The Trawick Prize at Heineman-Myers

I had a chance a couple of nights ago to drop in to Heineman-Myers Contemporary Art in Bethesda to get a preview and an early first look at the fifteen artists who have been selected as finalists for The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards.

The work of these 15 finalists will be on display from September 3 – September 27 and the prize winners will be announced and honored on Wednesday, September 3rd at a special press event held at the gallery. The Best in Show winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A “Young Artist” whose birth date is after April 11, 1978 will also be awarded $1,000.

First of all let me comment that the work looks great in its new venue and it is a vast improvement from its previous venue.

In Zoe Myer's beautiful and airy gallery, the Trawick Prize finalists get a terrific spot in the thick of Bethesda's traffic and center of fun.

The artists selected as finalists are:

Joseph Barbaccia, Potomac Falls, VA
Ryan Browning, Mount Airy, MD
Lynn Cazabon, Baltimore, MD
Warren Craghead III, Charlottesville, VA
Dawn Gavin, Baltimore, MD
Bernhard Hildebrandt, Baltimore, MD
Kristin Holder, Washington, D.C.
Kay Hwang, Baltimore, MD
Baby Martinez, Washington, D.C.
Maggie Michael, Washington, D.C.
Youngmi S. Organ, Nokesville, VA
Tony Shore, Baltimore, MD
Molly Springfield, Washington. D.C.
Dan Steinhilber, Washington, D.C.
Heide Trepanier, Richmond, VA

As I've noted before, several names return to the list, and for the first time we see a husband and wife on the list as DC's art couple of Maggie Michael and Dan Steinhilber both made the finalist's list and now will compete head to head.

Several names from the Bethesda Painting Awards list also make an appearance on this list, most notably Baltimore's Tony Shore, who is a past winner.

The entries were juried by Molly Donovan, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Art; Irene Hofmann, Executive Director of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, MD and Leah Stoddard, former Director of Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA.

Depending on who amongst those three is the "leader of the pack" will determine who will win the prize. Five will get you ten that the DC area artists were muscled in by Donovan, Baltimore's by Hoffman and so on. I've been on many "art-by-committee" panels and know how they work. As Jose Marti wrote: "I know the monster well, for I have lived in its entrails."

This particular jury committee did an outstanding job! The exhibition is among the best Trawick Prize finalists that I have ever seen, and it is an exciting mix of art and conceptual ideas, a little play on kitsch by a couple of intelligent artists and even a touch of what's trendy in the art world today.

The Trawick Prize is ageing like a great port wine and getting better and better each year. The entire Greater DC area owes a huge debt to the very generous Carol Trawick for sponsoring this and other art prizes.

So, if you'll indulge my guessing games, which are sure to piss off a juror or two (no intention to do so is on purpose, but when writers take guesses at what jurors think about, sometimes we step on fragile skins), let me see if I can predict the winner.

If Donovan is the leading voice in the jury panel, then I believe that Maggie Michael will be the winner. Her entry into this exhibition is by far the most complex and interesting work of hers that I have seen to date. In the gallery piece by Michael, she has combined all of her previous elements of poured paint, then peel the layers back and nail some of them, with an interesting distressing of the substrate by drilling a big hole in the center and also by adding a graffiti like spraying on the background. I could be off slightly and Donovan may lead the prize to Maggie's talented husband, Dan Steinhilber.

If Hoffman is the HMFIC in the panel, then all roads lead to Baltimore's Tony Shore, whose brooding works on black velvet play off a working man's view of art as an intelligent and creative play on elevating a kitsch substrate to a high art level.

If Stoddard has the leading voice in the panel, then the prize goes to my good friend and talented artist and blogger from C'ville Warren Craghead III.

In the unlikely event that none of the three jurors has taken the reigns of the jurying task, and they're equally strong in guiding the votes, then all bets are off and we're off to guesslands unknowns.

Fully knowing that I will never, ever be asked to be a juror for the Trawick Prize, here's what I would do if I was the prizegiver in this very good show.

A very good look at the shiny, elegant and very sexy forms by Joseph Barbaccia, slowly but surely becoming one of the District's iconic sculptors. What Barbaccia does to contemporary sculpture is a three dimensional version of what Shore does to painting. They are both using kitsch elements and substrates of the contemporary world to create smart and intelligent works of art. Barbaccia's spectacularly gaudy "Every Man's Dream" is a glorious achievement of color and sequins and shininess and it is certainly worth of a very close look for the top prize and perhaps setting this artist's career on an upswing.

