Support the Corcoran
Deadline: February 29, 2008 (to register) and April 25 (to deliver art)
The Corcoran Gallery of Art and FRIENDS of the Corcoran will be hosting their first Art Anonymous fundraiser, benefiting the Corcoran College of Art + Design’s BFA Scholarship Fund.
This is a by-invitation-only fundraiser, but they asked me to invite you artists who read this blog, to offer for sale original, postcard-sized works to be exhibited and sold alongside the creations of students, faculty, and staff of the Corcoran College of Art + Design and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. All works are donations and will be sold for $100 — the catch is that your identity will not be known by the buyer until after the purchase.
The works of art will be on view from May 1 through May 10, 2008 prior to the culminating event in the Corcoran’s Gallery 31. On the evening of Saturday, May 10, the public will have their chance to purchase the work of their choice and then join them for a celebratory reception – drinks and dancing included. This event is free for all participating artists, so kindly let them know if you will be there. The preview will begin at 6 p.m. and drinks and dancing will continue until 11 p.m.
We hope that you will contribute to this exciting new event by contributing your work. They would be delighted for you to join them and to be able to list your name as a participant for this event on the Corcoran's advertisements, invitations and website. But they need to know those details by Feb. 29!
All works must be brought or shipped to John Deamond at the Corcoran College of Art + Design Student Affair’s Office by Friday, April 25 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and they must be exhibition-ready. All pieces must be 5x7, two-dimensional and un-framed, and you may submit up to three works for this event. Signatures need to be on the back on the work to be allowed entry into the exhibition.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Megan Sharp at (202)639-1753 or via email msharp@corcoran.org and tell her that Lenny Campello invited you to participate in the Art Anonymous fund raiser.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Art Anxiety
"Mitchell Gold, the co-founder of Mitchell Gold & Bob Williams furniture, shares Mr. Higgins’s aversion. “I can’t stand going into galleries,” he said. “They don’t put prices on, you get all worked up, you don’t know the price is $20,000 and you think, Gee, I don’t want to spend that.”Read this.
I hate to admit how much of the above is sooooooooooooooo true!
Am I Still Shouting to the Wind?
Glass3 in Georgetown
This is the story of a new arts movement -- what is usually called a "school" in art history books -- taking place right here in the Greater Washington, DC area. Allow me to refresh your memory a little and provide some background. Bear with me.
Point One: The British sister city to Washington, DC is Sunderland.
Why Sunderland and not London? After all, most other sister cities to DC are the capitals of other countries - but Sunderland is George Washington's ancestral hometown, so that's why!
Sunderland is also where the United Kingdom has their National Glass Centre and, by the way, glass has been made in Sunderland for around 1,500 years.
When most people think of glass in the art world, they think of craft. A few decades ago, a similar reaction occurred with photography.
Point Two: George Koch is one of the District's true art icons: he's a talented painter, the founder of A. Salon, Ltd., a board member of the Cultural Development Corporation, a founding board member of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington, a Commissioner of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, board member of Hamiltonian Artists, and the Board Chair of Artomatic.
They don't get much bigger, influential, or harder working for the District's artists and arts organizations than George Koch.
DC area artists and DC's arts scene owes a lot to George Koch.
And George has been working very hard to get the British to bring the United Kingdom's premier glass artists to an exhibition in the US, while at the same time bring some attention to the many and talented glass artists working around the Greater DC region.
I think that Koch recognizes that something special is going on in the DC area with glass.
So Koch has been orchestrating the process to bring the Brits to DC in a major show, somehow tie it to the Artomatic organization, use it to showcase Washington area glass artists, and also tie the whole effort into a nascent Toledo, Ohio Artomatic-type organization.
Yes Artomatic haters... that open, no curators allowed, artist-run extravaganza is growing in other cities!
Point Three: If you paid attention in art school, then you know that Toledo, Ohio is also historically one of the glass centers of the colonies, and an important placeholder in art history.
