PICTURING POLITICS 2008 at Arlington Arts Center

2008 EXHIBITIONS SCHEDULE AAC
August 15 –September 27, 2008 (Reception September 5)

PICTURING POLITICS 2008:
Artists Speak to Power
Curated by Rex Weil

Artists: Helga Thomson, Renee Stout, Jose Ruiz, Rick Reinhard,
The Pinky Show, Jefferson Pinder and Matt Ravenstahl,
Randall Packer and John Anderson, Independence Fund's
Veterans Art Project and the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum,
Alberto and Victoria Gaitan, Benjamin Edwards, Mary Coble,
Judy Byron, Lisa Blas, Wendy Babcox and Meg Mitchell

Show Dates: August 15 - September 27, 2008
Reception: Friday, September 5, 6:00 - 9:00pm
Location: Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd, Arlington VA
Metro: Orange Line: Virginia Square
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 5 pm

At the Arlington Arts Center this August and September, Washington independent curator, artist, teacher, and critic Rex Weil will present a show focused on the intersection of politics and art-terrain that seldom seems to be explored by artists and galleries in and around the nation's capital.




Picturing Politics 2008 will supply a corrective, examining a wide array of strategies used in the contemporary visual arts for addressing controversial issues and promoting progressive social change-all against the backdrop of a political landscape dominated by mass media.

Nine individual artists and five collaborative projects will be included in seven separate gallery spaces on two floors of the AAC.

The artists and their work:

*
Jose Ruiz: installation addressing the struggles of immigrant workers in Northern Virginia with issues of identity, class and intolerance
*
Randall Packer and John Anderson: multi-media environment featuring video, sound, images culled from mass media, and a gravesite for American democracy
*
Alberto and Victoria Gaitan: video and sound installation exploring the politics of sexual identity


*
Mary Coble: video from her Aversion series, exploring the history of using electroshock therapy to "treat" homosexuality
*
Lisa Blas: installation and sculpture riffing on 'men on horses' monuments and other symbols of domination and power
*
Judy Byron: installation and sound, highlighting women's personal and political priorities
*
Rick Reinhard: photographs documenting political demonstrations in the Metro Washington, DC area
*
Benjamin Edwards: prints depicting a hyper-real version of the local landscape and the instruments of power and commerce it reflects
*
Jefferson Pinder and Matt Ravenstahl: their new performative video, Passive Resistance, investigates the human capacity to resist and maintain dignity in the face of violence
*
Wendy Babcox and Meg Mitchell: project featuring video projection, RSS feeds, and information from viewer polling updated in real time concerning issues of war and peace in the Middle East
*
Helga Thomson: prints from the Argentinean-born, Maryland-based artist's Here's Looking at You series highlighting issues of survelliance, identity cards and fear of a dystopian future
*
Renee Stout: prints and sculptures, including her print, Lunch at the Bush Whitehouse
*
The Pinky Show: the popular internet phenomenon featuring Pinky and Bunny, two cartoon cats who talk about public policy, will be represented by prints, paraphernalia, and a YouTube station
*
Independence Fund's Veterans Art Project and the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum: photographs and video taken by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, depicting the daily lives of military personnel and civilians in conflict zones

THE CURATOR:

Rex Weil teaches Theories of Art and Contemporary Art Theory at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is Contributing Editor for ARTnews, where he has published over 200 reviews and essays. His most recent curatorial projects were exhibitions of Michael Platt and Yuriko Yamaguchi at the University of Maryland Art Gallery.

Scratching the Surface at Pyramid Atlantic and Washington City Paper presents Crafty Bastards!

Scratching the Surface
June 24-September 25, 2008

This exhibition will highlight the work of local university students exploring printmaking. in the Main Gallery features the work of 23 emerging printmakers from the Greater Metropolitan Area universities. The exhibition features a great variety of methods, each used in fascinating and inventive ways. The universities included in the exhibition are American University, Corcoran College of Art and Design, George Mason University, Georgetown University, Maryland Institute College of Art, Montgomery College, Towson State University, University of Maryland College Park, and Virginia Commonwealth University. The exhibition highlights the best in new printmaking talent in the area.





University of Maryland students invited to participate in Crafty Bastards! at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Silver Spring:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/craftybastards/vendors/

Washington City Paper is bringing all the fun and excitement of its indie craft extravaganza to Silver Spring, Maryland on Saturday, June 28th!

27th Annual Montpelier Invitational Sculpture Exhibition

27th Annual Montpelier Invitational Sculpture Exhibition
Exhibition: June 12–August 16
Lecture/Luncheon: Thursday, June 12, 12 noon
Reception for the artists: Friday, June 13, 7–9 pm
Main Gallery
Featuring sculptors Christian Benefiel, Mahwish Chishty, Aniko Makranczy, and Stewart Watson. These artists are all MFA candidates at the University of Maryland. Slide talk by participating artists followed by a light lunch. Reservations required. Call 301-953-1993.
Press Release

2008 MFA Thesis show images

some images taken by Aniko and Mahwish of the Thesis show and a video by Christian of one of his inflatables:

G Gallery!!

Everyone to the G Gallery- Friday 11th April 2.30pm!!

TASK me up Baby! Don't go breaking my heart...

