Sandra Ramos solo show in Norfolk

Havana-based Cuban artist Sandra Ramos is in many people's opinions, the leading contemporary Cuban artist in the world, and later this month, her solo exhibition titled Exodus, running from October 23 - December 27, opens in Norfolk's leading independently owned commercial fine arts gallery: Mayer Fine Art.

MFA, which also represents my work, is by far the top fine arts venue in the Tidewater area, and its hardworking owner, the talented Shiela Giolitti, daughter of the legendary comic book artist Alberto Giolitti has been preparing for this, Ramos' second ever solo show in the USA, for a long time.

Sandra Ramos. Flying to Miami. Charcoal and Acrylic on Digital Canvas Print. 130 x 90 cm. Circa 2010
The opening is Saturday, October 23rd from 6-9PM.

Additionally, Ramos will be leading a printmaking workshop at the Chrysler Museum on Oct 23 and 24th. You can register for that workshop here.

Then, on October 26th at 7PM, Sandra Ramos will present a lecture on contemporary Cuban art at the Baron and Ellin Art Galleries of Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Free and open to the public.

I'm driving down for this opening; see ya there!

TBD Arts Entertainment Calendar

Here is the form to submit your arts event to TBD.com

Come to the MPA ArtFest today

MPAartfest juror, Trudi Van Dyke, has selected forty-four artists to participate in the fourth annual MPAartfest, which is today Sunday, October 3, 10:30 am - 4:30 pm in McLean Central Park.

Ms. Van Dyke, an independent curator and fine arts consultant said "As always, the MPA is a magnet for all good things art and the applications submitted to MPArtfest were no exception. It was both an outstanding opportunity and awesome responsibility to select from a broad pool of artists. I am looking forward to joining the community in attending this great festival." Of the selected artists, twelve are from the McLean/Great Falls area and sixteen are new to MPAartfest.

MPAartfest transforms McLean Central Park into a lively art gallery featuring the sale of the fine arts and crafts of 44 artists. MPAartfest includes fun activities for both children and adults, as well as live music and refreshments. There is no charge to attend MPAartfest, although a donation of $5 is greatly appreciated which helps support McLean Project for the Arts and this special community event.

MPAartfest artists for 2010:

Banks, Jill -- oil painting
Barbieri, Ann -- abstract painting and drawing
Brown, Tavia -- jewelry
Bucci, Thomas -- printmaking monoprints
Burke, Cynthia --painting
Burris, Eric -- mokume gane jewelry
Campello, F. Lennox -- drawing
Cassidy, Katie --oil and acrylic painting
Ciminio, Lisa --jewelry
Deans, Karen -- oil on panel
Emrich, Hanna -- mixed media and collage
Farrow-Savos, Elissa -- sculpture
Fields, Laurie -- mixed media paintings
Ganley, Betty -- traditional watercolor
Green, Michele -- landscape painting
Grisdela, Cindy -- quilting
Hachey, Hilary -- jewelry
Hatfield, Jennifer Bernhard -- whimsical ceramics
Hubacher, Karen -- mixed media paintings and collographs
Jensen, Jill -- handpainted and handprinted wallhangings, scarves, journals
Jolles, Ronni -- layered paper and pastel
Katz, Lori -- clay
Knott, Greg -- photography
Lansaw, Julie Lea -- landscape paintings
Lester, Cherie -- painting/collage
Mahan, Val -- nature photography
McGihon, Marty -- mixed media
Michelle, Jenae -- fiber -- one of a kind handbags
Nimic, Gisele -- ceramics/collage
Paredes, AnaMarie -- metal sculpture
Peery, Laura -- ceramics
Reiber Harris, Kristin -- drawings/monoprints
Rosenstein, Lisa -- mixed media paintings -- white on white
Rosenstein, Loren -- silk scarves
Rubel, Erika -- mixed media
Saenger, Peter -- ceramic
Singh, J.J. -- jewelry
Slack, Connie -- abstract paintings
Staiger, Marsha -- abstract collage
Trump, Novie -- sculpture
Tsai, Irene -- chinese watercolors on rice paper
Vardell, Mollie -- oil paintings
Williams, Ann Marie -- abstract paintings
Woody, Curtis -- mixed media paintings

For more information about McLean Project for the Arts and MPAartfest, please visit www.mpaart.org or call 703-790-1953.

