Since 2003... the 11th highest ranked art blog on the planet! And with over SIX million visitors, F. Lennox Campello's art news, information, gallery openings, commentary, criticism, happenings, opportunities, and everything associated with the global visual arts scene with a special focus on the Greater Washington, DC area.
Hizzoner's Weird Xmas Pic
Read the whole thing online here."Mayor Jorge Santini of San Juan landed himself a spot in the famed Awkward Family Photo blog with his 2011 Christmas picture which depicts his family huddling around a taxidermied killing scene. As a leopard sinks its teeth into a poor creature’s throat, a little girl strikes a very sassy pose."
Hockney Atop The Brits
A recent poll conducted by 'The Other Art Fair' asked thousands of artists of all ages who they thought was the most influential artist in the UK. The winner was David Hockney, leading many to ask: "really?" Hockney, known for his modern-pop appropriations of the traditional landscape, won a surprising victory over such giants as J.M.W. Turner, Francis Bacon and Thomas Gainsborough. Banksy made the shortlist, but influential Young British Artists (YBAs) Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin didn't even even make the top 10.Read it online here.
Another loss to the DMV visual arts community
(Via)
Vintage Che
To the left is the most reproduced photograph in human history. It's an image taken by Cuban photographer Korda (1928-2001) of Argentine mass-murdering guerrilla icon Ernesto Guevara de La Serna Lynch, known to most of the world as Che and to many Cubans as "El Chacal de La Cabana."
Che's photo has been reproduced in billions of T-Shirts, posters, postcards, cigar labels, vodka labels, etc. as the West's all-powerful ad machinery, driven mostly by an mystic love of all things Che by Italians and the French, has iconized this image beyond's Korda's wildest expectations (and until the very end of his life, he didn't get a penny for it, as in Castro's workers' paradise, the state, not Korda, had ownership of the image).
Would you be surprised to learn that the very first vintage photo of Che; the very first one; Korda's own personal print; the mother of all subsequent images of Che, has found a home in the DMV?
It does, living alongside 17 other vintage Korda photographs acquired directly from Korda's daughter soon after the legendary Cuban photographer died.
Artists 62 and older...
The Research Center for Arts and Culture at the National Center for Creative Aging
(NYC & DC Metro Area ) --- ART CART: SAVING THE LEGACY (www.creativeaging.org/artcart) will select professional visual artists from the NYC and Washington DC Metro areas for a 9-month project (September 2012-May 2013) run by the Research Center for Arts and Culture at the National Center for Creative Aging to help organize and document the artists' work.
Artists receive honoraria for public forums. To receive more information please send your contact information to rcac@creativeaging.org or leave it at 202-895-9489. Info materials will be sent in January for a February deadline.
Website: http://www.creativeaging.org/artcart
Graduate Arts Award
Deadline: 9 February 2012
The Graduate Arts Award - The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Arts Award recognizes and rewards America's promising up-and-coming artists from lower-income backgrounds with the nation's leading graduate scholarships in the visual arts, performing arts, and creative writing.
The Graduate Arts Award enables students or recent alumni with exceptional artistic or creative promise and significant financial need to pursue up to three years of study at an accredited graduate institution in the US or abroad. Awards can be as much as $50,000 annually. In 2012, the Foundation will select up to 15 recipients for this award.
The award provides funding for tuition, room and board, required fees, and books. Scholarship amounts vary based on several factors, including cost at the institution each recipient attends and other grants and scholarships the student receives.
Students interested in the program must be nominated by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Faculty Representative at their school, and may not apply directly to the Foundation. Each college or university may nominate two students to be considered for this award.
SELECTION CRITERIA
A review panel of distinguished artists, arts faculty, and university administrators select Scholars using criteria including artistic or creative merit, academic achievement, financial need, will to succeed, and a breadth of interest and activities.
The online application is available now and the deadline for submission is February 9, 2012. For more information please visit the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation website.
Another Experiment: Frida After Frida
As I've discussed and reflected on this site many times, over the last year or so I have been experimenting with the marriage of technology and drawing. In the first trials, I have begun to embed a video player into drawings and use that technology to expand my interest in narrative art.
