Modernism at the Corcoran
As soon as I get back East I will have a review of the show, meanwhile, enjoy the video.
Courtesy of 205 Lavinia Street, Videos for Artists/Galleries/Events.
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Modernism at the Corcoran
As soon as I get back East I will have a review of the show, meanwhile, enjoy the video.
Wanna go to an Arlington, VA opening on Thursday?
The Ellipse Art Center’s "Hand Pulled," is a Juried Mid Atlantic Print Show that was selected by Joan Boudreau, the Curator of the Graphic Arts Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
The opening reception is Thursday, April 5, from 6 - 9 pm, and there’s a Juror's Talk on April 19, 7 - 9 pm. The exhibition runs through Saturday, May 26, 2007.
Wanna go to a Delaware opening this coming Thursday night?
"Tapestries of a Higher Plane," by Mid Atlantic Art News contributor William Anderson opens this coming Thursday, April 5, 2007 at 205 Lavinia Street Gallery in Milton, Delaware, with an opening reception from at 5-8 pm.
On exhibition are images brought to Delaware from Maine by William Anderson. The interesting aspect of these images are their tuetonic size, as many are over 8 feet square, and are not framed, but hanging like tapestries.
The artist is an accomplished image-maker since the early seventies, who has been printing on a large Giclée printer since 2000. For more info call the gallery at 302-684-3379.
Imagine all the people
Who would have crowded the Hirshhorn Museum's Sculpture Garden on the National Mall had they known ahead of time that today, between 2:30 and 2:45pm, Yoko Ono dedicated a "Wish Tree for Washington D.C." in the Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden as part of "Yoko Ono: Imagine Peace.”
According to the press release (sent out a few days ago):
This ongoing series, which she began in the 1990s, encourages the public to become participants in the art making process by inviting visitors to write wishes on paper and tie them to the tree. The dedication will begin with Ono tying the first wish onto the Hirshhorn’s tree. Ono will exhibit 10 trees around Washington, D.C., for the 2007 Cherry Blossom Festival.The dedication was open to the press, but not to the public (unless I imagine, a tourist or two happened to be there and someone shouted “Hey there’s that lady who broke up the Beatles”).
Modernism at the Corcoran
Provided that I can work out the software bugs from Google and Blogger, later today I should have a video walkthrough of the Modernism exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art led by the Corcoran's director Paul Greenhalgh.
This will be the first of many videos that Mid Atlantic Art News will be doing in collaboration with our newest contributor: William Anderson of BB's Video Press and 205 Lavinia Gallery.
Look for future videos on gallery and museum openings, discussions with curators, artists' interviews, etc.
Tuss on Women’s Work at Nevin Kelly Gallery
By Katie Tuss
Six distinctly talented women younger than 30 have come to the forefront via Nevin Kelly’s current group painting exhibition Women’s Work. Nevin Kelly Deputy Director and the show’s curator Julia Morelli teamed up with five local female artists to create a show of varied sensibilities and styles, yet linked by a woman’s unique touch.
The five young artists include Abbe McGray, Laurel Hausler, Mary Chiaramonte, Molly Brose, and Jenny Davis — who is the youngest in the group at 18. Together they are eloquent, and yet a bit bashful, but all insistent that although they are women, gender does not have to be the central focus of their work.
The artists explained that gender enhances and enriches but certainly does not inhibit them in the larger art arena. “I was thinking about the show in terms of being women’s art, not necessarily feminist art or girly art, but possessing a sense of femininity in the work,” said Morelli.
Some of the artists had never met one another, and the work was created separately.
Brose’s work waxes nostalgic about family, friendships, and significant others in two groups of five paintings with titles all beginning with the directive ‘keep.’
Go listen to Zoe
The super talented Philly photogstar Zoe Strauss’ latest project is the 10-year long I-95 Project, an annual installation underneath I-95 in South Philadelphia. Strauss received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2005, and her work was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial in New York.
From April 13 through May 4, 2007, her work will be featured in Gallery 1401 at the University of the Arts, in an exhibition entitled “If You Break the Skin,” co-sponsored by the Equality Forum. But, and more importantly, today, April 2, at 1pm at the CBS Auditorium of the University of the Arts, Zoe will be giving a lecture on her photography as part of the Paradigm Lecture series.
Oh yea; the lecture is free and open to the public.