See ya there!

On the firing of Rick Sanchez

A couple of days ago CNN fired Cuban-American newscaster Rick Sanchez following his controversial and stupid comments on a radio show Thursday. He took some jabs at Jon Stewart (who has been taking a lot of jabs at Sanchez for a long time), but essentially, Sanchez was fired for suggesting that CNN and the rest of the media is run by Jewish people.

I find this Sancheztupidity even more offensive because Sanchez, who wears his Cubanosity very close to his heart, should know that there hundreds of thousands of Cuban Jews all over the world, and in fact most of them are concentrated in Miami (where Sanchez was raised). I have been told that Cuban-American Jews call themselves "Jewbans." As a Cuban-American, I am embarrassed by Sanchez's remarks and by his own cultural ignorance of his own people.

And he is probably not culturally aware that there is a very strong possibility, given his last name and European lineage, that he (as are most Sanchezes) is quite possibly descended from a marrano or force-converted Jew in medieval Spain.

According to MisApellidos.com (which in Spanish means "My last names.com") one of the ancestral origins of the surname Sanchez is:

El apellido es de judios sefarditas convertidos al catolisismo, se acentarón en la región de España y desienden de Aarón.

Translated this says:

The surname is of Sephardic Jews converted to Catholicism, they settled in the region of Spain and are descendants of Aaron.

Genealogy Forum.com asserts that:

Sanchez is a Jewish name. It is a Sephardic (Spanish) Jewish name... Ez or es means "eres Zion" or "eres Sion", which means "Son of Zion/Sion", or "Son of Jerusalem", or children of Israel, or Children of G_d. So Sanchez - means Sanch means sanctified and ez means eres Zion, so then Sanchez is "The Sanctified of Zion". Which means the ones that keep the Laws of G_d from Jerusalem, Israel. The Commandment Keepers of Zion. Sanchez is Hebrew, Israelite, and jewish of the tribe of Judah.

Cultural ignorance is not a pretty thing.

Adios and Shalom Rick...

Call for Artists

Deadline: October 22, 2010.

The 39th Street Gallery and Project Space at the Gateway Art Center @ Brentwood is currently seeking proposals from artists and curators nationwide for an exhibition to take place January 8 to February 26, 2010.

Proposals may be for a self-curated solo show or a curated group exhibition. All original artwork in any media, including installations, will be considered.

For complete guidelines and more information, go to gatewaycdc.org or contact John Paradiso at 301-864-3860 x3 or john@gateway-cdc.org.

35 Years!

Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) will present Catalyst, its 35th anniversary retrospective exhibition, at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, DC, from November 9 through December 19, 2010.

Using three floors and the outdoor sculpture garden of the museum, Catalyst will be a dynamic, narrative 're-collection' of the WPA legacy, showcasing selected artists, exhibitions, programs, and events from its 35-year history. Curated by longtime WPA member, artist, writer, curator, and art professor J.W. Mahoney, Catalyst will include both recent and period artworks, documentation in both still and moving media, with a fully illustrated catalogue to accompany the exhibition.

In a statement provided by Mr. Mahoney, "Catalyst is intended to demonstrate the uniqueness, the resilience and the authentically catalytic power of a truly successful alternative arts organization that has survived for more than three decades." Divided chronologically into three major sections of the museum, the exhibition will feature works by over 150 artists in a variety of media. Through the presentation of selected works and narrative text, Catalyst will demonstrate the integral role WPA has played in the history of contemporary visual art in Washington, DC.

Catalyst is not intended to be presented as a traditional historical retrospective and it, by practical restrictions on space and time, can present only a glimpse of the depth and breadth of WPA's 35 years of creative production. It is intended to communicate the idea of WPA as a catalyst - as an organization that has meaningfully encouraged and supported the creative spirit of artists - and to demonstrate that artists continue to practice and thrive here in our region.

The exhibition catalogue features an introduction by American University Museum and Curator Jack Rasmussen, an illustrated timeline of selected moments in WPA history; essays by curator J.W. Mahoney, former WPA Executive Director Jock Reynolds, and former Bookworks Manager Robin Moore; and an illustrated exhibition checklist. It is available for $35 on the WPA website and in the American University bookstore.

