New to You, 2015: Pantheon

The game, Pantheon, was created for an exhibition at The Strathmore, Bethesda, MD (where, I was an artist mentor a second year).

Play is similar to Sorry! where players draw cards to advance their pawns. Pawns consist of 3D-printed replicas of sculpture by Rodin, Houdon, French, Duchamp, and Judd. Players advance from emerging artist through mid-career, and on to the Pantheon. Only, the cards might not allow it. Having an exhibition might advance the pawn, but a studio fire might send the pawn back a couple spaces. There are also death cards, sending any player who is not established back to the beginning.

In short, it's nearly impossible to make it into the Pantheon: just like life.

My Work on CW's Carrie Diaries, Last Week

You really couldn't ask for better placement: upper right of the title.

In September I was asked if Warner Bros. Pictures could purchase a work for the set of The Carrie Diaries. As you see above, I said yes. Back then I was told it would be for a show on the CW called The Carrie Diaries, a prequel for Sex and the City. Ever since I became one of those "pretentious people" (#15) who only seldom watches TV shows, and when he does it's on the Internet, I'm a bit oblivious to... well... what's on television. (Seriously, why pay for cable when you don't really have time to watch any of it? Actually, why pay for that digital converter thingy when the appliance you call a television I call "the DVD-viewer" works quite well without it?)

Still, I lived a childhood existence much like Martin Tupper from Dream On. So, needless to say, I was excited to be asked.

It turns out, this was the second time this particular work was requested for exhibit on television. The first time was for a show called Georgetown, which was supposed to air on ABC in late 2011 or early 2012. Unfortunately, the show got canned before the pilot aired. As such, the painting of Homonyms never saw its transfer to moving image.

And, technically, it still hasn't. What was on display behind Adam Weaver—the character to whom Carrie Bradshaw eventually loses her virginity in the episode (unfortunately not in front of my work)—was a digital print of the painting. The original, which first exhibited in Alexandria, VA's Athenaeum in 2008, was composed of 64 separate, eight-inch canvases: hence the lines on the image above (the CW was given an option for without lines).

The full episode can be viewed on line. We'll see if the work pops up in future episodes. And, if you want to own the work, contact the gallery that represents me in DC.

Last weekend my latest exhibit opened up at Adah Rose Gallery in Kensington, MD. If nothing else, the exhibit represents how awesome and supportive Adah Rose is about her artists, because the exhibit represents a clear departure from one of the two directions I take with my work.

Yeah… two directions: implying a third. The first is a more conceptual socio-political commentary—a vein of production I'll attribute to time I worked with Randall Packer and the U.S. Department of Art and Technology. While Randall had no direct influence over pieces like Note 2 Self, JOB Creation Project, or Acting Presidential—and to some extent the DIY Conceptual Artist—working with him gave me the permission I needed to explore veins of operation outside of painting: interactive works that were somewhat performance-based, and using everyday objects or familiar design methodologies to fool the mind into receiving and then question the work: trompe l'esprit. The second direction was text-based. And though some of my socio-political projects rely heavily on text (bumper stickers, campaign posters, books, printed newspapers), these works were simply text… or the absence thereof. The work of mine that Adah Rose typically exhibits are four letter words, alphabets, and erased newspapers.

The alphabets have been highly successful. Several prints have come close to selling out, and there is demand to add to the series. And though few want to own an erased newspaper, or a single from a suite of four-letter-words, each series creates conversation. So, I think it is pretty awesome that Adah Rose was willing to take this brand that I have developed within her gallery, put it aside for the time being, and let me explore a different body of work. Though, the work was not entirely alien to her.

When we first met in 2011—about five months prior to my first exhibit in her gallery in Feb. 2012—I showed her a series of shaped paintings I was thinking my way through, and mentioned this other body of work. It was a series inspired by a staircase in Hurst Hall at American University.

In 2006/07 I was working for the Center for Teaching Excellence at AU, and my job was to oversee the Faculty Corner, a lunge where faculty could checkout laptops, podcast equipment, edit videos, and seek some help with Blackboard. It was located in Hurst Hall, a building that only had bathrooms in the basement, and I worked on the second floor. So, I was regularly going up and down the stairs during the time of my employ. And, the stairwell did something to my perception. Inspired, I photographed the stairwell up and down. Eventually, I started composing from the photographs with the thought that these could become shaped-canvas paintings. And, then, I discovered the work Frank Stella accomplished after his protractor series. About 100 photographs and over 50 drawings were immediately shelved.


When I shelved the series it was less than two years after I finished graduate school, and one of the ghosts of grad school was the fear of making derivative work. Anytime I thought I was advancing in my work, I would later discover that I was bumping into Jim Rosenquist or Robert Rauschenberg or someone else. And I was typically ignorant of the works of those artists (as I was of most work of artists after 1940) throughout graduate school. There were several critiques where i was lambasted for making works that looked like this, that, or the other—or why wasn't I using some medium other than oil paint— and I eventually threw up my arms and threw out my paint brushes (both figuratively, of course).

After shelving the project I would start reading more about Elizabeth Murray, and Al Held. Pile up enough influences (after the fact) and at some point it seems credible to ignore the superstitions of graduate school. While it is essential to be knowledgeable of the works of other artists, it's also pertinent to—at some point—acknowledge that it's okay to move forward. I probably came to that conclusion a couple of years before 2012, when I began to give consideration to starting the works.