You all know what this is:

Things people we know are doing now

Jack Henry in Beyond Boundaries: 35 Chicago Artists Connect
A traveling exhibition from the Chicago Printmaker’s Collaborative with additional work by local artists and students.
SVSU University Art Gallery
"Look Now Look All Around", features work by Maryland artists who
utilize maps and related systems of spatial orientation, organization
and demarcation to reveal what might ordinarily be invisible or
overlooked. --Dawn Gavin, Curator
For more details online, visit:
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?DeptofBusinessandEco/6c77635ccc/0c454e2012/0a99

New York, New York

Sweet!

Sweet was off the chain. check out this write up: 'sweet booth'

Exhibition: "Mi abuelo era chatarrero (chismes, cacharros y remiendos)"

Some photos of my show back in Spain. I hope to see you all soon!!

Richard Prince
Spiritual America
Guggenheim Museum
9/28/07 - 1/9/08

If you head up to New York anytime soon, be sure to check out the Richard Prince retrospective at the Guggenheim. Just when I thought I was tired of pop art (i.e. Koons, Murakami) Richard Prince brought me right back. The show, which covers the last 30 years of Prince's career, was a breath of fresh air in comparison to the heavy Kara Walker retrospective at the Whitney. Prince 'pilfers freely from the vast image bank of popular culture to create works that simultaneously embrace and critique a quintessentially American sensibility'*. find out more at guggenheim.org and be sure to make the trip up there to see it.

*taken from guggenheim.org

Screening: Zizek!

On Monday the 15th at 7:00pm, I'll be showing this film along with snacks and light refreshment in the grad studios.

Zizek!
Riding the coattails of one man's eccentric personality, filmmaker Astra Taylor paints a dizzying portrait of renowned Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who embodies his reputation as "the wild man of theory." Frantically trailing Zizek on his travels around the world -- from New York and Buenos Aires to his hometown of Ljubljana -- Taylor captures his analysis of everything in his path, including the innovative thinker's take on himself.

*From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Slavoj Žižek (pronounced: [slaˈvɔj ʒiˈʒɛk]) (born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian sociologist, postmodern philosopher, and cultural critic. He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).

Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on countless topics including fundamentalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist".[1]

area 405

we work hard, we play hard.

DISGUST IS THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO MOST SITUATIONS

Finally a reason to look at Twitter: Jenny Holzer.

Automatic Update @ MOMA

Hey Guys. Here is an obvious candidate for our first colloquium trip to New York.




http://moma.org/exhibitions/2007/automatic_update/index.html

http://del.icio.us/Automatic_Update?networkadd=Automatic_Update;key=4db1e78250e2755ba3ae6e44b62400cc

The momentum of the dot-com era infused media art with a heady energy, artists, many switching from analog to digital equipment, tried their hands at a range of newly invented art forms. They built interactive installations, electronic publishing networks, and art for the Internet. Technology evolved so fast that in some cases an art form may have disappeared while an artist’s work was still in the making.

By the year 2000, this quasi-revolutionary aura had dissipated and media art had settled into the mainstream. Automatic Update features several installations from this later period. They are mature works that ease the somber mood of the times with entertaining presentations. Nevertheless, their humor does not soften their biting commentary on our social milieu. What at one time was Pop art has now become pop life.

The exhibition is organized by Barbara London, Associate Curator, Department of Media.

A related series of films and videos is screened in the Titus Theaters from July 7 to September 2.

The Yes Men on Bill Moyers

New Blog on the Block

Rex Weil, this fall's colloquium professor, has started a new and very cool blog. Read it here:
http://centralintelligenceart.blogspot.com/

this is the end

heres what i think.

Visiting Artist Recap

So, now that our semester is drawing to an end, I was wondering what you all thought of our visiting artists? Laurie Anderson was great, and I enjoyed seeing Lorna Simpson's new film work. What did you guys think?

news from around the world

Hey everyone

Soooo since the last time we talked, there have been many many new things happening. I live in my studio now, which is good and bad, good for work, bad for soaking in the culture. None the less, I have managed to make it out to do some good old art watching. First on the list, I recently saw a show of chinese artists, mostly video. Highlights for me were Yu Xudong pill and candy. here is a link with a few stills from the piece. Also there was Cao Fei with is piece Cos Players. All in all an interesting show, the work, i think, (at least to the best of my translation from estonian) was about celebrating life and taking a step back from the seriousness of it all. Very cool. And if you know me, you kow that it takes a lot for video work to impress me...

so next, in helsinki, at the Finnish contemproary arts museum Kiasma a show on the role of landscape in contemporary art. A great show if i may say so. There was your conventional Long, Morris, and Oppenheim that you might expect in this kind of show, but also A few Finnish artists that really stole the show for me. One, Tuula Närhinen and her piece wind tracers. She noticed that the wind, while playing a vital part in the experience of the land, disapears in almost all forms of landscape. so she puts bright lights on tree branches and photographs them with long exposure time so that the wind moving the branch traces a light path on the film. Very cool. Also, in sculpture department Lauri Astala Songlines. This peice was my favorite. play the audio at this link to get a better feel for things.

In other news, I have been set up with a few exhibitions, a solo show at the sculpture Gallery, as well as the Erasmus show in the old town. Also In a group show with some students from the Finnish art academy on the Paldiski penninsula. here.

no real other news, other than busting ass and finally making some reasonable art. I found a bag of old soviet gasmasks.... hmmm what to do with those?
also rusting stuff and puting it on things, hanging stuff.

I have also started doing drawings of trucks and tools with cosmetics on glass. they are fun, but not really that interesting. Well whatever. hope all is well there, I probably should spell check this but i am not going to. too bad i guess. maybe pictures soon.