The Dynamics of the DC Art Scene panel discussion @ Kreeger

The Dynamics of the DC Art Scene
The Art Dealers Association of Greater Washington, in partnership with The Kreeger Museum presents a panel discussion on how Art Dealers, Collectors, Curators and Museum Directors interact to support the visual arts in the DC area.

The Kreeger Museum,
2401 Foxhall Road NW, Washington, DC 20007
Thursday, February 24, 2011 
6:30pm - 9 pm

Tickets: $20 / The Kreeger Museum Members: $15
Includes a cheese and wine reception.

Preceding the panel discussion, guests will have an opportunity to view In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists, the culmination of a project initiated by renowned artist Sam Gilliam, consisting of monoprints by 20 artists from the DC community, who typically work in different styles and mediums.

For reservations, call 202-338-3552.
Parking on W Street, NW or in the surrounding neighborhood.

Panelists include Juliette Bethea, Collector, Dr. Johnnetta Cole, Director, National Museum of African Art, Judy A. Greenberg, Director, The Kreeger Museum , Giselle Huberman, Collector, Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, and moderator Bill Dunlap, Artist and Art Critic.

Willem de Looper Retrospective at The Katzen Arts Center

April 1–May 18

Born in 1932 in The Hague, Netherlands, Willem de Looper studied under Ben L. Summerford and Robert Gates at American University and was the long-time curator of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. This one-person show examines de Looper's unique contributions to color field abstraction developed during the past fifty years.

Gallery Talk with Willem de Looper
Date/Time: May 3, 2008, 4:00 PM
Location: AU Museum at the Katzen

Museum director and curator Jack Rasmussen leads a discussion with artist Willem de Looper about his work and current AU Museum exhibition.

The Katzen Arts Center is located on Ward Circle at the intersection of Massachusetts and Nebraska Avenues in NW Washington, D.C.

Info: 202-885-1300

WHAT MATTERS: An Artist House Installation

WHAT MATTERS: Peace Matters.
Art, Activism & Iraq in the Nation’s Capital
Wed., January 9th 6:30-8:30 pm
1910 Park Road, NW Washington DC 20010

These evenings of conversation have become a central component of Artist House, bridging art and ideas within a community setting.

Join in a conversation with:
Kristen Arant – Founder, Young Women's Drumming Empowerment Project;
Co-founder, Rhythm Workers Union.
Naomi Ayala, author, poet, activist, educator
Jack Rasmussen, Director, Sr. Curator Katzen Arts Center American University
Andy Shallal, artist, activist, restaurateur, owner of Busboys and Poets

Reservations are REQUIRED for this evening. Limited Seating. 202-462-9294 judy@judybyron.com

Final Event - WHAT MATTERS Closing Party
Sunday, January 27th, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM

A Look at Irving Norman's Works

Review by Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post Staff Writer (click title)

Dark Metropolis: Irving Norman's Social Surrealism Through Jan. 27 at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW
202-885-1300.
http://www.american.edu/museum.

Hours: Open Tuesday-Sunday 11 to 4; also open one hour before performing arts events in the Katzen and from 6 to 8 on Open Arts Nights (select Thursdays while the university is in session; the next event is Dec. 6). Admission: Free.

Gallery talk: Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the American University Museum, will discuss Irving Norman's work Dec. 1 at 4pm.

Abu Ghraib at AU

Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib
Nov 6 through Dec 30
American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center

A few thoughts after attending the opening reception of this hugh and graphic exhibition..... Anyone who sees this show will not walk away unmoved. Artistically, it calls up great master painters such as Goya and Picasso who also voiced their outrage at the attrocities of war. Fernando Botero paints a chilling and gut wrenching modern version of an ancient indulgence. Here, aggression, fear and pain leave an indelible longing to understand the inconceivable flaws of mankind. This is an important exhibition which bears witness to today's realities of war.

Botero constructed each work after reading official reports of the atrocities and concentrated on the suffering and dignity of the victims rather than their tormentors. Botero unveiled these controversial works in Europe in 2005. This is the first showing of the Abu Ghraib paintings and drawings in a museum in the U.S. The show is presented in collaboration with the university's College of Arts & Sciences, Schools of International Service, Public Affairs, Communications, Kogod School of Business, and the Washington College of Law.

"American University's long-standing commitment to international human rights makes us a natural host to display Botero's work," claims AU Museum Director and Curator Jack Rasmussen. "Through his distinctive painting style, our students, faculty and, especially, the Washington, D.C. community will be able to discuss human rights and war not through a political lens, but through art. Art cannot change the war but it can bear testimony."

Articles:
Pious protest by Deborah K. Dietsch, The Washington Times article

Botero Sees the World's True Heavies at Abu Ghraib By Erica Jong
Washington Post article

SOC-PRWriters blog

Abu Ghraib Art Exhibit Opens in Washington, DC By Zulima Palacio Voice of America article

Introducing the Artwork of Freya Grand

Landscapes
November 17, 2007 through January 5, 2008

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 17th
6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Gallery 211 presents the exhibit Landscapes featuring the oil paintings of Washington, DC painter Freya Grand. Ms. Grand's large scale landscapes are evocative in their otherworldly theme, and yet they are simultaneously contemporary. These works illuminate the mutability of the passage of time within a particular space. The images are drawn from places as diverse as the Andes and coastal Ireland, and they reflect Grand's love of the mysterious beauty of the natural world.

