Joe Shannon This is a major exhibition of paintings by one of the great figurative artists working in the last 40 years. Always challenging and often provocative, Shannon is our antidote to the Washington Color School and its dictums. The exhibition’s catalogue features an interview with the artist conducted by James Demetrion, former director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Noche Crist Noche Crist was Washington art’s unofficial doyen of decadence for almost 60 years. Born in Romania in 1909, Noche moved to Washington, D.C., in 1947 and lived and worked here until her death in 2004. The recreation of her boudoir is only one of the exciting installations being featured in this posthumous retrospective.
Nefeli Massia Greek-born Baltimore artist Nefeli Massia takes over the 2nd floor of the museum with one of her dynamic and other-worldly environments.
Multiplicitocracy Students in American University’s arts management program spent the spring semester working with Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the American University Museum, to program exhibitions and performances for this summer in the museum and the Abramson Family Recital Hall.
Ladelle Moe South African-born Ladelle Moe’s out-sized concrete heads and bodies will be displayed in the Sylvia Berlin Katzen Sculpture Garden
Arlington Arts Center She's So Articulate Curator: Henry Thaggert June 10 - July 19 SHE’S SO ARTICULATE sets out to expand how gallery-goers think about the relation of narrative to contemporary art by African-American women. The show includes selected works and room-filling installations by 11 artists: Maya Freelon Asante, Renee Cox, Stephanie Dinkins, Djakarta, Nekisha Durrett, Torkwase Dyson, Faith Ringgold, Erika Ranee, Nadine Robinson, Renee Stout, and Lauren Woods.
Lost in Space, Renee Cox
Art League Gallery Inner Harbor Phoebe Twichell Peterson May 8 - June 2 Oil painter Phoebe Twichell Peterson provides viewers with a unique perspective of the coastal landscape. Peterson’s semi-abstracted paintings of weathered old rowboats are greatly inspired by her time growing up in New England and along the coast. “These simple vessels remind me of the beauty of the sea, and are representative to me of the humble human body that carries us through the experience of life,” she remarked. Peterson’s paintings represent a subtle narrative, an inner dialogue. The various components of the coastal landscape have come to symbolize and personify different facets and elements of life. The boats symbolize the soul and the human body. The docks often symbolize the components that ground and anchor us in our lives, both the positive and negative. Ropes may illustrate problems in our lives, while the water represents freedom, adventure, and exploration
Gone From My Sight, Phoebe Twichell Peterson
Art League Gallery Body Piecing Deborah Addison Coburn June 5 - July 7 Series of dynamic abstracted figurative paintings and collages
“I began deconstructing my figure drawings and then reassembling them to create abstracted works. The ability to create new shapes, forms, and a new structure was exciting.” This series began while Coburn was studying with William Christenberry at the Corcoran School of Art. Attracted to the linear quality, spontaneity, and the organic forms, Coburn began to create large-scale paintings based on her collaged drawings. It is easy to see the influence of Pablo Picasso during his Cubist period and Willem de Kooning in Coburn’s works. Some of her pieces have obvious gender references depending on the original drawing and how it’s reintroduced in the new piece. Color is an important element in her works, often referring back to the figure. “It is my hope that viewers absorb the energy and action that I put into these works.” Working large allows Coburn the freedom to be expressive while creating her paintings. “I want viewers to feel the energy and excitement more than anything else – I want them to feel what I feel when I’m working.”
Physiometry, Deborah Addison Coburn
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery MURAQQA': Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin May 3 - August 3 Among the most remarkable of Mughal paintings and calligraphies are those commissioned by the Emperors Jahangir (1605-27) and Shah Jahan (1627-58) for display in lavish imperial albums. A window into the world-views of the emperors, these exquisite images depicts the emperors, the imperial family in a relaxed private settings, Sufi saints and mystics, allies and courtiers and natural history subjects. Many folios are full-page paintings with superb figural borders; others are collages of European, Persian, and Mughal works collected by the emperors. Produced by the atelier's leading artists, they reveal the conceptual and artistic sophistication of the arts of the book at its apex in the early seventeenth century
A Garden Gathering with a Prince in a Green Jama, c. 1615-1620, Minto Album, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Yellow Mountain: China's Ever-Changing Landscape May 31 - August 24 "Yellow Mountain: China's Ever-Changing Landscape" presents 10 leaves from the very important album of artist Xuezhuang, who fled to the mountain for political sanctuary after the fall of the Ming dynasty. In addition to woodblock prints and album leaves, the exhibition features a number of magnificent hanging scrolls and an impressive handscroll, measuring nearly 20 feet in length, that will hang in the exhibition's opening gallery. The handscroll, dated 1704, offers a panoramic view of the mountain that allows visitors to virtually travel from peak to peak and valley to valley.
Landscapes for Mr. Liweng by Xuezhuang; Gift of Charles Lang Freer.