The Hurst Series, or the Staircase Series—a series of untitled paintings, some of which have received kitchy nicknames after the fact—does what it set out to do: upset the conventions of looking. By no means can I claim that these works are ground-breaking. Shaped canvases go back to the Renaissance, if not further back in history. Works that deal with spatial imperfections probably precede Escher. It is doubtful that the confluence of both is anything new. Regardless, there is still something magical about a work that can visually pop off the wall thanks to the shift in paint values or because of how it is shaped (or both). This happens to me when I see some of Ellsworth Kelly's work (from the right angle): simplicity jumps off the wall and tickles my mind. It's what I love about the works of Robert Irwin and James Turrell. Elisabeth Murray doesn't do that for me. Stella's work never did it for me either. Al Held's does, but he was mostly beholden to the rectangle. And, the work of Lee Bontecou does the inverse of what I'm trying to accomplish with these shaped paintings.

If anyone is doing this kind of work, I don't know it. That's not to say it isn't happening. There are probably 100 graduate students across the U.S. doing something similar, as well as another 100 in a few art programs I am unaware of, at universities I have never heard of, in some huge city in China that I have also never heard of. Quite frankly, I could care less. Because, the series represents one of the first times I have used art to make a problem and then solve for it, rather than using art to try to solve a problem, comment on problem, or comment on a problem in an effort to make more problems (for the recipient, not for the art). It feels authentic: which is not to say past works have felt inauthentic. There are times that past projects and works have felt gimmicky (art masquerading as bumper sticker… or perhaps the other way around), but the gimmicky was more-or-less embraced as another medium of the work (Art can be cheesy). Perhaps that authenticity comes from the fact I was pushing some paint around. Art always feels better when its possible I might get dirty or injured in the process of making.

The show runs through December 28, 2013, at Adah Rose Gallery in Kensington, MD.

Images from the DIY Conceptual Artist

On March 16th,  my latest art project, the DIY Conceptual Artist, opened at DorisMae. Formerly Harmon Art Lab, the space is dedicated to a curatorial project run by Thomas Drymon... and he hesitates to call it a gallery.

The scope of the project is a game. As pictured above, it has a rule book, some art materials, and it comes in a box. Players can choose whether to execute one of several projects, and the projects are based on works by several archetypes of conceptual and contemporary art of the 20th Century. 

Exhibiting one room over is Rachel England, who is showing the work she made for her senior thesis at the Corcoran, only with a twist. Instead of it being some inert installation, visitors are invited to destroy the work, pulling the crocheted scarves apart - skein-by-skein.

Creation in one room. Destruction in the other. All work is participatory. 

On March 24th, the space was open for an artist talk. Only, we didn't talk. We just directed people through the act of participating with our projects. Pictured above are people diligently working on their pieces. More images on DoisMae's website.

This idea has had an odd life. Initially it was proposed to Transformer near the end of 2010. In a reply to the submission I was told that review of proposals sometimes takes a while. I guess the proposal is still under review. Then in late 2011, the curator from VisArts Rockville approached me about a 2012 exhibit. I introduced the idea, he liked it, the exhibit was scheduled, contracts were getting signed, and then someone higher up the food chain explained they no longer agreed with the curator's vision, released him from his contract, and along with it all of his exhibits (I guess he wasn't showing enough community plein air hobbyists, or something).

As with many of my projects, there are a bundle of ideas converging.

1. After nearly a decade of teaching, I've had a lot of students resist contemporary art, and with it conceptual art. I wondered if there was a way to make the ideas and processes more accessible.
2. Then there is the idea of traditions: old masters had apprentices, and sometimes the pieces of mature apprentices look nearly indistinguishable from the old master. At the very least you can see the relationship. Think early Raphael as compared to Perugino. 500 years ago, the practice of teh student looking similar to the master was more desirable. Now it is derivative. Anyone who drips paint on a canvas clearly echoes Pollock, and that's a bad thing, I guess, unless it's a slipcover for the couch. 
3. Additionally, I think Art should be affordable, everyone should make art (so, I don't really poo-poo the plein air painter), and everyone should have "original" art to display in their homes and offices (i.e. something made by had, not by machine).  Clearly I don't think this should be everyone's living. I think it should be something they know how to do. That they shouldn't be limited to avenues of representation. That they should be open to a broad range of ideas, disciplines, and work. (I fully accept not all art made from my project will be good.) 
4. Of course there are some notions of subverting the function of the gallery space: Of making the gallery space interactive and collaborative: Of changing convention and expectations. Working with Mark Cameron Boyd opened me up to some of these ideas. And I can't ignore how popular the ideas has become to others, for example Reuben Breslars' Sketch (ironically, at Transformer), and Eames Armstrong's Smutty Valentine, artists leading artists in community art-making activities is nothing new. However, I (and I assume they also) don't want this to be limited to just artists. 
5. Finally, I've been wanting to write a book. I've been wanting to make a game. This project is a convergence of those two whims.

The game is selling for $30 ea. Half of all sales will go to the Tulk Family Education and Assistance Fund.

An Inaugural Story

A few months ago, Washington City Paper put out a call for fiction, published in an issue at the beginning of the year. My submission was not accepted for publication (and after a quick re-read, I can see why -- the accepted stories were better). And, it isn't entirely fiction: most of it happened. First the story, then the summary.

-->

"I think we might miss the inauguration," Mark said to Franz, pulling shut the door behind him. Snow fell throughout the evening, and both men were making fresh impressions on the back patio.

Franz smiled. "I suppose we could walk there."

Mark scowled at the thought, and replied, "No." The two were staying in a home near the National Cathedral, and the day before they had walked down Massachusetts Avenue to the Phillips Collection, which worked a blister into the sole of Mark's foot.

Mark lit his pipe. Franz dragged on his cigarette and softly chuckled. As he sucked the flame into his pipe, Mark’s eyes shifted towards Franz. "The look on that guard's face!" Franz reminisced.