As a counterpoint to the large works, Ms. Grand will also be showing a series of miniatures: very tiny oil paintings on mylar. These intimate studies of landscape painting invite close inspection, as if one is peering through a keyhole at a world on the other side.

A catalogue of the show will be available at Gallery 211, with an introductory essay by Jack Rasmussen, Director of the Katzen Art Museum at American University in Washington, DC.

For further information, please contact Jason Goscha at 410-244-1340 or at info@gallery211.net

Gallery 211
211 East Fort Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21230
p: 410-244-1340
www.freyagrand.com

Notes on the Collecting Mystique at artDC

Examining the Collecting Mystique: Passion or Duty or Self-Indulgence? ___________________________________________________The contemporary art world piques the interest of both novice and seasoned collectors. Everyone wants to know why people buy art. Is it a good investment? Should one purchase only from the heart? Does the “addict” collector buy for the right reasons? Are there right or wrong purchases?
Panelists:
Bill Dunlap, Moderator, Artist and Art Commentator, Miami
Lorie Peters Lauthier, Collector, DC and Paris
Martin Irvine, Owner of Irvine Contemporary
Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator of the Katzen Arts Center
Michael Abrams, Collector, DC
__________________________________________________________This was an important lecture for seasoned and beginning collectors, artists, gallerists and interested art lovers. I attended this 1- 1/2 hour arTalks lecture at the Convention Center this afternoon. The house was packed and I only got a seat mid way through the talks. Here are some of the high points I gleaned from the panelists experiences in the world of collecting. I found it very exciting to hear firsthand from passionate collectors and hope that you find it equally rewarding.

From Jack Rasmussen of the Katzen Arts Center- "Artists create art because they have to. Making art is not a rational decision. Collectors are the most important players in the art world.....scouring the art world in ways curators are not." "Auctions are great places to find art."

Michael Abrams collects photographs from galleries and from ebay in a range of prices. He says collecting is something that stays with you even if you don't hold onto the objects you collect. "One has to learn how to collect both at an inexpensive level or higher." He looks at the relative value of the art both in terms of the history of the times it was created and how the artist participated in the history of the medium. "Look at who is the building blocks of the medium and who are the peripheral players." Collecting is both a viseral and an intellectual experience for the collector. A collector begins to recognize the patterns of what appeals to them.

Lorie Peters Lauthier contributed that in the 1970's photography was not so collected since it was a new medium. "Now we have video, glass, ceramics with furniture and architectual design as a mixture of the way we live today." She says that scarcity is valued in editions with low numbers creating more value. Look for the least amount in photographic reproductions, 5 or 8 to create scarcity and higher value. Harry Lunn whipped the photo market into shape in the beginning in Washington, DC.

Martin Irvine elaborated that value is created in the art world in the same way we value other things. "Why shouldn't a great piece of art be valued the same way. Ubercollectors like Podesta show great leadership in taking risks on art that the art world hasn't yet decided on. The art world is sustained by collectors on every level. The art boom exists because of all the people on every level of every tier."

Abrams- "There's nothing more exciting for a collector than seeing art by a relatively unknown artist and saying, my god, (s)he's got it."

Lauthier - "There may be high growth in younger artists who then plateau anywhere between ages 30-50 even 60. As they get older, if the artist continues to do great things, the younger work is very valuable. The work can go down in value if the artist does no work in their later years."

Irvine- "Art value follows the information economy. What are the photographers thinking. Are they taking the medium to new places. What's the new story. We already know the old story. Art has value that is in dialogue with history, an ongoing 3000 year old conversation about what it is to make great art."

Lauthier- collects certain artists over time through galleries all over the world and on the internet. As a collector, she also promotes her artists to other gallerists who visit her home. "Collecting is sharing and communication, like a good joke that you want to share."

Dunlap -" It's like Art Evangelism."

Abrams- "Collectors get past the object to the person behind it." Advocacy includes being on Boards of Institutions, giving an artist money for a catalogue, for a trip to take the photographs for a project, for publishing photo books with no economic return but advances the artist's career.

Irvine- "It's all about relationships. Having been in Washington, DC for 19 years, extraordinary things are happening. It's the best contemporary arts has ever been." The gallery would love to negotiate with collectors who are committed to building a relationship. The galleries keep value of the artwork for the artist and for a network of other galleries around the world.

Lauthier- On collecting art - "It's about Passion, about your art talking to you. Whether it goes up in value or not, you've had it to live with all this time."

Bill Dunlap - "There's three important elements in the art world: The Critic, The Artist, The Dealer. The dealers work hard. They earn their commission by doing the best for the artists they represent."

Now go out and collect some art.