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Zeitgeist II: What's Important Now" - An Epic Opening

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

November 20, 2009

Michael Platt and Carol Beane's amazing print

The crowd is hanging from the rafters

We had an epic opening reception Thursday night for “Zeitgeist II: What’s Important Now?”, the second in what I grandiosely imagine as an episodic series of exhibits themed around the significant issues of our times, curated by moi and my episodic partner in crime, Sondra Arkin. (Did I mention the grandiosity of it all?)

Aziza Claudia Gibson-Hunter and Michael Platt

I hope you will forgive me if I violate the blog rule about short bursts of text only, but this is a special occasion. So here is the manifesto for the show, written about 7 months ago:

My co-curator Sondra Arkin looking smashing

Ruth Trevarroa, Molly Ruppert, Scott Brooks, Jessica Beels etc

In October, 2008, the Nevin Kelly Gallery hosted the first Zeitgeist show. Titled “Under Surveillance,” and curated by Ellyn Weiss and Sondra Arkin, it presented the responses of twelve artists to what Weiss and Arkin view as one of the most important elements of the prevailing ethos: the increasingly diminishing zone of personal privacy available to any of us as we are constantly under surveillance by a growing array of government, corporate and media technologies.

Renee Stout's Real Chess Game American Style

Molly Ruppert and Michael O'Sullivan

Just as the show was being presented, the world started to pivot again in ways that we are just beginning to assimilate. George Bush and Dick Cheney et al. are gone and Barack Obama is here. The new zeitgeist is full of ironies.

one of Rosina Teri Memolo's families

My spawn, Nora, and an unnamed male person

For example, the government will finally face up to global warming at the same time that we all now own GM, whose products bear major responsibility for a lot of it. New on the scene along with Obama are Bernie Madoff and his apparently numerous larcenous cohort, vanishing retirement accounts, stock market meltdown and the demise of one after another giant Wall Street financial houses.

Deb Jansen's piece - more karma and catharsis

People just flat stopped buying things and many felt liberated at the same time they are financially constrained. The future is anything but certain.

Phil Barlow - now it's an opening!

Veronica Szalus looks awfully happy

It is apparent to us that the zeitgeist has shifted dramatically and it seems like the perfect time to ask artists to respond to this question: “What’s important now?” We don’t want to limit responses to a single subject or viewpoint but to leave the artists room to reflect on this question individually.

The elusive Mr. Weiss

Groover Cleveland's "We're All Immigrants Now"

The artists who joined us include some of DC’s most interesting and thoughtful: Sondra Arkin, Carol Beane, Scott G. Brooks, Judy Byron, Groover Cleveland, Richard Dana, Anna U. Davis, Thomas Drymon, Aziza Claudia Gibson-Hunter,

My "Respect" - a detail of "You Get What You Need"

Deb Jansen, Rosin Teri Memolo, Micahel B. Platt, Renee Stout, Tim Tate, Ruth Trevarrow and Gessohead herself, Ellyn Weiss.

one of Ruth Trevarrow's animal halos

detail of Richard Dana's "Hope Over Now"

The opening was so insane that I couldn’t photograph the art, so I’ll include some pictures from the catalog for your viewing enjoyment. But you should see this in person. Who knows when Zeitgeist will return?
The show will be at Nevin Kelly Gallery, 1400 Irving St. NW, #132, (right at the Columbia Heights metro station through mid-December and we will have another open house on Saturday, Dec. 12 all afternoon.

Tory Cowles and Susan Finsen: Women of Color

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

November 20, 2009

a Finsen

Susan Finsen and Tory Cowles are local artists with ongoing solos who share the qualities of being completely comfortable with vibrant color and brimful of energy. This is work that vibrates on the wall and shouts out good morning when you come down for breakfast.

Tory Cowles and work

He's in the spirit

Tory’s show is in the gallery at the Torpedo Factory, where she has had a studio for several years. Titled “Boing”, the show features pieces that each have some kind of playful interactive element, several involving balls. It’s like the boardwalk carnival of art and the people at the opening reception were delighted to play.

Susan with new darker work

another Finsen

Susan’s work is at the Park Café on Capitol Hill, a charming neighborhood restaurant where the décor, down to the plates and glasses, are all in rich colors, forming the perfect backdrop for her work. In fact, the paintings seem a part of the site. The combination is a sensory experience of unusual intensity.