Mark smiled. Duncan Philips had acquired several of his paintings since the mid 1950s, and he wanted to go down to see the new room that housed them. Upon seeing how they were hung, he wasn’t happy. So, he decided to rehang them. A guard yelled at him to step away from the work, not to touch the Rothkos. In kind, Mark glared at them: an old man with sore feet. "I painted the goddamned things and I'll rehang them as I see fit." He then forced a smile in the direction of the guard and added, "It would be helpful if you could fetch me a hammer."

The guard didn't budge until a woman arrived, touching the guard on the arm and addressing him by name, “Oh! Hi, Frank. I’ve been looking for someone.” The woman managed a little cooperative gallery nearby, and frequented the Philips Collection often enough to know the staff by name. She was playing host to Mark and Franz for the week. "Can you help this gentleman rehang his work, please?"

The guard looked at the woman in disbelief. "You know these men?" He asked. "Oh! Of course,” she exclaimed. “This is Mark Rothko and Franz Kline," she said, gesturing to the two painters. The guard’s jaw fell slack. "They've been invited to town to attend the inauguration," the woman added. Many people come to see an inauguration. Not as many are actually invited. "I'll see if I can find a hammer for you," the guard responded before slinking away.

*   *   *

In December, Mark and Franz received their invitations. Both men were surprised by the gesture. To their knowledge, they had never heard of a painter attending any of Eisenhower’s inaugurations, let alone Truman’s or Roosevelt’s. They asked around, and after talking with their colleagues, they were equally surprised to learn who hadn’t been invited. De Kooning sulked in Kline’s studio when asked about it. “Why the hell wasn’t I invited?” His accent thickened from drink. “Gee, Bill. I don’t know,” Franz replied, shrugging his shoulders. “What do you say we grab some breakfast?” Why artists had been invited at all was still unanswered.

“I have a friend who is high-up in the Democratic Party. She’s a friend of Jack’s,” their hostess explained over dinner. “She has his ear from time-to-time.” As their hostess recounted, Jack asked the friend, who asked a collector, who suggested the woman hosting the painters. Shortly after the election, she had been invited to the president-elect’s office. “What can I do to help support the arts?” He inquired. The little gallery she managed was moderately successful, and out of sheer chutzpah she had managed to create tremendous connections to New York for her artists, and exhibited national and international artists in Washington. In a later era she might have suggested policies or museums. Instead, she focused on the same kind of exposure she sought to give her artists. “Why not invite some artists to the inauguration?” It was all she suggested. Kennedy agreed, and later asked her for a list of artists to invite.

*   *   *

Eight inches of snow were on the ground. Prospects of making the inauguration were grim. The army had been called in to clear the streets for the inaugural parade. The radio reported that the nation’s elder statesman, Herbert Hoover, was unable to make the flight to Washington because of the weather. And, there was still no word on whether a car would make it up the hill to pick up the two painters.

As they stood out back smoking, they appreciated the construction of the National Cathedral. “It’s incredible to think they’ve been working on that thing for fifty years,” Franz thought aloud. “At the rate they’re going it looks like it won’t get completed in our life time,” Mark replied. "How was the attic last night?" Franz inquired. "Okay. Better than having to stay out in the country," Mark replied. "Did you and Betsy sleep okay in the basement?" Franz nodded.

"I suppose if we don't show we won't be missed. Just faces in the crowd, I imagine," Franz thought aloud.

"Yeah." Mark replied before drawing more smoke into his mouth. "But we'll be seated in the crowd behind the president, Franny. Not the crowd in front of the president."

Franz smiled and looked at Mark. "I hate when you call me Franny." He dropped his extinguished cigarette into the snow.

The two men returned inside from their morning smoke, removing their shoes at the door. “Keep your coats on,” their hostess said. The home was alive with activity as her children played in a nearby room. While the men were outside smoking, their hostess learned that no car was being sent. “My husband will take you downtown in our car.” Franz took off his coat. “I suppose we should change first.”  He tossed the coat over a dining chair and poured himself a cup of coffee before returning to the basement to change. Mark looked at the hostess through heavy-set eyes. Her perky smile receded and she apologized for the inconvenience. A sly grin turned his mouth upward as he removed his coat and placed it over the back of a dining chair. “To think, we’ve been invited to the inauguration of the President of the United States. And we’re going to it in a station wagon.” He shook his head. “Who would believe it?” He turned to the stairs and walked up to the attic in his socked feet.

In 1960, John Kennedy invited a few artists to the inauguration. Two of them were Franz Kline and Mark Rothko. While in town, Rothko rehung his paintings at the Phillips Collection, and according to one first hand account (which conflicts with the Phillips website of "suggesting changes") he did not have permission to do it. (Also a note: Kline was not actually there to witness the rehanging, and Rothko didn't walk down Mass Ave to see the work - that's fiction.)

Because the two men were staying in a home near the National Cathedral, and because it snowed a bunch, they were driven to the inauguration in a station wagon, and dropped off.

Good Art / Bad Art

I'll be part of a panel discussion on Good Art/Bad Art at Hillyer Arts Center on Wednesday. Also on the panel are Bill Dunlap, Artist, Critic for WETA Around Town show, Curator; Harriet Lesser, Curator, Strathmore Center for the Arts and Artist; and Michael O'Sullivan, Visual Arts and Film Critic for the Washington Post.

I've been picking my brain about what to talk about. So many examples:

• Jon McNaughton's paintings of Obama.
• Sam (im)Basile's ludicrous video about an historical figure he surreptitiously named George.
• Maybe something a little less political and public, like the artist who earned Lenny Campello's superlative "The Scariest Pussy Award" at Artomatic this year.
• The Statue of Liberation

Picking on bad art is easy.
So is picking out the good stuff.

What's probably going to happen is a discussion on how we qualify the good from the bad, and then probably discuss - to some length - why either deserves the merit of conversation.

