You gotta watch this

ABMB Week Day Two

The celebs are all over town, as apparently "There's a new celebrity collecting frenzy. It's becoming a hot new symbol of status," said Alexander Gilkes, co-founder of online art marketplace Paddle8, a partner in Nada, one of the many satellite fairs that surround ABMB.

I don't know about "new" but whatever...

Anyway, read about the celebs and ABMB here.

The only sighting that was reported to me from the satellite fairs was that apparently Will Smith had dropped $63,000 on a rather patriotic piece that he acquired at Red Dot today.

I'm also hearing that the Pulse Art Fair is absolutely amazing this year. "This is the best Pulse ever," noted a well-known Miami art collector when I asked her about it.

I got to Aqua at 11AM this morning to open up the joint, and by the time I got there, a fully stocked bar was doing brisk business on the ground floor and some big limos were dropping people off busy Collins Avenue.

People trickled by all day, and I cracked the ice mid day with a sale of one of my drawings and later on, the collector who had placed the Cirenaica Moreira piece on hold, came back and bought it.

At exactly the same time, a local glass collector acquired one of Erwin Timmer's glass pieces that he does from glass that he reclaims and recycles from buildings being torn down.

When it rains it pours.

One more sale of one of my drawings follows and then the night is over and I'm heading back to Hollywood, spending the usual 25 minutes to go from 16th Street on Collins to 20th...

Tomorrow the weekend will ramp up, traffic will get worse and more people will be there.

O Yea... I got mentioned in the Nuevo Herald yesterday - read it here.

ABMB Week: Day Two

Last night was the Aqua Art Fair opening and I'm sure several others (heh, heh), but since I'm at Aqua, at Aqua I was all day and night.

The life of a gallerist: Since Monday I have been arriving at the Aqua Hotel in the morning and leaving at night, as setting up an art fair is a lot of work. And yesterday was no exception. I was there by ten AM and pretty much finished by 5PM or so, and since the opening was at 8PM, usually one would say: "Hey Lenster, pretty good for a one-man Army setting up a gallery show."

Not so fast.

There's always a crisis, right? So this time it was the fact that the amazing Mexican photographer Dulce Pinzon's gorgeous photographs, which I am for the first time exhibiting, had been "attempted to deliver" yesterday, but according to UPS, no one was at the address... never mind that my aunt has not left the house in several years and was thus the reason why I picked her house to have Dulce ship the photos from Mexico.

But I thought, that maybe she was in the bathroom when they came... and gave UPS the benefit of the doubt.

Crisis looming; now UPS would try to deliver on the same day that the fair opens.

Dulce calls me from Mexico, alarmed that the work has not been delivered - and she's been told that a second attempt has been made and no one was at home. That I cannot believe and I call UPS and track the package; it hasn't been re-attempted yet.

I enlist the extended family and ask cousins to come over and stand watch for the UPS truck as it comes by the streets of Hialeah. My cousin Carlos lives on the same street as my aunt, and he sits outside on the porch of his beautiful house and begins to stand guard while his son Andrew patrols the streets in his skateboard.

It is now 6PM or so and suddenly the UPS truck arrives and drives by my aunt's house, and Andrew begins to chase it in his skateboard. He catches up to it at the corner of LeJeune Road and asks the driver "Que Pasa?"

A garbled explanation later, Andrew has the box of photographs in his possession and he skateboards back to his Dad's house and they all get in the car and start the short drive to Miami Beach to bring the photos to me.

Short drive, but a long time because of the fact that this is, after all, South Beach, one of the hottest places in the world, somewhat because of the really bad traffic at all hours.

At 7:45PM, Carlos drops Andrew at the Aqua Hotel and with his help, by 8PM, when the fair opens, Pinzon's groundbreaking work is finally hanging on the walls of room 218.

Is that cutting it close or what?

An hour later Carlos arrives - he has been looking for parking all along... he gets a hug and an original Campello as a "gracias" from a very grateful cousin.