DC's Molly Springfield is not only one of the nicest persons that you'll ever meet, but also one of the most amazing talents in the DC area's art scene, and her work is so superbly perfect that we fixate on its tiny imperfections to reassure ourselves of its creation by hand rather than machine.

Molly has been on almost every finalist's list for almost every prize in the area for the last few years, and it's probably due to strike soon.

Although I am not familiar with Heide Trepanier's work, there's something powerful and exciting about the piece illustrated here, which although tends to remind me a little of some earlier Maggie Michael, nonetheless leaps from it in the way that Trepanier has isolated the paint with lines to almost reveal to us Boschian figures and animals and aliens in her work.

Time is due for a District artist to win. In 2004 David Page of Baltimore, MD was the Best in Show winner of $10,000. The next year, Jiha Moon, then of Annandale, Virginia and now residing in Atlanta, Georgia won the top prize. In 2006 James Rieck of Baltimore, Maryland won top honors and last year Jo Smail from Baltimore, won top honors.

What's up Baltimore?

My top prize would go to Springfield; See my other prizewinners here (scroll down to the bottom).

A public reception will be held on Friday, September 12, 2008 from 6-9pm in conjunction with the Bethesda Art Walk. This is easily the best art show in DC this month - don't miss it!

Monsters

Bodies of Marvel, Monsters and Women, opens on September 4 through September 28, 2008 at the H&F Fine Arts Gallery located at 3311 Rhode Island Avenue, Mount Rainier, MD. An opening reception will take place on Saturday, September 6, from 5-8pm (my birthday by the way).

Curated by Marvette Pérez and Tonya Jordan, "eight women artists explore ideas of the grotesque and otherworldly, the monstrous, the unimaginable, the uncanny, and the strange through painting, woodcut, installation, mixed media, video, photography, and illustration."

Robbi Behr, Deidra Defranceaux, Andrea Meyers, Michelle Morby, Marta Pérez García, Kharlla Piñeiro, Raquel Quijano Feliciano and Lisa-Renee Thompson present work focused on the dark side of the human psyche and the humorous side of the grotesque.

Opportunity for Photographers

Deadline: October 18, 2008

The Silver Eye Center for Photography, the oldest non-profit organization in Western Pennsylvania dedicated solely to the understanding and appreciation of photography as an art form, invites photographers to submit entries for their juried Fellowship Competition and their New Works Galleries.

Juror for Fellowship 2008: Ariel Shanberg, Executive Director of the Center for Photography at Woodstock. One photographer will be selected to receive $5,000 and have a one-person exhibition in the Main Gallery of Silver Eye. Ten photographers will be recognized with the distinction of Honorable Mention. They will receive $100 and will be invited to exhibit one photograph each.

Exhibition: December 10,2008 - February 14, 2009. Go here to download an application or send a SASE for application to:

Silver Eye Center forPhotography
Exhibition Opportunities
1015 East Carson Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15203

Or call 412/431-1810.

Cameron Kitchin moving up

The executive director of the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia is leaving to run a larger museum in Memphis, Tenn.

Cameron Kitchin, after six years at the Oceanfront-area fine-arts center, will direct the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. His last day is Oct. 31.

"We're disappointed," said Randy Sutton, chair of the board of trustees at the Beach center. "We wish him the best. He's going to a great museum."

The Memphis Brooks Museum has a wide-ranging permanent collection of about 8,500 works, from Auguste Renoir to Frank Stella. It stages special exhibitions and has a strong educational outreach program. The museum has more than 60 full-time employees, a $5.2 million budget and 36,600 square feet of gallery space.

Details here.

Art Fair Coming to DC


The Washington DC International Arts Expo is coming to the DC Convention Center next month, the hard work of artist Lisa Jones and The Collective. This will be the second year for the Expo and over 100 artists and galleries from around the country are expected.

Details here.

New Drawing

"Woman who Finally Figured Out a Way to be Outside the Influence of Men"
Charcoal and conte on paper, c.2008
40 x 30 inches by F. Lennox Campello
Click on it for a larger image.

End of the art dealer? Naaah!

What does it mean for the art market that a living artist bypasses dealers altogether and sells his wares directly at auction? There is some speculation that this might be a pivotal moment, like the end of the studio system in movies or the continuing decline of the record labels in the music business. Could the gallerist's traditional role as mediator between the contemporary artist and his market be passé?

Most insiders say that only at the topmost end of the market, where sales at auction are guaranteed by the artist's fame, could the middleman become an anachronism -- and that just a handful of artists, such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, have the kind of fame it takes. Dealers still have a crucial role to play, the argument goes, in building the reputation of artists; in finding the right -- influential -- homes for artists' works; in persuading museums of artists' worth; in taking reviewers out to lunch. Furthermore, it is noted, the art biz differs from show biz in a fundamental way: Movies and music sell to a mass audience, while art sells singly to individuals.

