roll call

I've just made a few long overdue additions to the blogroll--which, yes, you have to scroll way down the page to see these days, and which needs to be overhauled, expanded, and organized in some meaningful way, into categories like artists, institutions, and regional coverage, etc. I know this. Feel free to come be my intern.

Anyway, the blogroll is supposed to give a sense of what I'm actually reading out there, which by now would certainly include Glasstire, the big and bright contemporary art blog from deep in the heart of Texas. Ivan Lozano is a contributing writer, and also an Austin-based artist whose work I love. I'll be featuring Ivan's work in an AAC show next January.

Also on the list now are Beautiful/Decay and Rhizome--which, of course, has the best in new media art...with which I'm spending an awful lot of my time these days.

As for local blogs, I've added DC Art Seen...which has been dormant for awhile, but certainly appeared to be a welcome development when it began. Let's hope Ophra Paul resumes coverage of local exhibitions soon. And, finally, there's Corcoran art instructor and fire hydrant enthusiast John James Anderson, a bright guy and talented DC artist.

Visit all of these folks often.

your daily campello-ing

As he (belatedly) announced last week, Lenny Campello is back in the D.C. area. Welcome back, Lenny!

The ubiquitous gallerist, artist, and blogger came by the Arlington Arts Center last week. I almost didn't recognize him now that he's shorn of his trademark curlicued moustache.

Little did I suspect that he would give our current show, FALL SOLOS 2009, such thorough consideration as he does in today's post on DCArtNews.


Lenny has plenty to say about Trawick prize winner David Page, and manages to add a new wrinkle or two to my own understanding of Roxana Perez-Mendez's installation, too. And he singles out Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum's temporary installation in the Tiffany Gallery for some praise.

Read all about Lenny's impressions--and see a few videos, too--here.

Pictured: Detail from Pamela Sunstrum's installation at AAC.

handguns and tequila

This is just a quick reminder to head over to Chinatown tomorrow to see Jefferson Pinder and Jose Ruiz at El Museo del Ghetto--i.e., the former address for Numark Gallery.

I will be there, possibly with baby in tow. Because what goes better with hard drinking and Russian roulette than very young children?

More details here.

See you Saturday!

moving pictures

Below: Some pretty fantastic animated street art by David Ellis and Blu from this year's Fame festival in Grottaglie, Italy. (Via Wooster Collective.)

video art wednesday: date with deceit

Admittedly, I am a sucker for women artists who employ or inhabit media archetypes/gender stereotypes in their work a la Cindy Sherman--hence my appreciation of this show from last year.

Eileen Maxson certainly has received the Sherman comparison before, but no matter: I dig her work. Maxson is currently featured in a show in Pittsburgh curated by Jesse Hulcher; visit her website here, and see the artist offering one of her not-so-true confessions (and sporting some seriously distracting faux acne) in the YouTube video below:

ripped from the headlines

Last November, The Yes Men printed a fake edition of the New York Times dated eight months into the future, and declaring an end to the Iraq War.

Today they performed a similar stunt, printing and circulating a New York Post special edition that, instead of predicting a sunny future for us all, announces: "WE'RE SCREWED."

2000 volunteers distributed the faux special edition with the gloomy headline to New York City residents early this morning.

The Times special edition from last fall contained fictitious stories written in a not-too-distant future in which all sorts of left wing fantasies--a "maximum wage" law, state-controlled health care, free public university education for all--were suddenly fulfilled.

Every story in the fake New York Post, meanwhile, is based on actual government reports and scientific studies. In other words: The paper's fake, but the information in it isn't.

The cover story describes how the effects of global warming likely will threaten the lives of New Yorkers in the next decade; the prank, appropriately enough, comes just one day before the U.N.'s September 22nd summit on climate change.

Read the paper here; visit the Yes Men here. See video of readers responding to the paper below:

marching orders for thursday

Tonight you should definitely check out the opening reception for the WPA's OPTIONS '09, curated by Anne Collins Goodyear from the National Portrait Gallery.

This thirteenth installment of the WPA's biennial exhibition will be housed in the second floor space directly above Leigh Conner's spacious digs at 1358 Florida Ave, NE.

The show will feature AAC resident artist Jenny Mullins, performance/conceptual/generally entertaining D.C. artist Ding Ren (whom I featured this summer in PARADOX NOW!), and lots of other local emerging talents for your consideration.

i want your skulls

I receive a lot of postcard invitations to show openings. Loads of them. But I can honestly say that the item pictured below stands out from the crowd: It's the first invite I've ever seen that arrived in a coffin-shaped cardboard box...


...wrapped in a skull ring...

...and featuring graphics from a Vincent Price movie poster.

Okay, so I may be a little confused as to whether I'm attending a Halloween party or an art opening...but Mr. Wodzianski, you definitely have my attention.

glenn beck's clenched red fist

Who knew? Turns out amateur iconographer Glenn Beck's 9-12 project might actually be a call to communist revolution. Whoops! Can't wait for Glenn to run an exposé on the sordid origins of his own organization's logo.

Chris Knight has the details here.