Aqua begins to rock as people pour in. DMV area uberartist Akemi Maegawa drops in, and across the hotel I see Andrea Pollan and Jeff Spaulding. Then Margaret Heiner from Heiner Contemporary drops in, as does uberblogger Joanne Mattera, whose work is also here at Aqua, as well as many good collectors dribbling in from the shuttle between Pulse, ABMB and Aqua.

Live music and booze and women in seven inch heels seem to be everywhere and the first sale of the night is one of my drawings, which is (of course) at exactly the same time that someone wants to buy an Andrew Wodzianski piece which I haven't had time to look up and price, so I ring Andrew and that piece becomes the second sale of the night.

Earlier on, Cuban photographer Cirenaica Moreira's work had attracted the attention of a curator from a German museum, and Cire now has an invitation for a group show at that museum... this is why art fairs are important beyond sales. And her streak continues, as one of her pieces is then put on hold by a well-known Virginia art collector with an extensive Cuban art collection.

Finally, a Dulce Pinzon photo is put on hold by a very nice Australian lady, and by midnight, even though the place is still packed, I'm exhausted and head to my hotel in Hollywood.

The 16 miles take me almost two hours.

WTF are all these people doing on A1A at one AM in the morning on a Wednesday/Thursday?

Count Down

Count Down is a temporary, contemporary artspace located in residential downtown Bethesda. Count Down is an alternative space created to provide local artists opportunities to exhibit their work in a community setting and to help fill the void left by the closure of several commercial galleries in downtown Bethesda. Countdown is a non-commercial venture and is a private home in transition hence the concept will only exist for 4-5 months. Artists receptions will coincide with the Bethesda Art Walk, the 2nd Friday of every month 6-8pm.

Their first opening is Friday December 9th, 6-8.30pm at 4526 Cheltenham Drive, Bethesda, 20814 featuring the work of Jack McTiernan and Lisa Rosenstein.

Aqua Opens Tonight

And the openings begin: ABMB Day One

Tonight was the openings for Art Miami, Scope, Red Dot and some other fairs, and I had a chance to stroll through those three and chat with some gallerists and artists.

Over at the Art Miami press lounge, the buzz, from some journos and locals, other than the street trees being "decorated" in shirts and tops, was Art Basel's "contraction" or how ABMB had reduced the number of galleries at last year's ABMB.

"I'm not sure if this is was a result of the economy," said a savvy Miami art writer, "Or ABMB throwing a bone to the satellite fairs."

He must have seen the quizzical Klingonesque forehead expression in my face, because he expanded by adding that the economy seems to have had a profound impact on the number of galleries applying to the satellite art fairs, as more and more galleries stay home due to lackluster sales.

"I know of a local Miami gallerist who sold a million dollar painting at ABMB last year and this year he didn't get invited back," he postulated, "And so he went to the next best fair, Art Miami."

Heads nod. "And yet, ABMB week has a record 260 art galleries this year," someone says.

"What's the art fair food chain looking like this year?," I asked. By that I meant to ascertain as to which ones were the top fairs. Another journo chimed in and noted that she thought that after ABMB, Art Miami was the best satellite art fair, followed by Pulse and Scope.

Heads nod.

"But Scope is in a real down spiral," noted yet a third voice, this time belonging to a local artist whose gallery is at Art Miami. Several heads nodded in agreement looking like a Nirvana video.

"And Red Dot is surprisingly picking up former Scope galleries left and right," added the guy who had coined the term "contraction."

"Uh?... why is that?", I asked, recalling that one of my own dealers had turned down an invitation from Scope and chosen Red Dot.

"I'm going to check this out over the next few days," he expanded, "But I'm told that Red Dot more than doubled its size from last year and that a lot of 2010 Scope galleries are now showing at Red Dot, especially a lot of Asian galleries."

"Free booze and food at opening night..." commented a new voice.

