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A Smashing Opening for "Under Surveillance"!
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

Sept.19,2008

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Tim Tate and Scott Brooks
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Ann Stoddard and (half of) her installation
If I do say so myself, we had a monumental  turnout for the opening of Under Surveillance last night. Nevin Kelly Gallery has never seen quite so many folks; they were spilled out onto the sidewalk from about 6:15 until well after the 9 p.m.scheduled closing. The show looks great, every piece was made especially for this exhibit and God knows it's timely. I think people are hungry for work that speaks to these issues - I know I am. The gallery was constantly being watched by the cameras in Ann Stoddard's installation, contributing a bit of a sinister element to the reception.

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Richard Dana's fabulous piece
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Anna U. Davis's piece
The work comments on a very wide range of surveillance activities. Richard Dana's three dazzling digital prints deal with the categorization of people by the "authorities" into groups of more or less threatening kinds based on words and phrases taken from their email. Anna U. Davis's stunning large painting/collage of a semi-naked man on a public bus surrounded by hundreds of watching eyes depicts the psychological impact of the knowledge that one is constantly being observed. Sondra Arkin has constructed two large eagle's talons and affixed them to the ceiling, where they grasp a printout of a small portion of the data collected by a government surveillance program acronymed TALON, which was only terminated after it was discovered and publicized by her brother, William. Aziza Claudia Gibson-Hunter's tryptich incorporating her "information signature" - passport photos, handwriting samples, bits of cloth and other elements that make up an indivicual identity - is both visually and viscerally dominating. 

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My Life From the Satellite
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Groover Cleveland and his eyes
My grid (that's Ellyn Weiss, for all you search engines) of 12 small wax and oil paintings are based on publicly available and remarkably detailed satellite images of every address at which I have lived.  Other personal takes on the theme include Tim Tate's glass vitrine containing a tiny functioning camera pointed at the viewer and topped with a geiger counter that registers the viewer's level of contamination; Scott Brooks's faux sweet minutely detailed painting of a woman being covertly recorded by the little mechanical bird she is regarding, Rosemary Luckett's evocation of the data collection on our consuming habits in "Bar Code Spying"' Elizabeth Morisette's geological maps manipulated to show how different aspects of our environment can be exaggerated at the expense of the whole and Groover Cleveland's graphically powerful canvas filled with enlarged versions of that scary/strange eye-in-a-pyramid embedded in our currency. Ruth Trevarrow's plates painted with the silhouettes of insects are scattered around the gallery, commenting with a touch of humor on the prevalence of "bugs" around us. They act as a sort of visual punctuation throughout the space. 

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Betsy Stewart and Judy Jashinsky
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Karen and Mary Beth
Mary Beth Ramsey did an amazing catalog for us, for which I am truly grateful. You can see the show until October 8 at Nevin Kelly Gallery, 1517 U St. NW, so get your ass down there right now!.

 
Picturing Politics 2008 at the Arlington Arts Center
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 17, 2008

Image For a city that likes to think of itself as the vortex of global politics, very little "political" art is shown in Washington. My good friend Richard Dana says despairingly that Washington is a city of "wallpaper art." Perhaps this is due in some part to the fact the most artists are lefties and this town has been ruled by the righties for some time. If you own a gallery, you want to sell art and would therefore want to avoid offending potential patrons. On the other hand, the right wingnuts are not known to be patrons of the visual arts in any case. Remember John Ashcroft covering up the boobs on the classical statute in the Justice Department? Speaking of John Ashcroft, did you ever think you would look back on his term as the good times? And they said Alberto Gonzales wasn't good for anything. But I digress.

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Helga Thomson's wall of identity cards
This autumn is an exception and poliical art is all over the city. (Of course, our show, "Under Surveillance" opens tomorrow). The Arlington Arts Center has devoted virtually all of its expansive exhibition space to Picturing Politics 2008:  Artists Speak to Power, curated by Rex Weil. The show crosses generational lines, including mid-career contemporaries of Weil's like Renee Stout and Judy Byron along with newer voices such as Benjamin Edwards. It also covers a broad swathe of political territory, from Mary Coble, whose work concerns sexual politics to Rick Reinhard, who has been photographing political demonstrations for years.

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Renee Stout: Slow Voyage From the Land of Cosmic Slop
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Helga Thomson: Here's Looking at You
While many of the artists work in new media - there are several interesting video installation -  the work I find myself still thinking about is that of Helga Thomson and  Renee Stout. These two artists work in the relatively traditional media of digital printmaking, sculpture and monoprinting, but the work packs a visceral wallop. Helga Thomson's prints use her old passport photo, one in which she looks like a fugitive from the law. She combines the photo with imagery of electronic circuit boards and identity cards in a variety of ways that convey the loss of privacy and individuality, as we are each categorized and filed away by the authorities. My favorite piece of Renee Stout's is a small sculpture of a human brain floating in a tub of brown stuff; it's called Slow Voyage From the land of Cosmic Slop and suggests the way we are mired in the cultural effluent of media manipulation, consumerism, political lies and all the other pervasive influences that are omnipresent.

