Free Seminar Booked

On February 11, 2012 from 1-5pm, The Brentwood Arts Exchange and I will be once again hosting my well-known “Bootcamp for Artists” seminar at no cost to the artists.

As I predicted, the seminar is now fully booked. If you are still interested in signing up, contact them at 301-277-2863 / fax. 301-277-2865 / tty. 301-446-6802 and you'll be put on a waiting list.

If you love beauty

Then see this...

Arty Bollocks Generator

Just visit this for your instant "artist statement".

Gopnik on art prices

A pile of stools for $575,000. A cabinet full of surgical instruments for a cool $2.5 million. The global economy’s in a tailspin, but among the world’s elite collectors, works are selling for record prices.

Why Is Art So Damned Expensive? asks former WaPo art critic Blake Gopnik in Newsweek; read the Gopnikmeister here.

Call for Artists: Bethesda Painting Awards

Deadline: Submissions must be received by Friday, February 24, 2012

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the seventh annual Bethesda Painting Awards. Up to nine finalists will be selected to display their work in an exhibition during the month of June at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda, and the top four winners will receive $14,000 in prize monies.

Best in Show will be awarded $10,000; Second Place will be honored with $2,000 and Third Place will receive $1,000. Additionally, a “Young Artist” whose birthday is after February 24, 1982 may be awarded $1,000. Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C.

All original 2-D paintings including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, encaustic and mixed media will be accepted. The maximum dimensions should not exceed 60 inches in width or 84 inches in height. No reproductions. Artwork must have been completed within the last two years and must be available for the duration of the exhibit.

Each artist must submit either 5 slides, application and a non-refundable fee of $25. Digital entries will be accepted on CD in JPG, GIF or PNG format.

For a complete application, please visit www.bethesda.org, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Bethesda Painting Awards
c/o Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District
7700 Old Georgetown Road
Bethesda, MD 20814

Or call 301-215-6660 x117.

Cirenaica Moreira

Just had a wonderful few days with the amazing Cuban photographer Cirenaica Moreira (whom we represent), who was one of the invited guest photographers for the National Geographic Magazine prestigious annual Photography Seminar.

"La Libertad es una palabra enorme" [Freedom is a huge word] by Cirenaica Moreira
In addition to Cirenaica Moreira, the seminar included presentations by David LaChapelle with Robert Draper, Kitra Cahana, Gillian Laub, Paolo Pellegrin with Anthony Bannon, Robin Schwartz, and Anthony Suau of Facing Change.

This was Moreira's first ever trip to Washington, DC, although she has exhibited around the DMV widely (read Lou Jacobson's review in the Washington City Paper eight years ago here.

Moreira's discussion of her work, and the natural curiosity that people feel towards Cuba and all things Cuban elicited a lot of good questions from the audience, including several questions that someone who has to return to that brutal dictatorship simply cannot answer for fear of who may be in the audience. This is one gutsy and talented photographer; check out her photographs here.


That's me in the center, with Cirenaica's husband Aurelio to my right and Cirenaica (who bears a striking resemblance to former WaPo art critic Jessica Dawson) to my left, and one of Moreira's photographs - part of the Campello collection - on the wall behind us

Armory Week

Help! Any DMV galleries or dealers that are doing any of the NYC art fairs during Armory Week: send me an email with details, as I have a national art magazine who wants me to write an article focused on DMV galleries in NYC during the fair week.

Deadline in a week: Hurry!

Viva La Revolución Big F-Up!

The company that manufactures Mercedes-Benz luxury cars unleashed outrage among Cuban-Americans in Miami and other cities on Thursday for using the image of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara to promote their vehicles.

Read the whole story here.

Free Seminar for Artists

On February 11, 2012 from 1-5pm, The Brentwood Arts Exchange and I will be once again hosting my well-known “Bootcamp for Artists” seminar at no cost to the artists.

This seminar is suitable for all visual artists interested in taking their careers to the next level.

Ever wondered how to maximize the attention your work gets from the press, galleries, and museum curators? How to present your work in a professional manner and save money in the process? How to tap into grants, awards and residencies? How to approach a gallery?

Then this is the seminar for you! This program is free, but space is limited to 40 persons, and last year lots of artists were turned away because it filled up so quickly! You can sign online here.

This program will be held in MNCPPC’s Brentwood Arts Exchange on the 1st Floor of the Gateway Arts Center, 3901 Rhode Island Avenue, Brentwood, MD 20722, just over the District line on Rhode Island Avenue.

