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The exhibition
program at the AAC consists of juried group shows and
solo exhibitions. The year is divided into six slots,
each six to nine weeks long. The AAC issues an annual
call for solo exhibitions proposals for the subsequent
season. Proposals are reviewed by a rotating Exhibitions
Committee, which includes members of staff and Board,
as well as outside curators, artists, and other arts professionals.
Calls for entry for group shows are issued intermittently
and juried by an AAC designated curator. Occasional invitational
exhibitions take place, with the AAC curator or a guest
curator making the selections. The AAC continues to pursue
artistic excellence and to facilitate bringing emerging
and under-represented artists into contact with the public
as well as museum and gallery professionals. The AAC serves
as a focal point for the ongoing exchange of ideas and
images between artists and the public and as a doorway
to the arts for the local and Mid-Atlantic regional community.
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August 15 –September 27, 2008 (Reception
September 5) |
PICTURING
POLITICS 2008:
Artists Speak to Power
Curated by Rex Weil
Artists: Helga Thomson,
Renee Stout, Jose Ruiz, Rick Reinhard, The Pinky Show,
Jefferson Pinder and Matt Ravenstahl, Randall Packer
and John Anderson, Independence Fund's Veterans Art
Project and the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum,
Alberto Gaitán and Victoria F Gaitán,
Benjamin Edwards, Mary Coble, Judy Byron, Lisa Blas,
Wendy Babcox and Meg Mitchell
Show Dates: August
15 - September 27, 2008
Reception: Friday, September 5, 6:00 - 9:00pm
Location: Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson
Blvd, Arlington VA
Metro: Orange Line: Virginia Square
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 5
pm
At the Arlington Arts Center this
August and September, Washington independent curator,
artist, teacher, and critic Rex Weil will present a
show focused on the intersection of politics and art-terrain
that seldom seems to be explored by artists and galleries
in and around the nation's capital.
Picturing Politics 2008 will supply a corrective, examining
a wide array of strategies used in the contemporary
visual arts for addressing controversial issues and
promoting progressive social change-all against the
backdrop of a political landscape dominated by mass
media.
Nine individual artists and five
collaborative projects will be included in seven separate
gallery spaces on two floors of the AAC.
The
artists and their work:
-
Jose
Ruiz: installation addressing the struggles of
immigrant workers in Northern Virginia with issues
of identity, class and intolerance
-
Randall
Packer and John Anderson: multi-media environment
featuring video, sound, images culled from mass media,
and a gravesite for American democracy
-
Alberto
and Victoria Gaitan: video and sound installation
exploring the politics of sexual identity
-
Mary
Coble: video from her Aversion series, exploring
the history of using electroshock therapy to "treat"
homosexuality
-
Lisa
Blas: installation and sculpture riffing on 'men
on horses' monuments and other symbols of domination
and power
-
Judy
Byron: installation and sound, highlighting women's
personal and political priorities
-
Rick
Reinhard: photographs documenting political demonstrations
in the Metro Washington, DC area
-
Benjamin
Edwards: prints depicting a hyper-real version
of the local landscape and the instruments of power
and commerce it reflects
-
Jefferson
Pinder and Matt Ravenstahl: their new performative
video, Passive Resistance, investigates the human
capacity to resist and maintain dignity in the face
of violence
-
Wendy
Babcox and Meg Mitchell: project featuring
video projection, RSS feeds, and information from
viewer polling updated in real time concerning issues
of war and peace in the Middle East
-
Helga
Thomson: prints from the Argentinean-born, Maryland-based
artist's Here's Looking at You series highlighting
issues of survelliance, identity cards and fear of
a dystopian future
-
Renee
Stout: prints and sculptures, including her print,
Lunch at the Bush Whitehouse
-
The
Pinky Show: the popular internet phenomenon featuring
Pinky and Bunny, two cartoon cats who talk about public
policy, will be represented by prints, paraphernalia,
and a YouTube station
-
Independence
Fund's Veterans Art Project and the National
Vietnam Veterans Art Museum: photographs and video
taken by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
depicting the daily lives of military personnel and
civilians in conflict zones
THE CURATOR:
Rex Weil teaches Theories
of Art and Contemporary Art Theory at the University
of Maryland, College Park. He is Contributing Editor
for ARTnews, where he has published over 200 reviews
and essays. His most recent curatorial projects were
exhibitions of Michael Platt and Yuriko Yamaguchi at
the University of Maryland Art Gallery.
