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2008 Fall Visual Arts Preview

By Gary Tischler & John Blee

September 3rd 2008

Image: The Chicago Seven: Lee Weiner, John Froines, Abbie Hoffman, Rennie Davis, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Dave Dellinger, Chicago, September 25, 1969 - The Richard Avedon Foundation

Photography, always a prominent presence at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, has become a really big deal there. Last year, it was the back-to-back dynamic duo of Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz exhibitions.

Come September, Richard Avedon, who passed away in 2004, proves that he is nothing if not very much alive with the big block-buster exhibition “Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power”, which opens to the public September 13.

It’s an exhibition that’s resonates like the cries of a town crier in Washington, where power and  its various byproducts and afflictions of money, fame, glory, ambition, and celebrity, are the roots of the city’s identity and existence.

Paul Roth, the Corcoran’s Curator of Photography and Media Arts and the curator of this large, and wide-ranging exhibition, knows that simply because of its subject, not to mention the allure of Avedon himself, there will be some media heat generated here.

“Simply because of the subject, because its about power and therefore politics, and because the times are what they are, that we’re coming to the climax of a historic election year, it’s bound to be a little controversial,” Roth, who was the curator of the Leibovitz exhibition last year, said. “This is Washington, and a good many of the portraits in this exhibition are part of Washington history and lore, and many of them are still key players in what’s going on now.”

The exhibition spans a range of time from the 1950s to as late as 2004. The very last photograph in the 350-page book (published by Steidl), it should be noted, is that of Barack Obama, looking out open-faced into the camera, at us, looking, for all the world, full of anticipation.

“Avedon published many books, and here, what you’re doing is dealing with a  book and an exhibition by cherry-picking through particular projects, individual portraits, and different sources centered around a theme of power, and powerful people, ” Roth said. “It’s difficult, but its also exhilarating. Avedon saw power as not just a matter of politics. There are people you expect to see here, Kissinger, for instance, the famous shot of Reagan, and so on. But there are also lawyers, artists, rock and roll stars, actors, people who participate and influence.”

“Avedon, I think, was fascinated by people who deal in power,” Roth said. “I think what this book and exhibition is, what he was doing, was examining and pursuing the true nature of power in his portraits. “

When we talked to Roth at the Corcoran, he and his collaborators at the Corcoran were still putting the exhibition together.  If you think of electoral politics and national history as a continuing narrative, people rising and falling, conflicts ebbing and flowing, then Avedon’s work in this exhibition is a kind of “Illiad” of personalities and prominent players.

“There is the exhibition, and there’s the book,” Roth said. “In putting this exhibition together, we’ve tried to get everything that’s in the book, or almost everything. But you’re not duplicating the book. They’re two different things, two different effects.”

Roth, who also has worked at the National Gallery of Art, and at the Corcoran curated exhibitions by Sally Mann and last year’s Leibovitz show, said he tries not to be obtrusive in his curatorial work. “The idea for me is to do the work and the artist justice, not just to respect the work, but to show it with the artist’s intentions in the best way, and in consideration of the venue and the setting. It’s not about the curator, it’s about the artist and the work, because otherwise you add another authorial or creative voice to the whole thing.”

“Richard Avedon,” he said, “is, to me, no question, the most important American portrait photographer.  And this work,  made over decades, is so reflective of what w’ere doing now, of this election, of all these people of power from the past 50 years, they offer a vital lesson about power.”

Roth prefers working with living artists. “That’s a real joy to me, that cooperative and collaborative aspect of curatorial work,” he said. “Sally Mann, or Annie. Curating an exhibition is always a collaborative project, with all the people involved. When you have the artist to work with, that’s special.“

Avedon is considered to be America’s pre-eminent fashion photographer, a genre that did not prevent him from becoming a major photographic portraitist and artist. His work found its way into pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Rolling Stone and the New Yorker, at the last and often, they ended up as books.

“He wanted his work to be seen,” Roth said. “That sounds obvious. But he wanted it to be accessible to the most number  of people possible. He wasn’t as concerned about exhibitions as he was about making things permanent in the form of books.”

One of his most memorable forays into historic, here-and-now photography was “Nothing Personal” in 1964, a vivid, but ultimately, not well-received chronicle of the civil rights movement. He photographed the Beatles and in 1976, came up with “The Family”, a photographic project commissioned by Rolling Stone Magazine, consisting of 69 large portraits of government bureaucrats, lawyers, lobbyists, business  and union leaders, a veritable family portrait of America’s power establishment. Later, he captured the Kennedy Years in retrospect in a New Yorker essay called “Exiles: The Kennedy Court at the End of the American Century.” You can imagine.

In one way or another, the princes of the court, the protesters and presidents, the hangers-on and the poets, the generals and the men-who-would-be-kings, at zenith or in twilight will be here in this exhibition.