See ya there!

Four free WPA Memberships

An anonymous donor is offering a free 1-year membership to Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) to four local artists in the DC/metro area. To receive further information or submit your request for consideration, please contact Carolina Salvador at poetsdaughter27@gmail.com.

This is a very generous offer. I have been a member of the WPA for decades and the WPA offers its artist-members some very valuable resources; if you are not already a member, I strongly recommend that you join it.

I hope over time this pledge idea will gain traction among members, donors and other supporters so that more and more artists may join WPA at no initial cost.

A UPI photo of the year!

Congrats to DMV area photog Colin Winterbottom, who if of course not only a highly talented photog, but also one of the artists in my 100 Artists of Washington, DC book, which as someone just unfortunately found out last night (when they needed an emergency copy for some odd reason) is not in stock at Kramers Books in Dupont Circle (what's up with that Kramers?).

Anyway, back on focus: Congrats to Colin, as United Press International has just selected one of his photographs as one of one of its News Photos of the Year for 2011.

Colin took the award winning photograph (I'll have it here later today) from the top of the Washington Monument while working under commission from Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. and the photo was publicly released by the National Park Service in the fall.

Our Small Rooms

Two D.C. artists, Michele Banks and Kendall Nordin, whose work "focus on the delicacy and complexity of autonomic cellular processes: Banks through jewel-toned watercolors, and Nordin via a site-specific mixed-media installation" opened tonight at the gorgeous Open Gallery at the Cafritz Arts Center, Montgomery College, and I've already heard some good things about it.

The show goes through March 9, 2012 and the reception is Feb. 9; more details here.

Open Gallery
Cafritz Arts Center, Montgomery College
Hours: Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–4 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Location: The Open Gallery is on the ground floor of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Arts Center located at 930 King Street on the west side of the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus. Parking is available in the West Garage, located immediately behind the center. For more information: Call 240-567-5821 or visit this website.

Calls for Entry: Experimental Media 2012

Interactive Installation Deadline: Friday, January 13, 5pm
Video Screening Deadline: Friday, February 10, 5pm

Curators: Max Kazemzadeh, Assistant Professor of Media Art & Technology, Gallaudet University and Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Assistant Professor at Parsons MFA in Design and Technology and Parsons School of Art, Design, History, and Theory.

Washington Project for the Arts is currently accepting submissions for two open calls as part of Experimental Media 2012. Consisting of an exhibition of interactive installation works, a video screening program, and a series of workshops, Experimental Media 2012 will explore recent developments in the field of art and technology, including the growth of open source software and hardware, the emergence of grassroots do-it-yourself hacker communities, and the increasing ubiquity of networked devices in daily life. While highlighting the creative potential of this new technology, Experimental Media 2012 also seeks projects that explore the broader social and cultural implications of these rapid changes.

Experimental Media 2012: Exhibition Component

Exhibition Dates: April 12 - May 20, 2012
Location: Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA, 22209
Submission Deadline: Friday, January 13, 5pm
Download the full call here
Submit Online here

AU opens 2012 season

The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center will open its 2012 season on Saturday, January 28, with four new exhibitions, including Anil Revri: Faith and Liberation through Abstraction, an exhibition of introspective works by artist Anil Revri, a native of New Delhi, India.

Revri, an alumnus of Washington’s Corcoran College of Art and Design, constructs his paintings on a grid, and the repetition of finely detailed geometric elements offers viewers numerous optical rewards. But these are also contemporary spiritual paintings analogous in their functions to Tantric Art, and its distant relation the Byzantine icon.

Byzantine icons were thought to be windows into heaven. Through the icon, the viewer could know God and experience the miraculous. It was expected the Byzantine iconographer would lead a life of prayer, meditation, and fasting. For Revri, too, as a Tantric Artist, painting is a spiritual act, an act requiring discipline and devotion.

“They are beautiful, their craft is breathtaking, but their success depends on whether they further us, and the artist, along in the process of enlightenment,” said Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Indian Embassy.

In addition to Anil Revri: Faith and Liberation through Abstraction, three other exhibitions will open January 28 at the American University Museum — Gabarrón’s Roots, Raoul Middleman: City Limits, and Regaining our Faculties: Zoë Charlton, Tim Doud, Deborah Kahn, and Luis Manuel Cravo Silva.