In preparation for the recent Aqua Art Fair in Miami during Art Basel Week, I also began to experiment with tiny LCD screens and software that would allow a Powerpoint-like presentation.
Here we see a shot of my studio with the first stage of a drawing of Frida Kahlo. I envisioned a Kahlo portrait that (like the Kahlo portrait with a small portrait of Diego Rivera on her forehead) that would amplify her obsession (and mine) with her own image.
And thus, here is the drawing - prior to the addition of the electronic component.
And here is the 1.5 inch LCD screen and the motherboard with rechargeable lithium battery.
Here is the drawing with the window cut into her forehead.
And here's a detail showing the embedded electronic component playing a continuous loop of all of Kahlo's self portraits.
This piece is now in the De La Torre Collection in Miami Beach. The Aqua Art Fair was a spectacular success for these new pieces.
What's next?
About a decade ago I did a huge drawing entitled "Last Supper for Dictators." The piece was exhibited at one of my solos at the old Fraser Gallery in Georgetown, and subsequently sold to a New York collector via Sotheby's auction. It depicted a last supper scene with the principals being Latin American dictators. Che Guevara was The Christ, Fidel Castro was Judas Iscariot, Evita Peron was The Magdalene, etc.
I am going to revisit that theme again, and this time the video or Powerpoint component will amplify the presence of the dictators.
The WPA 2012 Auction Jurors are...
Seth Adelsberger - Artist & Co-Founder, Nudashank (Baltimore, MD)
Molly Donovan - Associate Curator, National Gallery of Art
Sarah Newman - Curator, Corcoran Gallery of Art
Dennis O’Neil - Chair, Fine Arts Dept at Corcoran College of Art+Design, Director at Hand Print Workshop International
Stephen Phillips - Fine Arts Program Director, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Katy Murnane Reis - Curatorial Assistant, Wexner Art Center
Judy Sherman - Independent Curator, J Fine Art
Paul Thulin - Interim Chair, Dept. of Photography and Film at VCU
WGS Open House
The Washington Glass School will have its 10th annual Winter Sculpture Show and Holiday Open House, featuring works by artists and instructors of the Washington Glass School.
Some of the region’s leading mixed media sculptors and artists work from the studios on the edge of DC, and artwork both large and small will be on sale.
This event is more than an art open house – its an experience! I get a lot of Xmas presents there each year.
The adjacent artist studios - FluxStudios and Ellyn Weiss Studio will also be open on the day.
Washington Glass School Winter Sculpture Show
1pm – 5 pm
Saturday, Dec 10, 2011
Free and open to the public
Washington Glass School
3700 Otis Street
Mount Rainier, MD 20712
phone: 202.744.8222
website: www.washglass.com
email: washglassschool@aol.com
December 7
This story has been a perfect guiding example for me most of my life: seeing the silver lining in every possible aspect of life:
Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him.
When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.
Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat—you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.
On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?"
Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.
Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?"
Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?"
Nimitz explained: Mistake number one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.
Mistake number two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow everyone of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.
Mistake number three: Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is on top of the ground in storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.
That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make, or God was taking care of America.
-- "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz
Manon
Today at 3PM you can come to say a final Adios to Manon Cleary, a spectacular and talented artist, and wonderful mentor to many DMV artists. At Joseph A Gawler's Funeral Home, 5130 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016.
Campello for Christmas
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 get one today and play it often during Xmas.
Go to www.andrewtmiller.org for more info!
ABMB: The Last Day
And thus came Sunday - which is the art fair day where most ABMB Art fairs end... and there are always a bit of tremors in the minds of gallerists, as the packing out is always a complex chess game of vans, trucks, boxes and packing tape.
Over at Aqua, it was a very busy and well-attended day again, and I managed to sell a few more drawings including the remaining piece with an embedded digital component.
The fact that all the works with embedded digital elements (video or otherwise) sold, does not escape me... more on that later.
In fact, Sunday was the second best day of the fair.
