Secretary of the Arts

Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-elect Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts.

While many other countries have had Ministers of Art or Culture for generations, the United States has never created such a position.

Although I am generally opposed to expanding government, we in the arts community need this and the country needs the arts -- now more than ever. If you feel that this is a decision that you can support, then please take a moment to sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

Sign the petition here.

My thoughts on some candidates for the position, and my ideas on how to keep a new Department of the Arts from becoming a huge burocratic mess will come later.

Obama at NPG


The stencilled portrait of President Elect Obama by street artist Shepard Fairey, which became the key image of the Obama election campaign and did wonders for Fairey, has been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC for its permanent collection.

Of peripheral interest, artist Shepard Fairey has been under a lot of scrutiny in the internets for his alleged violations of intellectual property in lifting imagery and design from Third World artists. Read all about it here. If these allegations are true... well you see where this is heading.

Also, at the risk of being pedantic, it was my understanding that all contemporary portraits in the NPG had to be executed from the live person. In other words, they couldn't be done from a photograph, etc. I will contact the NPG and ask them about this. I am assuming that Fairey did his famous portrait of Obama from an appropriated photograph, rather than have Barack pose for him.

Congrats

For a couple of years now I have been telling you to acquire Michael Janis' artwork.

From the 1,047 artists from 43 countries sending almost 3,000 images, 100 were selected for publication in New Glass Review, the Corning Museum's annual international publication of glass artists.

The judges were Rachel Berwick, Department Head of Glass, Rhode Island School of Design; Mieke Groot, independent curator, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and uber glass artist Dante Marioni, from Seattle, Washington, which (as glass freaks know) is the fine arts glass capital of the upper crust of the fine arts world and one of the world's most beautiful cities.

And the DC area's own Michael Janis, from the Washington Glass School, is in that exclusive group in the forthcoming book for 2009.

Death, Tarot Card Series. By Michael Janis. Cast glass, steel, glass powder, 18" x 36" x 2"

Artists from the Washington Glass School continue to push the envelope of contemporary glass, and yet their own city's museums seem to be the only ones lagging in spotting them ahead of the rest of the art world.

But for now all that I have to say is "Congratulations Mike!"

Che: El Chacal de La Cabaña


A while back in the mail I got some preview tickets to the opening of the new Steven Soderbergh two-part epic about the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentinean blue blood guerrilla leader, starring Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro in the leading role (which has already earned him the coveted Best Actor award at the 2008 at the Cannes Film Festival).

Because I was away on vacation, I couldn't go, but I do plan to see this film, as I have been an avid Guevara follower nearly all my life. Here's a little known Guevara fact: His paternal grandparents, Roberto Guevara and Ana Lynch, were born in California!

"Che Guevara" by F. Lennox Campello. Charcoal c. 2003. 6 x 15 inches
My father fought alongside Guevara during the Cuban Revolution, and like most of those brave young men who fought against the Batista dictatorship (both in the mountains of Oriente province and the streets of Havana and Santiago de Cuba) he never expected the Cuban Revolution to institutionalize a worse dictatorship than Batista's bloody regime.

Che was a declared Communist all along, but Communists were rare in the ranks of the rebels.

In fact, to this day most people don't know that the official Cuban Communist Party was part of the Batista government while the Revolution was underway and even Guevara, a Communist all along, had harsh words for the Cuban Communists during the struggle. In 1958 he wrote that there were "mutual fears" between the rebels and the Party, and "fundamentally, the Party of the Workers has not perceived with sufficient clarity the role of the guerrilla."

After the revolution, Guevara further added that he "only knew of three Communists who had participated in combat." Besides himself and Raul Castro, one wonders who the third Communist was (Raul Castro's future wife, Vilma Espin was also a known Communist; however, she was one of the urban guerrillas working under Frank Pais, the anti-Batista leader in the streets of Cuba. Pais was strongly anti-Communist. Of interest, a persistent rumor blames Espin as the traitor responsible for Pais' death at the hands of the Batista police. Fidel Castro himself, always denied being a Communist, until sometime in the early 1960s.

Guevara was a very courageous and even reckless fighter (as opposed to Castro, who spent most of the war secluded in the relative safety of the Sierra Maestra mountains). But Che was also the grim executioner of the Cuban Revolution, a fact that he never hid and even bragged about, but which most Guevara admirers conveniently ignore.

