pack, and so on.

Watkins, who now lives in New York City, is currently speaking with several New York galleries and I am sure that we will continue to hear great things about this talented young artist.

"Interface" runs through February 8, 2006.

Whippersnappers

Conner Contemporary Art is damned pleased to introduce the work of Fatima Hoang, Michael Magnan, Maki Maruyama, Annie Schap, Zach Storm and Matthew Sutton in Whippersnappers – an exhibition of young, bright, culturally astute artists who, in their opinion, rock.

There will be an opening night reception at Conner Contemporary Art on Friday, February 3rd from 6-8pm, and the show runs through March 11.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: February 15, 2006

Cows, Pandas, Elephants, Crabs, Apples, Mermaids, Testudos and now doors!

"Making an Entrance" offers an opportunity for artists to create artistic doors.

Details here and the prospectus here.

Bodypainters

Adrianne Mills and company had a load of fun painting some bodies last weekend at the Anne C. Fisher Gallery in Georgetown. See loads of images here.

By the way, the person getting painted is the very talented artist Michal Hunter.

There's still time to catch "Bodies of Work" at the gallery, and see some of Mills' intelligent photography on this sensual subject. The show runs through Feb. 11, 2006.

Gopnik on Kessman

A rare mini review by the WaPo's Chief Art Critic of a Washington, DC gallery show.

Read Gopnik's mini review of Dean Kessman at Conner here.

What Good Are the Arts?

Read this WaPo review of a recent book on the above subject. More on this later.

Society for the Arts in Healthcare

Provides grants and free technical assistance to local arts agencies partnered with health organizations to establish or enhance existing arts and healing programs.

Programs may range from artist residencies, exhibits, concerts and bed-side crafts activities in hospitals to artists working with visiting nurses, hospice and nursing homes.

For more information or application forms, contact:
Society for the Arts in Healthcare
2437 15th St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
Phone: (202) 299-9770
email: mail@TheSAH.org
Website: www.societyartshealthcare.org

College Art Association

The College Art Association assists artists financially in completion of MFA and Ph.D. programs. Grants of up to $5,000 are awarded to individual artists.

Deadline is ongoing. For information, contact:

The College Art Association
Fellowship Program
275 7th Ave.
New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 691-1051
Website: www.collegeart.org

Improv Everywhere

Mark Jenkins sent me this street performance link for Improv Everywhere. It's called "Suicide Jumper."

See it here.

Silverthorne on Dickson Carroll

Solarize This checks in with a review of Dickson Carroll at Addison Ripley.

Read the review here.

Goss on Fusebox's last show

Two Timing the Cosmos pops in with yet another insightful review of Fusebox's last show.

More please!

Read Heather's review here.

Update: Trip cancelled!

Airborne today and heading to the Left Coast. A rather unplanned trip!

And it bugs me that I'll miss the opening of what sounds like a very interesting exhibition opening this Thursday at Nevin Kelly Gallery.

Nevin Kelly Gallery will open an exhibition of works that gallery owner Nevin J. Kelly acquired in a recent trip to Poland. The show, which began its run on January 5, features works by five Polish artists who have been featured in past exhibitions, plus works by a recent graduate of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts who is new to the gallery. A mid-run reception will be held on Thursday, February 2, from 6 until 9 o’clock at the gallery’s exhibition space, 1517 U Street, NW in Washington.

Please go, and someone email me a review of the exhibition.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline February 24, 2006

John A. Wilson Building Accepting Submissions for Art Collection. The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities is currently accepting applications for the Wilson Building Public Art Collection. The Wilson Building is located downtown at 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The historic building serves as the headquarters for the Mayor and City Council for the District of Columbia. The works purchased through this call for entries are specifically designated for permanent installation in the Wilson Building.

Download the application here.

I have some thoughts and opinions on this terrific opportunity, so more on this call later.

It keeps coming

Bad news that is...

Slaithong C. Schmutzhart, who was an associate professor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design for 22 years before retiring in 2002, died of cancer Jan. 19 at her home in Washington.

Ella Tulin

Bad news seldom comes alone.

Internationally renowned DC area sculptor (she lived in Bethesda) Ella Tulin died yesterday in Bethesda.

Our deepest sympathies to her family.

Ken Oda

I just found out that Ken Oda died on January 15, 2006, and this obituary in the WaPo is astonishing to me in its absolute lack of mention of Oda's massive contributions to the DC area arts scene through the publication of the Ken Oda Art Newsletter (KOAN), which for many years was the main documentation of what the Greater Washington area visual arts was all about.

You can add a personal note about Ken online in his WaPo obit here.