WPA will also produce an interactive website for the exhibition which will invite artists and individuals associated with WPA throughout its history to contribute stories, artifacts, and information about the organization. The site www.wpadc.org/catalyst, which will include a timeline, comprehensive artist list, and exhibition and performance history of the organization, will be live November 1, 2010.

An opening reception will be held on Saturday, November 13, 2010 from 6-9pm at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016. A ticketed benefit opening will take place on Tuesday, November 9 from 6:30 to 9:00 pm. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact esmitherman@wpadc.org. Individual tickets are $75 for WPA member artist and $150 for individuals. Proceeds will benefit WPA's 35th anniversary exhibition season.

WPA will also host a series of related performances and public programs leading up to, and during the exhibition dates. Exhibition curator J.W. Mahoney will lead a tour of the exhibition on Saturday, November 20 at 4pm. Further details on the exhibition and related programming will be available at www.wpadc.org in the coming weeks.

My own experiences with the WPA have been terrific and go back many years. But clearly the most important one was in 2005, when I had perhaps the most difficult and most fun curatorial job ever. And at the end, it delivered the most wonderful gift of my life.

This happened when I was retained to curate the massive "Seven" exhibition for the then WPA/Corcoran. My goal in curating the show was to expose WPA artists who rarely, if ever, got any attention from previous curators and pair them up with some well-known names. In order to do that I reviewed 24,000-plus slides in the WPA/C Artfile, plus about a 1,000 digital submissions - the first time that the WPA had used digital entries for a show!

I reviewed all those slides and files not once, but twice over a six month period of trips to the Corcoran, where the WPA lived at the time.

"Seven" got its title because it filled seven different spaces at the Warehouse Theatre and Gallery complex on 7th Street, NW. At the time it was the largest WPA exhibition ever, and it was the WPA's best-selling show up to that time (nearly 70% of all the artwork from 66 artists sold, including two Sam Gilliams, three Chan Chao photos, a major Tim Tate glass piece, huge Graham Caldwell glass piece, Cornelius videos, Jamison painting, etc.) and about a dozen WPA member artists without representation got picked up for representation by galleries from that show (as I took groups of gallerists for one on one tours of the show). These dealers then picked up new artists for their galleries... such as Susan Jamison by Irvine Contemporary.

It was a huge opening with estimates of 600-800 people all spilling out onto the streets. We had a live nude drawing class during the opening show, with the model posing for several artists who created drawings on the spot. They were in what I had dubbed the "Nude Gallery," which was hung with the work of artists who focused on the nude.

We also had opera singer Hisham Breedlove, who had been body painted ahead of time by Adrianne Mills, singing around the galleries as a walking, living work of art. On the top floor gallery, Kathryn Cornelius conducted a performance several times that night. All of this was going on at the opening.

The show got major reviews by the DMV press with coverage in The Washington Post, the City Paper, Georgetowner, and all the (then) new art blogs. It was even covered by local TV as well as covered by CNN - It was the first WPA show ever covered by CNN!

The show was the buzz of the town for the whole month and it accomplished what I had intended to do: expose as many "new" artists to the DC art scene as possible while getting the WPA some buzz and selling some artwork. It did all of that and more.

And most important for me: I met the woman who eventually became my wife at the curator talk that I gave during the show! I challenge anyone to beat that success story!

Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson is the one single person at the WaPo that I hold (the most from a larger group of troglodytes, I am sure) responsible for the destruction of the visual arts coverage in the Post, in his case in the Style section while he was editor of Style a few years ago. Robinson allowed the decimation and destruction of what was left of Style's gallery and visual arts coverage to take place and for that I hold him responsible.

Robinson did it; or at least he didn't stop them from doing it: arts coverage killer.

But he is also a pretty good book author who picks damned interesting topics for his books - always somewhat prejudiced by the poison, passion and spice that is the American obsession and cultural misunderstanding of race.

His Coal to Cream: A Black Man's Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race is one of the most interesting books that I've ever read on Latin American racism, if somewhat acutely flawed by his American viewpoint of race that often doesn't apply anywhere else but America.

One of his other books, Last Dance in Havana was also near and dear to my heart and quite interesting, if again curiously naive in attempting to speak for Afro-Cubans from an American perspective that was agonizingly patronizing.