It was Guevara who executed deserters and captured Batista soldiers and henchmen during the struggle; and it was Guevara who signed many of the tens of thousands of execution orders after the Revolution, when Cuba was bathed in blood by avenging firing squads.

See some of the documented Cubans executed by Guevara (including over a dozen shot by Che himself) here or if you have the guts, you can see an actual firing squad in action (broadcast over Cuban TV in 1959).


Because of that, Guevara is known to Cubans as "El Chacal de La Cabaña."

"El Chacal de La Cabaña" translates to the "Jackal of La Cabaña," although it is usually translated as the "Butcher of La Cabaña."

La Cabaña is an 18th century fortress complex located on the elevated eastern side of the harbor entrance to Havana, and the location for many of the thousands of firing squad executions which took place after January 1, 1959. Shot were former members of Batista's police, army and air force, informants, traitors, and counter-revolutionaries.

The best known story about this period (which I heard related in a Spanish language radio show in Florida last week) relates to how a Cuban mother went to see Che to beg for her son's life. The son was 17 years old, and was on the firing squad list, to be executed within a week. If Guevara pardoned her son, the mother begged, she would ensure that he never said or did anything against the Revolution.

Che's response was to order the immediate execution of the boy, while the mother was still in his office. His logic: now that the boy was shot, his mother would no longer have to anguish over his fate.

On the other hand, Che's courage as a guerrilla leader and his dedication to his caused are well documented and never challenged and cost him his life.

While Fidel Castro tightened his grip on the Cuban people and replaced the Batista dictatorship with the Castro dictatorship, Guevara put his life at risk fighting in guerrilla wars in Africa and Latin America, until he was caught in the highlands of the Bolivian mountains in 1967 and executed on the spot. Just as he would have done had the situation been reversed.

It is this glowing side of Che's complex character that Che's admirers and apologists always focus upon, and I am looking forward to seeing if this film addresses both the spectacularly courageous side of this iconic figure, as well as his war crimes and dark side of a man with little compassion and remorse.

I am also curious as to how the film handles Guevara's departure from Cuba. "Che", claims Dariel Alarcon Ramirez, who joined the rebels in 1956 and then went with Guevara to Bolivia, "left Cuba after being accused of being a Trotskist and a Maoist.... and because of the problems he had with the Cuban government, specifically Fidel and Raul Castro."

Once I see the film, I will tell you my thoughts on it. Meanwhile below are the lyrics (translated from the Spanish) from Olafresca's song titled "El Chacal."

They forced us to hold you
In historic prominence
They promoted your bravery
To the whole world after your death

Here your face remained
On t-shirts and posters
They don’t say all of the truths
Of the Jackal of the Cabaña

Your hand gripped so tight
That to history it sends
An image from Santa Clara
Where power seduced you

And now your face is in fashion
On t-shirts and posters
They don’t say all of the truths
Of the Jackal of the Cabaña

Aristidio followed you
Til the day he tired (of the lie)
When he told you he was leaving
With a 32. you silenced him

Here your face remains…
And even if you clean the t-shirt to its guts
It doesn’t wash the blood from the hands
Of the Jackal of Cabaña

Of the Cabaña you where the warden
You sent thousands to the death squads
But you preferred to play the warrior
You yourself dismissing the innocent

Now, there is your face
The women you made widows find it strange
How can he be everywhere we look
The Jackal of the Cabaña

A hero to some to others a criminal
Your face is known and your idealistic cause
But the path of violence will never win
Your passion consumed you and you became (the Jackal)

Here your face remains
On t-shirts and posters
They don’t say all of the truths
Of the Jackal of the Cabaña

History has already proven
That you don’t win peace with bullets
In any time or situation
What we need is compassion

Inauguration Ball


Artomatic, Inc. and Playa del Fuego, Inc. – institutions of the mid-Atlantic arts community – have joined together to create this year’s most distinctive inaugural celebration, The Art of Change (www.artists-ball.org), on Jan. 20, 2009 at 8pm.

With the generous support of corporate sponsor Scion (www.scion.com) and location sponsors The Warehouse Arts Complex (www.warehousetheater.com) and Douglas Development (www.douglasdevelopment.com), this event brings Washington, D.C., a unique opportunity to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama as President.

Tickets are available immediately for $50 at www.artists-ball.org.