In the Wyatt Gallery: Caroline
Danforth and Eugenie Beer. Featuring small
scale aerial landscape paintings by Caroline Danforth
and works on paper by German artist Eugenie Beer--AAC's
summer guest resident artist, appearing as part of the
sister cities exchange between Arlington and Aachen,
Germany.
| 2008 EXHIBITIONS SCHEDULE AAC |
October 7 – November 29, 2008 (Reception October 10 or 17, TBA)
FALL
SOLOS 2008
- Katie
Creyts
makes fantastic narrative-driven sculptures using
glass and found objects. Her pieces are darkly humorous
evocations of fairy tales—typically commenting on
the infinite disproportion between those stories and
actual lived experience.
(Reading, PA)
- Lily
Cox-Richard
explores the intersection of pop-culture, pseudo-science,
and biology with an installation employing images
of Elvis Presley, Nikola Tesla, and lightning bolts
(show description tentative). (Richmond,
VA )
- Ben
Pranger
is fascinated with codes, randomized operations, and
blindness. His installation this Fall will include
an ambitious, room-filling, floor-to-ceiling sculpture—a
cloud of interlocking words all taken from the Book
of Revelations and inscribed on separate pieces
of wood in braille. (Roanoke, VA)
- Andrea
Chung
makes representational paintings, large-scale sculptures,
and site-specific installations evoking human geography—specifically,
her family’s connections to Africa, China, and India
via Caribbean trade in sugar, cocoa, and rum. (Baltimore,
MD)
- Morgan
Craig
makes large oil paintings of inaccessible architectural
ruins—dilapidated, abandoned urban spaces. The paintings
are reconstructed from photographs and memories generated
while trespassing in condemned, structurally unsound
buildings. (Philadelphia, PA)
- Robin
Dana
shoots and prints breathtaking large-scale color photographs
of destroyed rural landscapes—razed by the mining
industry. (Alexandria, VA)
- PERFORMANCE
ART SERIES
Every two weeks during this exhibition, one of the
experimental galleries downstairs will host a new
performance and its attending documentation. Featuring
Virginia Warwick (Baltimore, MD), Judy
Stone (Riverside Park, MD), and two other
artists TBA.
December 9, 2008 - January 17, 2009 (Reception December 12)
Juried
Show: Unlimited Edition (upstairs) A
juried show featuring works that exist in large, unnumbered
editions, or that somehow play with the relationship
between reproduction and commodification in the contemporary
art world.
Winter Solos
2008 – 2009 (experimental galleries)
-
Josh
Rodenberg, sculptural installation
-
Alexis
Granwell, sculpture
______________________________________________________________________
Arlington Arts Center: 3550
Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA 22201
Metro: Orange Line, Virginia Square
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday,
11 am – 5pm
Phone: 703.248.6800
Founded
in 1974, the AAC is dedicated to presenting and supporting
new work of contemporary artists in the Mid-Atlantic
States. Located in the historic Maury School building,
it holds exhibitions, rents studio spaces, and conducts
educational programs for all ages. Normal public hours
are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm. For
more information, call 703.248.6800 or visit www.arlingtonartscenter.org.
The AAC is located at 3550 Wilson Boulevard in Arlington
VA, just one block off the Virginia Square-GMU Metro
stop on the Orange Line.
Arlington Arts Center programs are made possible through the
generous support of the Virginia Commission for the
Arts/NEA, the Arlington Commission for the Arts, Arlington
County Division of Cultural Affairs, the Eugene and
Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, Strategic Analysis, BB&T
Bank, the Arlington Community Foundation, Arlington
Catering, and our members.
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