Come on down!
September 19, 2012 7-8:30 p.m.
Hillyer International Art and Artists
9 Hillyer Court
Washington DC 20008
Free and Open to All

My September Shows/Events.

Sept. 7 - The DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities is hosting a ribbon cutting fat 4:00 to celebrate the opening of the gallery in their new space in Canal Park: 200 Eye Street, SE.  Also in the exhibit are Anna U. Davis, Khahn H. Le, Scott G. Brooks, Alexandra Silverthorne, Asmara Marek, Barbara Liotta, Colin Winterbottom, Janis Goodman, Judy Southerland, Mary Early, Michael Iacovone,  Rik Freeman, Siobhan Rigg, and Gediyon Kiflemoving. Works from my Gun Show will be on exhibit, to include several of the text pieces (Quotes from articles about Heller Vs. DC), and my Flash Video DC Homicides, 2006-2010.

Unfortunately I could not be in attendance for the ribbon cutting because this week I've been installing...



Sept. 8 - "City Limits: site95 at Locust Projects" organized by Meaghan Kent
site95 is a non-profit organization founded by Meaghan Kent, and she's been organizing art exhibitions in temporary spaces in NY, DC, and MIA. In June she invited me to exhibit works in the Project Room at Locust Projects in Miami. I'll be exhibiting bits from various recent projects, to include  JOB Creation Project, Hours of Labor (which was featured last in WPA's Options 2011), and Maintenance Required. The main space of Locust Projects is featuring work by Adam Putnam, and his work is pretty rad: he's transformed the room and it reminds me of Bologna, and he's been building columns out of bricks. The show runs through Oct. 17.

Sept. 13 -  Campaign Re/Form, curated by Holly Bass, at Greater Reston Arts Center in Virginia

If you need a JOB, the JOB Creation Project will be on display from Sept 13 - Oct. 27

also exhibiting are, Holly Bass, Kashuo Bennett, Graham Boyle, COLON:Y (chukwuma agubokwu and Wilmer Wilson IV), Dana Ellyn, Blake Fall-Conroy, Delphine Fawundu-Buford, Kate Kretz, Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky), and Renee Stout


Also Sept 13 - reception for Empowered in the Marlboro Gallery at Prince George's Community College, 6:30 - 8:30
In the past year I've been able to curate a few exhibits for my college; Empowered is my third. Simply put, the exhibit intends to empower our student population to engage social/political subject matter and experiment with various approaches and media.  Artists include Selin Oguz Balci, Iwan Bagus, Heather Boaz, David S. D'Orio, Laura Elkins, Tom Greaves, Linda Hesh, Melissa Ichiuji, Siobhan Rigg, roycrosse, Amber Hawk Swanson, and Lina Vargas De La Hoz.






Sept 19 - Panel Discussion at Hillyer International Art, 7:00 PM
Our discussion will be BAD ART/GOOD ART. Panel includes Harriet Lesser, Michael O'Sullivan, and Bill Dunlap.
 

Sept. 25 - Politics as Usual, Rice Gallery at McDaniel College, Westminster, MD.
I'll exhibit new works that explore Hollywood archetypes of our elected officials, and allow students to vote on the 10 chosen candidates (via butterfly punch ballot). Lawn signs will clutter (a small portion of) the campus. Painted quotes of Empty Rhetoric will hang from the walls. Students can proudly display conflicting party arguments on their cars with a series called "Bumper Sticker Politics," and there may be a few more surprises to display.




And, if you happen to be riding the Red Line in DC, and find yourself at the Bethesda Metro, it the pedestrian path under Wisconsin Ave and take a look at the piece selected by the Bethesda Urban Partnership last May as a part of Tunnel Vision. BUP said it might be up there for a year or longer. So, check it out before May 2013.

Lighten Up Congress: Let Frederick Douglass Into Statuary Hall

The content below was written for Washington City Paper's blog on June 7, but never published, mostly because I didn't get to the edits fast enough in time for the post to be relevant. (Illness will do that.) So, here is my sardonic editorial. 

============================

D.C., as we all know, has no voting rights in Congress. Now it seems Congress is also hesitant to allow even another D.C. delegate in the building, even if he's made of bronze. As National Journal reported earlier this week:

A five-year fight to get abolitionist Frederick Douglass inside the Capitol has apparently ended in an impasse, with the life-size statue of the 19th-century hero left standing in a District of Columbia government building about four blocks off the Hill.

As the article mentions, petitions to for the U.S. Capitol complex to display the statue of Frederick Douglass, as well as for Pierre Charles L'Enfant---the architect and civil engineer who designed the city of Washington, D.C.---have been rejected by the Architect of the Capitol's office because current law states:

the President is hereby authorized to invite each and all the States to provide and furnish statues, in marble or bronze, not exceeding two in number for each State, of deceased persons who have been citizens thereof, and illustrious for their historic renown or for distinguished civic or military services such as each State may deem to be worthy of this national commemoration;

Maine Rep. Justin S. Morrill proposed the National Statuary Hall, which became law in 1864. According to the Architect of the Capitol's website, the hall eventually became so crowded with statues that Congress had to pass a resolution in 1933 that allowed for the statues to be relocated to other parts of the Capitol complex; that resolution was made law in 2000.  One motivation for relocating some statues stemmed from structural concerns: The chamber could not support the weight of all the statues.

In the 1800s, it may have made sense to exclude non-states from the hall: In 1864, There were 35 states in the U.S., and there was likely some assumption that the territories in the middle of the country might one day become states. At the time, excluding statuary representation made some sense, since these territories were sparsely populated, their functions were ever-changing (Oklahoma was an Indian territory), and so were their boundaries (for example, the Dakota Territory included North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and parts of Idaho and Montana). There was also room to speculate the unlikely possibility hat some territories could become independent republics, as Texas once was and as California once considered. Time and migration would sort those issues out.