A couple more Eakins could be heading out of Philly"We're not a museum. We're not in the business of art education. That's what Thomas Jefferson University president Robert L. Barchi said in November in explaining the university's decision to sell Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic."
In spite of the fact that the sale of The Gross Clinic sort of blew up in their faces, according to the Philly Inquirer, "Barchi says that the school intends to deaccession two other pieces in the multimillion-dollar collection: Its remaining Eakins works, Portrait of Benjamin H. Rand and Portrait of William S. Forbes."
In fact Barchi stated that "We do not intend to sell any of our artworks other than the Eakins paintings, even if approached."
You can view a slide show of some of the art at Jefferson in this this website and you can read the excellent Inquirer report by Peter Dobrin, the Inquirer Culture Writer here.
Frida Kahlo Coming to Philly
Sometime in mid February 2008 (and running through May) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "the first American exhibition solely dedicated to Kahlo’s work in over a decade... will explore the relationship between her art and her life by examining hauntingly seductive and often brutal self-portraits in addition to works that amplify her sense of her own identity."
The show is coming to Philly from the Walker Art Center, where it was curated by Michael Taylor; from Philly it will travel to SFMOMA. I am a little disappointed that this show is not traveling to any DC area museum (it would have been a perfect blockbuster for the Corcoran or for the NMWA).
Lenny Campello is one happy camper. Read here how I became an addict of her work when I was 19. Below is "Seven Fridas," a huge drawing that I did in 1980-1 while at the University of Washington School of Art (click on the image for a larger version of the drawing).
It depicts Kahlo in seven incarnations as Nordic, Moslem, African, Punk (hey! it was 1980), Native American, Vulcan and Beatle. It is currently in the collection of Seeds for Peace.
PMA to open new galleries
In early September 2007, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will open the new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, which will house expanded galleries and state of the art study centers in an art deco building acquired by the Museum and then renovated and expanded by Gluckman Maynor Architects.
Next Week: Tomás Rivas opens in DC
The very talented and award winning Chilean artist Tomás Rivas' first DC area solo exhibition, "Left to my Own Devices," opens next week (April 5) at Douz and Mille and there's also a round-table discussion on April 25 from 6:30-8:30 PM. Details here.
The opening reception is Thursday, April 5, 2007 6:30pm - 8:30pm and it is at the space formerly occupied by Numark Gallery in DC. A full color catalogue will be published at the conclusion of the exhibition, featuring essays by David Gariff Ph.D., Lecturer, National Gallery of Art; Robin Rhodes Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame; and my good friend Laura Roulet, Independent Curator, with an introduction by the hard-working Rody Douzoglou, who is the "Douz" in Douz and Mille.
New art blog
I think.
DC area "performance artist F.W. Thomas" has a blog (new to me) at fwthomas.blogspot.com detailing coming multimedia performances and other random thoughts.
I am told that at the next performance (Monday, April 9, 2007 at DC's Warehouse Theatre and Galleries) they will be circulating a petition banning any further use of the Queen/Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure" as the soundtrack to any commercial, television show, movie or public radio segment. This alone is worth the visit!
Vist the blog often!
Opportunity for recent Art grads
Introductions is Irvine Contemporary’s annual summer show of works by recent art college graduates in the Washington, mid-Atlantic, and East Coast region.
For Introductions3 this year, Irvine has posted a web page with application instructions and information to assist artists with submissions for the show. The gallery tries to see as many thesis shows and do as many studio visits as possible, but they clearly can’t see everyone and they want to open the process to as many artists as possible.
Visit this website for information on submitting work for the show. This year the selection committee will include Washington area collectors as well as the Irvine Contemporary crew.
Airportism
I'm usually not a big fan of airport art, which I've dubbed "airportism" in the past, and which is usually generalized by tame, usually abstracted public art that tries really hard to avoid the figure at all costs.
The theme of flying is usually a common one -- and that's understandable, and artists can only go so far with it.
And yet... at the Philadelphia International Airport, between terminals C and D, on the main concourse there's an installation by Nancy Blum, titled Butterfly Wall (will be there through June 2007) that is a welcome and interesting departure from the usual blah flying geese or paper airplanes sculptures that one sees all over American airports.
"Butterfly Wall" is a work made up of 80 butterflies cast out of China clay with incised and raised patterns on the wings. The color is painted on the back and it is then reflecting onto the wall space. The pattern of the wings have been adapted from Islamic architecture, adding an interesting and unexpected visual element. Each butterfly is approx. 12 to 14 inches in height.