In 1962, Harvey Littleton, Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin, (and DC gallerist Maurine Littleton's father) and Dominick Labino (a glass scientist with the Johns-Manville Fiber Glass Corporation), presented a glass workshop in conjunction with the Toledo Museum of Art.
These men are recognized internationally as the "fathers" of the American Studio Glass Movement and certainly the first two to take the seminal steps to bring glass from the high end crafts to the fine arts world.
Convinced that it was finally possible for an individual artist to undertake glass art by working entirely alone - as compared to being part of a glass factory, Littleton and Labino provided information on furnace construction, glass formulas, tools, techniques, etc. They sowed the seeds that eventually sprouted thousands of individual kilns, furnaces and glass studios and schools around the United States and the world.
The Toledo workshop was the beginning of the American Studio Glass Movement. Since then, American glass artists are acknowledged worldwide as the undisputed leaders in creativity and originality and the continuing battle to bring glass to the fine arts dialogue.
Point Four: The final key player in this showcase of three glass centers is the Washington Glass School, bringing to the show about 15 area glass artists who are either instructors of the now nation wide famous content-driven art glass facility, or curated into Glass3.
For years now I have been shouting to anyone who will listen that something new and different has been cooking in the kilns of the glass artists around our area. We have in them artists who are bringing narrative and context to glass, and slowly dragging it away from the vessel and the bowl and towards the fine arts end of the rarified upper artmosphere of the art world.
And now to the actual review... start by looking at part one of a short video on the exhibition below; the second part is at the end of this post.
This show, titled Glass3 since it involves three cities, easily shows why DC area artists are doing something new with glass.
But before we get to that, there are some standouts in the works by the Brits and the Ohio artists.
First and foremost, Vanessa Cutler from the Sunderland visitors almost steals the show with her gorgeously minimalist pieces in this exhibition. Cutler uses a high technology water jet that can be programmed to cut and shape glass using high pressure water. Her elegant work fits in the dialogue of the minimalists, using as little form and shape to deliver deliciously complex – and thus a paradox – pieces that are the bright leaders of the new British works.I am not a big fan of vessels and bowls and all of the non-descript “pretty” glass things that always seem to suffocate a glass show – and there are plenty in Glass3 by the way – and yet I was drawn to Kathy Wightman’s (also a Brit) “I am touched” pieces, which are beautiful glass objects wrapped or covered in a truly sensual black, velvety material that almost makes them sexual objects to be desired and touched.
Rounding up the British artists, the also minimalist neon works by Sarah Blood stood apart from the sea of bowls and platters and vessels. Impossibly delicate, Blood married them with objects such as crates to offer us something clean and elegant and different.
Among the Ohio artists, Kristine Rumman’s “War at Home,” stood apart from the rest. Using clear glass as the delivery mechanism, Rumman offers us a rifle firing clear glass bullets. The bullets float away from the wall, casting delicate and watery shadows onto it. It’s a fascinating marriage of the delicate with the heavy and dangerous and works well as the best piece from the Ohio artists.
I found too much of Dale Chihuly’s influence on Homer Yarito’s otherwise technically brilliant work, and unless James Maskrey and Danny White are going for some sort of irony that escapes me, I found their work too cutesy and a little saccharine to enjoy it besides their odd prettiness.
Glass is undergoing a revolution, but unlike most revolutions, there's room for all: both artists and crafts people.
Among the locals Syl Mathis’ elegant boat forms continue to evolve in the right direction and represent some of the best abstracted forms in the show. I also liked Sean Hennessey’s and Kirk Waldroff's wall pieces, where both artists excel at using glass as a mean to deliver complex visual works that demand interpretation, rather than just admiration.
Hennessey and Waldroff at Glass3
Evan Morgan also stands out – he is able to flex his technical skill muscles (always a needed requirement in the world of glass), but also offer up pieces that immediately fit into a modern dialogue and make us not care or ignore that it’s a glass show. Morgan is going places; mark these words. I don't know if Morgan is represented by any DC area gallery, but this guy will be up there one day; pick up one of his pieces now.