Feinberg and Australian Aboriginal Artists at the Katzen

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 25, 2009

The Katzen Arts Center at AU has been a whole yummy cornucopia of art this fall, every available nook filled with great stuff. I got there on a Sunday about three o’clock, not realizing that they close at four that day, so I had to speed-walk through a couple of the shows but will be back soon when I can savor. First, Paul Feinberg’s “another Washington”, a retrospective of 40 years of photographing non-political DC, the one we sometimes like to think of as the “real” city.

this one made me cry

This is the kind of franchise that can easily turn cheesy nostalgic or faux noir but it somehow stays real, perhaps partly because there are no images at all of the photographer and one feels the sincerity of his endeavor, enhanced by the straightforward texts where the subjects are often allowed to speak for themselves. Feinberg follows several themes: friends, decaying commercial sites, burlesque and dive bars. It is the most straight-up kind of full frontal picture-making, no tricks, that succeeds on the strength of its honesty, the honesty of its subjects and a fascination with culture at the cusp of expiration. N. B. Sadly, the Feinberg show closes today. You can buy a reasonably-priced good softback catalog from the Katzen and look for the next opportunity to see the work in person.

Not to be missed is the visiting Australian Aboriginal Triennial titled “Culture Warriors”. This is a culture under the greatest pressure, but one with a remarkably vibrant art that has managed to take its ancient techniques and obsessions and catapult them into the present. Sponsored by the National Gallery of Australia, the traveling collection contains artists from every region of Australia and many indigenous groups. The work is often bold and dramatic and it sometimes just bowled me over with its power. These artists do not make work that is merely decorative; they are steeped in the narratives of historical adventure and the reality of daily life today. Even the most abstract work contains elements reminiscent of this tradition. Go now and see it, yo

Joan Belmar at the Chilean Embassy

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 25, 2009

Joan and admirer

Minna and Jim Nathanson

I think of Joan Belmar as a sculptural painter. His three-dimensional wall pieces under glass present at least three layers of overlapping meaning, each both obscuring and revealing the others. The format, which he has deepened and extended over the past few years, has developed gracefully in tandem with his themes of memory and dislocation.

a gorgeous precursor

Joan currently has a solo show at the Chilean Embassy, a terrifically fitting venue for work that is so pertinent to the expatriate experience. In addition to much new work, the show contains several gorgeous earlier two-dimensional pieces that are clearly the precursors of Joan’s current work. It is always fun and illuminating to see an artist’s progression, as we can here.

Long View's Grand Re-opening

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 23, 2009

With its cavernous, roughed-up, stripped to the bones look, the relocated Long View Gallery, which celebrated its grand re-opening last night, has achieved the closest thing to a NY vibe in this toddlin’ town. Attendees were advised to wear “cocktail attire”, which posed a distinct challenge to GessoHead, I’m not ashamed to tell you. Be assured, however, that there is plenty of fabulosity still around even in these dire economic times, since most folks looked pretty great.

Drew Ernst's piece

Anna U Davis's piece

Entrants were greeted at the door by a pair of highly watchable young people checking off names against the RSVP list (but looking the other way if you weren’t on the list). The champagne flowed, the crowd overflowed and the art, when it could be glimpsed through the crush, was accomplished and generally engaging. It was not a night to see the art, nor was that the intention, but a night to ogle the new space, dispense hugs and kisses and to sense that the ever-nascent 9th Street corridor may be about to arrive.

Scott Brooks's piece

Peter Davis

Sondra Arkin, Scott Brooks and Tom Drymon

Beth Baldwin

Drew Ernst

Joyce Zipperer and Rania Hassan at Neptune

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 23, 2009

Elyse Harrison, gallerymeister

Nevin Kelly at the Neptune opening!

Elyse Harrison and her architect husband have reclaimed the landmark wedge-shaped dust-encrusted Electrolux vacuum cleaner shop in Bethesda, source of several generations of “how does that place stay in business?” and “is there really anybody in there?” musings. They have utterly transformed the building, adding a couple of floors and a boatload of windows and, voila, a mint-green modern Miami oasis in downtown Bethesda.

what a crowd

Elyse has always shown local/regional work, God love her, and I am generally a fan of her taste in artists. Full disclosure, the opening last Friday night featured two friends, Joyce Zipperer and Rania Hassan. Having said that, the place was totally packed, so good on you, Elise, you obviously have lots of other fans. The combination of the two artists makes for a provocative dialogue on female roles and role-playing.

Joyce and my favorite shoe

Joyce works in metal and metal meshes, fashioning the types of women’s attire that have been fetishized by men eternally and that women have endured in pain or at least discomfort forever. She started with undergarments (I fondly remember the 17”-wasted metal corset) and then shoes, which make up the current show. Gorgeous, sexy, elaborate and very very painful.