Robinson's newest book, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America , returns to Robinson's obsession with race (which is richly reflected in his opinion columns in the WaPo) and I am really looking forward to reading it.

It makes its debut in four days with an Amazon Bestsellers pre-release rank of #57,201 in books (today), so it looks like I am one of five people on the planet who will actually buy and read this book, so I will let you know what I think of it once I am finished.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this clear-eyed and compassionate study, Robinson (Coal to Cream), Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for the Washington Post, marshals persuasive evidence that the African-American population has splintered into four distinct and increasingly disconnected entities: a small elite with enormous influence, a mainstream middle-class majority, a newly emergent group of recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean, and an abandoned minority "with less hope of escaping poverty than at any time since Reconstruction's end." Drawing on census records, polling data, sociological studies, and his own experiences growing up in a segregated South Carolina college town during the 1950s, Robinson explores 140 years of black history in America, focusing on how the civil rights movement, desegregation, and affirmative action contributed to the fragmentation. Of particular interest is the discussion of how immigrants from Africa, the "best-educated group coming to live in the United States," are changing what being black means. Robinson notes that despite the enormous strides African-Americans have made in the past 40 years, the problems of poor blacks remain more intractable than ever, though his solution--"a domestic Marshall Plan aimed at black America"--seems implausible in this era of cash-strapped state and local governments.

Buy the book here.

Fridge Burn

The Fridge was never going to be an easy fit for Barracks Row. The art gallery-cum-classroom-cum-performance space opened in an alley off of 8th Street SE in September 2009, and immediately caused minor, NIMBYish ripples in its the well-heeled Capitol Hill neighborhood. Over the last year the outre-minded space has mostly enjoyed a tentative peace with its neighbors.

But when the Fridge had to scale back its ambitions last month, kow-towing to neighbors registering noise complaints, it didn’t involve the usual suspects—no scrappy devotees of street art, no mind-scraping experimental musicians. It happened in August, when, with Congress in recess and the summer quickly bleeding days, the neighborhood can feel like a ghost town.

The culprits? Noisy new agers.

Read the rest of Erin Petty's article in the WCP here.

Head for Art

Just discovered this supercool, new DC-based art site: Head for Art. In it, the fair Aleid Ford has a "365-day project that started Jan 1. The premise is simple: every day this year I take one art work from DC’s National Gallery of Art and discuss it in an interesting and enlightening way."

The site rocks and is a refreshing new presence in the DMV's art scene. Check it out here.

Congrats!

To my good bud and DC uberartist Tim Tate, who will be having his first first museum solo exhibition at Virginia's Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia next May-Aug.

The show will focus primarily on video. It will be called "The Waking Dreams Of Magdelena Moliere."

Stay tuned...

Strauss Fellowships

Deadline: November 6, 2010

The Arts Council of Fairfax County announces the FY2011 Strauss Fellowships. These individual artist grants recognize professional working artists’ achievements and their demonstrated history of accomplishments; they promote artists’ continued pursuit of their creative work. Artists in all disciplines including visual arts, creative writing, theatre, dance performance and choreography, film and new media, music composition and performance are eligible to apply. Applicants must reside in Fairfax County.

Named for Bill Strauss (1947-2007), gifted writer, cofounder of the Capitol Steps and the Cappies, the Strauss Fellowships are an investment in the sustained growth and development of the arts in Fairfax County as well as a way to honor artists’ commitment to an artistic discipline, their professional activity in Fairfax County, and their contributions to the quality of life in Fairfax County. This is the fourth year the fellowships have been offered. Guidelines and application materials are available online at www.artsfairfax.org. The application deadline is November 6, 2010.

The Strauss Fellowships are awarded through a competitive grant program where the recipients are determined by their work’s merit. No specific project needs to be carried out with the funds granted; Strauss Fellowships award outstanding achievement in work that has already been completed. This year Amy Lin, Foon Sham, Blake Stenning, and Ann Marie Williams all were awarded Visual Arts Fellowships.

Seen on Univision

Funny TV commercial for a furniture store in the DMV: A woman is acosted by two men wearing INS uniforms ("la migra"). They corner her against the wall and demand her "papers."

She laughs at them and informs them that to buy furniture at such and such, you "don't need any papers."