UPDATE: Rolling Stone reports that the imagery was deliberately chosen. Read all about it here.

weebles wobble but they won't fall down

In case you missed the opening of FALL SOLOS 2009 last Friday night (and, really, what were you thinking?), below are some photos of David Page enlisting a human participant for one of his pieces.

His volunteer admitted to being a little claustrophobic--just before David elaborately restrained, hooded, and otherwise tightly confined her within a device that invites the viewer to push it around. In a word: Yikes.

how can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?

Yesterday I drove to NYC and back again--and spent a pleasant 45 minutes in the city as I dropped off artwork. Oh, the things I do to bring you the good stuff.

For the rest of the week, I'll be working furiously to put the finishing touches on Fall Solos 2009, which opens this Friday. We have a site-specific mural, dancing holograms, and lots of big, scary sculpture. Reception runs from 6 - 9.

It will probably be a quiet week here.

Three things I noticed: J.T. finally made his departure from Thinking About Art official. He'll be focusing instead on his own studio practice--via his new blog, Thinking About My Art. Hey, I like talking about myself, too! We should form a club.

Also, Tyler linked to this story by Christopher Knight about the Frida Kahlo industry and its unequivocal response to the recently unearthed, hotly contested Kahlo archive. Lenny first drew my attention to the forthcoming book on the archive's contents (mostly ephemera) here; Knight's take seems like a new wrinkle in the discussion.

Finally, John Anderson writes an open letter to Glenn Beck--and pretty much puts the whole Rockefeller-as-communist-or-maybe-fascist business thoroughly to bed.

rockefeller über alles

By now I'm guessing you've heard about Fox News studio oddity Glenn Beck's turn as art critic. It started with the Huffington Post, made its way to Ed Winkelman, and was then brilliantly picked to bits by Tyler Green--with Tyler ultimately announcing that Jerry Saltz had challenged Beck to curate an art show.

In his appearances on Fox, Beck is known for offering generous helpings of paranoia, tears, and anger--and, most notoriously, for calling our president a racist: "This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture...I don't know what it is."

Glenn, I don't know what it is either.

Anyway, now that Beck is done showing how John Rockefeller was a communist, or a fascist, or (gasp!) maybe, somehow, both simultaneously, he should spend some time with one of my least favorite structures in Washington: The World War II Memorial. Obviously, Tom Hanks, Bob Dole, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush were all in cahoots with the corpse of Albert Speer, right? Or maybe fascists simply didn't have the exclusive rights to bad taste and blandness. See the early alarm bells here, Richard Lacayo's 2004 lament here, and side-by-side image comparisons made four years later here.

And now, your moment of crazy:

tv on the internet

Two unrelated videos on YouTube: First, a compelling explanation of why we need government run health care, illustrated with stick figures. Effective, and also disturbing: The image of a little stick person with a bloody amputated foot may haunt you forever. (Via Hrag Vartanian; via godlessliberalhomo.)

Of course, having state-run health care might make people complacent, even indifferent to their surroundings—how else to explain this gallery-goer in Canada tripping over a work of art? So carefree is this person that, when pressed for an explanation, he simply shrugs his shoulders and explains that “It sucked, anyway.” Socialism! (Via Jeremy Bailey.)

this pink line train is now in service

This is just a brief post noting that the link in the H&S blog roll to Philippa Hughes's blog--formerly Adventures of Hoogrrl!--has been updated, and will now direct you to her sleek, fully functional new website. The site was re-launched last week, and now comes complete with a pretty thorough interactive calendar of art events around town and an "art chat" section, which promises to feature musings from not just Philippa but also future guest contributors.

Read DCist's thoughts on the newly refurbished site here; read an interview from a year ago with Philippa reflecting on the beginnings of the Pink Line Project itself here.

I know that this redesign has been in the works for quite awhile, and am pleased to see it finally unveiled. With this transformation, I think Philippa possibly has managed to make her blog/site indispensable--a trick many bloggers would like to pull off. Ride the Pink Line and find out what's happening in D.C. art often.

do not go gentle into that good lease negotiation

When Kriston wrote about the closing of G Fine Art at Giorgio Furioso's 1515 address, Annie Gawlak insisted that she'd find another space in which to show her artists--and that this was not the end for her gallery.

On September 26, you can see the first evidence that Annie won't be going quietly: A show featuring Jefferson Pinder and Jose Ruiz will be opening at G's--er, I mean El Museo del Ghetto's--current digs at 625-7 E Street NW.

Does that address sound familiar? Yup, it's Cheryl Numark's old location.

I still miss Numark Gallery. See here, here, here, and here.

Jefferson and Jose were both featured in Picturing Politics at the AAC around this time last year. You can see installation shots from that show here; download the catalogue with essays by Rex Weil here.

Can't get enough of Jefferson Pinder? Try heading over to my old alma mater this Wednesday to see a show by the University of Maryland faculty. Jefferson teaches over there, as do Brandon Morse, Dawn Gavin, Chip Richardson, Patrick Craig, Foon Sham, and a whole bunch of other fine folks.

The gallery website is a little...unhelpful as of this writing (visitors will learn that no upcoming exhibitions are scheduled), but, trust me, there's a show going on. Reception is Wednesday, September 2, from 5 - 7 pm.