“Green” artist leader Erwin Timmers makes his by now solid point about green art with his re-used and recasting of discarded glass and other elements to also deliver abstract works that are as contemporary and new as the art movement that Timmers leads in our area.
Enough has been written and said about Michael Janis and Tim Tate.
Their contributions to this show, a life-size scraffito puzzle-like piece by Janis and three of his newest video and technology sculptures by Tate, stand apart from the rest of the show as a Jackson Pollock must have stood out in a group show in the 1950s.
These are leaders in a movement to bring glass to a new place in the arts world, and their explorations of the narrative, biography, technology and skill continue to deliver nothing but success. If you collect DC area artists and have yet to add these guys to your collection, price wise you're almost too late; the get-a-small-piece-for-a-few-hundred-bucks days are long gone and now you better be ready to dish out $8500 for a Tate, and I wouldn't be surprised if those prices double by the end of the year.
Bottom line: a historic art event is taking place Washington, DC (though March 9, 2008). Three educational leaders in today's Contemporary Art Glass movement have joined forces to present a representative survey of the exciting artists and techniques surfacing at these three facilities.
Two of these institutions, the Toledo Glass Pavilion and Sunderland Glass School together represent centuries of a rich glass-making tradition while the Washington Glass School has emerged as a new and vibrant player on this field and is perhaps leading the way to a new future for glass.
The show is at the lower level of Georgetown Park Mall in Washington, DC through March 9th, 2008 and this "International Glass Invitational" was presented as a partnership with Art-O-Matic, and the Sister City Program, with help from the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID).
By the way, once this show closes, the Mall's management should continue to offer this great space to arts organizations for free on an ad hoc basis until they can find a permanent renter for the space. They have not been able to rent it, and it's quite an eye sore (empty) in this tony mall - it looks great now and I am sure that if they allowed arts organizations to use it for free until rented, it would (a) make the mall look better and (b) make a perspective renter more eager to rent it.
But I'm just the cheerleader-in-chief. Video Part II of the exhibition is below.
Art Akwukwo Check Rip-Off Identified
The emails listed below are in the order in which they arrived to me. This is the classic art ripoff known as the Akwukwo check scam. As you all know, whenever I get one of these, I like to have fun with the thief. See my previous encounter with Louie The Fish here. All misspellings and English and writing errors have been left as received:
From: stone.123@live.comNote the hesitant English for a Harvard man; and my response to him:
To: lennycampello@hotmail.com
Subject: INQUIRY ON YOUR ARTWORKS
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:55:45 -0600
Hello ,
My name is Stone Martins . I am 46 yr old American by birth, catholic by faith . It is my pleasure to have come across your beautiful Artworks while searching through Google. I am planning on presenting some Artworks for my Wife's Birthday which is coming up soon. She is an addict of Artworks and i want to present her one of your beautiful artworks as a surprise gift on her Birthday .
I want you to help me to choose from your Numerous Artworks the one that will really make a woman more than happy if presented with such Selection.
My prince range is $1,200.00USD - $1,500.00USD. I will really appreciate your effort in doing this and i want you to keep your good work up.
I will be glad if you can process my request in a timely manner . You can call me anytime on this number +447031838823 ..
Cheers,
Stone Martins.
From: lennycampello@hotmail.comUnfazed by my arrogance, Stone responds very quickly:
To: stone.123@live.com
Subject: RE: INQUIRY ON YOUR ARTWORKS
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:35:40 +0000
Thank you for your note.
I am very choosy as to whom I allow to own my works, as I have a very long wait list for them. Can you tell me more about you and your family?
Thank you,
The Lenster...
