Reminder: This Saturday

Celebrate DC's newest art center with:
*An opening of Koen Vanmechelen's "Cosmopolitan Chicken Project (DC)" at one of DC's top contemporary art galleries Conner Contemporary.
*G Fine Art's new space on the same block.
*A first look at the home of the new Industry Gallery, a contemporary design exhibition space.


"Fixation" moves to H Street, NE! But we'll still feature awesome photographers who document DC's subcultures. Along with great live music and lots of the usual beverage. Skater's welcome!

Performances:
6-9 PM Music by Yoko K!
7:30 PM ayyoko confidential
9:00 PM Suspicious Package (recently mentioned in Spin magazine!)

Portrait photographs:
Have your portrait taken by photographer Tracy Clayton in front of a specially commissioned backdrop created by fab artist Cory Oberndorfer.

Awesome "Fixation" photographers:
Aziz Yazdani
Drew McDermott
Angela Kleis
Pat Padua
Karon Flage
Joshua Yospyn
Amit Mehta
Nicole Aguirre
Jay Westcott

"FACES OF SUSTAINABILITY", FIVE NIGHTS OF LARGE-SCALE PHOTOGRAPHIC PROJECTIONS

ARLINGTON COUNTY TO OPEN “FACES OF SUSTAINABILITY,”
FIVE NIGHTS OF LARGE-SCALE PHOTOGRAPHIC PROJECTIONS

On Friday, November 6, the Arlington County Public Art program will launch a new temporary public art project, Faces of Sustainability, which will be presented by the Rosslyn BID as part of Fotoweek DC 2009. For five consecutive nights, from 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm, commissioned photographic portraits by Mary Noble Ours and Jason Horowitz will be projected on the eight-story outdoor wall at a construction site in downtown Rosslyn.

“This project celebrates art and action,” says Arlington public art curator Welmoed Laanstra. “We selected two accomplished local photographers and asked each to portray people who live or work in Arlington who are engaged in various sustainable endeavors-including farmers who sell at local markets, a solar energy specialist, and a beekeeper. The result is a series of engaging portraits with two different artistic perspectives.”

The night-time projections can be viewed at the site on the 1200 block of Wilson Boulevard, Rosslyn, across the street fro the Rosslyn Metro. The project is sponsored by Rosslyn BID, the JBG Companies, and Arlington County Cultural Affairs. On November 8, Horowitz will be on site from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm.

For this project, Horowitz explores the landscape of the face, with macro-portraits that focus on individual facial features. The artist is intent on establishing the real, the immediate and the recognizable, sketching a poetic narrative of human life. His portraits are at once completely abstract and concrete. Horowitz is an award-winning photographer who is based in Arlington County.

Ours examines the relationship between her subjects and their daily environments. Her portraits, each shot on location, move the viewer between the tranquility of a traditional still life and the hyperkinetic qualities of modern life. Her formal composition gives the viewer a sense of the serene, while channeling the individual energy of the subject. Ours is a professional portrait photographer whose work has appeared in various publications, including The Washington Post.

For more information, please contact Welmoed Laanstra at 301-651-8275 or at wlaanstra@arlingtonva.us

JIHA MOON | An Exact Place @ Curator's Office **GO TO THIS!**

Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 11, 6 - 8 pm


J I H A M O O N | A n E x a c t P l a c e

November 7 - December 19, 2009

Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 11, 6 - 8 pm

Curator's Office is pleased to present the third solo exhibition of Korean-born artist Jiha Moon. For this exhibition, the gallery will present works exploring the nature of place and its inspiration on creative output. Works include three square-format Hanji paper over canvas pieces and four horizontal works on Hanji paper. There is a special emphasis on abstraction in many of these works. As Moon is currently an artist-in-residence at The Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia, the influence of textiles is subtly apparent as several works incorporate small embroidered areas, a departure for the artist.

The works in the exhibition were created both in her Korea and Atlanta-based studios. This division in working locations provoked the artist to explore the cultural influence of a precise place in an increasingly dizzying global world. For example, in the ironically titled work, An Exact Place, Moon looked at different national flags and how these vibrantly colored but mostly abstract images try to represent a specific culture. An interchangeable quality emerges for the artist as she notes, "if you change around the positions of some colored stripes, one flag can represent different nations, for example the similarities between Italy and Mexico or France and Russia." She deconstructs the flag stripes and situates them sinuously through the work and its many focal points thereby creating an invented universality where the nexxus of culture and location allows for hybrid cultures to emerge. This visual universality includes stars, moons, suns, animals, plants and weapons -- also derived from specific flags -- but germane to us all.

Another great source of inspiration for the artist is dancheong, an ancient Korean style of decorative painting using 5 primary colors and specific elaborate patterns. Going back more than two thousand years, the murals are found mostly on the exteriors of ceremonial wooden buildings.


In the work that incorporates embroidery, such as All Around, Moon deliberately challenges herself to use exclusively abstract marks and brushstrokes to evoke a landscape. She carefully imitates some of the brushstrokes with the color and density of the threads. She says, "I mimicked one mark to make another, and then had the embroidery mimic those marks. It goes around and around to make the picture."


Another work, Stepping Out, is the artist's playful tribute to Lichtenstein's painting of the same name from 1978, in which he acknowledges his own debt to Picasso and Leger. In Moon's hands the imagery becomes multi-cultural and lushly exotic.

Jiha Moon earned her Master of Arts from the University of Iowa (2002). She has exhibited at premier New York venues including the Asia Society Museum, The Drawing Center, and White Columns, as well as in numerous other group and solo shows and art fairs across the United States, Europe, and Asia. In 2008, Moon had a solo exhibition at The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina. She has participated in residencies at Art Omi, Acadia Summer Art Program (Camp Kippy), and the Singapore Tyler Print Institute through the Asia Society, and has garnered numerous other awards. Her work is part of such prestigious public collections as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Asia Society and Museum, New York, NY; the Mint Museum; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; The UBS Collection, New York, NY; and the Neuberger Berman Art Collection, New York, NY among others. Her work has been critically reviewed by Artforum, Art in America, Art Papers, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Atlanta Magazine, The New York Sun, Creative Loafing, and The Washington City Paper among others.

Jiha Moon is currently an artist resident at The Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia, PA. She is currently making a limited edition scarf for The Fabric Workshop based on the work, Botan Garden, and is in the process of completing other works with FWM.

Come paint this Saturday!

We are taking advantage of the last warm fall days in Washington DC and hoping to finish the new mural on Sherman Ave this week. Stop by on Saturday November 7, 2009 between 1pm and 5pm to see our progress, paint with us, meet the neighbors and have a nice relaxing afternoon. If you are interested you can also learn the basics of painting with spray paint. Wear your work clothes if you want to paint. The location is Sherman Ave and Barry Place NW in Washington DC.

Dinner Party Ideas

Hey everyone, I had mentioned that for my final project I wanted to host a dinner party or appetizer get together or whatnot. Since our class isn't huge we can totally have it at my place, I live right above the crystal city metro stop so it's easy to get to from school. I was thinking of having it on a Sunday perhaps? I know everyone's schedules during the week are very different and thought Sunday might work best. Any other ideas? Also please post suggestions about foods you like, or things you are allergic to or things you don't eat. I know we have vegetarians and vegans in the class so I will do my best to accommodate to everyone!

Hey Undergrads

Those of you looking at graduate school, Corcoran is having an open house for graduate students tomorrow the 5th from 5-7pm!

"Improv Everywhere"

High-Five Group--check this out.

http://improveverywhere.com

Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 85 missions involving thousands of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City.