While there is free booze (all kinds of wines, Herradura Tequila and Finlandia vodka non stop) and food (be ready to fight) at Red Dot's opening night, in my opinion there's also a huge change for the better over the last few years. In fact, I would opine that this is the best Red Dot that I've ever seen and I know that Scope now realizes that Red Dot is breathing down their neck when it comes to the art galleries' food chain... and Red Dot has food and booze... heh, heh...

The two fairs, next to each other, still have huge differences. Scope seems to be stuck a little in a presence and feel that was cool and popular when everything that hanged sold; that's a thing of the past. Red Dot booths hang a lot of artwork.

And while the minimalist look of the Scope galleries may still show a once cool approach to art fair presence, the lack of crowds and lack of red dots and alleged mass exodus to its neighboring art fair, where hanging is a bit more relaxed (read that a gallery can hang more artwork in their booths), plus the fact that this year's Red Dot's booths are quite a bit taller than usual (affording more vertical wall space), may reflect the realities of the new art fair world.

"I think the days when an art fair director could dictate to a gallery what artist to hang are rapidly coming to an end," opined a local art blogger.

"What about Art Miami?" I asked.

"Art Miami has become the second choice if a gallery can't get into ABMB" was the consensus opinion, and my own walk-thorough showed a highly sophisticated art fair with a very good blend of art galleries and a sharp, elegant presentation in most of them, with a clear and surprising lack of trendy art and more of a lean towards commodifiable artwork.

I haven't seen Pulse yet, thus I asked about Pulse.

"I think Pulse has learned the Scope lesson and is making an U-Turn on its brand," opined someone and heads nodded.

I Klingoned my forehead and the opiner expanded, "Pulse is doing a great job of still appearing cool and trendy while its galleries shift to more traditional artwork that can actually be sold... check out how all of a sudden realism is all over Pulse."

The next few days will tell... meanwhile, over at Scope, I had heard some good buzz over Trawick Prizewinner David Page's performance; he's there with Baltimore's Jordan Faye Contemporary. Page's unique work really stood out at Scope. A couple of other DMV are dealers are also at Scope: Hamiltonian, Civilian and first time Scoper Heiner Contemporary, who was showing the amazing work of (e)merge wunderkind Avery Lawrence plus Elizabeth Huey, David Kramer and Jon-Phillip Sheridan.

Heiner has one of the best looking art fair booths of all time, courtesy of Lawrence's familial wallpaper, part of his "Moving a Tree" project.

There are no DMV galleries in Red Dot or Art Miami, although AM has two Baltimore dealers in their roster.

Tomorrow the hot ticket is the opening party at Aqua, where yours truly has been busting his keister for the last two days preparing for tomorrow night's opening.

Celebrity sighting: Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman is two booths across from Norfolk's Mayer Fine Art! Jane Seymour's artwork dominates the booth of her gallerist, and paintings, watercolors and sculptures by the actress and artist, who was there tonight, all 85 pounds of her, dominate the booth. Her watercolors are by far her best work...

Manon Cleary

I first met Manon Cleary's artwork sometime around 1993 or 1994. It was at an exhibition at Addison Ripley's old space behind the Phillips Collection. Back then there were several galleries in that space and I was making the rounds for some art magazine long since gone, and literally walked into the show without knowing anything about Manon Cleary.

I was hypnotized by what I saw. It was clear to the most casual observer that here was an artist who not only had the most enviable set of technical skills that I had ever seen, but also an equally enviable ability to grab a slice of energy out of her subject matter and deposit it into the artwork itself.

I was so envious of this belligerent dual skill, so powerfully individual in a DC art scene back them that eschewed any sort of confrontational realism and loved acre after acre of abstraction of all hues and shapes.

Some time after that I met her for the first time, and soon after I co-opened the first Fraser Gallery in Georgetown in 1996, and then I became good friends with her and spent many a good time in her splendid apartment in Adams Morgan, including a quite memorable New Year's in either 1996 or 1997.