That is where, for now, the debate seems to have stalled, at the consensus that nothing much will change. A comforting thought, perhaps, but one that falls apart at the slightest prodding. It's certainly comforting that the most imperiled are the top-end headhunters, like Mr. Gagosian, who encouraged the cult of celebrity to supplant content and aesthetics as the foremost value in art. But beyond that, one wonders how it will affect the role of galleries when ultimate success automatically carries a built-in penalty: If they create a big enough star, the star will have no need of them. At the very least, dealers and gallerists in contemporary art will face a solid ceiling beyond which they cannot maximize profit on the investment they made nurturing artists. They simply cannot compete with the global footprint of international auction houses, which offer artists instant access to world-wide markets.

In reality, the art biz is more like the movie or music biz than one might think. Mass markets, like mass media, affect the thinking of visual artists all too palpably these days, however uniquely each of their pieces may be made and sold.

Read this excellent article by Melik Kaylan in the WSJ here.

Congratulations

To Ledelle Moe, who is the recipient of the Kreeger Museum Artist Award $20,000 prize, underwritten by Chevy Chase Bank.

This biennial, juried award recognizes a mid-career artist whose life and work have significantly influenced the Greater DC area arts community. A selection of Ledelle’s work will be on view at the Kreeger from October 3 – November 29, 2008.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: October 1, 2008 at 4:00pm.

The City of Philadelphia's Department of Public Property, Public Art Division, and the Department of Human Services announce a competition for the commissioning of site specific interior artwork for the new Philadelphia Youth Center.

A total budget of up to $225,000 has been allocated for this Percent for Art project. The competition is open to artists or collaborative teams who reside in the following states: PA, DE, NJ, and MD. For a prospectus visit this website.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: October 24, 2008

Coker College's Cecelia Coker Bell Gallery is reviewing entries (all media) for solo shows in the 2009-2010 exhibition season. Send ten 35mm slides or jpeg files (they prefer 1024 x 768 pixels) on CD/DVD, list for images, statement, resume, and SASE to:

Larry Merriman
Coker College Art Dept
300 East College Av
Hartsville SC 29550.

Full prospectus here

Olympian ending

We learned loads about the beautiful, talented people of China during these Olympics, and perhaps even more about its cheating, lying, oppressive government. The more the Chicoms tried to appear as another ordinary government, the more their decaying Communist yoke showed.

So to close out the Olympics:

"Birds Nest, in the Style of Cubism," a painting by Zhang Hongtu, is now at the Lin & Keng Gallery in Taipei, awaiting shipment back to New York.

The ashen-brown picture shows the gleaming new Olympic stadium, designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, as Piranesi might have imagined it and Picasso painted it -- as a decaying ruin rendered in fragmented angled forms. On the canvas, cubist-style, are inscriptions in English letters and Chinese characters: "Tibet," "human right" and the Olympic motto, "one world, one dream."

The painting was supposed to be in Beijing during the Olympic Games, in the exhibition "Go Game, Beijing!" organized by a Berlin marketing firm and displayed at the German Embassy. But it was seized by Customs on arrival and denied entry as "unacceptable" for its color, its depiction of the stadium, and its inscriptions.

Read the WSJ story here.

NIH Darwin Day call for art entries

Deadline: September 19, 2008

February 12, 2009, marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and the 150th year since his seminal work, “On the Origin of Species,” was published. To recognize Darwin’s scientific accomplishments, including his observations on plant and animal life, NIH is planning a variety of activities, such as a lecture series, film screenings, and theater performances.

From November 2008 through February 2009, the Clinical Center’s artistic gallery spaces will display photographs of the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin visited. NIH employees and patients, as well as photographers from the community, may submit their photos for consideration by September 19, 2008. Artists will be notified within two weeks if their work is selected. Contact Crystal Parmele or Lillian Fitzgerald at 301-402-0115 with questions or submissions.

Art and the Olympics

Bill Gusky writes on Art and the Olympics.

Read it here.

Art and religion

India's biggest art fair opened on Friday, but the show was mired in controversy when organisers left out the works of the country's best-known painter for fear of attacks by Hindu vigilantes opposed to him.

The works of Maqbool Fida Husain, typically a blend of cubism and classical Indian styles that fetch millions on international art markets, were conspicuous by their absence at the India Art Summit.

The artist's famous paintings of naked Hindu gods have delighted art afficionados but enraged Hindu vigilantes who have attacked his house in the past and vandalised shows displaying his works.

