Okay, so I've been answering the same question about AAC solos apps all morning: Is the July 1 (tomorrow) deadline a POSTMARK DEADLINE or a RECEIVED DEADLINE?
Well, artists, the note of breathless panic in your voices is no longer necessary: We have granted you an extension! Yup, you have until next Thursday, July 8, to show us why you deserve to be a part of Arlington Arts Center's 2011 schedule, and to have one of our seven primo separate spaces all to yourself.
Below is the text of the PR I sent out about this on Monday...which clearly no one has seen:
The deadline for receiving applications for 2011 SOLOS has been extended! The folks at AAC sympathize with your early summer submission fatigue. So, as a result, we’ve given you SEVEN EXTRA DAYS to organize your proposals, images, checklists, and statements for our panel of arts professionals!
As you know: Every year, the AAC announces a call for entry for contemporary artists living and working in the Mid-Atlantic region--Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Richmond, and all points inbetween.
We then convene a panel of experts to review submissions. This year the panel features DC collector and curator Michael Pollack, and international curator Melissa Keys.
These panelists will screen the work of all applicants and select 14 artists to receive exhibitions in the Spring or Fall of the next calendar year.
Why 14? The AAC is a 17,000 square foot facility, with seven separate exhibition spaces throughout the building. Each space functions as a self-contained, roughly 20' X 30' gallery.
Twice a year, we bring in a group of seven artists culled from a large pool of applicants and give each artist a gallery. These SOLOS shows not only offer contemporary artists--emerging, established, or in-between--a professional space in which to present new projects or developing bodies of work, but also work together to maximize turnout for our exceedingly well-attended receptions, lectures, and special events.
Our exhibitions typically run for seven to eight weeks. AAC shows are often reviewed in The Washington Post, Art Papers, Sculpture Magazine, Art in America, and other publications, both in print and online.
Prospectus for entries can be downloaded from our site here:
Over 300 people made it to see BY REQUEST in the brief two hour window of my opening reception last Friday. It was great fun. You can check out photos at Brightest Young Things in case you missed it. See 'em here.
You can also read my interview with Libby last week at BYT here...and read Mark Boydmusing on whether or not I am, in fact, God. (I already know the answer to that one...but then again, being all-seeing and all-powerful, I know everything, anyway.)
Look for Jessica Dawson's review in the WaPo by week's end.
So, look, from this point on, I'm going to stop laying BY REQUEST-related stuff on you here. I know, this blog used to cover other people's art, and I kinda liked that. Let's see if I can get back on the horse, eh?
From now on, you can go to the show's official website for updates: www.byrequestshow.com Pictured: Me as TWEE, courtesy of Cory Oberndorfer. A fake artist on a fake magazine cover: I know, it's confusing.
My doppelganger Philippa shot a little video interview with me--and asked me why I like making people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, since I am not wearing a dress and/or gyrating in the video, no one will actually watch it. See here and/or below, and try to envision me in a gold foil bikini or something.
Also: Blake Gopnik wrote a really nice blurb for my show in the WaPo magazine this weekend; read that here...and you've probably already seen this by now, but Will Sommer followed me around for the WCP as I courted the city's contemporary art gallerists with electro-disco songs, swaying hips, and lots of pale freckly flesh a couple of weeks ago. Read that here.
More articles coming before the big reception on Friday. I know, I know: Me, me, me; art, art, art. Sheesh. Maybe I should give it a rest and turn this into a blog about grooming your pets or cooking or parenting or something when this show finally wraps up.
It seems clear to me that what this city needs is more of me in a miniskirt. Really, all I wanted to do last Friday was pay a friendly, flirty visit to a few of my fave galleristas and gallerinas--perhaps wooing one or more of them, making her or him fall in love with the unstoppable Jeffry Cudlin gam-flashing PR machine and become my sugar daddy (or mama)--and instead, there's all of this spectacle. What's a boy clumsily impersonating a notable local art collector/advocate/commissioner to do?
Also, in thinking about the run-up for By Request--and to give a little background for an upcoming interview--BYT features a journey through the mists of DC art history to visit my 2007 show with Meg Mitchell, Ian and Jan: The Washington Body School. 2007? Good god, it's a trip to the Pleistocene! I'll bet Lady Gaga wasn't even alive then.
Anyway, DC, Jeffry has heard you, and all I have to say is: You're welcome. Now go think about how you might write about and/or photograph me some more.
Above: Photo by Darrow Montgomery for the WCP; photo by Max Cook for DCist and his own damn self.
Lenny Campello has decided that I am awesome. Luckily for Lenny, he is correct. He finds me so awesome, in fact, that he feels compelled to reproduce the entire text of my press release in his blog post today. I didn't even know bloggers did that sort of thing! It's unprecedented. I feel tingly all over.
Anyway, Lenny deserves your thanks for bringing your attention to a performance I'm doing this Friday. No, I won't give you my schedule, but I will warn you that if you happen to be in an art gallery this Friday afternoon, you may see more of my gold-bedecked gloriousness than you've ever dreamed of. I know: I haunt your dreams.
Prepare to leave behind this fast-paced digital media landscape for a moment and join me on a journey into the curious realm of art magazine publishing.
Take deep, cleansing breaths...feel your heart rate slowing down...clear your mind of your day-to-day concerns...and consider: What the heck was I doing in July of 2009?
Well, if you were me (and it turns out I was), then you were contemplating Margaret Boozer's installation of arcs and mounds of salmon-colored mud spread across the polished floors of the Katzen.
I subsequently wrote an appreciation of said installation for Sculpture Magazine...which is just now hitting the newsstands with their June 2010 issue.
Astounding, right? It's a virtual time capsule on glossy printed paper! I'll bet the editors are all sitting in smoke-filled offices, tapping on their IBM Selectrics, using carbon paper, etc.
Want to read it? Well, prepare to have your mind totally blown: You can't see it online! Yup, you have to send the folks at Sculpture Magazine a check, and then they send it to you through the USPS or something.
Or go steal a copy from the house of one of your sculptor friends. Really, it's OK: They're probably off somewhere in their grimy coveralls, smelting or pouring or something. Quaint, right? Sculptors. I'll bet this whole magazine publishing thing was their idea.
UPDATE:Margaret has the text of the review posted on her website here.
Jeffry Cudlin is an artist, curator, art critic, and musician living and working in Washington, D.C. He currently serves as Professor of Curatorial Studies and Practice at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He formerly served as the Director of Exhibitions for the Arlington Arts Center. His reviews have appeared in the Washington City Paper, Sculpture Magazine, and the Washington Post.