“There’s no question that this exhibition will have a special meaning, here and now, in this place and time,“ Roth said.

MORE PHOTOGRAPHS AT AN EXHIBITION

If the Richard Avedon exhibition promises to be a perfect show for Washington, there’s lots of other photograph exhibitions coming up.  Here’s a sampling:

Wounded Cities: Photographs by Leo Rubinfien--The Corcoran is also the site of this unusual and very contemporary exhibition of images by photographer Leo Rubinfien, who, in the aftermath of 9/11, which he experienced but did not photograph, has tried to capture through photographs the lingering moods of cities and people affected by terrorism or its possibilities. These images are of daily life and tension in such places as Tokyo, London, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Istanbul, Daar es Salam and Jerusalem. Begins October 18.

Oceans, Rivers and Skies--The National Gallery of Art is host to a beautiful series of landscape, or natural photographs by a trio of American masters. On display are the ten classic “cloud” photographs by photography’s icon and master Alfred Stieglitz; five iconic photographs by Ansel Adams and six by Robert Adams.  Begins  October 12.

Women--Women are both the subjects and the artists in two major exhibitions at, respectively, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

“Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography” is a major exhibition featuring the works of two generations of major female photographers over the past 30 years as they pertained to female role models. Featured artists include such familiar names as Nan Golden, Mary Ellen Marks, the mysterious Cindy Sherman, Sally Mann Catherine Opie and Nikki S. Lee at the NMWA beginning October 17.

The National Portrait Gallery looks at famous American women of achievement as photographed by famous photographers in “Women of Our Time: Twentieth Century Photographs” beginning October 10.  Included are portraits of Amelia Earhart, Margaret Wise Brown, Althea Gibson, Marilyn Monroe, Georgia O’Keeffe, Gertrude Stein and Wendy Wasserman, among many others, as photographed by the likes of Lisette Model, Irving Penn, Lotte Jacobi and Edward Steichen, among others.

One Life: The Mask of Lincoln--Also at the National Portrait Gallery, beginning November 7, is a focus exhibition on the theme of how Abraham Lincoln used the new medium of photography to define his image and includes rare as well as familiar images.

Looking in: Robert Frank’s “The Americans”--This exhibition (at the National Gallery of Art) won’t be on the horizon until January 18, but it’s worth noting here since these photographs and the accompanying book were a landmark effort to come up with a portrait of America and its people in 1959. It’s considered the most important book of photography published since World War II and this exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Frank’s book with 83 sequential photographs.

AT THE MUSEUMS

In this upcoming visual arts season, there’s no new museums like the Newseum. But there are old favorites with a new look or new components.

On Friday, November 21, for instance, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will reopen in spectacular fashion after a two-year, $85 million renovation, centered on the core of the building.

The new-looking museum will feature a five-story atrium hall surrounded by some 400 objects showcasing the museum’s range of offerings from a collection of approximately three million objects.

A highlight here is an architectural representation of a waving U.S. flag made of 960 reflective tiles framing the entrance to the new Star Spangled Banner gallery. The gallery is a climate-controlled, state-of-the-art chamber designed to evoke the “dawn’s early light.”

The renovation focused on architectural enhancements to the center core, with a grand staircase and a skylight; construction of the new Star Spangled gallery; and updates to the 44-year-old building’s infrastructure. The actual Star Spangled flag will be housed in the building with a dramatic new display. The  banner will be displayed horizontally, per U.S. flag code.

The newly renovated museum will also house one of five drafts of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Loads of new exhibitions will be presented throughout the coming year after the grand re-opening, one of them being “On The Water: Stories of Maritime America”, a spectacular 8,000 square foot exhibition opening in the spring of 2009.

Speaking of water, the new Sant Ocean Hall opens September 27 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

The  new  Sant Hall will contain a combination of 647 marine specimens and models, high-definition video experiences, one of a kind exhibitions and new technology which will allow visitors to explore the ocean’s past, present and future.

The hall is named for Washington philanthropists Roger and Vicki Sant who donated $15 million to the project.

Some highlights include “Ocean Odyssey” a high-definition film which will be shown on the walls of the exhibition space, a model of a 45-foot-long North Atlantic right whale, a 24-foot-long giant squid suspended in a tank and lots of other eye-popping and mind boggling sights, exhibits and experiences.

POMPEII BEFORE THE BIG BANG AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

If there is such a thing as a block-buster exhibition, then “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples” set to begin at the National Gallery of Art October 19 probably fits the bill.

The exhibition is of some 150 sculptures, paintings, and decorative arts created by artists who flocked to the villas of wealthy Romans in the Bay of Naples in the city that lay in the shadows of  Mount Vesuvius. We all know the outcome, but in the meantime, the art and artifacts of this exhibition manage to recreate a culturally rich world in the Roman and Greek styles, created by artists from all over the ancient world.