Artomatic May 9 - June 15 Up to 800 local and regional artists will exhibit their works on eight
floors of the Capitol Plaza 1 building, located at 1st and M Streets,
N.E., just one block from the New York Avenue Metro station. Held
regularly since 1999, Artomatic transforms an unfinished indoor space
into an exciting and incredibly diverse arts event that is free and
open to the public. In addition to displays and sales by hundreds of
artists, the event features free musical, dance, and theater
performances; holiday celebrations; films; educational presentations;
and much more.
Athenaeum Rackets & Remedies Laurel Hausler May 2 - June 15 In Rackets & Remedies, influenced in part by the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum and the collections of Dr. Robert Greenspan, Hausler explores two basic concepts. The first is the inexorable intertwining of advertising and medicine. And the second is how little this relationship, and the relationship to the consumer has changed in the last century or so. Hausler’s works incorporate oil paint, paper, pencil, ink .... sometimes coffee and wax. Her works are memorable in their haunting incorporation of dark and light, innocence and exploitation, trickery and trust.
Blackrock Center for the Arts The Outloud! Painters May 7 - June 6 The Outloud! Painters are a group of 13 award-winning local artists painting in diverse abstract styles. Individual Outloud! members have exhibited both nationally and internationally as well as with the Outloud! group. Outloud! painters are: Judith Baldinger, Shaune Bazner, JoAnn Clayton, Tory Cowles, Patsy Fleming, Donna Grossman, Carol A. Jason, Donna K. McGee, Michiyo Mizuchi, Edward Palash, Bobbie Salthouse, Mary E. Wagner, Amy Barker-Wilson.
Blueberry Art Gallery K. Wesley E. Clark June 1 - June 20 Artist Statement: My works are expressions of my diverse thoughts, feeling, emotions, moods, and environments. I reflect on Africa and the Diasporas through painting and printmaking, creating landscapes and scenes in both a realistic and abstract manner. The boldness, rebel nature, and creative re-interpretation of a written language found in graffiti art have begun to take form on my canvases and in my printmaking. All of these influences are compiled to create pieces with several layers of attraction. I look at my works as self-portraits. I’ve not categorized my style of creating, nor do I want to. I feel like such labels are confining and I want to explore all facets of creativity. -Wesley Clark
Edison Place Art Gallery IC 14 The Illustrators Club Exhibition May 8 - June 27 Features the best recent work of area illustrators, selected by a distinguished three-judge panel. 112 original pieces of art published on the covers and pages of recent international, national and regional magazines, advertisements, newspapers and brochures for clients such as The Wall Street Journal, National Science Foundation and The Crown Publishing Group, created by 47 of the region’s most talented illustrators.
"Vincent Van Toad" (from the children's story, "The Frog Prints" by Lisa Linn Arroniz), Paul Zdepski
Gallery 50 New Works on Paper Rick Bach May 8 - June 3
Canary Inna Coal Mine, Rick Bach
Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm Center Immersed in the Natural World Featuring works by Elizabeth Burger, Tai Hwa Goh, and Novie Trump May 9 - June 24 Statement of Curator Lillian Fitzgerald. This exhibit (“Immersed in the Natural World”) gives us a glimpse into three artists’ personal dialogues. Elizabeth Burger, Tai Hwa Goh and Novie Trump create images from nature. They provide an intimate narrative that explores: patterning in nature, physical identity and ritual.
Image copyright Novie Trump 2008
Hillyer Art Space New Work Anna U. Davis May 2 - May 30 Davis' new works feature a selection of collage-like paintings that demonstrate her ability to confront the power of a woman's being while exposing her vulnerabilities. These raw images offer insight into the female mind and experience both personal and public, and address them in a very direct way. Davis' work is provocative, but with a purpose.
Hirshhorn Directions—Amy Sillman Third Person Singular May 13 - July 6 New York-based painter Amy Sillman produces works that are intimate, psychological and full of humor and pathos. At the same time, they are remarkably analytical and intellectual investigations into the forms and qualities of painting as a medium. Combining calligraphic, gestural areas with large bands of color that often serve as outlines, Sillman resists prescribed categories within painting and allows her works to remain ambiguous Link to Amy Sillman Podcast The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image Part I: Dreams February 14 - May 11 This two-part exhibition features moving-image artworks by a range of influential and emerging international artists whose works use film language and technology to explore the ever-increasing impact of the cinematic on our perceptions and the ways in which the very boundaries between “real life” and make-believe have become at least blurred, if not indecipherable.
Black Box: Kimsooja April 28 - August 17 Kimsooja explores the properties of fabric through video, sculpture, and installations. Her work often conflates Eastern and Western traditions and investigates the common ground between intimate, personal realms and those of universal global dimensions.
Amy Sillman, "P", 2007, courtesy of the artist.