My next memory comes when she had an exhibition of her ex-boyfriend's penis. Multiple paintings of that particular gent's penis were the talk of Washington in those days, and for quite a long time, there always seemed to be a Manon Cleary penis in every MOCA group show.

Then I recall the disturbing scenes in her rape paintings, which I think were first exhibited at MAP's old space in Baltimore. Here was the artist at her most powerful: taking the ultimate assault on a person and disseminating it to a powerful and beautifully painted series of images on canvas. Here was Cleary exerting the power of realism over all the other "isms" in a manner and form which only years of concentrated and meticulous work can deliver - the same span of years which eventually delivered the death prescription to this master.

Over the years that followed, we saw the quality of her spirit, as she continued to be a key part of the DC art scene, even as her health deteriorated.

I last saw her at the book release party for 100 Artists of Washington, DC, in which she is - of course - included. She thanked me for including her in the book and I told her how honored I was that she was part of it.

I used to call her "Manoncita" or Little Manon, and it is a bit unsettling, as I spent some time last night looking at the digital footprint of old emails between Manon and I, to see that term of endearment applied to such a giant of an artist.

I will miss you Manoncita.

Capps on Cleary

Kriston Capps has a good piece in the CP on Manon Cleary - read it here.

Bad boy, bad boy...

Manon Cleary (1942-2011)

Just heard a few hours ago that my good friend Manon Cleary, by far one of the DMV's top artists, passed away today. More on this amazing artist later; meanwhile that's her last August, in a great photo by Rebecca D'Angelo.

Manon Cleary

The Nude in DC Book

The Nude in DC: The Figurative Art Scene in the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area is a new book and it features:

Over 50 institutions that deal with the nude in art - not just names and address, but descriptions, including history of some, website, logo - a full 28 pages on this feature alone.

Full text of The Art of Modeling, used for Model Training Program for Figure Models Guild.

A narrative on the nude in art, as well as society in general. Insightful information presented as an argument to counter conservative bias against nudity in general.

Includes a DVD with photos covering the Figure Models Guild since its inception in 2002 as well as many art exhibits and special events.

Also includes over 20 articles in Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Montgomery Advocate and other print media. Also video by Reuters News Service and numerous online publications including The Greatnude.tv, New York Arts Magazine, Artists-Perspectives, Artdc.org and too many to name. Includes several video clips, including Richard Takeuchi painting nude model in July 2004 exhibit - well over 2,000 images - worth the price alone.

The package is $20, including book and disc; or $15 individually. Payment may be by check made out to David R. Quammen, or PayPal - account mocadc01@comcast.net. Free Delivery - or pick up at gallery with prior notification. Proceeds will go to help fund MOCA DC.

Allow 10 days for delivery

David R. Quammen
MOCA DC
1054 31st St NW
Washington, DC 20007
202.342.6230

In Eff-el-Lay

In Miami, getting ready to do some family-visiting before heading out to Miami Beach to check out the Aqua Hotel and tomorrow begin the unloading and set up for the fair.

Artnet has a good preview of the fairs here.

Airborne

Heading to Miami in the evening to participate in a couple of art fairs, but the one where I will be is the Aqua Art Fair in Miami Beach - almost right across the street from ABMB.

Anybody who will be in Miami for the art fairs and wants a free pass to Aqua, please drop me an email.

Xenophilia: Biomorphic Sculpture by Liz Lescault

Liz Lescault is an accomplished ceramic artist. Her sculptures reflect her mastery and exploration of organic forms daring the viewer to recognize where their inspiration originated.

The sculptures in her upcoming show Xenophilia at the Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center (through Saturday, Dec. 24), according to her, 'is purposefully not identifiable as either animal, vegetable or mineral but encompasses many possibilities." Lescault’s work can be both beautiful and repelling in the same moment. Her sculpture is visually inviting, the surface may be velvety and smooth, the color deep and rich, often contradicting the viewer’s response to the form itself.