The exhibition reveals the shared tastes, heavily influenced by the ancient Greeks, of the wealthy aristocratic villa and landowners as well as the merchants and city residents in and around Pompeii.

Kicking off the museum season at the NGA is “George de Forest Brush: The Indian Paintings”, beginning September 14, and featuring the works Brush, who ventured out West and lived with Indian tribes in Wyoming and Montana in the 1880s. The result was a series of remarkable studio creations,  including  “An Aztec Sculptor”, an important work missing for nearly a century.  The career of Dutch painter Jan Lievens (1607-1674) will get a look-see beginning October 26 in an exhibition of 45 paintings as well as drawings and prints.

- Continued after Photo -

Photo: Art provided by Digital Arts Copies - Part of The Homeless Exibit

AT THE KATZEN CENTER

That splendid building at American University just off Ward Circle has become, since its opening, a place for original, surprising and provocative exhibitions, often coming in bunches.

This year’s no different. Consider, for instance, “Close Encounters: Facing the Future”, described as “a compelling dialogue on social issues  disguised as a contemporary art exhibition.” The exhibition, a part of “BrushFire”, an innovative national arts initiative which encourages social activist art, opens September 12.

But that’s not all. There’s “Ricardo Galero. Goya. Dispartes…Continuity of an Unfinished Project” opening on September 9, which consists of a series of engravings by Spanish artists Francisco de Goya y Lucientes and Ricardo Calero. There’s Sandow Birk’s “The Depravities of War”, made up of woodcuts on the Iraq war, and shown alongside Jacques Callot’s “The Miseries of War”, a series of 18 etchings illustrating the horrors of the Thirty Years War in Europe, showing nothing much has changed. The exhibition opened September 2 as did Alexandre Arrechia’s “Mistrust.”

AND HERE’S A FEW MORE

At the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden--”Recent Acquisitions from the Collection of Count Giuseppe Panza”. Thirty-nine important works from the 1960s and 1970s, from Count Panza, one of the foremost collectors of contemporary American and European art, will be on display beginning October 23.

The Phillips Collection--”Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Over the River” begins October 13 and is a work in progress featuring 150 photographs, collages, drawings and maps. It chronicles the fabled constructionists as they prepare to assemble suspended, massive silvery fabric panels over the Arkansas River in Colorado.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts--Mary Cassatt, arguably one of THE most famous women artists (and impressionists) is the star in “Mary Cassatt: Friends and Family” beginning November 21. The exhibition explores the theme of friendship and family in her life, her work and influential works by other artists on the same themes.

National Archives--”1783: Subject or Citizen”,  which examines the climax of the American Revolutionary War and has as a special treat, the definitive treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain signed in Paris. Maps, treaties, and history very much alive, beginning October 3.

National Museum of African Art--”Desert Jewels: North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermes Collection” beginning October 6. Items from the renowned Paris fashion empire.

The Renwick Gallery--Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern Renaissance in Glass”. A first thorough examination of the artist revered as a master of glass blowing beginning October 3.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum--”Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities” beginning September 26. Landscapes from a great painter and a great American photographer and how they shared lives, outlooks and “affinities”.

Artful Fall in DC - By John Blee

Image: Art provided by LongViewGallery - By Savoie “GoodBoy-ScoutsHonor”

“Tis the beginning of the season for DC art, after the doldrums of an actually mostly pleasant summer!  There is plenty of bounty to pick in the fall line up, and the scene is diverse and energized. Galleries are spread out all over the city even emerging out into the suburbs. As the museums in DC either completely ignore the city in which they reside, or barely nod to it, the galleries play the only real role in fostering the art community.  The Katzen Center has started, with Jack Rasmussen, to correct some of the deficit. There is no other major city in the world that has this problem. In fact I remember Annie Adjchavanich, formerly head of the WPA, wryly quoting a curator at the Hirshhorn asking her if there were a DC art scene!
 
Starting off in  Georgetown the venerable Addison/Ripley Fine Art will show Frank Hallam Day’s nocturnal photographs, often in large format, September 6 - October 11; with an opening reception Friday, September, 12, 6-8pm. Following will be Mary Page Evans with her paintings of mountains, fields, and sea, October 18 - November 15. Edith Kuhnle will be featured with paintings December 6 – January 10.

In Canal Square at the Parish Gallery the work of two sculptors, Perci Chester and Barbara Delany will be shown September 19 - October 14.  Following will be paintings by Abdoulaye N’Doye, October 17 - November 18, and the paintings of Antonio Carreno, December 5th - January 17. Parish and a number of other galleries (including Addison/Ripley) will be featuring special work in Foto Week, the week of November 21 - December 2. Parish Gallery is unique in its focus on contemporary visual artists from Africa and the African Diaspora.  Norman Parish states, “The gallery scene in Washington DC is as varied as ever, many new galleries have emerged making the choice of art beneficial to the vaste diversity of the area. Most needed at this time is exposure from the media.”  This is a comment I have heard over and over.

