Trouble in Reston

Bailey reports that there's art trouble in Reston, Virginia as Linda Hesh's "Stop The Conflict" posters that are part of the "Conflict" exhibition at the Greater Reston Arts Center and which were placed around Reston Town Center yesterday by GRACE staff have been ripped down and torn up.

Details and images here.

Update: GRACE sent out this note to the "Conflict" artists:

Dear Artists,

We would like you to have the correct information about an incident related to the exhibition.

As many of you know, Linda Hesh’s posters saying STOP THE CONFLICT have been torn down from the construction fence across from GRACE. Our director, John Alciati and I have met the individual and talked with him about why he has done this. (He torn them down twice) He claims to be working for the company that owns the fence and says that he was directed to do this. The fence is owned by the development company, Kettler, who has given us permission to use it to promote our exhibitions. In the fall we used the fence without incident for over 2 months with posters about FLOW: The Landscape of Migration.

We do not know this person’s motivation and we do not know who he really works for but we will try to gather more information. He does not work for the property management company and he does not work for Reston Town Center. Please do not say that he is a town employee. We are not sure who his employer is.

In the interest of dialogue we prefer to not make assumptions about this individual. On one positive note, during the second encounter he did tell John that he knew our intentions were good. Let’s not make assumptions about his intentions until we have further conversations with him.

We look forward to a wonderful opening tomorrow night. The show is fine testimony to your integrity as artists and your courage to speak the truth.

Best wishes,

Joanne Bauer
Exhibitions Director
Greater Reston Arts Center

Airborne again



Heading to Boston to do a studio visit here. More later...

Plein Air Easton

Just four years ago Plein Air Easton got started as artists worldwide have begun to return to painting in the Plein Air style, and once again, as they did in 19th century Europe, are leaving their studios to paint and draw outside... on roadsides, on the beach, on top of mountains, in their gardens and yards, and even in city streets to capture landscapes, still lifes, figures and architecture in their natural elements.

I think that the resurgence of this movement, much like it happened in Europe in the 19th century, may be a reaction to the overwhelming presence of technology in our daily lives.

The festival goes from Monday, July 21 - Sunday, July 27, 7:00am-5pm... but there are tons of associated events in the gorgeous and tiny Maryland seaside village. All the details are here.

Artists' Talks: Bethesda, MD

On Saturday, April 5th, Marie Ringwald's really cool Neptune exhibit (I saw it recently through the gallery windows) ends with an artist’s talk at 5 PM.

There are some nice installation shots here.

Fair Report: Arteaméricas 2008

I hear that Arteaméricas 2008, the sixth edition of this international art fair focusing on Latin American Art broke all kinds of sales records.

Miami's Cernuda Arte, which focuses on vintage and some contemporary Cuban art had total sales that surpassed 800,000 dollars, including a landscape painting by Tomás Sánchez, a Wifredo Lam oil on canvas, and works by René Portocarrero, Mariano Rodríguez, among other Cuban masters and contemporary artists.

Tomah High School District... tsk, tsk

Time for this Wisconsin High School to be embarrassed nationally:

A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.

The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw "demonic" images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional.

"We hear so much today about tolerance," said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. "But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message."

Read the AP story here and read the complaint here.

Here is the offending drawing:

If there's actually a class policy "prohibiting religion in art" that worries me a lot; does that policy extend to the teaching of art and art history? If so that would leave out most of the ground floors of most of the planet's art history and several floors and the basement of art itself.

What a stupid, narrow-minded, ignorant, barbaric policy! What sort of troglodytes are these policymakers? (My apologies to Cavemen/women everywhere).

It gets worse... apparently the below two drawings got a passing grade.


and


I think that all three of these works - as art - are pretty bad and pretty much what one would expect out of your typical High School student.

I also think that perhaps the art school teacher - or whoever made the decision to censor and fail the first drawing - must have skipped his or her Sunday School classes, or his religion classes in college, for aren't devils and demons also religious art?

They are aren't they?

Satan in his many names and incarnations and depictions (of which the above two are truly bad, especially the one in which he sorta looks like Gene Simmons from KISS) are also part of multiple religions, including playing a major, Oscar-winning role in Judeo-Christian religion.

So why were the depictions of Lucifer OK under the school's idiotic prohibition of religion in art, but not the one incorporating both Christian imagery and text into the artwork?

The case can be made that all three pieces could come from Biblical references - in fact, they almost look like they could have come from the same artist, don't they?

I am sure that they don't, but you get my point.

It leads one to wondering to what would have happened if the student had used his average art skills to depict something from the old Norse pantheon, or from Buddhism, or Native American beliefs, or God forbid (pun intended) from Islam?

Nothing probably, as I suspect that since the average member of the Tomah High School Art Censorship Board seems to have skipped "World Religions 101" in their educational background, a crude drawing of Loki would have received a pass in this class rather than a fail for depicting religion in art.