Meat Market Gallery Don't Ready To Die Anymore Benjamin Jurgensen May 2 - May 31
Nevin Kelly Gallery stitches in time, etc. Gretchen Feldman May 8 - June 1 Gretchen Feldman’s new paintings mark both a forward progression in her development as an abstract watercolorist and a return to her past as a textile conservator. Many of the paintings in “stitches in time, etc” are influenced by common titles of traditional American quilts, such as Chinese Checkers, Baby Blocks, and Queen’s Puzzle. Feldman’s work gives these titles a distinctive modern voice. Other paintings in the show (the “etc.” part of the exhibition title) have different origins. Based on microscopic imagery, the paintings provide a bridge between two different esthetic inspirations: the timeless and functional art associated with 19th-century rural America and the biotechnological explosion of the 21st-century. Despite enormous differences in the appearance of art in the 19th and 21st centuries, certain fundamentals remain important: structure, form, and expression.
The Phillips Collection The Great American Epic: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series May 3 - October 26 The complete 60-panel series, rarely seen in its entirely, will be on view at the Phillips. Told through vivid patterns and colors, this masterpiece of narrative painting is the first ever produced on the great 20th-century exodus of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North.
Degas to Diebenkorn: The Phillips Collects February 9 - May 25 The
museum unveils the newest treasures in its internationally renowned
collection of modern art, from the vibrant celebration of color and
pattern in Edouard Vuillard’s Interior with a Red Bed (1893) to the
richly textured and edgy Three Masks (2006), a major painting by
distinguished American artist Susan Rothenberg. Approximately 100
paintings, photographs, sculpture, and works on paper will be on view,
including artists new to the collection, such as Ansel Adams, Elizabeth
Murray, and Ellsworth Kelly, and by favorites such as Edgar Degas,
Richard Diebenkorn, Milton Avery, and Paul Klee. Degas to Diebenkorn: The Phillips Collects is the first exhibition in the museum’s 86-year history to profile how it collects.
Project 4 The Sublime Landscape May 31 - July 19 The expansiveness of humanity’s surrounding landscape has been an age-old captivation. For the summer of 2008, Project 4 will be exhibiting a group show based on interpretations of the Sublime Landscape. Works in the exhibition explore historical issues such as Manifest Destiny as well as contemporary one's such as the increased amount of artifice and development now transforming our landscape, versus the diminishing open land that once defined it.
Randall Scott Gallery New Photographs Sarah Wilmer May 31 - July 5 Sarah Wilmer creates abstracted narratives in her photographs that evoke mystery and a sense of heightened reality. Her subjects are often lone figures or creatures set within a dark and wooded world engaged in actions that transcend those of the everyday. Sarah Wilmer lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has appeared in such publications as V Magazine, Vision, Nomenus Quarterly and Surface and she was named to PDN Magazines "30 under 30 to Watch" in 2007.
Sarah Wilmer
Space 7:10 Photos and frames Daniel Reyes May 6 - May 30
Touchstone Gallery May 7 - June 8 House, Garden, Wine, Friend: Images of a Life Steve Alderton Alderton pulls from an internal photo album to give us his take on these traditional themes. Ultimately, it is left to the viewer to find shapes or colors that offer the familiar, or entice with the ambiguous, so as to emotionally connect with these snapshots. The Magic of Color Tory Cowles Tory Cowles' large abstract paintings are full of rich powerful colors. They seem to tell a story, inviting you in to follow the movement suggested by dancing lines, incorporated pieces of fabric and paper, and unexpected juxtapositions of color. Her work explores the dynamic between space and form, color and texture, converging in aesthetically intriguing, vibrant canvases.
Spring Splendor Independent Artists Forum Featuring works by Ethel Bustamante (Colombia), Wendy Plotkin-Mates (USA), Marjolein van Milligen (The Netherlands), Haydeh Rastin(Iran) and Marion van Ruiten (Germany); with guest artist Elba Molina (Chile).
Black and White Jeanne Garant Oil or acrylic paintings on canvas with textured surface made of non-traditional materials, such as string, paper yarn and objects of fiber arts.
Wish You Were Here Nancy Novick Forty mixed media collages reflect the character of recently visited places and meaningful events. Suspended Reflections Philip J. Gross Photoart credited using mirrors and cameras combining an array of colors and shapes into geometric images.
Self Portrait, Canvas board relief print with airbrush, 2007
Zenith Gallery Drama Queens Shelley Laffal Chris Malone May 2 - June 1 Fantasy and phantasmagoric run through this exhibition featuring the dramatic work of two unique artists, exploring and expressing their mystical selves. Shelley Laffal and Chris Malone, the former a long-time Zenith artist and the other, new to the gallery, make a fine pairing in this imaginative show that will grab your attention when you walk through the door.
Branches without Roots, Chris Malone
Zenith Gallery Rock, Scissors, Paper Stephen Hansen June 6 - July 6 Stephen Hansen’s clever, ironic, distilled, sculpted social observations in paper mache, stone, steel, copper, hydrocal and other materials will make you laugh whether you see them once or a thousand times. The gifted, self-taught artist refers to himself as a “hapless tourist, making snapshots of whatever strikes my fancy,” and what this modern-day Daumier creates is art that is intellectually accessible and aesthetically seductive.