Badges, we don't need no stinking badges...

Tomorrow at Hillyer

Guest curator Lou Stovall selected work for the October Members Show in Hillyer Art Space.

Exhibiting artists are: Anne Marchand, Carol Barsha, Cianne Fragione, Ellen Weiss, George Tkabladze, Helen K. Anne, Paula Stern, and Wayson Jones. The opening is tomorrow, Friday, October 1st, 2010, 6PM-9PM as part of the First Friday Openings at Dupont Circle area galleries.

Tomorrow

Andrew Wodzianki's Super! opened at the BlackRock Center for the Arts last Wednesday, September 29, and will run until Monday, October 25.

The artist reception is tomorrow Friday, October 1, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. If you haven't been to the gorgeous huge gallery at BlackRock, this is a perfect opportunity to check it out.

By the way, the BlackRock 2011 Call to Artists is open now to all artists residing in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC over the age of 18 for original artwork only. This call will cover exhibits in the gallery from October 2011 through August 2012. An exhibit may include on applicant or a combination of applicants, based on the judgement of jurors. The jury panel is comprised of Kathleen Moran, Jack Rasmussen and yours truly. The deadline is Oct. 30.

Details here.

Wanna go to a DC opening this weekend?

Opening in Gallery I at the Foundry Gallery, 1314 18th St, NW, 202-463-0203, "LAND, AIR, AND SEA", Recent paintings by Ron Riley.

Riley "portrays images which evoke a sense of internal peace, tranquility, and serenity, and power uniting us with the majestic forces we find within ourselves and in our natural environment." The show runs Sept 29 through Oct 31, Open Wed - Fri, 1 to 7pm, Sat & Sun 12 to 6pm, Opening reception is Oct 1, 6 to 8pm. The Monthly members show is n display in Gallery II.

Opportunity for DMV Artists

Deadline: October 30, 2010

The BlackRock Center for the Arts has a huge gorgeous gallery space and their call for artists for the 2011 art season is now up.

The 2011 Call to Artists is open to all artists residing in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC over the age of 18 for original artwork only. This call will cover exhibits in the gallery from October 2011 through August 2012. An exhibit may include on applicant or a combination of applicants, based on the judgement of jurors. The jury panel is comprised of Kathleen Moran, Jack Rasmussen and yours truly.

Details here.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: November 12, 2010

Gallery West in Old Town Alexandria has a call for artists for their 14th Annual National Juried Show (Exhibit Dates: February 9–March 6, 2011).

The all media show will be juried by yours truly and awards to total $1,000. Click here to download the prospectus.

And the DC opening to go this Friday is...

The amazing Michal Hunter has a show of new paintings opening tomorrow at Pass Gallery from 7-10PM.

Hunter is one of my favorite DMV painters, and her work and technical facility with the brush has to be seen to be believed. Go see this show.

Artists' Websites: Marina Reitner


Marina Reiter was born in Moscow, Russia and she currently resides either in Washington, DC or New York City. She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Moscow State University, where she studied literature, fine arts, and art history. In the US, Marina studied art at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and the Torpedo Factory Art School. Check out her website here.

Defending Rockwell

Just in case that you thought that I was the only art critic on the planet defending the current Norman Rockwell exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Ryan L. Cole, who writes from Indianapolis on politics and culture for the City Journal, shares my point of view about Rockwell and his critics:

Critics would likely seize upon the sight to observe that popular approval does not equal artistic quality, especially when the art in question is insufficiently socially aware. Certainly that’s the view of Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik, who in reviewing the show derided Rockwell as the cowardly, “aw, shucks” epitome of Middle America. Rockwell “doesn’t challenge any of us, or himself, to think new thoughts or try new acts or look with fresh eyes,” wrote Gopnik. “From the docile realism of his style to the received ideas of his subjects, Rockwell reliably keeps us right in the middle of our comfort zone.”

This perception of the artist’s work as soothing sentiment for the masses is nothing new, but “Telling Stories” proves it simplistic. The show, drawn from the collections of fellow storytellers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, confirms that Rockwell had a deep understanding of America’s character and a masterly ability to convey it to canvas. True, his vision focused on our virtues, not our sins. But only in the self-loathing landscape of contemporary intellectual thought would that be cause for criticism.

Read the review here.