From: stone.123@live.comAnd so he has bitten and now I can have some fun with him:
To: lennycampello@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: INQUIRY ON YOUR ARTWORKS
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:03:12 -0600
Hello ,
Thank you for the email . I am a 60 year old University Don .. I retired from Harvard Business School and i have relocated to United Kingdom with my wife and we have only one son who is schooling abroad . My wife will be 50 years old come next month and i will like to present your beautiful artwork as a birthday gift . She loves Blue color . She also loves kids and shopping . We are happy family and fulfilled . I want you to get back to me and let me know the one you have chosen and it must be within my price range . I will make the arrnagment for the pick up once i have settled the payment ..
I want you to get back to me as soon as possible. Thank you
From: lennycampello@hotmail.comNothing deters this guy, he responds within minutes:
To: stonemartins1@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: INQUIRY ON YOUR ARTWORKS
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:46:51 +0000
Sounds like a very nice family, but I told you that I am choosy, so I need to know a few more details:
1. What other pieces of artwork do you own?
2. Who was your favorite faculty member at Harvard?
3. Who is your favorite artist?
4. Are you prepared to have me choose which piece of my art I will possibly allow to live in your house?
Let me know soonest.
The Lenster
PS - I will be raising my prices soon by the way - so hurry!
From: stonemartins1@hotmail.comMore demands from my part:
To: lennycampello@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: INQUIRY ON YOUR ARTWORKS
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:22:35 -0500
Hello,
We have one Painting at the moment and the painting is more Abtsract . My favourite Artist is Don Moen . I was a consultant to Harvard on Contract , so i didn't have faculty member .. You can go ahead and choose for us .. Thank you and keep in touch
From: lennycampello@hotmail.comHe then gives the ripoff mechanism:
To: stonemartins1@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: INQUIRY ON YOUR ARTWORKS
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:57:04 +0000
Sounds good...
It will take a least one week for me to concentrate and meditate on which work of art will align best with your wife on her birthday.
Here's what I need for you to do:
1. Get $1500 in cash - US Dollars, package it carefully and double bagged and FEDEX it to my art dealer. That will cover a work of art plus shipping and insurance to you.
2. Email me you shipping address and contact number.
3. Once I receive the cash I will send you the work.
4. Once you receive the work, you must take a photo of it once it is framed and send it to me, as I must approve of the framing.
The Lenster
From: stonemartins1@hotmail.comAnd I send him back the conversation killer:
Sent: Thu 2/28/08 4:03 PM
To: F. Lennox Campello (lennycampello@hotmail.com)
Thank you for the quick email . I will like you to have the payment so that you can go ahead and start the work soonest .. I want you to open www.freequickwire.com and click on Request for Payment and enter the exact amount of $1,500 ... Email me once you have done this . Thank you.
From: lennycampello@hotmail.comThat was the last that I heard from Stone.
Sent: Thu 2/28/08 4:07 PM
To: stone Martins (stonemartins1@hotmail.com)
No, no... using technology to receive payments for my work "dirties" the process and makes me anguish over the whole issue of selling my work. I would be unable to create if I had to do such things...
No, no... just send US dollars directly... even then I have to have someone open the FEDEX package and meditate over the whole transaction and commodification of my art before I finally decide to go through with it.
My art is more valuable than money.
Cash.
Be careful out there...
Marilyn Banner at Ratner Museum
During the month of March 2008 Banner will be showing 36 of her recent encaustic paintings at The Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum in Bethesda MD. These will include the work that she did during her recent month-long residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). Two other wonderful artists will be showing work there also: Joyce Ellen Weinstein and Pilar Jimenez.
The opening reception is Sunday March 2, 2008 1:30 - 3:30.
Peace Now Online
Anne Marchand has created an online album of show images for the Peace Now! Exhibition currently at Warehouse in DC. See the images here.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Howard Mehring at Osuna Art
My good friend (and the Greater DC area's remaining Cuban-American gallerist) Ramon Osuna has work by Washington Color School giant Howard Mehring at Bethesda's Osuna Art through April 5, 2008.