There's a sonic adjunct to the exhibition: "Recently I started playing with the idea of creating complimentary environments for my works to exist in, environments integral to the object that engage but never distract the viewer," she says. "My sculptures conjure objects of nature and natural objects exist in nature in an environment, a biosphere, as part of their surroundings. I decided to make sound my first venture into creating surroundings to envelope my work. The concept of the 'sound environment' is to bring a richer focus to the sculptural objects and a new dimension to the viewer’s experience where the environment is subtly and elegantly responsive to the viewer."

Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center
10701 Livingston Rd.
Fort Washington, Maryland 30744

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope that you all have the luck to spend today with your families and that we all think a thought for all those who can't, especially our men and women in uniform stationed all over the world and our sailors at sea.

Below is how pumpkin pies are made, source unknown, but clever!

Silverpoint at McLean

For a look at how a contemporary artist handles the difficult Renaissance technique of drawing with sterling silver, check out a show titled "Imaginary Botanicals" at the McLean Project for the Arts.

Elizabeth Whiteley's solo exhibition of silverpoints runs from December 1 to January 7.  The reception is on Thursday, December 1 from 7:00 to 9:00 in the Atrium Gallery.  She will also be at the Gallery from 2:00 to 4:00 on Saturday, December 3 and Sunday, December 4.  Whiteley's website is here

New DC Gallery to open

CHARLES KRAUSE/REPORTING FINE ART is located in the heart of downtown Washington at 1300 13th Street NW, Suite 105, Washington, DC. 20005. Ph: 202-638-3612. To find out when each show is open to the public or to make an appointment, go to: www.charleskrausereporting.com

The gallery’s mission reflects the background and professional experiences of its founding director, Charles Krause, whose career as a foreign correspondent afforded him the opportunity to witness many of the wars, revolutions and social and political upheavals of the last two decades of the 20th Century. On assignment for The Washington Post, CBS News and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, he saw the profound influence that art and visual images often have on the dynamics of change, and discovered the extraordinary work that has emerged---and continues to emerge---from the great social and political conflicts of our time.

“By showing the work of artists who have sought to influence, or who have been influenced by, the great social and political upheavals of the 20th and 21stcenturies, I hope to influence the way their art is viewed, understood and valued by museum curators, art historians, art critics and collectors throughout the world.

“I will exhibit and sell fine art I admire for its quality and originality as well as its social and political significance. I will also show work by artists I admire for the risks they have taken to defend their artistic freedom and/or the political and human rights of others. The work shown in my gallery will be selected on the basis of its artistic merit and its impact, both visual and political, irrespective of the artists’ political views --- or my own.

---Charles Krause

Campello for Christmas

This past week, for those of you who don't already know, my daughter Elise has been busy recording a Christmas Album by Sony Masterworks and Steinway Artist Andrew T. Miller.

Elise, along with a few other very talented artists, are featured on this album and you should pre-order yours today since it will be out this coming weekend!

Go to www.andrewtmiller.org for more info!

Major Talent, Part II


In the foreground that's the legendary Lida Moser with GMU Art School Top Gun, Prof. Chawky Frenn. In the background that's Tim Tate talking to the multi-talented Andrew Wodzianski, Pat Goslee, The Lenster and Victor Ekpuk's arm.

Opportunities for Artists

Deadline: December 2, 2011

Call for Submissions: Capitol Hill Arts Workshop's 6th Annual Contemporary Photography Exhibition

Exhibition dates: January 6th - February 2nd 2012. Looking for any and all types of contemporary photography: traditional, alternative, black and white, color, photojournalism, fine art, time based, performance, installation... if you think it involves photography, please submit! Over $2000.00 in purchase awards, and the selected photographers will become part of a permanent public installation in Washington, DC. One of the participating artists will be invited for a solo exhibition in 2012, including a press release, opening reception, printed invitation, and an artist honorarium. All submissions online, deadline for entries: December 2nd 2011. For details and submission guidelines, please visit www.chaw.org