Saturday, January 24, 2009

Digital Change

Now that Barack Obama has officially assumed the presidency, the nation anxiously anticipates his fulfillment of his promise of change.

But before the new legislative agenda takes shape, several transformations have already occurred. Former visual representations of our presidents rarely ventured beyond press photos or political cartoons. But Obama artwork has already encroached upon new realms.

For the first time in history, Obama's official presidential portrait was captured by a digital camera. Pete Souza, the White House's new photographer, snapped the shot on Jan. 13. He used a Canon 5D Mark II and took the picture without using a flash.
Read the article by Jennifer Gambrell in The Davidsonian here.

It doesn't make sense to me

The Washington Post's erudite chief art critic is Blake Gopnik, the brother of New Yorker magazine art critic Adam Gopnik.

For some reason, the Washington Post's editors allow their chief art critic to ignore the Greater Washington area art galleries and only focus on museums. By now Washingtonians have grumbled about that odd process for years, but are resigned to it.

But when Gopnik goes through New York City galleries and provides an entire page of mini reviews of NYC galleries, each with a nice color image, something which he has never done for his own hometown art galleries, the message is very clear to the Washington area art galleries.

The message is: "You are not good enough for my time."

And the message that the Washington Post sends to its core readers and hometown is: "Your art scene is not worthy of Blake Gopnik's time."

Shame on the Washington Post, you suck.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: February 15, 2009

The Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts in New Castle, PA is currently seeking artists to fill its 2010-2011 Solo Exhibition Schedule. Artists living in the Mid Atlantic region (PA, OH, NY, NJ, MD, VA, W.VA, DE and Washington DC) are invited to apply. Please submit a proposal that includes contact information, exhibition statement, 10-20 images on CD(jpeg format 500kb max) or slides, image list (including title, media and dimensions), resume or curriculum vitae, SASE for return of materials and $30.00 review fee to:

Solo Exhibition Proposals
Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts
124 East Leasure Ave
New Castle, PA 16101

Register for Artists' Boot Camp