The Ken Oda Art Newsletter and later on the Ken Oda Art Newsletter ArtWOW website were for many years the strongest documentary voice of what was going on in the visual arts around here.

Ken Oda gathered a diverse group of writers, assigned reviews, interviews and article ideas to them, and then sent us around the Greater DC area to cover what was going on in our galleries and museums. He then assembled all of our reviews, cut and pasted a magazine together, had it printed and then hand delivered the magazine to nearly all galleries in the area as well as posted them to his many subscribers.

He was tireless in his zeal to expose to the public the great art scene that was and is the Greater DC area, and was one of the first voices around here to actually do something about the apathy of the mainstream media in covering our visual art scene. As an editor he was fair and sensitive to all points of view. Oda and I disagreed on nearly everything that dealt with contemporary art, and his tastes and mine (in art) were world's apart. Nonetheless, we shared many a glass of wine and many a beer discussing these differences, and his ability to always keep an open mind, and refrain from pushing his own point of view to the exclusion of others was one of his greatest gifts as an editor, art collector extraordinaire and friend.

At one point Ken burned out from the publishing demands and the magazine ended; I am told that a complete set of the KOAN Art Newsletter is now part of the archives of the Library of Congress, as a reference tool for historians and people who want to know what was going on on our area's galleries and museums in the 1990s; to a detail and granularity that none of the newspapers ever covered (and it has gotten significantly worse since then - back in those days both the "Galleries" column and the "Arts Beat" column were weekly columns and both of them focused on the visual arts).

And then Ken became one of the first to take his crusade to expose the DC art scene to the world on the Internet, and somewhere in the late 90s he started ArtWOW, with reviews, interviews and a message board, which for a long time was one of the only online voices to discuss and talk about DC area art.

Ken's illness took us all by surprise, and a few weeks ago most of the writers and friends who knew Ken Oda gathered to pay an homage to Oda. I recall that he looked frail, but was happy and loquacious as ever. In retrospect I now realize that Ken was probably hiding not only a lot of pain, but also making all of us feel better and secure about his presence.

Ken Oda will be missed, but his footprint and his legacy on the Greater Washington area art scene lives in the minds and hearts and resumes and bibliographies of the thousands of artists whose shows were reviewed in KOAN over the years, as well as on the silent thanks of future historians who will have access to the past issues of his newsletter to find out what the visual arts in Washington, DC were all about in the 1990s.

Farewell my friend, and thank you!

Update: In defense of the WaPo's short notice about Ken, the WaPo tells me that "although it falls under 'obituaries' on the site, it's technically what we call a "death notice" in the paper (much shorter, with bare-bones biographical info -- it doesn't even have his age!!). If a true, bylined obituary had been written, I'm sure his contributions to the art scene would have been mentioned."

Create an e-annoyance: go to jail

For the SOB who has recently kidnapped my email address and is now sending mass emails out to everyone (including me): annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. Last January 5, 2006, President Bush signed into law a new prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

So starting January 5, 2006, it's apparently actually illegal to flame someone under a false name in a blog's comments or any other place.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else."

For some bastard to kidnap my email address and then send out mass emailings is annoying not only to me but also to everyone who gets it as if from me. I'm gonna find you buddy, and then I'm gonna take the new law into my own hands and kick your ass.

Read the story here.

Two New Caravaggios Discovered!

I just finished reading Jonathan Harr's superb The Lost Painting.

The book is the story, told by Harr masterfully as an art detective story of sorts, of the discovery of Caravaggio's The Taking of the Christ in a Jesuit residence in Ireland.

I strongly recommend it if:
(a) you like a detective story,
(b) want to learn a little about Caravaggio's life and
(c) want to learn a lot about restoring a painting.

Also note how even great masters can make an error when dealing with the figure. Look at the painting and then observe how the arm of Judas, as it hugs Christ and is partially covered by the metal-clad arm of the Roman guard, is way too short as the foreshortening has been completely screwed up by Caravaggio. Maybe that's why he's looking so intently at the scene (Caravaggio is the man holding the light in the extreme right of the painting).

But now (thanks AJ), the BBC tells us that: "Art historians have spoken of their shock and delight after two paintings discovered in a French church were found to be by old master Caravaggio. Pilgrimage of Our Lord to Emmaus and Saint Thomas Putting his Finger on Christ's Wound have hung in the town of Loches for nearly two centuries."

Read the story here.

More secrets

Looks like PostSecret is starting to break out nationally.

There is a piece on it in Newsweek magazine this week and a crew from ABC World New Tonight is today taping a segment that I think will be airing tonight in the next few days.

Yep... that's me

For all those of you who have emailed me asking... yes that's me on TV yapping about DC area art events on "ArtsMedia News" on MHz TV.