What else or specifically is prohibited in art classes at this High School? According to the lawsuit: "violence, blood, sexual connotations or religious belief." Also "drugs, gangs or religious symbols." Also according to the lawsuit (see page 13), there is apparently a host of other religious artwork by students floating around this High School's halls and walls.

This makes my head hurt...

Also in C'ville

Rob Tarbell's "No Mirrors: new smoke work" opens in Charlottesville's Les Yeux du Monde Gallery this coming Friday April 4th, 5:30 - 7:30 pm.

Questioning Jasper Johns

Read Robert Zaller's essay on Jasper Johns' place in American art history here.

WGS opens in Charlottesville

Erwin Timmers, Michael Janis and Tim Tate, the driving forces behind the Washington Glass School make their debut in Charlottesville this coming Friday, April 4, 2008 at C'ville's leading gallery, Migrations. The opening reception is from 5:30pm - 8pm.

"Synchrony" Opens at Delaplaine Center‏

"Synchrony," a sculptural installation by Workingman Collective, will be on exhibition from April 5-27 at The Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center in downtown Frederick, MD.

This motion-driven installation will be created by regionally-known artists, Tom Ashcraft, Janis Goodman, and Peter Winant, who make up the Collective. Goodman and Winant appear on the WETA program "Around Town."

Cuban Art: Four Key Women Artists


This is the poster for the grand opening of a new fine arts gallery in Norfolk, Virginia, Mayer Fine Art, which opens on April 12, 2008 with an exhibition curated by yours truly.

For Mayer Fine Art I selected the work of four of the leading contemporary Cuban artists in the world: Sandra Ramos, Aimee Garcia Marrero, Cirenaica Moreira (all of whom live and work in Havana) and Marta Maria Perez Bravo, who currently resides in Mexico, where she teaches.

"Maleficio" by Marta Maria Perez Bravo
Much like Migrations did for Charlottesville, I think that Mayer Fine Art will go a long way to put the Tidewater area on the fine arts map from an independent commercial fine arts gallery perspective.


"La Libertad es una palabra enorme" [Freedom is a huge word] by Cirenaica Moreira
More on the exhibition and the trails and tribulations and expenses of getting contemporary Cuban artwork -- especially the kind not vetted nor approved by the Cuban dictatorship -- on American soil later...

Daphne

"Daphne," charcoal on paper, c.2008 by F. Lennox Campello, 7x10 inches
Read the myth of Daphne here.

Exhale

If the Armory Show was supposed to be a test of how the art market was faring amid tumultuous finan­cial markets, initial results revealed that the fair more than passed—and exceeded the expectations of many of the more jittery dealers.

Now that many have made sales, dealers readily admit that they arrived on Pier 94 with butterflies in their stomachs. “If I had applied two weeks ago instead of a year ago, I wouldn’t have come,” said Andreas Brändström of Brändström & Stene (118) in Stockholm. “The collapse of Bear Stearns is a huge issue in Europe,” he said. But by the second day, he said: “My sales are even better than last year’s.”

Read the whole article from the Art Newspaper here.

Conflict Opens at GRACE



Six artists using conflict as a catalyst open at the Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, VA this Friday: James W. Bailey, Aylene Fallah, Judith Forst, Linda Hesh, Carolina Mayorga and Matt Ravenstahl.

Opening Reception: Friday April 4, 6 -8 pmand Artists' Perspective Thursday April, 10 7pm. Exhibition: April 4 - May 3, 2008.

Artists' Interviews: Cara Ober

DCist's Amy Cavanaugh has an excellent interview with Baltimore artist Cara Ober. Read the interview here.

Curiously though, and unusual for DCist, comments are not enabled for this interview?

Update: DCist tells me that "Comments are never enabled on our interviews, out of respect for the person who granted us their time." Makes sense to me!

Henderson & Taylor Open in Alexandria

Sofia Silva opens in Baltimore

Kirkland on Kehinde Wiley

JT on Kehinde Wiley at the SAAM/Portrait Gallery's Hip Hop show. Read it here.

Arts on a Budget

The Washington Post's Dan Zak pops in with a really interesting article on collecting artwork on a budget; read it here.

My best deal ever? I bought about four small original Ben Tolman paintings a few years ago at DCAC's annual "Wall Mountables" show for about $20 a piece.

Money makes the art world go 'round?

"You can whack them with a shovel. You can shoot them, poison, stab or throttle them. You can threaten their families and you can hound them in the press; you can put them down any way you like, but some artists refuse to stay down. What does this tell us? That artists are the undead? Or, worse, that criticism is in crisis?

At almost every international art fair over the past few years, there has been a panel discussion about the crisis in art criticism. I have found myself talking about the topic in London, Madrid, Berlin and Miami. Wherever critics are paid to gather (you wouldn't catch us in the same room otherwise), they go on about the crisis. These debates have become an occupational hazard - but they also pay well. If I had known there was money in it, I would have invented a crisis myself."

Has big money replaced the art critic as the true authority in the art world?

Read this very interesting article by The Guardian's Adrian Searle here... and then read this clever piece by blogger Alex Needham here.