The show is at the Arlington Arts center until Sept. 27, so catch it if you can. 

 

 
Hanging Surveillance
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

Sept. 15, 2008

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Sondra and Ron install
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Nevin and Elizabeth film the hanging
We just about completed the job of hanging Under Surveillance today, we being Nevin Himself, Elizabeth, Sondra and Mr. Ron, although not all the crew all the time. Ann Stoddard and John, her partner in crime came in for the late shift to begin installing her piece, which has lots of cameras and electronics and takes hours and hours to put together. It makes my head hurt to think about it. Sondra and Ron installed her piece (it won't be described here - it must be seen) and then she and I settled comfortably into supervisory roles - i.e. "put it here, try it there, move it a teench to the right..." Elizabeth toiled all day mostly meticulously wrapping the work in the gallery and somehow finding places to store it all in various crevices and corners around the little gallery space. Nevin did the hard work of measuring, levelling, remeasuring, drillling and the lighting, at which he is a true master.

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The Nevster at work
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The Giant Chicken Foot
Hanging a show is an alchemical endeavor, made much more complicated in the case of a group show where each artist is very different from the next. Placing the art in such a way that each piece shows to its best advantage and works in harmony with the pieces around it, not clashing with or diverting attention from its neighbors, is partly a matter of taste and experience and partly just a mysterious ability to be able to recognize when it's right.

 
I'm BAAAAAACK!
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

Sept. 12, 2008

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My spawn, Nora, showing her special talents
I'm back and everything seems kind of dark and wet and closed in. This is my typical annual reaction to re-entry, which does, happily, recede after a bit. I think it has to do, in addition to the obvious change in weather, to coming back to a house that is a lot more traditional, with rooms and windows that stay shut to keep the air conditioning in and lots of stuff that gets a little suffocating. We have finished the catalog for Under Surveillance (it's gorgeous) and we'll hang the show Monday, so that will help me snap out of it - and into it.
 
Leaving Truro
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 9. 2008

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This car is FULL
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See you next year!
We're leaving late this morning, ETA Bethesda past my bedtime tonight. Anticipating a difficult re-entry. The next time you hear from me, I'll be back in the swamp. It's been easy this summer to stay away from most of the ugliest campaign stuff, since I don't watch TV on the Cape, but I can now feel it coming at me like a Hurricane o' shit. Aw, could the country really be brain dead enough to buy the lie again? is it possible?? I'm nauseous. Really.

 
Under Surveillance card
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss
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20 x 20 card
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss
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"20 X 20" and "Under Surveillance" in DC
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

August 28, 2008

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my 20 X 20 piece
 This piece (tar and shellac) will be in a show in DC opening September 20, curated by my co-conspirator Sondra Arkin. It's called "20 X 20", featuring 20 artists and running from Sept. 20 - October 20. All of the work will be (say it with me) 20" x 20". Kinda makes your head hurt, doesn't it? Anyway, many of DC's finest, including Sam Gilliam, Susan Goldman, Margaret Boozer, Lou Stovall, Tom Drymon, Briget Sue Lambert and John Adams and others too numerous to list comprise the group of 20. The exhibit is at Coldwell Banker in Dupont Circle, 1606 17th Street NW.

The opening comes just two days after my "Under Surveilance" opening at Nevin Kelly on Sept. 18, (reception from 6 - 9 ) so September looks to be a pretty busy month.Truth be told, my head is pretty well in DC already, although the corporeal mass will be on the Cape until Sept. 10. We just finished putting together the catalog for "Under Surveillance" and I am VERY excited. Come share it with us at Nevin's, 1517 U Street NW, Thursday September 18 from 6 - 9 pm.

 
Earth in the Balance
Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

August 25,2008

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At the Edge
The Union of Concerned Scientists is a national non-profit group with over 100,000 scientist and citizen members. Its mission is to develop and advocate science-based solutions to the most pressing problems we face, including global climate change, energy and nuclear proliferation. It has been my great privilege to be associated with UCS for some 35 years, as a member of the Board of Directors for over 15 years.

UCS will celebrate its 40th anniversary  and its new green office space in downtown Washington by hosting a juried exhibit of original artwork around the theme: "Earth in the Balance." The work will represent the artists' responses to the challenges posed to the human and physical environment. I will be one of the jurors, so it is not really kosher for me to enter. I will, however, donate the piece pictured here, titled "At the Edge", made of drypoint, monoprint and asphalt.

 
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