District Fine Arts is currently opening a special event at Bloomingdales in Chevy Chase, “Hit Me With Music!,” a group show featuring paintings and photographs, September 5, – September 14, with an opening reception Friday, September 5, 6-8 pm.  New photographs of dreams and memory by John Trevino will be presented September 6 – November 8.  Then comes Sidney Lawrence with a show of oil portraits, and an illustrated travel diary November 15 – January 17.

At MOCA DC directed by David R. Quammen, is an exhibition featuring the work of homeless artists will be shown September 5 - September 27.  An exhibition focused on art and social issues will be shown October 3 – 25. 

Also in Georgetown, Susan Calloway will be showing Jane Sun in an exhibition entitled “Poetry in Nature” including pastels, September 12 - October 11.  R.J. Matson  comes next with “Cartoons You Can Believe In and The Cartoons You Deserve”, October 17 - October 31. Matson is  the editorial cartoonist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The New York Observer, and Roll Call, and the show will feature his satires.  Robert Rea and Linda Press will show together, November 7 -December 6. 

In Dupont Circle Jane Haslem of the Jane Haslem Gallery says, “We are opening the season with ONE extraordinary new etching by Peter Milton.”  And it is a large and impressive piece. Milton says his aim was to “translate an entirely digital creation into an etched plate which can be printed as a genuine intaglio print.” I was not given dates on the show so please check with the gallery!

At the R Street Gallery Steve Lapin, known for his surreal political assemblages as well as his ceramics has entered into the territory of abstraction in a show entitled Primal Landscapes, September 5 – October 25.  The works still have the electricity of his earlier pieces but swing more cosmically.

The Aaron Gallery will be showing “San Miguel de Allende/Translated,”  recent paintings by Francine Shore and prints by Bianca O’Keefe inspired by the Spanish Colonial Architecture of Mexico, September 5 – 30.  

And the Kathleen Ewing Gallery off on the other side of the Circle will present a very special show “20/40, Twenty Washington Photographers/ Forty Photographs,” September 13 - November 29.  It will include photographs by David Allison, Allen Appel, Frank diPerna, Janos Enyedi, Janet Fries, Allan Janus, Frank Lavelle, Rajesh Nair, Mark Power, Claudia Smigrod, Steve Szabo and Claudio Vazquez.  This special exhibition is designed to honor the Washington photographers represented by the Kathleen Ewing Gallery and to coincide with FotoWeekDC.  Anyone who has not been to this gallery should go for its special ambiance.

And there is ambiance galore at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery where “Three American Masters” will feature works by heavyweights from her stable including Gene Davis, Sam Gilliam, and Nathan Oliveira, September 9 – October 11. The turn of the twentieth century townhouse that houses the gallery retains most of the original wood paneling and in some off beat way it suits works in modernist idiom.

Way off on Seventh Street near the Convention Center, Drew Porterfield is currently showing at the Long View Gallery “Made in China” featuring works by DC artists Dana Ellyn and Matt Sesow, and running through September 20th. The next show features Florida artist, Tony Savoie.  Savoie’s work is reverse painting on clear acrylic, photo collage with painting and objects, October 24 – November 23.  In December affordable art to handmade craft will be featured.

In Alexandria at the Torpedo Factory the Multiple Exposures Gallery will feature the work of Laurie Sand and Suzanne Quinlan, September 2 – October 6.

The Hamiltonian Gallery, the amazing creation of painter, Paul So, will finally be up and about in September.  The first show will feature the work of mentor-artist Nao Matsumoto, and Hamiltonian Fellows Bryan Rojsuontikul and Ian MacLean Davis.

Leigh Conner and Jamie Smith are inaugurating 1358-60 Florida Avenue, NE as the new home of Conner Contemporary Art and *gogo art projects with an opening solo exhibition of new work by Leo Villareal and a group exhibition of recent work by Gallery Artists.  The 7,000 sq ft. ground floor area has been renovated into two galleries, a dedicated media room and an outdoor exhibition space, September 27 – November 9.

Out in Bethesda Fraser Gallery, under the auspices of Catriona Fraser (herself a noted photographer,) will be showing “Transported,” New paintings by artist David FeBland, September 12 - November 8.  Between November 14 - December 6 FotoWeek DC will be celebrated with a group exhibition of photographs by Maxwell MacKenzie, Joyce Tenneson, Lida Moser and others.  Hopefully this all adds up to a great season!

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Image: Art provided by Irvine Contemporary - By Paul D. Miller “Antarctica”