Philly Openings
There are three solo exhibitions at The Print Center opening tomorrow: Orit Hofshi, Bill Scott and Janet Towbin. These exhibitions bring together the work of three celebrated printmakers. The works by Israeli artist Orit Hofshi are epically scaled woodcuts of isolated figures in desolate landscapes. (Orit Hofshi’s exhibition is co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel, Philadelphia, as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel.) Bill Scott, known for his lyrical abstract paintings, will be represented by a new series of etchings never before exhibited. Janet Towbin’s "masterful approach to line is evident in the repeating, virtually obsessive patterns featured in her etchings." Date is Thursday, February 28; Gallery Talks by the Artists: 5:00pm and Reception: 5:30-7:30pm.
Gallery Joe a show of drawings by Christine Hiebert titled "Search" - this is Hiebert's third solo show at Gallery Joe. The exhibition opens on March 7 and runs through April 26, 2008. Hiebert has exhibited widely both in the US and abroad, most recently in "Live/Work: Performance into Drawing", Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is known for both her drawings on paper as well as her temporary blue tape wall drawings, which have appeared on the walls of institutions such as the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany, The Drawing Center, New York, and Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL among others. Also showing is James Nelson... "Head of a Girl (in play)" opens on Friday, March 7 and continues through April 26, 2008. This show appears in the Front Gallery and runs concurrently with the show of drawings by Christine Hiebert in the Vault Gallery.
Projects Gallery has assembled a variety of national and international artists, for "Child’s Play," as an opportunity to re-examine the perceptions and artifacts of youth. Artists include: Elizabeth Bisbing, Ross Bonfanti, Jim Brossy, Elaine Erne, Tom Judd, Frank Hyder, Jennifer Layzer, Darrel Morris, Krista Steinke, Jaime Treadwell, Caleb Weintraub, and others. Child’s Play opens First Friday, March 7 with a reception from 5-8 p.m. and continues through March 29, 2008. The reception is free and open to the public. A Philadelphia chapter of Amnesty International will be hosting a bake sale during the reception.
Rebekah Templeton Contemporary Art has "The Truth About Maximilian," an exhibition of new paintings, collages and installation by Todd Keyser. "The Truth About Maximilian" opens on Thursday, March 13, 2008 with an opening reception from 6-9 pm. The show closes on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
Mary Coble this Friday
Please join one of my favorite performance artists, Mary Coble and Hirshhorn curatorial research associate Ryan Hill for a gallery talk on the artist's work Note to Self currently on view at the museum.
Mary Coble, Note to Self
Mary Coble, Note to Self
Friday, February 29th at 12:30pm
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden - lower level
Intended to Provoke: Social Action in Visual Culture[s]
The Fifth Annual Visual Culture Symposium, “Intended to Provoke: Social Action in Visual Culture[s]” will take place at George Mason University on Thursday, March 27, 2008 and I have been invited to participate.
I will be discussing the emergence of a significant number of visual art blogs at the turn of the new century. This emergence was almost immediately ignored by both the mainstream media and the fine arts world. Just a few years later art blogs not only challenge the mainstream media in the reporting and discussion of the arts, but often lead the way in in-depth announcement, discussion, imagery and promulgation of socially challenging, subversive or political art, as well as presenting historically bound street art, such as graffiti and street installations to worldwide audience.
In this presentation I will discuss the emergence of visual art blogs and offer examples of how blogs have taken over the lead from other sources and venues, as the leading proponent, critic and publicist for art intended and created in order to provoke. The presentation includes discussion and examples of work from artists from places such as Cuba and Iran, which was only recognized and discovered by a worldwide audience through those artists’ own illegal blogs or discussion of their work in other blogs or through the process knows as the “blog roll.”