But D.C. is unlikely to become an independent republic, and its boundaries are not likely to change (except through retrocession). Though laws prohibiting a statue representing D.C. likely parallel the laws that prohibit D.C. from having representation in either chamber of the legislative branch, despite having a population larger than the state of Wyoming, in this instance all we are asking for is a statue.
We understand, Congress: D.C. is just a pawn on your little chess board. However, for two hundred years that pawn has had an identity and a culture---one that has had an impact on the greater nation.

We could be asking for a statue of Chuck Brown or Duke Ellington, both of whom have made significant contributions musically. We could be asking for a statue for Gene Davis, Ken Noland, Alma Thomas, or Anne Truitt, all of whom have had some impact on the history of fine art. Heck, given the popularity of the place, we might find justification for a statue of Chili Bowl founder Ben Ali. Instead, we're asking to be represented by a man who escaped slavery and became a prominent abolitionist arguing for equal rights as well as for women's suffrage. Though Morrill argued for "the reception of such statuary as each state shall elect to be deserving," 150 years later can't we see past the language and accept that Morrill argued for a hall of statues representing great Americans? Last time I checked, the citizens of DC were also Americans.

Let D.C. be represented by a statue of Frederick Douglass. You don't even have to give him a provisional vote in committee. In fact, he'll do what you wish Eleanor Holmes Norton would do: Be off in a corner somewhere being quiet.

Painting into Sculpture

I've been fortunate enough to curate a couple of exhibitions for my college's art gallery. In March I started organizing Painting into Sculpture...

an exhibition of painting that embraces the physical space beyond the rectangle. The featured work explores the terrain where painting becomes sculptural through various methodologies: stacking panels, activating negative space, stripping the medium from the support, using objects that function as paint, shaping the canvas, and reducing the brush stroke to an object.

The exhibition runs June 4 – July 19 and features artists Dennis Dake, Don Kimes, J.T. Kirkland, Donald Martiny, Eugene Markowski, Kris Scheifele, and Dan Tulk. By tomorrow, the catalog should be printed!

If you are interested to come out to the college and see it, gallery hours are 9:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M. Monday – Thursday, and 9:00 A.M. – 3:00 P.M. Friday. We'll have a reception June 28, 6:30 – 8:30 P.M.

Hydrants on View at Strathmore

Off to the  Strathmore tomorrow with some hydrants from 2010 that I created as a part of my solo exhibition at the Arlington Arts Center in the spring of 2010. The hydrants were a response to the broken hydrants being tagged and replaced throughout DC.

In a couple of weeks the hydrants get a new life in an exhibition entitled "Unleashed!" running from April 28 - June 23. The focus of the exhibition is about dogs. Architects are designing one-of-a-kind dog houses for the exhibition, and a portion of sales go to benefit local animal organizations as well as the visual art dept. at Strathmore.

 

Presidential Branding

The Obama Sunrise logo

It's primary Tuesday in the District and Maryland. Despite all of the partisan squabble that perforates decency and punctuates the need for candidates to discuss how they would actually handle the issues with realistic and measurable solutions, in this election cycle one thing seems to have improved slightly over past years: the branding. For the past few decades the bumper stickers and buttons of hopeful public stewards have been predominantly limited to visual references of Old Glory - stars and bars - sometimes quite literally as evidenced by Sam Brownback's presidential bid in 2008. Others have manipulated elements of it, like Huckabee in '08, or like Pawlenty in '11, whose design was complicated by a hint of Lady Liberty.

The big iconic shift in presidential branding happened in 2008 with the Obama sunrise logo. The genius behind the log was how it repurposed the bar, bending a blue bar into the top half of an O, and the remaining bars into a bending road or the rows of a farm field. It also signaled the messaging of the campaign by depicting the hope brought with the sunrise of a new day. However this was not the first time a president had been reduced to a branded image. Some campaign paraphernalia for Obama's predecessor had reduced the Bush 43 to a single letter, a W.

All of this year's challenging contenders have learned something from the visual playbook of the incumbent, albeit conservatively. The stripe still dominates. Red and white stripes billow under the name Newt. They also got squeezed across the cross bar of Bachmann's H, and explode from a vanishing point over the crossbar of Paul's A. Stripes area also visible in the Romney R, like a billowing flag from the Netherlands.

Jon Huntsman took the page from the Bush branding and reduced his name to the fractured H, which looked more like cast off typography from the Avaya branding campaign. More dynamic have been the Cain torch and the Santorum eagle. The torch of Liberty has been the most intriguing of devices applied to campaign branding this season, but unfortunately it held no reference to the candidate the way a Stetson did for LBJ in '64, a hole in the shoe did for Adlai Stevenson in '52 and '56, or the way a sunflower did for Alf Landon in '36. It also failed to integrate within the name of the candidate the way Santorum's eagle freely glides past the O of stars.

Despite integrating with the name, Santorum's design possesses two conflicts.  First is the eagle. While symbolically the flying eagle suggests freedom, previous candidates (Wallace in '72 and '76, and Romney in '08) have only used the head of the eagle. It could be because an eagle body gets a little difficult to persuade into a design - and the soaring eagle in Santorum's design does a fair job of it. However, full-span eagles with rigid design can also be erroneously associated with the perched eagle of the National Socialist German Workers Party. Who would want that? (It would take away any credibility of comparing Obama to Hitler.) Of bigger curiosity is the significance of the seemingly arbitrary 22 stars. Santorum is from the 2nd state in the union, not Alabama, the 22nd. Does it represent the 22 states that pushed for legislation restricting voting rights by pushing photo I.D. requirements at polling places, or perhaps it is a reference to the 22nd Amendment? When the design is vague it is at best a visual accent, like an underline. But when the content possesses symbolism - like a torch or an eagle - and is repeated - like a star - it needs some added context to justify its placement, otherwise it is irrelevant cuteness, like a bow on a shoe.