It is clear that Maqbool Fida Husain is not aware that the only contemporary religion that artists can safely spoof and have fun with is Christianity. Read the Reuters story by Melanie Lee here.

Wanna go to a DC opening tonite?


Photographs by Alison Brady and Ryoko Suzuki open in DC's Randall Scott Gallery today with a reception from 7-9PM.

European Heirs Demand New York Museums Return Picassos

The heirs of German-Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy are demanding that New York's most important museums hand over two Picassos. But MoMA and the Guggenheim are fighting back, claiming they are now the rightful owners.

Read the story in Der Spiegel here.

Documenting the New Northern Virginia

Lela Dehne - "Canal Center, Alexandria, Virginia 2008"
Documenting the New Northern Virginia is an photography exhibition by NOVA students. In fall 2007 the Photography Program at Northern Virginia Community College received funding from the college’s Professional Development College-Wide Initiative.

This funding provided support for a multifaceted project called Documenting the New Northern Virginia. The project included course work, guest speakers, student exhibitions, and a web site. We plan to extend the project with a book produced by students, traveling exhibitions, and a permanent archive of the work.

The student photographs you see in this gallery are the result of four documentary photography classes on the Woodbridge and Alexandria campuses during the 2007-2008 academic year. Students photographed the changing physical and cultural landscape of Northern Virginia, and considered the purpose and practice of documentary photography.

Thirty-nine students have work in this exhibition. The classes were taught by Gail Rebhan, Charles Kogod, and Page Carr.

At the Verizon Galleries, Ernst Cultural Center, Northern Virginia Community College from 21 August - 10 September 2008.

Time for DC to be shamed

"Managers of a downtown office building yanked a sculpture called "Unmentionables . . . then and now" from an exhibition last week after tenants complained that the art was inappropriate.

The offending art, by Joyce Zipperer, was installed with other artwork in the lobby of the Washington Square building at 1050 Connecticut Ave. NW. "Unmentionables" consists of 10 styles of women's underwear -- from old-fashioned bloomers to a skimpy thong -- all made out of metal and strung along a clothesline."

So begins the story by Rachel Beckman in the Washington Post.

The complainers?

"Shortly after the installation went up on Aug. 3, a group of tenants complained to the building's manager, Cynthia Muller. Muller wouldn't say which tenants objected to the art, but the artist and curator say they were lawyers from two of the building's resident law firms."

As Beckman points out: "Of all the office buildings downtown, Washington Square is perhaps the oddest place for an underwear-art controversy: One of its tenants is Victoria's Secret."


Read the story here. Shame on you DC!

Job in the Arts

The Boston Center for the Arts (BCA), a nonprofit performing and visual arts center located in Boston's South End, is seeking a new Executive Director. The Search Committee intends to identify the successful candidate by fall 2008 with full-time employment beginning shortly thereafter.

Compensation will be competitive with similar positions throughout the country and will be negotiable. The range of benefits includes medical insurance, vacation pay, paid sick leave, and a 403(b)-retirement program.

The consulting firm retained to assist in the search will welcome qualified applications:

Stephen J. Albert and Thomas Hall
Albert Hall & Associates
942 Main Street #300
Hartford, CT 06103
Tel: (860) 808-3000 #321
Fax: (860) 808-3009
Email preferred:salbert@alberthallassociates.com

Artists Websites: Chawky Frenn

My good friend Lebanese-American painter Professor Chawky Frenn is a DC area painter who needs little introduction.

Having proved several times to be one of the the most controversial figurative artists in the United States, Frenn was born in Zahle, Lebanon and migrated to the United States in the 1980s. He is a currently a professor on the Art faculty at George Mason University in Virginia.

Art critic Donald Kuspit, one of the most visible art voices of the 21st century, has written that Frenn "constructs a spiritual space in which the contemporary public can feel emotionally at home, however troubling the emotions his imagery evoke in them."

The New York Times wrote that "Chawky Frenn is a painter who has nailed down the figurative mode, and this accomplishment gives him the license to convey anything he wants, including the grand theme: the elusive meaning of human existence."

The Washington Post wrote: "From a classical nude contemplating a human skull to his latest series of still lifes of slaughtered animal carcasses, Frenn is an artist's artist (as opposed to a critic's artist)."

Frenn's works are used to controversy. In 2001, his Boston gallery decided to cancel a Frenn solo show at the last minute as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In 2004, his exhibition at Dartmouth caused an uproar on campus. Frenn, who was exhibiting at the same time at Damien Hirst, managed to outshock Hirst.

Visit his website here.