Questioning accepted literary styles, the visual art bloggers also became part of the social reaction towards established art criticism, and in a way also provided a way to criticize and dissect the critic him/herself. I draw on a variety of widely read visual art blogs to establish bloggers initial discordance and break from formal art criticism and reporting conventions and the eventual alignment of many of them with the same conventions as their influence grew. As a visual arts multi-political and international force they now wield a powerful impact on what is considered an “intentionally political work of art,” such as the Abu Ghraib paintings by Colombian artist Fernando Botero or the chalcography etchings by Cuban artist Sandra Ramos Lorenzo.
The day-long Symposium is being held at the Johnson Center Cinema at George Mason’s Fairfax Campus. The day will end with a reception in the art gallery on the first floor of the Johnson Center, Gallery 123.
Schedule - "Intended to Provoke:Social Action in Visual Culture[s]"
March 27, 2008
George Mason University
9:00 – 9:30a.m. Introduction & Video
9:30-11:00a.m.
Panel 1:
1. Robles & Stein (Community Art)
2. Wolpa (Visual Culture education)
3. Cohn (Design School)
4. Campello (Art Blogs)
11:15a.m. – 12:15p.m.
Panel 2:
1. Derr (Walking/Chance)
2. Namaste (non-violent intervention)
3. McCoy (bodies in China)
12:30 – 1:00p.m.
Dance Performance
1:00 - 2:00p.m.
Panel 3:
1. Johnson (Crises & the everyday)
2. Greet (Ecuador)
3. Campbell (culture jamming)
2:00 - 2:15p.m.
Mark Cooley and Art Exhibit Selections
2:15 – 3:15p.m.
Panel 4:
1. Clements (childbirth)
2. Slavick (R&R/altered images & things)
3. Okunseinde (Fugitives)
3:30 – 4:15p.m. Keynote/Debate
4:30 – 5:30 p.m. – Art Exhibit/Reception
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Artists' Websites: Zoe Strauss
Philly-based photographer Zoe Strauss was one of the few bright presences in an otherwise bleak 2006 Whitney Biennial. She's one of the coolest photographers working in the nation, and you can own her work for as little as five dollars a photo!
Visit her website here.
Wanna go to a DC opening on Thursday?
How about the National Society of Arts and Letters’ 2007 arts competition?
Washington DC’s Nevin Kelly Gallery will host a traveling exhibition of works by the winners of The National Society of Arts and Letters’ 2007 arts competition. The 2007 competition was open to young artists ages 18 to 29 working in water media on paper. Local artist Jenny Davis, a previous exhibitor at the gallery, won this year’s $10,000 national first prize for her watercolor “Portrait of Tess.” The winning painting and works by the winners of 18 other local chapter competitions who competed for the top prize will be on display. The gallery will host an opening reception at 1517 U Street, NW on Thursday, February 28, from 5:30 until 7:30 pm. The public is invited.
The NSAL was established in 1944 as a non-profit, philanthropic, volunteer organization of art professionals, art educators and patrons of the arts. Its mission is to encourage and assist promising young artists through scholarships, career support and arts competitions. NSAL’s competitions rotate annually through six categories: fine art, dance, drama, literature, music and musical theater. The 2007 competition was NSAL’s first painting competition in 20 years (the 2008 competition will focus on voice). As winner of the Washington, DC Chapter’s local competition, Ms. Davis, was invited to Tempe, AZ in May 2007 to compete with other regional winners for the top prize: the $10,000 Nicholson-Nielsen Memorial Award. Jenny’s watercolor “Portrait of Tess” captured the award.
“We are very pleased to have been asked to host this very impressive exhibition and to welcome Jenny Davis back to our gallery,” says gallery director Nevin J. Kelly. “This exhibition provides an ideal fit with our goal of introducing talented emerging artists to the local art community.”