The push in design hasn't trickled down well into local politics, at least not well in DC. Most candidates seem to revitalize their old color schemes and design, like Delano Hunter in Ward 5 who has recycled his green and yellow postage stamp poster from previous years. Eleanor Homes Norton has tacked the dome of the capital onto her yard signs. The only innovative branding approach has been Teri Galvez's pink elephant, which signifies one of two things, either she is a Republican that treads through cliched depictions of femininity, or I'm drinking too much. (Everywhere I go I see pink elephants!)

With any luck, in future years the branded identities of politicians will get better and better. And, if the issues of campaign reform have been any indication, maybe we'll see some cross over. Perhaps a politician will wear a jump suit covered in logos like a Nascar driver, and we'll be able to see the various sponsors that have contributed to the campaign. Or, better still, since corporations are people too, maybe well-branded corporations will run in future years.

Habitat for Humanity Auction Piece, and stuff in a Bethesda Tunnel

Habitat for Humanity, DC,  has organized a fundraiser through ArtNet Auctions. I've contributed one of my recent works for auction, courtesy of Adah Rose Gallery. This is the link to the work. And this is the link to bid on other art in the auction.

To add to the excitement of bidding on my work, I learned on Friday that one of my pieces from the series of "Building Blocks" was accepted into Tunnel Vision. Tunnel Vision is organized by the Bethesda Arts and Entertainment District/Bethesda Urban Partnership, and it is installing a dozen art works in a pedestrian tunnel under Wisconsin Avenue at the Bethesda metro stop on the Red Line.

A note from Saturday's Opening.

At the opening the other night, I received the following comment about my work.

"I'm completely pedestrian when it comes to this stuff, and I don't know a thing about art, but I just love the color in your pieces. And then I spend all kinds of time trying to figure out which logos these letters belong to."

I told her she was doing it right. She was! I got similar responses from people throughout the night: the color, the logos, possible word games, memories.

There is little point to over-thinking a work of art, meaning: you shouldn't have to spend a lot of time looking at it and thinking, "what the hell is this about?" Granted, sometimes it is important to think about context, place, current events, etc. But, if the work is doing its job right, it'll give you things to think about - things to look for.

A few years back, a show in Alexandria, featuring Four Letter Words did the same thing. People started looking at blocks of words, they found words of interest, they recalled what the homonyms and homophones meant, and then they looked for relationships between words. Art should be fun, from time-to-time.

Me.me. Me me me

I've seen a variety of these floating about Facebook the past few days. So, I thought I'd make one of my own as a satire for all of the others that are floating about the Interwebs. Let's see if it goes viral!

My latest exhibition, upcoming at Adah Rose Gallery.

Below is the text from the press release for my upcoming exhibition at Adah Rose Gallery, in Kensington, MD. The opening is Saturday, February 11, 6:30 -8:30.

“The Pleasures Here Are Well Known”

featuring the work of John James Anderson and Susan Stacks

Opening Reception, Saturday February 11, 6:30-8:30 p.m. February 8 - March 11, 2012

Adah Rose Gallery, 3766 Howard Ave Kensington Md, 20895 www.adahrosegallery.com

Hours: Fri-Sun 12-6 and by appointment.

Music by Walker Road 

John James Anderson
The printed word and the acquisition of language are the principal ideas in the work of John James Anderson. His first series, “Building Blocks,” adopts the playful vocabulary of pop art with familiar logos and graphics which require reading through a lens that is both nostalgic and cerebral. Mr. Anderson creates a graphic alphabet from the eye- catching lettering of soda cans, candy wrappers and cereal boxes. In his second series, “Out of Print,” language and the evolution of our collective literacy is also explored, this time in the decline of print journalism. Mr. Anderson collected the front pages of national newspapers and carefully erases portions of their content, resulting in graphic and poetic musings on the fate of mass communication.

John James Anderson earned two BFAs from Iowa State University in graphic design and fine arts. After earning an MFA in painting from American University, he taught at American University, George Washington University, and The Corcoran College of Art and Design. He is currently Associate Professor of Art at Prince George’s Community College. He has shown extensively in the DC area, most recently at the Arlington Arts Center, Transformer Gallery, Glenview Mansion, and the Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland.

Susan Stacks
Beginning with the unconsciousness of a doodle, but executed with the commitment of surgery, Susan Stacks creates drawings with pencil and pen that are artifacts of a meditative experience. These intricate and elegant works reference landscapes, microscopic forms, and cartography. As she draws, a twist becomes a tug, a dash a dot. Her influences are as varied as novels, mythological figures, plant and bacterial life, rock stars and vending machines. Ms. Stacks refers to her drawings as emotional maps, parasites, friends, and penance.

Susan Stacks recently earned an MFA from the School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. She recieved her BFA, Magna cum laude, in sculpture, art, and visual technology from George Mason University in 2008. During her three years at the University of Michigan, she worked as a Graduate Student Instructor. She has received several grants and fellowships, both as an undergraduate and graduate student, and has exhibited both in Virginia and Michigan. This is her first show at Adah Rose Gallery.

Getting Ready for a New Show

By first broadcasting work from an old show.

In August I exhibited "The Gun Show" at the Washington Project for the Arts. For all of the quotes about Heller vs. DC, or all of the statistics regarding the disparities in Washington, or the failed Second Amendment blog written by James Madison's zombie, an interesting centerpiece for the exhibition was a video that illustrated DC murders between 2006 and 2010.