Occupying three separate venues on the 1000 block of 7th Street, NW in downtown Washington D.C., The Art of Change will feature visual and performing arts, multiple dance floors, fire dancing and live music. DJs from across the mid-Atlantic region will be spinning an eclectic mix of musical styles on two dance floors, and in The Art of Change Galleries, displaying artworks created for this celebration. The Variety Stage will showcase performances all night long, including live music, comedy, belly dancing and spoken word poetry. And outside, attendees will enjoy fire-dance performances while dancing to up-and-coming DJs in the heated White Tent.

George C. Koch, chair of Artomatic, Inc.: “The Art of Change is an example of the collaborative spirit within the creative community and it speaks to the desire of artists to be a full partner in the change that is taking place in our country and our community. The Art of Change brings together the progressive and creative communities to support a new vision for our creative economy.”

For more information visit www.artists-ball.org.

Lynn Dunham

Lynn Dunham's Art Blog is lively, full of information, opinions, news and all kinds of good stuff.

Visit it here.

Art Fair Season starts


The 2009 art fair season starts later this month with the
Los Angeles Art Show, which after 6 years at the Barker Hangar moves to a new spot at the LA Convention Center. This should help with last year's complaints about lack of parking.

Also, in conjunction with the Los Angeles Art Show, the city of Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles has proclaimed January 2009 Los Angeles Arts Month, bringing the local art community together, as well as international acclaim to Los Angeles as the new center of art for the Pacific Rim.

Anchored by the LA Art Show, 'Los Angeles Arts Month' will unite art exhibits and special events throughout the city, resulting in a month long celebration of the arts during January, 2009. For more information go to www.laartsmonth.com.

Let's see how this art fair does and maybe we'll get an early insight to the 2009 art season.

Airborne



Heading home... more later. I'm at the airport checking my email for the first time and I'm already over 1,000 emails behind, and I didn't read email while on vacation, so please be patient.

Also, a couple of weeks ago I got a new Blackberry Storm, and I was warned that it had some serious software issues and that I would need to reload the software at some point in order to update. Apparently it takes around an hour, so I decided to postpone it until I returned home.

Bad idea!

The Storm died on Monday and it went on an endless loop trying to reboot itself. So I haven't received a single phone call since mid Monday or so. As soon as I reload the software and check my voice mails I will return any calls!

I just hope that I didn't lose all my contacts.

Secrets of the auction room

The advantage to auctions is that they have a certain democratic, or rather meritocratic, element: for new collectors, buying at auction is easier than braving the haughty froideur of some top art galleries. At auction, if you have the money you can simply bid for a work, thereby avoiding the machinations of dealers who have waiting lists for some artists and select those to whom they will sell. The auction room is also often seen as the only place where “hard” figures can be obtained, with recorded transactions visible and available to all. But even this apparently transparent process is not all that it appears. Much of what is going on is secret, one way or another.

Read the fascinating article by Georgina Adam here.

At plan b in DC

Florida'ng

Still baking down here; good sun and great Cuban food (later I will tell you one of the best and cheapest Cuban food joints in all of the Greater Miami area, with terrific food, amazing prices and huge portions: the way Cuban food is supposed to be).

Also a mini review (maybe) of the art galleries and stores passing as art galleries along Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.

Webminar: How to build your art resume

For about a decade, while I was the co-owner of the Fraser Galleries in DC and Maryland from 1996-2006, I co-developed a highly successful one day seminar titled "Success as an Artist," which over the years, the many thousands who took part in it, eventually dubbed "Bootcamp for Artists."

I am now taking the basic modules and principles of that one day seminar, modernizing the tactics and re-inventing the approach into a series of webminars in partnership with CFX Network Webminars.

The first in a series of webminars for artists will take place on
Sunday, February 01, 2009 at 11:00 AM (ET). It is focused on how to build your visual arts resume.

An artists' resume is one of the key factors not only in potentially help to sell artwork, but also in getting grants, residencies and awards, as well as attracting gallery and collector attention. In this seminar I will cover a variety of proven tactics for building your resume quickly and easily. The tactics are applicable to new Art school graduates, emerging and mid career artists as well as those starting a new career in the visual arts after retiring from another career.

All the details are here.

My Space on 7th

Two years ago Touchstone Gallery in DC created My Space on 7th. It is a unique, non-juried opportunity for local area artists to exhibit at Touchstone Gallery. The exhibition goes from January 7 - February 7, 2009.