Other regional winners whose works will be on display (and the NSAL chapters whose competitions they won) include Carrie Tompkins, (Birmingham), Maureen Forman (Bloomington), Vanessa Monot (Boca Raton), Ryan Rocha (Central Illinois); Erin Saladino (Clearwater-Tampa Bay), Alfred Perez (El Paso), Tawni Shuler (Greater Arizona), Morgan Canavan (Greater Chicago), Danielle Trejo (Evanston), Will Anderson (Kansas City), Gerren Dugger (Kentucky), Amber Carraway (Little Rock), Adrian Lyjak (Mid-Michigan) Mattias Lanas (New Jersey), Kelsey Berkley (North Florida), Mark Bush (Ohio River Valley), Thommy Controy (Pittsburgh) and Timothy Rusterholz (Virginia-North Carolina).
Monday, February 25, 2008
Christine Bailey's new inventions
"After the mini-controversy stirred up over artist Christine Bailey's exhibition of faux Cara Ober paintings at a downtown office building last month, we were eager to check out Boundary Crossings, the current show at School 33 Art Center that Bailey curated.More details here.
The show presents three artists -- Ariana Wol, Nadine Freund and "the international digital collective" A.N.N.A. -- who, on closer inspection, all turn out to be creatures of Bailey's own fertile imagination. During a phone conversation yesterday it only took a little prodding before she admitted that the show's trio of "artists" are, in fact, completely fictitious identities invented by her."
By the way, that's the Sun's art critic, Glenn McNatt, who blogs in a Sun blog for the paper's critics.
27th Annual WPA Art Auction
The Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) has announced the 27th Annual Art Auction Gala to be held Friday, March 7, 2008 from 7:00 pm until midnight at the Katzen Arts Center at American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC.
The 2008 WPA Art Auction Gala is a full evening of activities that include a cocktail reception, seated dinner, a silent auction of more than 130 original works of art, and an art party. Held in the rotunda of the veautiful Katzen Arts Center at American University, this event draws young collectors, art enthusiasts, established and emerging artists, as well as leaders from the regional corporate, social and cultural communities.
Artists selected for the exhibit this year include painters, sculptors, illustrators, photographers and street artists, from Greater Washington, DC, New York, Philadelphia, Australia, Italy, and Russia.
Attendees each receive a bid number to vie for the original works of art featured in the auction, which have been selected from the following group of curators:
- Heather Darcy Bhandari, Curator and Artist Manager, Mixed Greens, NYC
- Andrea Douglas, Curator, Collections and Exhibitions, University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA
- Sarah Kennel, Assistant Curator, Department of Photographs, National Gallery of Art, DC
- Erin Chase Mackay, Principal, Chase Contemporary Art Consulting LLC, DC
- Dennis O’Neil, Director, Hand Print Workshop International, Alexandria, VA (who brought a ton of Russians to the auction)
- Marc and Sara Schiller, Wooster Collective, NYC
- Emily Smith, Curatorial Fellow, Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
- JD Talasek, Director, Exhibitions and Cultural Programs, National Academy of Sciences, DC
- Kathryn Wat, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, DC
Some of the DC area artists selected for the 2008 Art Auction Gala include: Amy Lin, Maxwell MacKenzie, Foon Sham, William Christenberry, Steven Cushner, Eric Finzi, Bridget Sue Lambert, Joseph Mills, Renee Stout, Scott Hutchison, Akemi Maegawa, and Noelle Tan and many others. For a complete list of artists please visit www.wpadc.org and for Reservations and information: www.wpadc.org or contact the WPA office at 202.234.7103.
The preview for the gala is this coming Thursday, Feb. 28th, from 6-8:30PM; click on the below image for more details.
See ya there!
Art for Obama is tomorrow
Art for Obama III takes place tomorrow at Heineman Myers in Bethesda starting at 6:30PM.
Details and directions here.
S.548
Congressional alert: The artist deduction bill (S.548) would give artists the right to deduct the fair market value of their work when donating it to a charity.
Right now artists and artisans can only deduct the material costs of creating their work.
Please follow the link below and support this bill. It allows you to fill in and send on-line to your congressmen.
Click here.