Lots of them were committed with a fire arm.
 

End of Silver Gelatin Prints at the Library of Congress

Start of a glide, Orville and Wilbur Wright, collection of the Library of Congress

My recent article for Washington City Paper is this week's arts feature. You'll need to read it before reading the blog post.

PROPS TO THE EDITOR
Initially a 2800+ epistle was whittled into a 1500-word essay, and stands as another testament to the relationship between writer and editor. I've been lucky enough to do some freelance writing for CP for the last 16 months, and Jonathan Fischer has been a heckuvan editor (not to take anything away from Erin Engstrom and Ally Schwartz, who have edited most of my smaller ditties for City Lights). I don't know if he has made me a better writer, but he has certainly made my writing look better in print.

THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
Two elements didn't make the print edition.I thought I would share them here.

The first bit was about Jantzen in the 1980s. His first job was working as a preservation technician for the Library of Congress.

The negatives he worked from were not the original negatives. Jantzen knows this first
hand; he used to be employed by the Library in the 1980s as a contracted preservation
technician. One of his responsibilities was quality control on negative duplication. “Part
of my job was to make certain the duplicate matched up with the original. You know. No
big hairs [on the duplicate negative].” Because materials become brittle as they age, the
Library of Congress duplicated the negatives in their collection so they could continue
to provide duplicate prints of work in the collection without damaging the primary
artifact. “When I first heard of it I thought it was bull shit – that you could not have a
duplicate that would behave the same as the original. And, I was stunned [ at the result].”
He wondered what it would be like to print with the duplicate. 20 years later, he became
that guy.

The second bit that was not included was a note on the developing process.

The process of developing a silver gelatin print lacks the immediacy of digital
photography. The film, a negative image, is dusted off and set in the negative carrier,
which is then placed in the enlarger. Light shines through the negative and projects an
image onto an easel below. To figure out the right exposure, a single sheet of silver
gelatin paper is placed on the easel, and strips are exposed to various durations of light.
The paper is developed through successive liquid baths, which reveal the image and
desensitize the strips of silver within the paper to any further exposure to light. The
various strips determine contrast and brightness, and allows Jantzen to make an informed
decision about how long to expose the print. That first print he likens to a rough draft. Usually
those are good enough for a basic print. However, since he does not know what client
requested the image from the Library of Congress, he has to assume the print must be
exhibition quality.

A second print is exposed, and Jantzen goes through steps called dodging and burning.
Dodging is a process of blocking light to allow more detail to appear within darker
sections of the print. Burning is a process of over-exposing very light sections of the
print, again to allow more detail in those areas of the composition. . “If there was a slight
difference between an almost perfect print and a perfect print, I’ll expose more paper.”
Detailed notes are taken throughout the process. In the end, the prints that require it will
receive spotting and etching. Spotting is the process of adding dabs of dye to the print to
obscure dost spots that affixed to the negative when the original negative was initially
processed. Etching is the process of taking a knife to the final print an scraping away bits

of silver gelatin to reveal more details and value within the darkest parts of the print. The
final step involves toning the prints to give them a warmer quality. 

On a final note: One thing I constantly find of interest is how quickly digital has evolved. This might be the reason why I have chosen to write about the issue with the Library of Congress as well as an early critique of the Photo Annual at Artisphere. I bought my first digital camera in 2003. It was a 5 megapixel (mp) point-and-shoot (pas) and it cost $800 refurbished. Today 5 mp is standard on an iPhone and you can buy a 16 mp pas for around $100.

I Got Vandalized

In April, Christopher Knight via the L.A. Times CultureMonster blog tossed some criticism toward the Washington City Paper (specifically Kriston Capps, Jeffry Cudlin, and I), for an article that made fun of an unsuccessful attack on a Gauguin painting. (Unfortunately we couldn't become web-famous for a day, because he didn't mention us by name... he did call us dumb.) The biggest offense in our blog post was not that we pretended there were other works of art we'd destroy first, but that I claimed to defacing a Sol LeWitt wall drawing weekly. (Which is ludicrous on many levels.) Several other art blogs were upset at us because they expected better. Perhaps they were right. (Though, in our defense, I still maintain that we wrote the piece for the blog of a weekly tabloid four days after April Fool's Day, and that the tabloid gets a large sum of revenue from "adult" shops. The New York Times the Washington City Paper is not.)

Christopher Knight might be tickled pink to learn that Karma has turned its ugly head. Last week,

Friday, a group of MoMA Young Associates came down to see the WPA's Options 2011, amongst a few other stops. They toured the exhibition and listened to some of the artists discuss their works. When it was my turn to speak, I stopped mid-sentence and noticed that someone had amended my installation.

My past couple of blog posts have mentioned this work. It's a series of collaborations with day laborers, whom I hired for 30 minutes to complete an hour of labor, and to discuss their experiences. Most of the laborers are immigrants, and some I learned are illegal. We've discussed labor issues, abusive treatment, sneaking into the country, being unable to sneak out as easily, and personal stories about family, lost love, and politics. I've been fairly fortunate that my work in the exhibition has received some mention in The Washington Post and on Pink Line Project.

The work in the show is an installation of completed projects - documentation, if you will. On the wall behind the saw horses, lumber, fasteners, and tools, are accounts of my conversations with these men. One of the men told me a story about the woman he intended to marry upon his return to Mexico. He hoped to return to Mexico a year after he left. He's been stuck in the States for four years, and she has since married and had a child. He called her Ani, and he wrote her name on a board in nails. As I began to talk about the projects to the MoMA Young Associates I looked down. Some ass hole added a series of nails in the shape of a triangle.

