DC Roundup

Back with another DC roundup...

1) Mark Jenkins @ Fraser Gallery (Georgetown)

Most of you should by now be familiar with Jenkins' tape creations as they've been all over town and images of his work have appeared on several blogs. In this show, Jenkins steps up to a huge challenge - bringing street art into the contemporary art gallery - and in my opinion he never had a chance to succeed. His work functions best in the street as it should. There is something childish, fun and interesting (all good things) about stumbling upon one of his tape creations. It may not be hugely sophisticated as fine art, but it still works in the proper environment. The greatness of his work is in what you don't see. It's in imagining people's responses to encountering one of his tape babies, for example. The show at Fraser takes away that aspect of Jenkins' work. Outside the gallery Jenkins displayed what was supposed to be a 1995 Honda Civic made from tape. The people I was with agreed that the front of the car did look like a Civic but as you went farther back towards the trunk it became more of a Prius or some other hybrid-like car. I won't deduct any points for that... it definitely looked like a car. The tape car will be moved at some point to a location on a street in D.C. Then it will become truly interesting. It will become a spectacle. In the pavillion in front of the gallery with lots of people around it, it felt more like junior high school class project. Put it in the street!

Inside the gallery Jenkins showed simple photographs of his creations in the environment. The images were unframed and tacked to the wall. Some were well done (technically and compositionally) while others were not. But it's clear that's not the point. The point is to see Jenkins' art where it belongs, even if you can't be there in person. Some images capture that moment of "well lookie there!". And that's what I talked about above. That's when the Art really happens. Kudos to Lenny and Kate for giving Jenkins and his work some time in the spotlight. His art form rarely allows that to happen.

2) 1460 Wallmountables @ DCAC

This annual fundraiser show goes something like this: pay some money for a 2' x 2' space on a wall, hang whatever you want, hopefully sell it and help DCAC raise money. Really, when you think about it, this is a mini version of Art-o-Matic, except for me it always seems so much nicer. Anyway, let's look at the show.

I particpated in last year's show and found the exposure to be wonderful. With that, I'd like to highlight four artists who really stood out to me. That is not to say there wasn't other great work, these are just the ones that REALLY caught my eye.

Kristin Freeman - This name is new to me but I really enjoyed her paintings. They were quite simple in composition but somehow that simplicity captivated my eye. A great painter was with me and he picked out Freeman's work as his favorite hands down. Although she suffered from poor placement on the wall (right above the floor) the work still made you want to bend over and look. When I think about it, her paintings reminded me to some extent of Warren Craghead's drawings (for example), except in color of course. The two pieces I really liked by her were "I'm Hungry" and "LSD." I believe both of these had already sold. If anyone out there knows Kristen's email address or phone number please let me know. I'd like to purchase several of her pieces and I know of someone else who would too.

Nathan Manuel - As you may know, I own one of Nathan's pieces. What I found at DCAC from Manuel surprised me although it shouldn't have. Manuel has been pushing the envelope lately with his work in preparation for a solo show at Flashpoint. Recently he showed four pieces (like what I own) at Transformer Gallery and there he began drawing on the wall behind his paintings in an effort to subtly merge multpiple pieces. At DCAC he's doing a similar thing. Manuel hung one of his paintings on a collage of paper. The paper appears to just hang from the wall and is spray painted, drawn on and cut. All of this is an effort to unite the "painting" (on panel) to the wall (collage). He has cut into the paper an outline of clouds or ground that continues into the painting on panel. The colors merge to create one piece. There seems to be a more finished component and a rougher component. I think for the most part it works well. However, as can sometimes be expected when you are trying new things, Manuel did go a little overboard in my opinion. In the show he has two pieces. One has the painted panel positioned up high while on the other one the panel is lower. Take the high panel piece for example. For it I felt that the collaged and painted paper on the bottom of the piece was too much. For me it didn't serve any real purpose except to occupy space and actually would force my eye down for little or no reward. There is so much energy at the top of the piece that the empty bottom does a disservice to the pieces as a whole. When I held up my hand to block my view of the excess paper, the piece came alive. I know Manuel is still testing some things out while he gets ready for his upcoming solo and I know that he'll have his approach tailored wonderfully for a great show.

Peter Gorden - Another new name for me, Gordon's painting of a salt and pepper shaker really grabbed my eye, again despite awful placement near the floor. The painting, "Easy Does It," is composed mostly of a soft shade of blue. Gorden has centered the shakers in the middle of the painting just above the bottom of the canvas on top of a table. The shakers are about half full. The light casts two separate shadows (one to the left and one to the right) that give the piece a strange feeling. Where the light strikes the metal tops of the shakers Gorden has applied a small, thick glob of copper colored paint. That simple gesture gives the painting a physicality that so much of the work at DCAC lacked. The simple gesture suggests to me that whoever this Gorden fellow is, he probably has more lovely paintings stashed away somewhere.

Ben Tolman - All of my local readers are probably tiring of reading Tolman's name so much lately. Between a concerning article in the Washington City Paper about Tolman's apparent reliance on drugs to make his work to his standout work at Seven, he's been everywhere. At DCAC he shows a number of small works that were great. My favorites were two pieces (already sold) that were portraits of a young lady. These two pieces demonstrate Tolman's ability to breakaway from cartoonish comic-book-like imagery and make traditional fine art, all the while incorporating that certain Ben Tolman touch. My favorite pieces had already sold but everything was priced affordably.

Kathryn Cornelius - Cornelius has established herself as a young star in the D.C. art scene through her installations, performances, videos, etc. Given this, it should come as no surprise that she has a stellar piece in this show. The work is titled, "Messages," and is made up up a variety of matchbooks enclosed between two piece of glass (measuring about 24" x 24"). The glass is framed in wood and mounted to the wall so that you can swing the piece to see each side. Inside the matchbooks Cornelius has written the lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song. I forget which one. My only complaint about the piece would be that the matchbooks were adhered to the glass with a thick, messy glob of clear glue. It detracts from the potential beauty of the colorful array of matchbook covers but if I know Cornelius, she very likely intended to include the "messiness" as an element of the piece. Priced at $400, this is an affordable way to own a Cornelius work.

3) Beyond Synergy - Anne C. Fisher Gallery

The Fisher Gallery (located right above Fraser Gallery) has a nice little show of mostly colorful abstract works. As a compliment to the fake Jackson Pollock painting (sorry Lenny!) at Seven there is a lovely reproduction of a Mark Rothko masterpiece. Some enterprising young curator should put together a show of "new" Pollocks and Rothkos called "Neo-Abstract Expressionism" or something of the sort. Maybe I should do it... there was a time when I was trying to merge Pollock and Rothko together in my paintings. Getting beyond that I found the Fisher show to be uninteresting, but not in a necessarily bad way. I believe that any number of people could go see that show and thoroughly enjoy it. The best way I can describe it is to say it's "nice." What I'm getting at is this... have you ever asked a girl about some other guy (hey Mary, what is Joe like?) and she responds with "oh, he's nice"? The first thing (and often only thing) the girl can come up with is that he's "nice." Nothing more descriptive. Nothing more edgy. Nothing more. It's a compliment by definition but it doesn't quite feel that way. That's what I thought of the Beyond Synergy show. It's worth a look-see if only because it's just so darn nice.

Man, again more writing than I was hoping for. Sorry for the lack of photos this time. Just... too... tired...