Anil Revri: Faith and Liberation through Abstraction and Gabarrón’s Roots close Sunday, April 15.

Raoul Middleman: City Limits and Regaining our Faculties: Zoë Charlton, Tim Doud, Deborah Kahn, and Luis Manuel Cravo Silva close Sunday, March 18.

(dis)figure

Jessika Dené Tarr
(dis)figure
Jan 13, 2012 - Opening Reception 6pm - 9pm

Curated by Jacqueline Hoysted, this exhibition showcases thirty-four new works on paper by Jessika Dené Tarr. Each piece explores the human figure by presenting ideas about its invention and reinterpretation.

CountDown Artspace
4526 Cheltenham Drive
Bethesda MD 20814

Nome is frozen!

...and the Coast Guard has ice breaker issues... read the NYT story here.

World’s first Art Decathlon to be at DC Arts Center

Four artists compete in 10 categories to claim the title of best artist.

If the best all-around athlete is one who most efficiently balances speed, strength, technique, and endurance, then what defines the best all-around artist?

This good-natured competition sparks the debate around the issue of what it means to be the best all-around artist, challenges individuals to try their hand at new disciplines, and gives exposure to artists who embrace working in various media.

In the spring of 2011 DCAC posted an open call for individual artists in the DC metropolitan area to submit proposals that explore the significance of what “unspecialized” means to being a working artist today. Artists were told they had to “compete” in ten artistic areas: Textiles/fiber art, Painting, Drawing, Video, Printmaking, Photography, Collage, Sound, Conceptual Art, and Sculpture.

Applicants from diverse backgrounds were narrowed by DCAC’s Visual Arts Committee to four semi-finalists: Shanthi Chandrasekar, Lee Gainer, Lisa Rosenstein, and Mary Woodall. During the six-month run-up to the exhibition, designated commentators Buck Downs, Patrick McDonough, Karen Joan Topping , Hays Holladay and Ryan Holladay, covered the progress of the decathletes on a blog as the artists created work for the show, with each commentator being assigned an artist to visit once a month. Shanthi Chandrasekar likened her experience to "learning to drive on the expressway" and Lisa Rosenstein states "this competition has changed the way I look at my whole working process."

The opening reception for The DCAC Art Decathlon will take place on Friday January 13, from 7:00 – 9:00 and will culminate in an artist’s talk and awards ceremony on Sunday, February 5 at 5:00.

The work of all the semi-finalists will be on view at DCAC from January 13 to February 5, during which time it will be viewed and judged by an eight-person panel including George Hemphill, Andrea Pollan and Vivian Lassman. Two discussion panels will be held during the exhibition, one focused on the relationship of athletic competition and a second on art and the creative process for the four finalists. Dates to be determined.

Follow the decathletes and their progress at dcacdecathlon.wordpress.com.

Great lecture and discussion

Yesterday's talk and discussion by the very talented Magda Campos-Pons at the National Museum of African Art was amazing!

And it was really well-attended.

Go to this today...

This Saturday, January 7, at 2 pm in Mezzanine, Sublevel 1 of the National Museum of African Art: The human hurricane known as María Magdalena Campos-Pons!!!

Cuban-born American artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons discusses her work of the last 20 years, focusing on the installation art, performative photography, and cultural activism that have gained her international recognition. Art historian Steven Nelson (University of California at Los Angeles) joins the artist in a conversation about her family history in Nigeria, Cuba, and Boston and its influence on her poignant artworks. This program is free, spread the word!!!

Image: still from "Not just Another Day", 1999, Version #2, silent video projection, María Magdalena Campos-Pons.

My 2008 studio visit with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons can be read online here. Read it and prepare to be impressed by this dynamo of an artist.

“When I am not here/Estoy Alla” c. 1994 by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

SELECT: WPA 2012 Art Auction Gala


SELECT: WPA 2012 Art Auction Gala - March 3, 6:30pm - 11:30pm

Don't miss your opportunity to purchase original works of art by top talents and support the work of Washington's premier not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting artists and presenting the best in contemporary art!

New location: 1800 L Street NW, DC (Special Thanks to Somerset Partners)

Click Below To Purchase Gala Tickets Online

Individual Patrons

Corporate Patrons

For More Information or to Purchase by Phone or Email

Contact Christopher Cunetto at ccunetto@wpadc.org or 202-234-7103 x 5