If you're around the Philly airport and have some extra time on your hands, swing by and take a look at this refreshing change for airportism. Nancy Blum is represented in the area by Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia.
Wanna go to the Gala to Benefit Africare in DC this Friday?
Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of International Visions at The Washington Club
(15 Dupont Circle) in DC. RSVP to 202-234-5112.
Friday, March 30th from 6:30 to 11:30 pm.
- Live music by Brother Ah & the World Music Ensemble as well as the Brazilian Samba Trio Band
- A silent auction featuring the African artwork and craft, artwork by renowned American artists, sports & entertainment collectibles, and much, much more.
- Mistress of Ceremonies: Dr. JC Hayward
- Special honors for artist Sam Gilliam and the Howard University Department of Art.
- An authentic African feast
It's nothing new
If you think that the common art critic malaise of denigrating realism as a viable genre of contemporary painting is something new then...(via the NY Sun):"It's a New York story of courage and defeat followed by 50-year commitment to classical figurative painting. Next week, at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., a New York group of painters who bucked the tide of fashion will celebrate a painterly triumph.
Five gets you ten that this coming DC show will still get trashed in the printed media press and a few blogs, as there are very few brave souls out there willing to stray too far from the comfort of the art critic wolf pack.
In May 1961, some brash young figurative painters threw down the gauntlet to the modern art establishment. In an exhibition at the National Arts Club called "A Realist View," a group including Aaron Shikler, Daniel Schwartz, Harvey Dinnerstein, Burt Silverman, and David Levine declared their opposition to the trend toward abstraction in modern art. The abandonment of tradition in favor of personal style and individual expression had led to the impoverishment of the artist's imagination, Mr. Silverman declared in a "Statement by the Artists." "In our paintings we have not succumbed to the frantic search for something ‘new,'" he continued. "We are not concerned with being ‘of our times'…. Our concern is with the world around us."
Their protest against the apotheosis of Abstract Expressionism did not go unheeded; they were critically trounced. "[I]t's the quietest, oldest show you ever saw," the New York Herald Tribune's critic, Emily Genauer, wrote. "Nowhere are there fire, urgency, even innocence, the conviction that there are new things and new ideas in the world …. What showed in the paintings — apart from craft — was chiefly doctrinaire attitude."
If the WaPo's Blake Gopnik reviews the show, expect the usual eloquent but tired slogans about painting being dead, and realism continuing to try to exist even though nothing new has surfaced since the Renaissance, blah, blah, blah. He will also say something specifically aimed at the jugular of the NPG itself.
If my good friend Jeffry Cudlin reviews it for the WCP, I suspect that he will manage to find an Achilles heel somewhere in the show, explained away in Jeffry's usual and elegant theory-driven review pen.
The exhibition will be at the NPG March 30 to October 8, 2007.
Visual Art Website Opened for U.S. Service Families
As a veteran, I am psyched by the announcement that the National Arts Program Foundation, Malvern, PA, announced today that in support of the men and women of the armed services, it will post for free, pictures of original drawings, watercolors, oil and acrylic paintings, sculpture, photography and crafts of all active and retired military service members and DoD employees and their families.
Details here.
Benefit Art Drawing in Baltimore this Saturday next month
On Saturday, April 21, 2007, the Lotta Art Benefit, takes place in Baltimore to benefit School 33.
A continuous cocktail buffet begins at 5:30 p.m (Catering by The Brass Elephant). The art drawing begins promptly at 7:30 p.m. Event tickets include a work of art and the buffet.
The event begins at 7:30PM and features art by more than 145 local artists who have generously donated their work to benefit School 33 Art Center. Each event ticket holder is guaranteed a work of art in this lottery-style drawing.
Call 410.396.4641 for more info.
Senju Murals to go to Philly
Hiroshi Senju, one of Japan’s most revered and internationally acclaimed contemporary artists, showed 27 murals (syohekiga) at Japan’s Yamatane Museum of Art through March 4. The works, however, are ultimately bound for the United States. On May 1 of this year, the murals will be installed on the fusuma (sliding doors) and tokonoma (writing hall) alcove at Shofuso (“Pine Breeze Villa”), the Japanese house and garden in Fairmount Park [Philadelphia].Read the A&A story here. Senju also is donating all copyrights from sales of reproductions of the murals to support the preservation of the Pine Breeze Villa.