Rania's big piece

Rania Hassan spans the worlds of fine art and craft; a couple of weeks ago she was one of the featured artists in Crafty Bastards, the fabulously successful DC-based show of independent Etsy-era crafters and this week she shows at Neptune. Her pieces combine knitting and painting, suggesting a zone of calm domestic reflection in the vortex of urban life.

My encaustic workshop at the Washington Glass School

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 21, 2009

Seems like I've been bouncing around like a cricket on a hot sidewalk the last couple of weeks. (How's that for down home talk? Somebody's home, anyway - sure as hell not mine. But I digress) I will tell all in due course, but let's start with the encaustic workshop I taught last weekend at the Washington Glass School.

This is the first time I'd taught at the Glass School, a truly fab resource we are sooo lucky to have in town, but it will surely not be the last. My students were fearless, which is quite unusual and totally wonderful and they threw themselves into painting with hot wax with reckless abandon. We went through pounds of the stuff with minimal injury and everyone made at least three pieces. Here we are during the post-workshop crit.

Janis, Marquart, Trump and Baker at McLean Project for the Arts

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 6, 2009

Novie goes organic

I have noted before that the McLean Project for the Arts (“MPA”) under Curator Nancy Sausser, has a history of presenting exciting shows and this one is no exception. Let me rant a bit first, though, before getting into that. The problem with MPA is finding it. It is located in what is generally described as the leafy, upscale suburb of McLean, which is just fine, but the turn-off from the main 6-lane commuter road where the traffic is whooshing along at alarming speeds, is not well marked, so I (and others) have spent too much time backtracking and doing U-turns in bad bad places and then even when you get onto the right road, there are a whole bunch of official-looking buildings that aren’t clearly marked. So how about some big old signs a couple of blocks before the turnoff so all of us from the other side of the river can find y’all without endangering our art-loving little selves? Please??

Novie Trump reliquary

But I did get there and I saw some good stuff: Novie Trump’s new ceramic work has her characteristic evocative patina of age and use, as if it has just been discovered after having been buried underground for a couple of hundred years. The reliquaries continue to hold power and mystery and I love the new organic work.

Allegra Marquart's twisted fairy tales

Michael Janis's Hanged Man

Inside the main gallery are Allegra Marquart, Michael Janis and Tom Baker, grouped together as “storytellers”, which they are. Of the three, glass artist and printmaker Marquart, is the most overtly telling stories, putting a macabre twist on some old-fashioned nursery stories, telling them from the viewpoint of the child. I distinctly remember as a kid being pretty disturbed by some of these tales, and Marquart has captured that feeling. The pieces are densely packed with images more often disquieting than innocent.

Tom Baker's enigmatic print

I am a big fan of Michael Janis’s complex, layered glass pieces, which have steadily grown more narrative and more deep. The work here is from his “Tarot Card” series. Using the traditional themes of the cards – the sun, the moon, the hanged man, the high priestess – Janis creates tableaux of modern life.

Finally, printmaker Tom Baker’s stories are more hinted at than revealed. He combines disparate images in enigmatic small prints that pull you inside their frames and leave you wondering how the pieces connect.

Elena Stamberg at home

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 5, 2009

house as artwork

Elena

I recently visited Elena Stamberg’s studio in Barnesville because I am curating her October solo show at Studio Gallery in Dupont Circle, and it was a treat. Her home and studio are in the Maryland countryside, out past where the townhouses and strip malls squat. The long driveway, unmarred by a house number, goes around a wide bend to reveal a collection of living and deceased automobiles, including some of the best of Detroit muscle cars, several old Cadillacs, a vintage pickup and much more scattered around several outbuildings. You then approach a building that looks kind of like a gingerbread house with several levels and winding staircases. I parked my car and looked uncertainly for a front door. Probably seeing my befuddlement, Elena came out after a few minutes and led me up some stairs and in.

one of Elena's stories in fabric

And what a place! The house, virtually handbuilt by Elena and her husband some 30 or so years ago from part of a large dairy barn, contains a lifetime of aged and lifeworn objects collected by the Stambergs (the cars are her husband’s project). The house is both a work of art and a repository for the makings of thousands of works of art.

Madonnaa in progress

Elena has up to now worked primarily in fabrics, fashioning highly complex "naive" narratives in combinations of stitchery, embroidery and quilting. In her current work, she takes it a considerable step further, combining work in fiber, rope and wire with figural elements. I will not say more about it because the work was not finished at the time of my visit and I want to leave it to Elena in the first instance to speak to her intent.
The show, titled “Madonnas Assembled” opens November 6 at Studio Gallery, 2108 R. ST NW, Washington.

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