Opening Reception and Wine Tasting (courtesy of Washington Wine Academy) on Friday, January 9, 6 - 8:30 pm. This time, My Space on 7th features 88 local artists.

The upcoming January exhibition, like the two before it, drew an immediate response. All available spaces (88 artists's selected 125 spaces for 300 or more artworks) were chosen within hours after registration opened.

Artists participating: Roberta Alberding, Cynthia Angeles, Mia Baila, Amber Baum, Jennifer Beinhacker, Daniel Bell, Patricia S. Bennett, Gary P. Bergel, Olga Berman, Sophie Bethune, Harmon Biddle, Jorge Caceres, Mark Caicedo, Jeff Chyatte, Carol L. Clatterbuck, James Coates, Ceci Cole McInturff, Patricia Correa, Stephen Cromer, Matthew Dailey, Charles Dale, Karen Egbert, Alexander Feshenko, Jill Finsen, Eric Franklin, Oliver Freeman, Eric M. Ginsburg, Idamarie Giusti, Steve Goldenberg, Alexandra Goldschmidt, Joshua F. Gomez, Phil Gross, Catherine Guarne, Regine M. Guillemin, Dede Haas, Justin D. Hoffmann, Josh Holland, Anne Hornsby, Sandra D. Humphfrey, Neal Hutchko, Angela Iovino, Shahrzad Heyat Jalinous, Jessica Jastrzebski, Dorothy Johnson, Rebecca Kallem, Peter Karp, Jenufa Kent, Angela Kleis, Rebecca J. Kuper, Harvey Kupferburg, Paula B. Lantz, Kay Layne, Gwendolyn L. Lewis, Emery J. Lewis, Andrew Logan, Teresa Roberts Logan, Rusty Lynn, Mary Mallia, Melinda Merinsky, Gerda V. Merwald, Elba A. Molina, Rachel Mooney, Del Moran, Lyonel Moreau, Tisha Myers, Kannan Naik Cangro, Martin Piccariello, Aline Pilar, Wendy Plotkin-Mates, Haydeh Rastin, Marina Reiter, Yelena Rodina, Lisa Rosenstein, Kaitlyn Scott, Paul W. Sharratt, Carole Lyles Shaw, Raju Singh, Brendan Smith, Matthew Smith, Luba Sterlikova, Rachel Sultanik, Sally ShangMing Tsou, Laurie Tylec, Caroline Urbania, Susan Van Pool, Daniel Venne, Paul Vickers, Cory Way, Anthem Wingate, Gwenn Zaberer.

Prices Plummet at End of 2008

Sotheby’s and Christie’s lost at least $50 million and $40 million each from failed guarantees in their final-quarter sales. Auction houses are cutting staff, abandoning guarantees of a price to sellers, and reducing estimates on individual works.

Read the report by Scott Reyburn and Katya Kazakina here.

Crisis or Transformation?

Renee Phillips' terrific article in Art Calendar is a must read for emerging artists. Read it here.

At La Florida

I'm in Florida for a bit of sun and sand and fermented drinks, thus why postings have been sporadic.

Reading Tom Gjelten's acclaimed Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause.

More later...

Happy New Year's

May 2009 bring all of you loads of good things and good health... salud!

Goodbye 2008

Nothing like a good beer to say adios to the 8th year of the 21st century.

Airborne



Heading to Miami for the New Year's... more later. Already pissed off that US Air charges $15 for your one piece of checked-in luggage.

Some posts have been already scheduled for the next few days.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: June 16, 2009

The Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site in Philadelphia is seeking proposals for its 2010 tour season and beyond. There are two funding categories: Exhibition, approval providing a budget of up to $7,500 and approval to exhibit at the historic site; and Exhibition Development, providing up to $2,500 with no guarantee of exhibition. Full details are available at this website.

The Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site "was once the most famous and expensive prison in the world, but stands today in ruin, a haunting world of crumbling cell blocks and empty guard towers. Known for its grand architecture and strict discipline, this was the world's first true penitentiary, a prison designed to inspire penitence, or true regret, in the hearts of convicts. Its vaulted, sky-lit cells once held many of America s most notorious criminals, including bank robber Willie Sutton and Al Capone." Tours today include the cell blocks, solitary punishment cells, Al Capone's Cell, and Death Row. A critically-acclaimed series of artists installations is free with admission.

Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site
2027 Fairmount Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19130