Around closing time, the nightmare scenario (for closing day) began to develop: rain!
But I just took my time and took down the work, wrapped it, boxed it, filled in the holes on the wall, painted the walls, and went down to check out the loading scene on front of the Aqua Hotel.
There was a spot on the small front driveway.
I ran to the parking lot... full speed, both man and van on the return drive... overshot the hotel (yes I did) and had to back down on busy Collins Avenue, but nonetheless, after a lot of birds being flipped at me, managed to sneak the van into a Doris Day parking spot right in front of the door of the hotel.
With the rain pouring down, I grabbed a couple of guys to help (offering them some Samolians) and loaded up... then drove to Wynwood to unload into my shipper's van and by midnight it was all done.
This was my best Miami ever - More next December....
ABMB Day Four
This morning I shifted the Campello headquarters from Hollywood Beach to Little Havana, then started the art morning by delivering four sales from yesterday to the collector's home.
By the time I got back to Aqua, it was past one PM, and the gallery minder had sold not one, but three more Erwin Timmer pieces (he's now sold five pieces at Aqua).
I then sold a couple more drawings, one of Dulce Pinzon's cool photographs and a nice sculpture by Charles Flickinger. I also have the remaining large drawing of mine with an embedded digital element on hold.
Tomorrow is the last day of the fairs and the nightmare known as pack-out begins.
Luba Sterlikova
The art exhibit Innergism by Luba Sterlikova runs at the Parish Gallery in Georgetown, DC, December 7,2011 - January 17, 2012 with the opening reception on December 7, 2011. 6-8 p.m.
This the first exhibit of Luba's abstract art in Washington, but her paintings have already been exhibited and well received by the public in London, Paris, Moscow and Khanty-Mansyisk.
ABMB Day Three
Today the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair (which I hear is asskicking) announced that Alyssa Dennis (Kesting/Ray, New York), Brookhart Jonquil (Dorsch Gallery, Miami), and Larissa Nowicki (Man & Eve, London, UK) had been selected as the finalists for the Miami 2012 PULSE Prize. Selected from the thirteen exhibitors in the solo-artist IMPULSE section of the fair by Director Cornell DeWitt and PULSE Committee members Stefan Roepke (Galerie Stefan Roepke, Cologne / Madrid), Mark Moore (Mark Moore Gallery, Culver City, CA) and Thomas Von Lintel, (Von Lintel Gallery, New York, NY) the three artists "embody the exciting and ambitious works for which the IMPULSE Section was founded."
DCAN sends envious congrats to Baltimore artist Alyssa Dennis! She "creates colored graphite renderings of partial architectural elevations blended with animals and assorted objects, and is a frequent collaborator with noted artist Swoon. A resident of Baltimore, Maryland, she has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and is the recipient of numerous awards, including three selections by the Maryland State Council in the Arts Fellowship."
Today Aqua was humming with a constant flow of visitors. I got there at 11AM as usual, dropped $4.50 for a double cappuccino, tried to catch up with email (over 500 behind - most of them waaay old) and stood by to hawk artwork.
I checked with some of the other DMV galleries, and Heiner Contemporary (they're at Scope) reports that they've been:
"quite pleased with our experience at SCOPE thus far. Foot traffic picked up yesterday and has been increasingly heavy throughout today, which is great to see. We've also had lots of luck with the collector's edition video and Avery's gotten a bit of press (see: here, and here. In addition to the articles above, Avery and the gallery were interviewed for a new website about performance art, which is launching early next year: performanceartist.com. Several museum people and galleries have generally expressed interest Avery’s work, which has been quite exciting as well. Lastly, at SCOPE, I’ve been struck by how strong the DC galleries are… I think they’ve really “brought it” this year and we’re s happy to be a part of the DC gallery group!"
Back to Aqua, today was an excellent day as we started the day with sales of several individual drawings of mine, followed by sales of three of my new series of drawings with embedded videos (Obama Agonistes, Ave Frida and Batman & Robin) and one of Tim Tate's self contained video sculptures.