I've worked as a carpenter's assistant. I know it's not uncommon for crews to "correct" the work of a "Mexican" (as some of these men are called by passersby - a lot of them are not from Mexico). This was not work that needed correction. Alas, it is now a part of the piece.

Considering the work is conceptual, and that the story is the more profound piece of art, I don't really think of the work as getting defaced. And, considering the climate of hostility toward illegal immigrants, I think its addition is fitting. I'm still peeved, though.

Here ya go, Google

I was thinking how Google might respond to the passing of Steve Jobs. So far they simply have a link to Apple's home page. I anticipate seeing something like this tomorrow morning, or on the next anniversary of Jobs' birth.

Hours of Labor - WPA's Options 2011

The above piece is from a series of work titled Hour of Labor, wherein I approached a Day Laborer at Home Depot and worked with him for 30 minutes (combined = one hour) on a manual task (sanding, driving screws, building a saw horse, sawing a board, driving nails), while I asked him questions about labor conditions. If he was from another country I might ask him about what brought him to the United States (contrary to some popular belief, not all day laborers are "Mexicans."). Ideally, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my work and my collaborator's work. The above image is certainly one exception.

Four of the five works from the series will be on exhibit beginning tomorrow in Options 2011, the Washington Project for the Arts' biennial exhibition of emerging and unrepresented artists in the region. The exhibit runs through October 29 at 629 New York Avenue NW, 2nd Floor, Washington, DC 20001. (Next to the Midas shop and near Marrakesh restaurant).



The work displayed above was completed with the help of Mauricio, a man from Bolivia. His contribution is on the right, and as you might assume, he was a bit engaged, politically. Of course, we were also using screws, so while he argued in defense of Socialism, he was simultaneously screwing Socialism. Anyway, his story is below the break.

The first in the series exhibited at Aqua Art in 2010 as a part of William Brovelli's Coil Contract installation with Horse Trader Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. The Coil Contract - roughly put - contractually links artist and collector together in a manner that prevents the artist from making a duplicate of the work sold, and prevents the collector from selling or loaning the work. The contract nullifies upon the death of one member int he contract.

So, while Hour of Labor is partly about labor issues and immigration, it also has to do with the art market and art as commodity. So, the work sells for the cost of parts and labor (+ gallery mark-up). So, while the project gets into that Duchampian/Manzoni space of "the artist declares the hammer is an art object," a hammer is still a hammer whether I declare it is art or not, and it would be bullshit to pay $1000 for the same hammer you can buy at Lowe's for $5.


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BOLIVIANS DON’T PLAY GOLF

It had been nearly a year since I produced a work in the series, Hour of Labor. Back then, no swarm of men approached the car. This time it was completely surrounded, as if we were rock stars surrounded by masses of adoring fans. One man tried to get in the car. After some effort we finally got out of the car and negotiated with the mob for one interested person to work for 30 minutes. Expecting to receive hourly wages from the day laborers, most of them insisted I give them a quote for how much the job would pay. Considering the nature of the job, $15 seemed reasonable, and several men returned to the shade of a tree to play cards. Several men seemed to linger to watch, but it was clearly down to two guys – one loud who seemed to know a lot of English, and another guy who was more stoic, and visibly weary of the other loud boorish guy.

The quiet guy won out. He assessed the job and gestured to the drill in his bag. I said we would only use manual screwdrivers. He wanted to know how far apart they should be, and my translator, Ramon, clarified that the placement of screws was entirely up to him. For the next 20 minutes I tried to engage this man in conversation. Every question I asked him received evasive responses. He is who he is, and he was from his country. His family is back home in his country. Often the loud guy answered for him with more specific information, which made my working companion rather frustrated, to the point where he began yelling at him in Spanish. Ramon would later tell me that some of the onlookers would apologize for the loud guy, who apparently was drunk. “He does not represent us,” they said. After 20 minutes had passed, the drunk walked to the card game, and soon after my colleague warmed up enough to tell us his name.

Mauricio was from Bolivia, and the design in his board reminded me of Pinocchio in profile. I had asked some frivolous questions about food and futbol, which resulted in vary unsatisfying answers. Since our half hour was nearly over, I asked if he had questions for me, and he wanted to know why we were not using drills. I explained that I found some parallel between how laborers felt at a disadvantage when they began to be replaced by machines, and how some people claim that imported labor puts domestic laborers at a disadvantage because they might cost less. When I saw that the half hour had concluded, I let Mauricio know we were finished.

He wanted to keep working. He wanted to finish his design.

Mauricio came to the US for work. In Bolivia there was no work. For years the government had been corrupt and there were no jobs and no money. I asked if Morales was to blame for the lack of work, and he said he thought things were beginning to improve under Morales because he was a democratically elected Socialist, and he got rid of all the corrupt politicians that preceded him.

Mauricio railed against Capitalism, which I described as a vicious circle of the people blaming the president, the president blaming business, and business blaming the need to satisfy investors and patrons – which are the people. It’s a system that works great if you are at the top, but someone always has to be at the bottom. “Exactly!” Mauricio said, loudly, slapping his hand on the trunk of my car. Capitalism makes rich states and poor states, and capital enterprise, from his perspective, has turned Bolivia into nothing but golf courses; the only jobs for Bolivians are maintaining the golf courses (for foreigners), and Bolivians don’t play golf. The conversation remained political throughout the next half hour, and it became clear what Mauricio was designing: a sickle and hammer.

With his design finished I pulled out my wallet to pay him. Mauricio just shook his head. For him, this was not a real job. “I no take.” Ramon, my interpreter, and I just looked at each other, dumbfounded. I urged, “how much?”

“No. I no take. I’m a Socialist,” replied Mauricio, and he walked away, disappearing in the parking lot.