Come by the Arlington Arts Center tonight for our reception celebrating Aachen to Arlington: Imaging the Distance. The reception runs from 6:00 to 9:00, or thereabouts.

What's that? You'll be attending one of the other 8,000 or so openings in D.C. running at exactly the same time? Phooey. I'll bet none of those folks flew in a bunch of genuinely German artists for you to hobknob with--hey, you can probably hang out in the parking lot with them while they smoke cigarettes and act all world weary and stuff.

Seriously, though, the Germans will be in attendance, as will their curator. From the press release:

Curator Harald Kunde—Director of the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst—will be on hand to answer questions, along with the five artists he selected, all of whom live and work in and around Aachen:

Tobias Danke, a sculptor who creates ersatz objects using industrial materials, including resin, flourescent bulbs, and styrofoam

Irmel Kamp-Bandau and Andreas Magdanz, two photographers who examine disused modernist architecture, from Bauhaus remnants to abandoned cold war bomb shelters

Stephan Mörsch, a sculptor and draftsman who, with pencil drawings and models of guard towers, maps the Huertgenwald, a forest near Aachen where almost 70,000 American soldiers were killed between 1944 and 1945

Hans Niehus, a representational painter who, with tightly rendered humorous images of artworld notables like Marcel Duchamp and Josef Beuys, explores the idea of celebrity in the German art world

Also in attendance will be a number of the Arlington artists featured in the show that's traveling to Aachen in November. You can see a small preview show of their work downstairs in the Truland gallery.

Hope to see you there!

Pictured: Works by Andreas Magdanz, Hans Niehus, and Irmel Kamp-Bandau